panzersaurkrautwerfer
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Posts posted by panzersaurkrautwerfer
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Just having skimmed them:
These "In the Army Now" videos are basically Russian psyops products. They really should be watched less from the perspective of "this is good information!" and more "what emotion/action does the Russian government expect me to take after watching this?"
This isn't to say NATO or western countries don't do similar activities, but the key difference would be for all those silly "WORLDS DEADLIEST FIELD KITCHENS" shows, there's a separation between the government agency and media reporting, and some editorial discretion in what is provided, and there's usually some lack of union in desired outcomes.
This is contrasted to RT which is literally a propaganda agency as directed and controlled by the Russian state for the means of influencing target populations to behave in a manner conducive to Russian aims. It does this in a variety of ways, some quite obvious, but in other ways, quite subtle.
Basically as a means of accurate information, RT is pretty trash. It is fascinating watching though in terms of what a PSYOP/influence campaign with no legal and limited resource restrictions can be. -
44 minutes ago, kinophile said:
@panzersaurkrautwerfer "guided or digitally aided".
Digitally aided?
Just highly precise "dumb" rounds. The ballistics isn't too tricky, but the "known" point of aim and point of origin, plus the gun's orientation being aligned by computer makes for what is still a very accurate shot for what is an inert piece of metal lobbed through the air.
35 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:My first post was rather clumsy, in retrospect I'd edit it, but I can't.....My whole point is that this was done by the most precise artillery out there (with help from air dropped bombs, IEDs and MRLs of varying sophistication), I've never suggested that it was overkill or deliberate destruction, indeed from what I can tell CTS did what was needful and no more, taking on very high casualties themselves in order to reduce casualties amongst Mosul's civilian population.
True, I'm just saying that we're talking about a city that's been hit by EVERYTHING from massed small arms fire, to JDAMs, to dump truck sized IEDs, to tanks, to massed indirect fires from our "partners." It's hard to say "this is what a city looks like even with precision fires" when it's closer to "this is what happens when a suicidal death cult goes toe to toe with a military force that values massed fire* over all other aspects of combat operations, as supported by a third agency with precision fires in an urban center"
*Even going back to pre-1991, the Iraqi military is all about massing fires and effects and then moving in once the enemy has stopped firing back. This is almost "traditional" at this point going by the "death blossoms" the Iraqis are still infamous for. The forces that operate in Syria are not far removed from this either. -
More realistically-unrealistic:
NATO attacks to internationally recognized border. The ensuing political fallout, economic damage from the conflict is sufficient to cause a general collapse in the central authority in Russia. Various national movements take this as their chance to rise, with Russia's most capable forces either destroyed, detained, or in need of serious reset before deploying. The frozen wars in Georgia and elsewhere kick off again resulting in Russian "peacekeepers" being overwhelmed, while fallout from the cyber-exchange between NATO and Russia leaves the "loyal" elements of the Russian government struggling to operate as a modern military HQ. As things spiral out of control, the Russian state continues to splinter into an increasingly less capable collection of "True" Russian states, ethnic enclaves and so forth.
So basically scenarios with the one functional Armata shooting IS-2s taken from memorials. Possible "branch" campaign where a NATO task force moves into the Kalingrad enclave after the local leadership threatens Poland as part of an Ultra-Nationalist ploy to become a Baltic North Korea.
Again it's all pretty out there, but needless to say a full on NATO invasion isn't realistic at all. -
The US has a distinct advantage in fires integration, targeting and precision.
The greater question for artillery in the next few years is being able to achieve effects in the face of frankly terrifying counter-battery capabilities. The idea a M777 battery is going to be able to fire off more than 1-2 rounds before having to displace or face total destruction is certainly sinking in. The traditional massed and persistent Russian fires are basically inviting ruin on the firing batteries.
From that fires and effects are going to have to be able to answer the question of how to achieve the same effects, with less time/rounds to do so. Precision will certainly play a role although the current laser/GPS guidance trend will be challenged by EW (while the laser itself is not subject to jamming, the spotting element's communications, let alone if it's a drone are), as will advances in non-kinetic ADA (or whatever we care to call lasers or similar hard kill non-bullet options) observation.
