The advent of the 140 mm Future Tank Main Armament (FTMA) has given increased emphasis' to the development of automatic loaders as the size and weight of the 140 mm ammunition means that a man cannot handle it within the confines of an MBT turret.

Building on the success of its 120 mm automatic loader, FHL was awarded another contract in February 1991 by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency to develop a 140 mm automatic loader as a technology demonstrator. This was delivered to the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency at Chertsey in August 1992.

This bustle-mounted automatic loader is capable of handling and loading up to 16 rounds of FTMA ammunition and can be replenished from inside the turret or externally through the rear. In addition, it has the capability to download from the automatic loader into the crew compartment.

Ammunition selection is automatic upon command and the round is transported to the loading position using a bidirectional conveyor-type mechanism.

The two parts of the round are retained in the tube by latches and are joined before being rammed into the breech. A safety door in the bulkhead between the automatic loader and the crew compartment opens briefly during the ramming operation and a bridging mechanism is deployed between the bulkhead and the breech.

If this was installed in a production turret, blow-out panels would be provided in the roof so that if the magazine and automatic loader were penetrated and the ammunition ignited then the main blast would be vented upwards and away from the crew compartment.

Provision has been made in the design of the system for manual reversion. A microprocessor-controlled Electronic Control Unit (ECU) commands all the autoloader systems using ADA software and three rare earth brushless DC motors and the associated motor control unit provide the electric actuation.

The bustle-mounted 140 mm automatic loader weighs 1,100 kg and a typical gun loading cycle takes 6 seconds.

At present, only one type of ammunition has been developed for the FTMA and this is an APFSDS type which consists of the actual projectile and a two-part charge system with the latter being screwed together.

The 140 mm FTMA automatic loader was completed several years ago but has now been upgraded by FHL under another recent contract from the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. In addition to ramming the 140 mm round of ammunition, the automatic loader will now also extract the round from the breech back into the bustle in order to allow selection of another round, or to download the gun on the completion of a mission, or for range safety.

If required, FHL could also design a similar system to handle 120 mm ammunition.