T-106 imperator

The T-106 Imperator is the Illyanic military's primary Main Battle Tank.

History

The Commonwealth spent many years developing a new main battle tank, to replace the Guardian, which was extremely heavy, and quite expensive. It’s performance in tests, and actual battle were marked with troubles, such as its low range, and high maintenance costs. Its weight made it impractical for use in many locations, and in particularly wet weather, it would sink into just about any type of ground. The 140mm ETC was too large and heavy for what Illyan really needed in a tank. With this in mind, the researchers at the Illyanic R&D compounds set about to create a new tank. It would have to be lighter, faster, and generally better designed than its predecessor. The focus would not be creating a test bed for the newest technologies, but a stable weapons platform that would be reliable and formidable. The new tank would be an efficient and solid machine, built to withstand the most extreme circumstances, and still perform admirably. The vehicle was christened the Imperator, as it would undoubtedly spearhead advances, and lead Illyanic troops to victory.

Engine

Scrapping the Guardian’s 2,000 horsepower gas-guzzling behemoth, the Imperator would boast a still formidable 1,700 horsepower diesel engine. It has been designed to provide the best fuel economy, combined with great reliability. There were many reasons that the project chose a diesel engine over a gas turbine engine, most having to do with maintenance and reliability. Turbine engines, while lighter, burn extremely large amounts of fuel. They have also proven to be less reliable in certain environments, and have to be maintained more frequently. A diesel engine, while heavier, can provide a more reliable and logistics friendly power source. The engine is placed to the front of the tank, giving extra protection to the crew. The maximum speed of the tank was predicted to be near 50mph.

Suspension

A Horstman hydrogas hydropneumatic suspension, much like the type used on the British Challenger II tank, was selected for the Imperator. It was chosen to give the vehicle extra stability, and maximize cross country performance.

Transmission

The Imperator has a semi-automatic, continuously-variable transmission providing 6 forward, and 2 rear gears. The introduction of computer controlled transmissions has allowed for semi-automatic transmission that acts like a hybrid between manual and automatic. Fuel economy is greatly improved by the use of a continuously-variable transmission that allows the relationship between the speed of the engine and the speed of the wheels to be varied constantly.

Armor

Older Illyanic tanks had used mainly chobham armor, which works fine, but in this case wasn’t good enough. The engineers at R&D would this time create their own armor scheme for the Imperator. Many different types of armors were tested, but they finally settled on a composite ceramic for the main layer. It would appear similar to chobham, but designed from the ground up by Illyanic engineers. The base of the new armor would be steel reinforced with thin layers of tungsten, to give a slight boost in strength. The composite ceramic tiles, made mainly of boron carbide reinforced with carbon nanotubes (to make it less brittle), traces of depleted uranium, and tungsten are placed in an alumina matrix. On top of this is another tungsten reinforced steel plate, providing the final layer of the composite armor. At an optimum slope, this armor scheme can provide as much as a 4.5:1 RHA equivalent versus KE. A small layer of Kevlar is placed next, to provide a barrier between the reactive armor and the next layer, made of Advanced Modular Armor Protection. AMAP is a more advanced version of MEXAS (Modular Expandable Armor System). This layer was designed to nullify the threat of CE rounds, and also give a boost in the ratings against KE. Finally, a layer of ERA is placed on the topmost layer to give further protection against KE and CE threats. Also, thin plates of IRHA would serve as buffers between the various layers. In all, the tank would have as much as 2,300mm RHAe against KE, and around 3,000 versus CE. Of course, there were only a few areas on the tank that actually reached these values.

Armament

The 140mm ETC of the Guardian would be much to expensive and heavy to put on the Imperator, and there were very few threats that needed such a powerful weapon to take them out. But still, the designers wanted as much power as weight allowed, so they settled on a 120mm smoothbore ETC instead. This gave the extra velocity of an ETC, but at a lesser weight. No upgrades were made to the ETC design, though plans were made that the next version of the Imperator would have a more advanced gun. A standard carousel-type autoloader would be put in the Imperator, though this too was planned to be updated on the successor. The tank would be able to fire at most 11 rounds per minute, but only around 9 could be realistically sustained. It is able to hold To save weight, the Imperator would have no coaxial weapon, but to assure its safety against infantry and missile attacks, a 5.56mm gun in an independent turret would serve as a close-in weapon system. The gun could be either manually controlled, or computer guided.

Fire Control Systems

The Imperator would boast a new Illyanic fire control system, designated “Indago” that would greatly increase the tank’s performance. All information from sensors are first fed into a threat detection processor, to prioritize targets and distinguish friend from foe. The resulting information is presented to the tank commander, who selects a target to be fired on. The fire control processor then takes the information, such as range and other variables, and automatically aims and fires the main cannon. The system can also be set on automatic, where it eliminates the need for the commander to select targets, and automatically fires on the target of highest priority.

Sensors

To detect enemy tanks and vehicles, the Imperator uses a combination of FLIR, LADAR, and RADAR systems, all fed into a central processing unit, and then into the fire control system. The Imperator has the capability to track over 20 targets at a single time using the information gathered from its detection systems.

Specifications

• Crew: 2
• Length: 9 m
• Width: 3.5 m
• Height: 2.6 m
• Weight: 68 tonnes
• Max Speed: 80 kph
• Range: 515 km
• Armament: LCMC MkI 120mm L/44 ETC Cannon
• 5.56mm CIWS

• Cost: $10.5 Million USD