One thing that will be interesting is the historic fires integration piece taken to a more refined output, in that it may be still possible to put dozens of rounds on a target while still only doing so from a small number of guns by coordinating and allocating fires across a wider collection of units, or as far as several batteries firing very small missions, but sequenced and coordinating digitally (Battery A shoots 1 round per gun, displaces while Battery B fires 1 salvo then displaces, then BN mortars drop 3 rounds before displacing then Battery A opens up again).
Or to visualize, artillery will spend more time in motion than firing, and each firing opportunity will need to mean more, and each target will need to be more relevant (or the historical US/and to an even larger degree RU ability to simply dump fires on anything that's being troublesome will be deeply challenged).
Basically it's going to matter a lot less about the gun, or how the gun is loaded, and more about how the round gets where it needs to go, and how we accomplish effects while someone tries to kill the gun. The Russians especially historically have counted on massed non-precision fires, which may be lethal but again it won't take too many "missed" displacements to start to reach parity in numbers and greater effects disparity in terms of fires.
As far as "Alas Babylon"
It would be a mistake to attribute too much of the damage to US fires, or to at the least, indicate somehow they were responsible for causing more damage that would have occurred anyway. Both Mosul and Raqqa were subject to lots of dumb artillery and direct fire weapons from the non-US elements rolling in (some of whom conduct "recon by fire" and little else), and ISIS rather relies on booby traps or other scorched earth type techniques.
Basically several bulls went through the China shop. The US precision (either in guided or digitally aided) fires certainly did some damage, but it's a bit obtuse to pretend they made it especially bad after looking at the other actors and factors at play. -
5 hours ago, Oleksandr said:
Thank you man. Is there an option to make an automatic reload for M1 tanks?
I'll also briefly address unmanned turrets.
So my time on tanks is rapidly becoming a distant past for me, so your mileage may vary, however:
1. The advantage to the autoloader is size, not performance. Having the fourth crewman was very useful for a variety of reasons, and it was a superior way to service the gun (the ROF is overrated though, in practice a tank will never fire anywhere near "rapidly" simply because it has to acquire targets, and the delay in shooting is usually "finding target" vs prepping the gun tasks). He also was very handy if there was a fault (we had a gunnery were the breach kept getting stuck not fully closed, on a tank with an autoloader, we'd have been a firepower kill not mission capable, or only capable if the gunner/commander manual actuated the breach, with the loader, he just hooked up a little tool designed for such occasions, and manually operated the breach with no loss of ROF or capability). The only time I see an autoloader making sense over the current human loader is if we start talking about much larger gun rounds (like 140 MM) simply because it'll be beyond the ability of a normal human to load.
2. I'm opposed to the unmanned turret for the same reason. The undeniable advantage is having a smaller turret, although you'll still need some volume to allow the gun to depress to a reasonable degree), but I really don't like the idea of the turret effectively sealed and inaccessible. There's a lot of systems on a turret that without either a human to fix them, or a fairly direct mechanical backup renders the tank totally inoperable. A loss of the gunner's primary optics, the autoloader, turret drive, or even just a jam in the coaxial weapon all mean the tank is either done, cannot perform combat missions, or requires pulling the tank back to dismount and work on it.
It's not just armor or firepower, it's being able to manage damage, or degraded system and continue the fight. Automation is good as a starting point, but there's a reason why we trained using the various mechanical backups, and why the true judge of a crew wasn't at fully mission capable, but instead how it operated when things broke.
I've seen enough go weird on otherwise fully functional tanks to really feel foolish making a lot of those systems inaccessible in normal operations, or eliminating redundant mechanical systems. -
On 12/12/2017 at 11:45 PM, DougPhresh said:
The Americans might’ve saved 15 years and a lot of money if they just bought LAVs in the first place.
If the SBCT was just a fleet of wheeled armored vehicles, then you'd have a point. As the case was it was an entire Brigade built around a variety of information age innovations that have since trickled over the fence into ABCT/IBCT (it's worth keeping in mind the SBCT as a paper concept predates the entire BCT construct, and in many ways served as it's model).
