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Weight 32.5 tonnes
Length Hull length: 26.02 ft (7.93 m)
Height 11 ft (3.35 m)
Width 12 ft (3.66 m)
Crew 2
Armor Plating 125mm of Chobham, RH armor, steel encased depleted uranium mesh
Primary Armament : 120mm Rheimnetall
Secondary armament : 2 x 40mm bofors, .50 Caliber Machine gun, 40mm Automatic Grenade Luancher, M240 7.62mm, 8 AGM-114 Missiles, RIM-7 Sea Sparrow

Power/weight 24.5 hp/metric ton
Ground clearance- 6 feet (1.829 meters)
Energy Capacity- 4 gigawatts; 1.2% U-235 CANDU Fuel Bundle
Range- 250,000 miles
Maximum Speed- 35 mph
Cruise Speed: 25 mph

Armor
The vehicle makes significant use of Chobham armor similar to that in an M1 Abrams; this is more or less composed of ceramic tiles encased within a metal matrix and bonded to a backing plate and several elastic layers. Due to the extreme hardness of the ceramics used, they offer superior resistance against shaped charges such as high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds and they shatter kinetic energy penetrators. The (pulverised) ceramic also strongly abrades any penetrator. Against lighter projectiles the hardness of the tiles causes a "shatter gap" effect: a higher velocity will, within a certain velocity range (the "gap"), not lead to a deeper penetration but destroy the projectile itself instead. Because the ceramic is so brittle the entrance channel of a shaped charge jet is not smooth — as it would be when penetrating a metal — but ragged, causing extreme asymmetric pressures which disturb the geometry of the jet, on which its penetrative capabilities are critically dependent as its mass is relatively low. The newer composites, though tougher, optimise this effect as tiles made with them have a layered internal structure conducive to it, causing "crack deflection". This mechanism —using the jet's own energy against it— has caused the effects of Chobham to be compared to those of reactive armour. To date, few Chobham armour-protected tanks have been defeated by enemy fire in combat.

Ceramic tiles have a "multiple hit capability" problem in that they cannot sustain successive impacts without quickly losing much of their protective value. To minimise the effects of this the tiles are made as small as possible, but the matrix elements have a minimal practical thickness of about one inch (25 mm), and the ratio of coverage provided by tiles would become unfavourable, placing a practical limit at a diameter of about four inches (ten centimetres). The small square ceramic tiles are encased within the matrix both by isostatically pressing them into the heated matrix, and reinforced by gluing them with a heat resistant epoxy resin. Holding the tiles under constant compression by their matrix greatly improves their resistance to kinetic penetrators, which is difficult to achieve when using solely using glues.

Ceramic tiles draw little or no advantage from sloped armour as they lack sufficient toughness to significantly deflect heavy penetrators. Indeed, because a single glancing shot could crack many tiles, the placement of the matrix is chosen so as to optimise the chance of a perpendicular hit, a reversal of the previous desired design feature for conventional armour. Ceramic armour normally even offers better protection for a given areal density when placed perpendicularly than when placed obliquely, because the cracking propagates along the surface normal of the plate.

The backing plate reflects the impact energy back to the ceramic tile in a wider cone. This dissipates the energy, limiting the cracking of the ceramic, but also means a more extended area is damaged. Spalling caused by the reflected energy can be partially prevented by a malleable thin graphite layer on the face of the ceramic absorbing the energy without making it strongly rebound again as a metal face plate would.

