The Schwarzkopf is basically always going to be vulnerable to ATGMs. It has to move sometimes. Against a force with access to ATGMs, this thing will bleed numbers every time it needs to maneuver against close infantry. The strategic environment in which it will be useful is going to be the gap in between people starting to ship in ATGMs -- when the wars of the American interior heat up enough and armor the CFC permits to pass through becomes prevalent enough to provide demand -- and when those ATGMs proliferate to the point of cutting down the tank's worth.
It is also worth noting that top-attack munitions are not standard even among the newest ATGMs of today; it's an expensive capability to add, much less to export in significant numbers to third-world statelets fighting each other with extremely tangential strategic relevance to your interests. Like, there are many reasons the players might hesitate to approve selling tanks into the brush fires that everybody knows are coming up in the interior, but there will be a role for them.
Unless things change again, and radically. They've done that a few times, in this quest.
Not to impugn the work of the designers?
But I should point out that the Schwarkzopf has 500mm RHAe + 1stgen ERA on its glacis. The PG-7VR round that has been produced since 1988 for the RPG-7 has a penetration of 600mm RHAe after ERA.
This suggests that a frontal hit with one of the RPGs that was standard-issue for Victorian squads according to the canon Fascist Cheetah omake will punch through its thickest armor, no problem.
No top attack or clever maneuvering necessary.
And given that the tanks dont have APS, top attack isnt necessary anyway.
Now consider that an RPG-7 weighs at maximum 10 or 11kg with its round.
You can squeeze a lot of them into a Cessna Caravan or a Antonov-2 or a DC-3. Or into an airdrop from a C130.
I have very little confidence about the cost-effectiveness of the Schwarzkopf design in that sort of threat environment.
My thoughts, if you'll have them?
The logistics requirements for operating armor make it largely a nonstarter in the American interior. From spare parts and maintenance to training and critically fuel. And supporting arms like combat engineers to get across water obstacles.
The fact that we'd be unable to put even gun stabilizers or vision systems on any indigenous tanks in a world where modern cellphone cameras have been coming standard with lowlight modes just makes them a waste of resources. Nevermind what happens when their opposition get their hands on commercial octocopters dropping mortar bombs.
If the Commonwealth were inclined to tailor weapons for the American interior, and noone else beat them to the punch, they'd be better off going the Plasan route. Basically import a reliable 4-wheel truck, strip it down, uparmor the chassis to resist small arms and put a gun turret on top with a heavy machinegun, a 30mm Bushmaster autocannon or even a Carl Gustav.
Build and supply them in numbers, use as either a guntruck or APC.
Most of the parts will be commercially available or can be mcguyvered.
For example:
That is a Ford F-series commercial truck chassis under all that guff; either a F350 or a F450.
There are variants with ATGMs, troop carriers and ambulances.
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