Also the LAV platform for a variety of reasons served as a good launching point, but ultimately the platform just isn't the same as a Stryker.
Re: Topic
A bit late to the party but it's comparing apples to electron flux capacitors. You can't eat the electron flux capacitor, you can't go back in time and almost seduce your own mother with the apple. IFVs have a distinct role as an element of the combined arms fight. Wheeled APCs like the Stryker have their own distinct mission. There's some overlap between the two, but again this gets to the reality that the Stryker does not look like a Bradley because it doesn't have the same mission set/design considerations so of course it's going to be "different"
Re: Dragoon
It's not a bad idea. In a lot of places the 105 MM is too much gun, and the low ammo capacity is a hindrance on extended missions. The 105 MM does have a bit more anti-armor capacity...but the anti-armor for an SBCT unit comes more from ATGMs than the MGS vehicles anyway. 30 MM is more handy for most situations, and the fact it doesn't require a highly specialized vehicle is pretty cool too. -
There is no chance of the US operating an updated M60, full stop. Our stocks of the tank were eliminated either through scrapping or selling them off as surplus. There's also more than enough M1A1s, or earlier run M1A2s to go around.
The various fancy M60 options exist entirely for other users. It isn't a "waste" in the sense most tank users aren't going toe to toe with ultra modern MBTs, they're shooting it out with insurgents, or they're worried about neighbors with M48s/T-55s/whatever, so a lower capability tank with modest upgrades makes sense in this context. -
2 hours ago, cbennett88 said:
Ahhhh...you going to have to show me some proof for that. I have been "arguing" on here for awhile that until CM:BS adds a module that brings the Israelis into the mix, all arguments about APS being realistically deployed by the vehicles in the game are worthless. Show me ANY other military that has operationally DEPLOYED APS on their combat vehicles? NOT "in testing" or "soon to be added". The US Army has been "promising" to buy a system for years...and yet we still aren't any closer than "in testing"!
Here is my proof..."The service made a decision to buy Trophy for Abrams on Sept. 29, Dean said, and now the Army is moving out to deploy the systems to Europe by 2020."
"...deploy the system...by 2020" ...is NOT a valid argument that the US(or any side) should have it available in the game that we have been playing for the past couple of years. It is also why you won't ever see me "buy" APS for my vehicles during QB. I am not faulting the game designers for including it when they created the game(~2015 I think) because it probably seemed like the sort of development that the US military(and the Russians) would have recognized as needed. But people keep forgetting that military procurement is "glacially SLOW!!"
So...just like the back-n-forth on whether the Armata should be included next...until someone shows me pics of an operational unit (say company size or up) in the US military that has APS installed...I'm going to say "NO WAY!"
P.S. I double checked on the US Marine Corps b/c I know sometimes they "cut through red tape" quicker, but "no" they haven't purchased it operationally yet either.
http://defense-update.com/20160415_army-marine-corps-want-to-test-israels-trophy-aps-again.html
Trophy is an off the shelf systems that was included because the US Army has a history of buying COTS type systems on fairly short notice to make up for perceived shortfalls (see MRAPS, or just how many wizzbang odd little gadgets made it to Iraq), or even pushing "green suit" programs hard and fast for same (see the 1990 M1A1HA upgrades completed in theater). It wasn't really an unreasonable assumption made two years prior to the game's events, and as we are seeing it is both technically feasible, and within the ability of the US military to procure such a system. Given the possible high intensity conflict with Russia on the horizon vs an abstract in the scenario, again, it's not an unreasonable leap.
There's a bunch of stuff in-game for all countries that has yet to happen (large scale APS fielding being a big one) and stuff that likely will never happen (XM25 large scale fielding, T-90AM, Oplots, etc, etc).
Battlefront made a fairly educated guess in where equipment might be in a few years. It also made a few jumps to flesh out the Russians and Ukrainians, but no jumps into absurdity (T-90AM being almost absurd, but I think it was worthwhile in the same way CMBS's T-90s were).
Armatas are a whole other beast though in having unknown capability, final configuration, fielding, etc, etc, etc.