The armor, in general, makes extensive use of advanced materials and composites, ranging from ceramics, to nanotechnology, to various metals, such as high strength aluminium and steel; the vehicle makes extensive use of ATI-500 steel, like that used on the stryker vehicle, which is significantly stronger than even AR-500 steel. The general design of the armor is to have overlapping steel plates over the chobham armor, made up of high strength ceramics and nano-aluminium, with high explosive reactive armor behind the chobham armor, as a last resort against a single, highly penetrative round. While more expensive, this armor provides the best coverage and capabilities for the weight, and thus can match or slightly exceed the standard Chobham armor of M1 abrams, despite being substantially lighter weight. On top of this, the armor makes substantial use of shaped armor, including slat armor (that is a protective cage) and perforated armor, to detonate tandem charges away from the main armor itself, or by disrupting a shaped charge of the warhead by either crushing it, preventing optimal detonation from occurring, or by damaging the fuzing mechanism, preventing detonation outright. The slat armor prevents the armor from directly impacting the armor below, which dissipates most of the energy of the explosive blast over the air, rather than letting it directly impact it. The raised frame keeps it away from the ground, which also helps to dissipate the explosive power of mines into the air, rather than it being absorbed by the armor, like found in the MRAP with the V-shaped hull. In addition, the outer steel armor, nearly an inch thick of ATI500 steel, and capable of stopping multiple .50 caliber cartridges, and placed several inches over the chobham armor, to provide a similar effect to the slat armor, although to a much greater effect. The various layered composites, from the dyneema backed steel, to the graphite coated ceramics, help to generally increase performance beyond that of what a single homogeneous material could do on it's own.


Nanoceramics
The new modern Nano-ceramics is also making use of new nano-ceramics, which are harder and lighter than current ceramics, while having multi-hit capability. Normal ceramic tiles and a liner backing have a mass-efficiency (EM) value of 3 compared to normal steel armour, while it fulfills STANAG 4569. The new nano-crystalline ceramic materials should increase the hardness compared to current ceramics by 70% and the weight reduction is 30%, therefore the EM value is larger than 4. Furthermore the higher fracture toughness increases the general multi-hit capability. Some AMAP-modules might consist of this new ceramic tiles glued on a backing liner and overlaid by a cover, a concept which is also used by MEXAS; however, in the particular case of the Mech, it is instead utilized heavily in the chobham armor.


Nano-aluminium
The core basis to the chobham armor is aluminium and Titanium aluminium hybrids. While Titanium requires only 58% as much weight as rolled homogeneous armour (RHA) for reaching the same level of protection, Mat 7720 new, a newly developed Aluminium-Titanium alloy, needs only 38% of the weight. That means that this alloy is more than twice as protective as RHA of the same weight. The Nano-aluminum armor, however, is 5 times stronger than traditional aluminium all together, and forms the bulk of the metal matrix for the chobham armor. The Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and David C. Dunand, James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, combined aluminum with lithium (which has a lower density than aluminum and makes the material more lightweight) and scandium — an exotic element that dramatically strengthens aluminum. They also added a bit of ytterbium, which also acts as a strengthener but is much cheaper than scandium.

But creating an alloy isn't just a matter of mixing the elements together — the researchers have a scientifically designed process of timed heating that naturally arranges the atoms into nano-particles with a new kind of structure — a core surrounded by two shells. The core is ytterbium-rich, while the first shell is rich in scandium and the second shell contains mostly lithium. This core/shell-shell structure has been achieved by chemists in liquid solutions but this is the first time it has been achieved by processing solely in the solid-state. The core/shell-shell nano-particles make the material much stronger because they act as strong obstacles for line defects (called dislocations) that can glide through the material, and their layered structure helps make the material much more resistant to high temperatures.

Aluminium is chosen over steel as the metal matrix to reduce the weight of the frame, and while the higher strength aluminium is still overall weaker than the highest strength steels, it's strength is sufficient to provide a backing for the ceramics which increases their strength dramatically. It is in addition, equal to the strength of the steel used in most Chobham armor, giving it equivalent strength.


Graphene
Graphene is an incredibly high strength material, nearly 200 times stronger than steel, at 1/10th the weight. It's melting point is over 6000 degrees, it's flexible, and most variations are clear. While it depends on the variations, some are incredibly thermally resistant, some are incredible conductors, while other's possess properties that make them usable It also can be up to 100 dollars per square centimeter, for a piece of material but 130 microns thick, or .13 millimeters. While cheaper variations can be 10 dollars or less, even at 1 dollar per square centimeter, a meter of material is still or 20,000 and 2 million dollars. As a result, graphene is reserved for only the most demanding situations. Largely based on joints and over camera lenses, less than a millimeter of the material can absorb the energy of shrapnel and even bullets, which makes it ideal for these applications. Particularly, it is used as both an insulator on the joints, and to handle the high stresses the vehicle imparts to these pieces, as a result of it's awkward gait designed to mimic organic motion.



