AMX 10 TCM 81. direct fire mortar gun

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caid’s suggestion #101

I would like to suggest an interesting tank for the French, the AMX 10P TCM 81

the AMX 10 TCM 81 was an 81mm tank presented for the first time in Satory 1981. the tank was an artillery tank developed following the export success of the AMX 10 PAC 90 and offered an artillery support vehicle version. the tank was designed by the Giat industry and offered for export itself and hoped to find potential customers. however, despite the effort of Giat to export this tank (or the turret), no order came up for this vehicle.

Firepower
the main armament is an 81mm breech-loaded mortar. this gun is mainly designed to offer a fire-support and provide indirect fire. however, it was capable of direct fire with APFSDS rounds for self-defense against armored targets. the gun has a high elevation with a -7°/+66° which makes it rather comfortable in many situations. the turret is manually controlled which gives it a rather poor turn speed, it would probably not get about 20°/sec. a speed around 16°/sec is very likely. the gun has a decent fire rate of 15 rounds per minute. this means about 4 seconds of reload. additionally, a 7.62mm AA LMG is placed on the turret’s roof. the turret have a M411 x1-x6 (FoV 10°) sight who is having no thermal or night vision

Mobility
on the mobility, this tank will fare pretty well. the tank has a powerful 300 hp engine and a 4 forward and 1 reverse speed transmission paired with a torque converter. this gives this tank a rather smooth mobility. the tank weighting 14.8 tons is fairly heavier than the AMX 10P which is technically based on (it was based on the AMX 10 PAC 90 which is based on the AMX 10P) but it will remain with a pretty good mobility. the tank can reach a top speed of 65 km/h forward and a reverse speed of 11.8 km/h. the tank is also amphibious with a 7 km/h speed in the water.

Protection
the chassis protection is light but remains pretty decent compared to another light tank. the front has up to 30mm with a decent angle, but it’s aluminum alloy. this makes it a bit less effective than the RhA. the crew of 4 men includes a commander, a gunner, a loader, and a driver. the turret armor is unknown, but it led to the development of the TS 90 turret used on the Mars 15. Since the Mars 15 turret is lightly armored, I see no reason not to give it the same armor as a placeholder. the tank also has 4 smoke dischargers on the side of the turret.

Sources

Giat pamphlet (as Giat built the tank, it's considered as primary sources)

GazetteDesArmes №96

Jane's Armoured Fighting Vehicle Retrofit Systems 1993 94




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2

I dunno… is the penetration of the APFSDS correct? Seems kind of low considering that it travels at 1,000 m/s. If it is actually higher then I think it would be viable, absolutely!

3

the APFSDS penetration is different than the other Kenitic rounds.
The speed is in consideration like the other rounds
but the length and diameters of the dart are also factors for the penetration, which is only affected by the diameters
the weight of the APFSDS does not have a significant impact on the penetration while other Kenitics rounds have a huge difference depending of the weight.
for the F811 APFSDS, the dart is rather small and the speed is rather low for an APFSDS which usually goes faster than 1400 m/sec and sometimes even above 1700 m/sec
1000 m/sec is the speed of a late WW2 tank gun…
for this, the APFSDS F811 has a rather low penetration amount the APFSDS. it was reported to be 50mm of penetration at 45°
using the Longrods penetrations calculator with the specification of the rounds from a pixel count (which is not the best way to figure out the dimension and length) i could estimate the penetration. the real penetration might be different but i don’t it will get much higher. besides, the current penetration matches with the reported penetration from the testing.

besides those flaws. the tanks still use APFSDS which will make it quite effective against WW2 medium and heavy tanks. the reload is also quite fast and the long-range aiming on moving targets will be easy due to the high velocity. the tank is not the best but it will still perform better than a Sherman armed with a 75mm I believe.
Remember it’s a swift boy who could be classed as light tanks too.
the HE round is also rather powerful and can blast almost any tank. 18mm of penetration is enough to destroy the roof of a hull if you aim at the turret

considering that, it could end up at a BR a bit lower than the AMX 10P (around 5.0 maybe)
and it’s a real French tank. it would be nice to not have a copy-paste

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4

I just like how it looks. Plus having a mortar firing darts would be cool! +1

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