If I had to backseat drive the CMBS development/DLCs though:
1. On top of whatever comes along (USMC, VDV, whatever), having a "as they actually were" MTOE for the units already in the game. This would only include equipment in service 2017 to basically let us play it out without APS, LWRs on vehicles that do not have them right now, no T-90AMs, BMP-3s, Oplots etc. It wouldn't be absolutely effortless, but it doesn't seem to demand a lot of modeling nearly as much as a few formations assembled from existing assets, and some minor unit behavior changes. Possibly having it as a setting in the lobby for multiplayer would be good to ensure no sneaky unit selections.
2. Including some lower capability options for all parties involved. Like for tanks, including M1A2 SEP v2s without ERA fit (as ERA is something that totally is done, and has been done, but it's not part of the basic vehicle) and some M1A1SAs (there's a few still kicking around in the National Guard) would give some choices as far as having a narrower gap between US and RU equipment. And on the other end of the spectrum, the Russian tank force still relies on a lot of older tanks that are more on par with the Ukrainian forces. Same deal could be done for IFVs (non-ERA M2A3s, modernized M2A2s, etc) -
23 minutes ago, Machor said:
What I've found from some quick searches suggests that it's not NATO, but specifically US technological superiority. The Russian sights are supposedly based on the Thales Catherine [This article offers good information, but I've checked out a WOT thread as well: "French eyes for a Russian tiger," "Enjoyed an old T-90 vs M1A1 Topic"], which can scan in either the LWIR or the MWIR band [https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/defence/long-range-thermal-imagers-catherine-fc-gfc-xp-mp-ez-ws ]. The Yanks had developed sights that could scan simultaneously in both bands way back in 2006, and you can check out Table 1 on page 7 to see how superior they are to scanning in a single band: "3RD GENERATION THERMAL IMAGER SENSOR PERFORMANCE" https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjljfOiy_bWAhVM_WMKHWwjChMQFghRMAs&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fget-tr-doc%2Fpdf%3FAD%3DADA481411&usg=AOvVaw0YWHjpQ5ZGowvoat5Boga8
In that same document, check out Figure 1 on page 2 to see how much thermals get degraded in sandstorms and fog. Also, as indicated in Table 1, "Wet Targets" minimize the advantage of Yank sights; specifically: "Next was wet targets. Wet targets in wet backgrounds in the IR are challenging because they have low contrast and markedly different emissivity and reflectivity characteristics than when dry. The goal here was to investigate the impact of naturally occurring wetting, e.g., heavy rainfall, in the MWIR and LWIR, and so NVESD collected imagery of a variety of wet targets and backgrounds after a heavy rainfall." (p. 6).
Time to experiment with weather settings.
RE: US technological superiority
Some of it is US specific. However someone who was much more of a thermal nerd than I would EVER aspire be to me went on at length about how some of it is just computational side stuff. Like French non-export thermals while behind US optics, are still vastly superior to the models provided to the Russians, basically beyond sensitivity and into the ability to keep resolution while in motion or something.
Re: Weather
I'm not sure how valid some of those statements are. Like we shot gunnery in absolute pea soup in Korea, and conducted operations in monsoon weather and while some things were harder to see (the absolutely soaked plywood targets did not heat up as well on the warming pads, so they were dimmer), things like personnel or vehicles were still highly visible.
In any event if it degraded the US thermals, it degraded our partner's optics more, and eyeball spotting was even worse. So I'm not really sure there's a minimizing effect as much as the US sensors lose some of their very long range advantage, but they're still able to see long after other sensors are effectively blinded. -
32 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Many thanks.
What are the wonks with Armata that you mention?
1. Russian industrial capacity is feces. It's using technology the rest of the world's manufacturing base would consider comically obsolete, grossly inefficient labor practices, and is still basically reliant on foreign sourced parts or designs for most of it's modern electronics. The current Armatas are basically bespoke, hand built from customized parts vs produced on an industrial scale. Even beyond the tank itself....there's a lot of hurdles to overcome in making them when they're ready for production.