Explosive Reactive Armor
An element of Explosive reactive armour consists of a sheet or slab of high explosive sandwiched between two plates, typically metal, called the reactive or dynamic elements. On attack by a penetrating weapon, the explosive detonates, forcibly driving the metal plates apart to damage the penetrator. Against a shaped charge, the projected plates disrupt the metallic jet penetrator, effectively providing a greater path-length of material to be penetrated. Against a long rod penetrator, the projected plates serve to deflect and break up the rod.

The disruption is attributed to two mechanisms. First, the moving plates change the effective velocity and angle of impact of the shaped charge jet, reducing the angle of incidence and increasing the effective jet velocity versus the plate element. Second, since the plates are angled compared to the usual impact direction of shaped charge warheads, as the plates move outwards the impact point on the plate moves over time, requiring the jet to cut through fresh plate material. This second effect significantly increases the effective plate thickness during the impact.

To be effective against kinetic energy projectiles, ERA must use much thicker and heavier plates and a correspondingly thicker explosive layer. Such "heavy ERA," such as the Soviet-developed Kontakt-5, can break apart a penetrating rod that is longer than the ERA is deep, again significantly reducing penetration capability. An important aspect of ERA is the brisance, or detonation speed of its explosive element. A more brisant explosive and greater plate velocity will result in more plate material being fed into the path of the oncoming jet, greatly increasing the plate's effective thickness. This effect is especially pronounced in the rear plate receding away from the jet, which triples in effective thickness with double the velocity. This is largely achieved by RDX and powdered aluminium.

Unlike normal explosive reactive armor, this armor is placed beneath the core armor, such as steel and the ceramics, to provide a final, ultimate defense against a projectile. Separated into tiles, the armor can be used against multiple shots spread out over the armor, rather than just against a single shot, however due to the fact that the explosive is consumed when the armor "activates", it's only usable in the same spot once. Thus, the armor is best placed beneath the rest of the armor, so once that armor is defeated, the explosive reactive armor can be used next. Although it has some of the highest strength to weight ratio of armor and can stop the most powerful projectiles, it's single use is best reserved as a last resort. This is conveniently activated after the primary armor is defeated, which makes it capable of supporting the armor beneath it, although the armor can only take a handful of shots from the most powerful weapons due to it's inherent self destructive properties.

As a heavy battle tank, the vehicle's armament is predicated on defeating other forms of armor, or providing heavy support for infantry troops. Much of the vehicles design is based around the weapons the vehicle is intended to use. While the main weapon is based on heavy artillery, from the MAC 120mm gun or the 155mm howitzer, the secondary weapons are no less integral to the entire weapon platform. The 20mm cannon can ultimately be used to shoot down oncoming missiles, while the 120mm mortars can provide both high explosive and smoke cartridges, to conceal the position of the tanks or fellow troops. This allows the tank to not also provide a number of methods of engagement of enemy troops, but also provides them with defensive advantages allowing them to engage a wider variety of targets, and defeat a number of enemy weapons.

The tank is also specifically designed to work with various missiles, including the AGM-114 and the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow. While not specifically designed as a missile launching platform, the tank can fire, as a last resort, both guided anti-tank missiles and anti-air missiles, to take down light targets at a range or defend against medium altitude aircraft. While the tank does not guarantee success against all forms of enemy aircraft, it in general is very effective, possessing both an automatic gatling gun and medium range anti-air missiles. It is usually at least capable enough to deter enemy aircraft, long enough, to retreat within range of patriot missile or S-300 anti-air systems.

Furthermore, the vehicle relies heavily on automation of the weapons systems and electronics. Due to a general lack of human interaction, more weapons are available to the aircraft, without requiring more crew members, or exposing troops. This also allows for it to possess a smaller and slimmer profile, allowing it to be much lighter despite the multitude of weapons used. The streamlined nature also contributes to it's stealth capabilities.



MAC 120mm Cannon or 155mm Howitzer
The vehicle, in general, sports a 120mm Rheinmetall 120 mm gun, which more or less is a 120mm tank cannon with optional magnetic assistance. The MAC gun can fire ordinary 120mm rounds, ranging from the high explosive to depleted uranium armor piercing rounds. However, in combination with the coil-railgun hybrid, the vehicle is capable of providing magnetic assistance to the standard depleted uranium cartridges, which can enhance their power without significantly increasing the tank's size or necessary weight to handle the immense recoil. With an energy level of 29 million joules, compared to the 14.45 million joules of the typical depleted uranium sabot cartridges, the MAC gun can roughly double the energy of the standard DU rounds.

