None of these articles seem to mention WHY the tanks are designed this way (although I admit I just searched for keywords).

As far as I know, it is because the current gen of Russian tanks were designed for how they envisioned WW3 40 years ago [1]. Basically the tanks would follow nuclear strikes, and making humans load the ammunition would make them die a lot quicker from radiation, so they made an autoloader.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine

The suggestion from this source[1] is that an autoloader makes the tank much smaller (harder to hit). He also claims being smaller makes them cheaper to produce. The intended use case was going to be somewhere in Europe, only 2-3 days from factory to front line. They were designed in an era before smart weapons. No amount of refactoring/refreshing on the current chassis is going to allow you to refactor out such a fundamental design choice.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/86aeL6xY0PQ

I don't know if I buy that, I find it a lot more likely to be because russian tanks are significantly smaller than their western counter parts. I think it's a space saving measure.

How does loading ammunition make humans die quicker from radiation?

The article I read it in (in independent Polish press, cannot find it now) said physical exertion makes you more susceptible to radiation, and cited figures around the weight of shells which are apparently quite heavy.

It doesn't, the autoloader is right in the crew compartment (which is the whole problem with munition cook offs killing the crew and ejecting the turret). The thing that keeps NBC out while the breech is open for loading is positive air pressure inside the tank.

This argument only makes sense if the turret is entirely unmanned.

This argument only makes sense if the entire tank is unmanned..

Possibly that the higher number of crew & higher average effort means the internal resources can not last as long, and thus the NBC seal has to be broken sooner?

According to the wiki, an autoloader also improves smoke removal, which would also help maintain a safe NBC-isolated interior space.

Maybe the turret has less shielding..? Or maybe it was really to enable DU rounds.

The difference seems to be capacity of crew. With an autoloader crew is down to 3, Russians opt to have 4 crew and a cheaper per unit tank. To the Russian Army soldiers have always been expendable.

? Russian tanks are the ones with autoloaders and 3 crew... Of the modern NATO tanks only the French use autoloaders and 3 crew, US and German tanks are 4 crew.

And French tanks have been using autoloaders since before WW2 (back then it was partly to offset demographic problems).

The saying goes, Russian tanks depend on an auto Loader. American tanks depend on a 19 year old with a strong right arm.

It depends on who you watch - on Russian telegram channels there's also an endless supply of videos where Ukrainian stuff blows up by missile, drone or captured intact.

It's a large-scale conflict so one can cherry-pick enough footage to support any narrative.

The Ukrainian tanks are Russian made, so would have exactly the same vulnerability. But the Ukrainians being mostly on the defensive and vastly outnumbered, I don't know that they rely on them as much Russia does.

Most of the tanks always store a dozen of rounds in the turret for faster reloads.

The American Bradley stores rounds in a separate armored compartment behind the loader. If the compartment gets hit and the rounds cook off, the blast is redirected out the top of the tank away from the crew compartment which makes the vehicle much more survivable.

Don't you mean the Abrams tank?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Bradley: "The use of aluminum armor and the storage of large quantities of ammunition in the vehicle initially raised questions about its combat survivability."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams: "The M1 Abrams...introduced several innovative features, including a multifuel turbine engine, sophisticated Chobham composite armor, a computer fire control system, separate ammunition storage in a blow-out compartment"

In the Abrams shells are stored in a separate armoured compartment and are individually fed to the loader as needed. The loader might have a shell fed and in hand ready to reload the gun, so that's one shell in the compartment at the ready over the one loaded in the gun at any given time. There just isn't space for more shells lying around.

> a dozen of rounds

This made me happy. :)

(In Russian, numeric determiners 2-4 place the noun in genitive singular and numeric determiners 5+ place the noun in genitive plural. One book, two of book, three of book, four of book, five of books.)

Czech is exactly the same - jedno pivo, dvě piva, tří piva, čtyří piva, pět piv, šest piv etc ...