Originally Posted by mmarsh

Ya and how many Russian gunners have lost arms due to auto loaders?

I assume you are referring to the T-72? Quite a few, but that the a trend at the time. The Soviet Union didnt exactly put crew safety as a priority on anything from tanks to submarines to rockets. I believe your comment about the auto-loader trying to load the gunner was particularily on point. But the T-72 was a 30 year old tank, I havent heard of the issue repeating itself on the T-95. Even the older T-64 was fairly reliable. Before I moved to Europe, I had a customer He a russian emigre but he had served as Tank Commander on a T-72 before the fall of the Soviet Union. He told me all sorts of horror stories about the T-72, he much preferred
the T-64.

Obviously it makes no sense to re-equip the M1 with auto loaders. The tank was designed with a human loader from head to toe. To try and equip it with one would akin to gluing on some wings and attaching a propeller and seeing if it would fly. I am refering to future designs, far future, as the Army doesnt seem willing yet to change its position. On the other hand, the now defunct Crusader programme used a autoloader so who knows?