Is it better to have a tank crew of 3, 4, or 5? Would 2 be possible?

I was thinking about how you'd design a 2-man tank for my own little worldbuilding project, and came up with this (possibly) dumb idea.
>semi-fixed 120mm cannon (with .338 coax) sits in the right side of the hull, with room to yaw 45 degrees or pitch 15, kind of like a Hetzer
>has a combined gunner/driver sitting left of it, has a large screen with wide field of view
>behind him is the commander who remote controls a 30mm turret with a better sensor suite, able to take out lighter vehicles or helicopters
>small crew and lack of a large manned turret makes it very low and relatively light (maybe 35 tons) so it can be fast, like 80kph
Tell me why it would suck

>tell me why it would suck
Because the guy responsible for driving this 30-40 ton vehicle is also the same guy responsible for aiming and firing the main gun. You will fuck up and make mistakes when switching between driving and gunning in a combat scenario. Even something like getting out of the mentality of switching gears and using the brakes to configuring your optics and remembering to toggle the safety will fuck your shit up when you're stressed. There's a reason everyone sticks to an extremely strict division of labor.

>. Yes, it's always nice to have another person help out with maintenance and repairs, but you could consolidate that 'fourth' into a dedicated platoon level section.

i watched that chieftain video too

The french had many tanks with only two crew during WWII. It didn't work out so well for them

How much maintenance and self-repair ability do you want your tank to have?

If you want 100% self repair you're going to need a crew of 6, which is three per track plus three in the tank to operate it and look out for enemies. Also your tank will be absolutely loaded with supplies and have a crane.

If you want about 1/2 self-repair ability, four crew will do. They can do most routine maintenance only requiring engineer vehicles for the rough stuff like pulling power plants and unfucking turret rings.

If you want next to zero self-repair, go under that number like the stank and the russkie tanks. All they can do is change a track or replace some valves and fittings.

Strv 103.

I mean 2 is theoretically the lowest you will want to go but even then you have to realize you're splitting up the jobs of driving, gunning, observing, communicating, navigating, repairing, and maintaining general situational awareness to a grand total of 2 people in the some of the most stressful conditions imaginable. And obviously this is assuming you have a good autoloader. 3+ is ideal. In the future with more automated systems management 2 will become more feasible but who knows when that will happen.

why is it so tall and what is the point of the foam glued to it?

Better to break it down to driver and weapon system operator if you can't go to fully unmanned.

They didn't have autoloaders, digital FCS and cameras back then. Also no fucking radios installed.

>acme spring hard kill
what were they thinking

Posting vid, since the tread will eventually evolve into this topic

youtu.be/R0x-8NheU1E

You basically just stuck a RCWS with an autocannon onto an S-tank.

Holy shit, money lenders. Get it together. Also you need a dedicated radio operator as you don't want your Gunner trying to radio and gun or driver drive and radio. Bad idea.

Since even western tanks who are optimized for fast and easy maintenance are still a pain in the ass, its always better to have more crew members.
Ammo has to be stored, mechanical parts need lubrication, and even when it comes to the main jobs of every crewmember theres only so much workload everyone of them can have before he becomes ineffective.
See WW2. It was standard to have five crew members. Every approach who made the commander also the gunner or at least loader was doomed since the workload was too high.
Three man can be feasible for combat circumstances, see all rooskie tanks for example. But then again: Four pairs of eyes see more than three ones. Four pairs of hands can fix any damage quicker.
You dont need five anymore since modern radios are so easy to operate that it aint an overload for a tank commander to act as a radio operator. But thats about it.
Two guys could crew a tank. But it would be a maintenance nightmare and if anything breaks, especially stuff thats necessary for battlefield awareness (e.g. optics or whatever) this tank becomes highly ineffective.
tl;dr 3 is okay, 4 is much better, 2 is too few

How about 4 in a modern one? Driver, Gunner, Commander... but with modern autoloaders, swap the loader out for a comms/intel geek to keep all that shit running smooth. Especially with the way stuff is going these days, having a couple of drones attached to the tank probably isn't unreasonable and combined with the intel/comms load it might well be worthwhile having a EW dude in the tank. Still gets you your 4 man crew and takes a bit of the load off of the commander who doesn't have to sort through needless shit to get what he needs to command the tank.

Or is it easier than I imagine and I'm way off the mark?

You seem to be on mark

See also

Just lower the polygon count if a normal tank then you get the same tank

People lose 10 IQ when stressed under adrenaline and each additional task costs them 15 points more. If your gunner is also the radioman and commander and started out at 95 he is going to be a fucking vegetable on the battlefield.

That or you have to get 160 IQ autists to drive your tanks.

Having a small drone pod that can deploy surveillance drones that could also theoretically carry explosive charges or small arms would be pretty cool,yeah.