2. Without getting into a lot of detail, the Armata assumes a lot of risk in including stuff that the Russians haven't done yet (or have been historical Russian weaknesses, like computing/sensors), or no one has seriously done yet. This makes for a more complex environment in which there are several areas that can full stop put the tank into development hell/hiatus.
3. The Russian economy is still poor/weak. This is something that will need to be worked around. An interesting conjecture is that a program that's selling point was to generate a common set of vehicles that will replace/most?/many of Russia's armored vehicle fleet loses a lot of it's value if it simply introduces a whole line of vehicles with zero parts commonality with systems that will still be in service for 20+years.
4. There's a surprising number of upgrades being offered for Russian domestic use on tanks. It's almost like there's something wrong with the heir apparent no?
5. Russian strategic posturing is more indicative of a limited conventional arm to exploit gains made using unconventional/informational/political domain activities. Basically what you need Russian tanks to do is win a fight against a Latvia that somehow no longer has NATO defenders (or win quickly against a indecisive and distracted NATO). The Armata is not this sort of tank, and is of questionable "value" in terms of what Russia realistically needs armor for.
Basically it's a tank Russia is hard pressed to build in quantity, taking a very risky development cycle, with budget constraints, with better/cheaper alternatives, that's not well suited to Russian defense needs.
I don't think it'll ever get canceled entirely, but it's value is more in giving this impression of an unstoppable Russian bear vs going to war against the HATO dogs. -
Re: Loader spotting
For spotting, he's not as useful. If the tank is buttoned up, then he's got a small simple periscope to look out that's now largely masked by the loader's protective armor. Even before this armor was installed it was a pretty bad periscope. Unbuttoned he's really useful for the obvious reasons though, and his M240 usually mounts a thermal optic at least (same as dismounted M240 type).Oddly enough, the driver is a very useful spotter when not hull down. The driver's thermal optics are higher quality than most Russian gunner's optics (less zoom, but better resolution/thermal definition by far), and because he's reliably watching the "12" he'll often call off targets presenting in front of the tank if the gunner and commander are off looking at the flanks.
Re: Spotting advantage
The big advantages for the US are as follows:
1. With Russian sensors, you can have resolution or draw speed, not both. Basically they see fairly well while stationary, but once you start "scanning" with them it gets blurry fast. Additionally they have much less sensitivity between temperature gradients, so it sees "hot" or "cold" but not "hot, fairly hot, pretty hot I guess, tepid coffee, somewhat cold, a bit chilly, and right cold then." This makes a difference in that there's plenty of heat radiating surfaces (rocks, metal, animals, etc). Something with poor thermal sensitivity will give you basically a field of glowy stuff on a hot day. This contrasts with the US type optics that'll give you the lines on camo patterns on a good day (lighter/darker paint retains heat differently).
2. Simply put the US armor mounts more of the qualitatively better sensors.
Re: Armata
Hell no. I'm willing to accept some leaps, but right now there's enough wonky with that program to make the F-35 look like the model of rapid procurement and fielding. -
13 hours ago, BTR said:
Eh, the APS are to be mounted on SEP v2s atm as they'll be running alongside the projected v3 upgrades in 2020+. So we can skip low profile :D.
Depends. If we're pushing tanks to depot there's reason to do more upgrades at once vs less. Also if we're doing what has been done historically, taking mothballed earlier model Abrams, and rebuilding them with all the upgrades, again there's not much logic to not going all-in on the upgrade package.
With that said, If I had to guess the push will be the initial fielding as a plug and play separate item vs a fixed part of the tank. This is basically how the TUSK was fielded, and would stretch as smaller number of COTS APS type systems over the tank fleet while a more lasting system is either fielded, or at the least, US adapted and adopted Trophy fielding. -
On 9/28/2017 at 4:49 AM, c3k said:
Concrete bombs are not something which are really effective compared to HE filled bombs. Sure, the concrete bombs limit collateral damage...from the media, but then so would NOT dropping a bomb. The CEP of modern US weaponry is admirable. However, using an inert bomb to plink a truck is betting that the CEP is <.5m. That's a tight target. And, if it DOES hit, the odds of survivors is pretty good.