Due to it's reliance on electrical energy, it relies heavily on the hybrid engine of the vehicle to power the gun. The engine's battery essentially moves power, temporarily, to be stored in the lithium ion capacitors, which for the energy levels required, weigh 2.1 tons, sufficient for 4 assisted shots. The barrel, made up of depleted uranium, is also considerably heavier than the standard 120mm Rheinmetall cannon, although this lengthens it's life somewhat, reduces the recoil, and makes it paramagnetic, which means it doesn't possess residual amounts of magnetism that could weaken successive shots. To reduce the wear and tear on the rail system, the vehicle also possesses a cooling system which is routed through the vehicles main radiator, and allows the tank itself to serve as an enormous heat sink, coupled with aluminum and graphene films to help disperse the heat over the tank more quickly. The weapon possesses a maximum range of 10 miles, and possess more energy, kilogram per kilogram, than TNT, when fired at the maximum energy level. It can take up to 56 megajoules to fire each round, which requires roughly 1.2 gallons of gasoline, which is what is required to drive the capacitor's energy levels up high enough to power the coil gun. With an extra 150 gallons of fuel dedicated to this process, this means roughly 125 of such shots. The vehicle can hold up to 90 rounds in the autloader, although more can be stored in various storage compartments or the vehicle itself if necessary.


40mm Chain Gun
The twin 40mm bofors chaingun's have a multiple purpose role in the vehicle, designed specifically to take down aircraft, provide support against light vehicles and infantry, and more importantly, take down oncoming missiles and bombs. While the vehicle itself is very well armored, against the most powerful threats, it is largely impossible to defend against them. It's hard to defeat a 2000 pound bomb striking the vehicle, or a guided missile which can locate the weakpoints of the armor, as there is an eventual limit to how effective armor can be. As a result of this, an active defense system is required to prematurely detonate weapon's away from the vehicle. Slightly modified, lighter, lower profile version of the 40mm bofors can be used to shoot down oncoming missiles, or bombs headed towards the vehicle. The standard, 20mm anti-air variant of which the system is based on fires rounds at approximately 6000 RPM to intercept missiles, but the 40mm system is much slower shooting. It compensates however by utilizing air burst munitions designed to provide shot to intercept each round, providing a virtual increase in the amount of rounds fired. If detected by the vehicles onboard sensors, and given proper input by the crew, or close enough to the vehicle while traveling fast enough, the weapon will fire in the missile's direction, and blanket the sky in high explosive air bursting munitions, designed to intercept and obliterate enemy airborne threats. While this is still somewhat effective against low lying aircraft in it's own right, primarily, the guns are used to stop missiles, to give the vehicle protection against the most powerful threats imaginable, and to stop the weapons before they even get within range of the vehicle at all. While it would have a difficult time stopping bullets, the large size and low velocity of most missiles, and their sensitivity due to their electronics, makes it ideal against the most severe threats faced by tanks.

While the advanced computerized systems work in tandem with the rest of the vehicles electronics, the largest potential drawback of the system is in it's potential for collateral damage. Firing bullets designed to intercept other bullets, the vehicle uses a laser in addition to radar to make sure the rounds blow up before striking a hard target other than the one identified by the anti-air counter measures. The round usually fires up, into the sky, to avoid accidentally hitting nearby objects on the ground, and the cartridges blow up after traveling a predetermined distance to prevent them from accidentally exceeding their intended range. While this is variable, it more or will always modify itself to the situation, to the best of the abilities of the on board computer. The cartridges, in extreme situations, can explode as little as 3 feet from the vehicle. A proven system on numerous naval craft, the anti-missile system is incredibly effective at stopping even the most lethal threats. Against most kinetic threats, however, is far less capable.

