graylion said:

About 105mm: Challenger reputedly has a rifled gun b/c of HESH

That is not really the caseor only part of the story. The story of the new NATO tank gun that was supposed to replace the 105 mm L7 and became the 120 mm smoothbore is complex and not particulary nice.

HESH can be used by non rotating or slow rotating projectiles. The British Malkara missile used a HESH warhead. There are HESH or HESHish warheads for rifle grenades and LAW/RPG type weapons.

graylion said:

Challenger 3 seems to be pivoting to anti tank

Not really. At least not any more than Challanger 2 befor. The rifled gun island solution is not sustainable. I also would argue that a modern HE frag with settable fuse is more effective in the infantry support role than HESH.

graylion said:

France OTOP moved from 90mm LP to 40mm CTA for the role.

The 90 mm F4 is hardly LP or LV.

More precise the moved from the 90 mm F4 to the 40 mm CTA plus MMP ATGMs. This most likely offers improved AT as well as FS capabilities. Yes the single shot HE throw weight is lower but the ROF and ammo carried is considerable higher.

graylion said:

Why is the RCH still so incredibly top heavy high? It looks positively absurd.

Because the RCH module is so tall. The Boxer chassis is allready tall. Its also not an optimised purpose build chassis like that of the G6 or the DANA.

The RCH module is fully automated and seld contained. I am not sure if mounting it on Boxer is a good solution.
I think its better mounted on a Truck chassis:

Yes, the concept would have to be reworked fairly heavily for sure, and I agree on the rockets though with apkws dagir and ultra high velocity guided 70mm rockets all being a thing they might still be useful.

One of the things I like provisionally about the idea of dusting RDF LT off Is that while it's original version was fairly lightly armored etc it was built in an era where electronics and several other things were huge and inefficient compared to now.

What this gives you is lots more space inside once you switch out all the legacy stuff to MOTS or near MOTS modern substitutes which will weigh less and take up less space. 

Chances are you'd use half that space and weight to add additional capabilities you'd want in a modern version, and half on additional protection. Combined with stripping out legacy protection and materials to use better more efficient modern equivalents etc and you have something that's now got enough room and base layer protection to run ARAT2 ERA tiled and an APS with shockingly little fuss.

Or

You take the 90mm version of the ares autocannon, build a chassis on Bradley automotives etc shoot for 30-35 tons and wind up with a pocket medium that's stanag 6+ frontally holds 3 guys has an APS and era and can run with mbt's to provide heavy armored SHORAD etc on the move.

Both options are possible and with the right teams involved could be done quickly with a minimum of fuss and expense.

Either would provide you with a shockingly good vehicle relatively simply and quickly.

The other nice thing about rdf LT was it's gun was capable of 80 degree elevation out of the box

Oh one other very key thing I forgot to mention about the rdf LT and it's gun and ammunition that makes it a good potential candidate.

The production tooling for the gun ammo and feed system still exist, still have production employees trained on making them, and the production line is still in low rate production at this time.

Unlike many other also ran ideas people talk about resurrecting, this actually puts RDF LT 2.0 closer to within reach than other things being proposed. It's genuinely something you could do.

roguetechie said:

The production tooling for the gun ammo and feed system still exist, still have production employees trained on making them, and the production line is still in low rate production at this time.

Really?  The last part of this seems incredibly unlikely.  I mean, I supposed Ares could have kept the gun and ammo line open for 30 years just in case, but it seems incredibly unlikely.  Nothing on their website suggests this is true.  Source?

The ares line is still open and producing low rate guns and ammo for both CT programs, the RAVEN gun program which is using modified ares comvat  autocannons as the test bed, and yeah it surprised me too but this is in fact true.

From what I've been able to gather ares Is at least partially owned by reed knight and was even doing ammo for Textron.

There's mentions of this in multiple dtic presentations we've discussed on this board.

Bottom line is that the facility still exists, is still staffed, and still has it's production lines intact which would be of great benefit.

Well, what seems to be being built is the Griffin II