Is it good at demoing a building? Sure. Not AS good as an HE bomb. So, the question is, why demo a building? Oh...because there are bad guys inside it. The objective is to kill them, not necessarily knock down the building. (May be a nice benefit to prevent future use.) If there's no enemy in/near the building, get a bulldozer or have some engineers emplace some explosives. No, the only reason an aircraft gets called to drop ordnance on a building is because of who is in the building. A 2000lb bomb (filled with HE) with a delay fuse will do far more reliable damage than any concrete filled bomb.
A-10: great aircraft. However, the current USAF mindset is that fast beats low. A-10 at treetop height (and lower) is great, but a 600 knot run-in is better...for survivability. Target-wise, the A-10 is more effective. Hence the push for data-links, precision munitions, off-board cuing, etc. These are all needed to allow a fast-mover to have a reasonable chance at getting a hit. After being spotted, an aircraft survives by using its maneuverability. The best maneuverability occurs at the highest g-load at the slowest speed. A 9g turn is better than a 3g turn...at the same speed. Is it sustainable? Does a 9g/450knot turn give tighter radius than a 3g/250knot turn? Keep working those numbers and compare an A-10 envelope to an F16/18. Then, toss in the low-observable (and low bomb-load) of an F35. Shrug. That, at least, is the USAF outlook and why they keep trying to kill the A10.
Missing the point. We're dealing with enemies who consider damage to civilian infrastructure/dead civilians to be valuable for propaganda purposes, or know that we are reluctant to engage high value targets if they're in proximity to sensitive locations. The concrete bombs started off as a way to literally smash Iraqi anti-aircraft weapons that were being put near schools or hospitals. Using the concrete bomb is also useful for suppressive effects in fighting in an urban environment. Sure, it didn't kill everyone in the target building, but they're not really fighting so well trying to dig themselves out/deal with the roof falling in on them, and the lack of blast radius allows such weapons to be fired supremely danger close.
So yeah, if you have to kill it, MK84 to your door. But kill/don't kill isn't the only consideration in modern warfare. -
7 hours ago, Erwin said:
"You also often don't want a 1000lb warhead going off in a dense urban environment (hence the concrete bombs)."
Interesting... I always thought they were only for target practice. What sort of "blast" does a concrete bomb cause?
Also, wuz chatting to an AF guy and had the impression that the A-10 could withstand 20mm.
It's no blast, just a few hundred pounds of concrete falling at terminal velocity has interesting effects on things. It'll compromise building structural integrity in lots of places in the world, most vehicles will not handle it especially well, etc.
As to aircraft armor, or any vehicle armor, it's not something you really want to test. Like the A-10 has a much higher chance of returning after getting hit by a burst of 23 MM than say, an F-16. But it'll still likely be not mission capable upon return.
Armor is basically "if this doesn't work right" mitigation vs something you plan around using. While I was a tanker, we never sat down and considered letting the enemy get a shot in at us as really desirable, as much as the risks if our plan wasn't totally successful at suppressing/killing the enemy and they were able to engage, the odds of it being a mission stopper were a lot lower than on a lighter vehicle. -
40 minutes ago, Erwin said:
How would all those be stored and kept safe from pre-emptive strike, but at same time easy to launch?
Tomahawks are ship and submarine launched, the land based units were retired at the end of the Cold War. The launching ships could be in Turkish or Polish waters and range most of the Ukraine from my beer math, which given current US deployments to the Med or Northern Atlantic wouldn't be too difficult to task.
Which is to say, the Russian capability to go after US Naval vessels, especially ones within NATO controlled waters, often behind NATO controlled land/air space would be challenging. This would also mean rearming underway would be done in normally "safe" waters.
The US managed to put 802 Tomahawks into Iraq in 2003. It would be pretty sporty to be a high value Russian target in the Ukraine. -
20 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:
Its hard for me to se any form of authority, in someone who is linking to a cartoon.
Video game.
And it's simply the degree of maturity I see as required to deal with this conversation.
