>>/47975/
> I would not say there are too many people inside, each has a role.
Can't say anything about drone operator, but three-men crew in tank is too much. When gunner has complex targeting systems and almost 360 view, he can do commander tasks too. Now it is commander who seeks target and orders gunner to shoot, but why commander can't do this by himself? Just point to target on screen and press the button to shoot. Gunners already don't calculate elevations and other things but use laser rangefinders and ballistic computers. And no one prevents making a some king of manual fallback system.
Computer games may be dumb but they are actually working example when one person can easily control virtual tank if he gets full 360 view and computer-aided targeting. It is actually possible for one person to control all tank, but that is too radical for modern tech. But two is feasible now. This would allow much better protection for crew and tank systems.
As not-so-dumb example, look at modern strike planes or helicopters, they mostly have pilot and weapons operator, because weapon controls are heavily automated for decades. In past main reason to not automate tanks much was cost and complexity of computers, but we in 2022 and there is much progress in these fields. Industry just too conservative (western ones sometimes still afraid of autoloader), maybe war will help as always.
As we all moving to unmanned tank anyway, first evolutionary step must be going into two- or single-crewed vehicles. In that ideal world tank may became almost personal weapon, like AT missiles becoming now. That concept was dumped in 30s but not we have tech to resurrect it.
> As for unmanned turrets, while they make sense to degree in that you will be able to get a far smaller turret and it would be safer for the crew in theory.
It also allows you to install bigger gun with large elevation angles. Late 80s projects were mostly with 152/155mm, and this caliber is much more powerful that anything you can find in field. It also provides more space for efficient autoloader.
> match the visibility and situational awareness that the commander can get by looking through the hatch.
I mostly disagree. Looking outside from open hatch is possible only in peacetime situation. Even in WW2 when periscopes and sights were primitive, combat action mostly happened with closed hatches. Commander doesn't really need hatch, he uses sight, and when hatches can be opened, it is non-combat situation when view height doesn't matter much. At least it is better to be safe in combat than see more in non-combat.
Gunner doesn't even need a hatch-view anyway, only to be less bored when tank is on march. Only person who really gets advantages from moving with open hatch is driver, who almost always uses it non-combat. But he already sits in lower part of tank so nothing changes.
And because every person use periscope sights as main source of awareness, it doesn't matter where you sit if sights allow same view. Main reason why we didn't get unmanned turrets in past was bad efficiency of remote cameras. In late 80s cameras were so shitty so they've need to be combined with periscopes, and periscopes were too complex when turret is unmanned. But now it is possible. As argument against vulnerability - camera has same vulnerability as classic sight anyway, maybe even more (cameras are more compact now).