The 40mm bofors weapon is a highly effective weapon, capable of not only stopping aircraft, but also of penetrating light APC's and providing limited anti-infantry support with anti-air rounds. The cartridges are each approximately 870 grams, or nearly 2 pounds, and travel at nearly 1015 m/s. Their extreme power and capabilities makes it suitable for a variety of different jobs. It is 9 times more powerful than a standard 20mm cartridges, and 2.5 times more powerful than a 30mm. While heavily armored APC's and most armored vehicles are capable of withstanding 30mm armor piercing rounds, the devastating nature of the 40mm bofors is to the extent that it can pierce most of even the best armored vehicles. It's extreme power makes it effective against most targets, but against softer targets it can explode in mid air or within targets, thus increasing it's effectiveness against considerably smaller one's. It's sheer size makes it much more effective as an explosive, as the fundamental requirement for a detonator is far over shadowed by the cartridge's raw size. Usually, the craft carries 2000 rounds of telescopically cased, lighter 40mm bofors cartridges for each chaingun.


120mm Mortar
The vehicle possess 16 120mm mortar, sans the baseplate, bipod, sights. While ordinarily around 300 pounds for the entire unit, because only the mortar tube it utilized, each weighs approximately 100 pounds, equaling a total of .8 tons. The M120 mortars are in general considered incredibly effective while still being relatively lightweight, but aren't capable of being carried by ordinary infantry. With both high explosive and specialty ammunition available, the mortars are used for a variety of missions, particularly those in which a less powerful weapon is required, such as preventing collateral damage. The tank not only has the capability for incredibly powerful weapons, but less powerful ones, when required. Each cartridge has a range of approximately 7,240 metres, or 4.5 miles, and is roughly 30-40 pounds. The range is roughly equivalent to the 120mm Rheinmetall.

Because they are exceptionally difficult to reload from within the tank, the vehicle utilize several 120mm mortars to increase their ability to fire quickly or repeatedly. In addition to this, however, the mortar tubes utilize a system similar to metal storm 3GL or Mual firing system, which uses a sequentially stacked, electronically fired 120mm mortar. Metal Storm used the concept of superposed load; multiple projectiles loaded nose to tail in a single gun barrel with propellant packed between them. The Roman candle, a traditional firework design, employs the same basic concept, however, the propellant continues to burn in the Roman candle's barrel, igniting the charge behind the subsequent projectile. The process is repeated by each charge in turn, ensuring that all projectiles in the barrel are discharged sequentially from the single ignition; with the metal storm firing system, only a single round is fired at a time. This results in the capability of holding up to 5 rounds in it's tube, before the weapon needs to be reloaded, unlike ordinary mortars, which in turn allows a total of 80 rounds to be fired before the weapons need to be reloaded. Because most 120mm mortars are muzzle loaded, it allows significantly more cartridges to be fired before reloading is necessary, which greatly increase the versatility of the weapon system. In theory, more rounds can be loaded into the weapon if necessary, although this requires lengthening the mortar tube or using a lower velocity weapon.

The 120mm Mortar system is an integral part of the defense system of the vehicle; with the capability to cover the vehicle in smoke, it can prevent both lasers and areal targeting of the aircraft, in addition to providing concealment of the vehicle's position. It can also be used to cover infantry or other units smoke, to provide the same advantages.



Secondary Weapons
The secondary weapons of the vehicle are incredibly useful for use against infantry units or lightly armored vehicles. While providing too many weapons to the vehicle would be unrealistic or impractical, the weapons overall light weight in comparison to the vehicle's extensive weight makes them easy to add to the vehicle. Because they are remote controlled, an individual operator can easily switch between weapons, and aim them, without putting themselves at risk to enemy fire. While the armament can be any mix of .50 and .30 caliber machine guns, 40mm and 25mm automatic grenade launchers, and various other weapons, the vehicle in general utilizes a single M2 Browning .50 caliber machine gun, a single Mk 47 Striker automatic 40mm grenade launcher, and two twin M134 7.62mm x 51mm NATO miniguns. The typical armament is 5000 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition, 10,000 rounds for each M134 minigun, and 1600 rounds of 40mm grenades.

The primary purpose of these weapons are provide light support to infantry forces, or against light threats. The 40mm grenades are capable of being programmed to explode in mid air, with airbursting qualities, and the .50 caliber machine guns possess high explosive armor piercing incendiary ammunition. The 7.62mm NATO ammunition is generally standard armor piercing ammunition, although high explosive armor piercing ammunition is occasionally used.