To elaborate more on the NTC:
The US Army rotates Brigades through one of several "CTC" sites. For the Active component this is generally the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California (howling open terrible desert), or the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fork Polk in Louisiana (a lovely swamp). Many National Guard and Reserve units rotate through these training areas to varying degrees (more often they will augment Active component units over completely guard Brigades going to NTC, but it is certainly not unheard of) There are other sites that can host similar rotations (Yakima Training Center is popular for this), but NTC and JRTC are the sites that 100% full time are dedicate to the CTC mission.
In a nutshell one of these training rotations is intended to exercise the entire Brigade from top to bottom. This is inclusive to the point of "deploying" the unit in the sense of arranging the logistics of getting a Armored Brigade out of Georgia to California (so basically across the whole continent). What makes the training unique is that it's not scripted to a large degree, basically the opposing force element is a garrison unit to Fort Irwin/Fort Polk who's only job is to fight and win against the training unit. They have literally all the advantages. They know the terrain, they know how to cheat (and are often encouraged to do so) have capabilities well beyond what our opposition is capable of. The training is observed by a collection of full time "observer controllers" and midgrade to senior Officers and NCOs from other units, and then the after effects of each major event are rather ruthlessly dissected and examined for how to do it "better."
The training unit rarely wins. If the training unit does "win" in the initial fight, about 20 minutes later the opposing force is back/the training unit's artillery is "destroyed" and all the friendly aviation is grounded. The whole point is to push until the unit in training isn't capable of going any further, then figuring out what to do at that point of failure, and then often rolling right into doing it again.
There's also usually a week rolling into that mess that's less "24-7" and more focused on discrete events (live fires, squad-platoon level lanes) but needless to say it's brutal, and a level of realism (indeed, steps well beyond what a realistic threat is!) I have yet to encounter in any other country's exercises.
So yeah. Not exactly seeing the lack of training focus on conventional threats here. -
2 hours ago, Armorgunner said:
Except for not having any form of APS. I dont think the problem is really coming down to budget.
In theory, you can make your tank protected from all threats. From all aspects. The problem is, that that tank. Wount be mobile. And you already have one such tank. Its called NORAD, in the Cheyenne Mountains. And it is still trying to move from Colorado spring without success.
what i mean was that the 20 years of uncon warfare, maybe. Has colored of, in the places you put the armor on. With about the same weight on two tanks. And one has much better side armor. It probably sacrificed armor on some other part of the whehicle.
In regards to APS:
The US has had a long running APS program that hasn't delivered yet. It is deeply budgetary as it became second or third priority to counter-IED problems. As the case is now the way ahead looks more like:
1. Acquire an interim fielding "off the shelf" APS to improve protection in the near term (Trophy is being tested by both the Army and Marine Corps at this time).
2. Continue to pursue the "quick-kill" APS system which offers a much better standoff and some other interesting capabilities to maturity before fielding
As to "sacrificing armor" on other parts of the vehicle, I originally typed "you are an idiot" here but that was impolite.
The "COIN" armor package for the M1 consisted of the "TUSK" armor, which was provided as a kit that could be added, and removed from tanks as required, without impacting the base vehicle (in theory it could be mounted to any M1A1 1988 edition on, and every M1A2). It included a "boat hull" strapon armor array to better protect the lower hull from mines, protective shields for the commander/loader's hatches, and ERA arrays. Some of the crew shields became standard on the late model M1A2s (mostly the loader's gun shield), and the ERA is available without the rest of the TUSK.
Basically no armor has been sacrificed anywhere. The TUSK adds a few tons to make the vehicle quite heavy, but this isn't a big problem (or basically the mine plow every fourth tank carries anyway has little performance impact, and the TUSK kit isn't much heavier than that).
So really that assertion is just silly to the point where I'm hard pressed to take you seriously.
2 hours ago, Armorgunner said:I think you are a little damaged, of fighting lowintensive wars for to long. On the march to Bagdad, you, or your supplychain was attacked exactly zero times by Iraqi interdiction aircrafts. You had 99.8% air superiority. And everything you say, i hear that you are not living in a world when that is not so.
But if we go back to "a potentional war with Russia". And you dont have 99.8% air superiority. And you in you tank potentionally can meet Ka-50 Hokum choppers. And your supplychain can be attacked by Su-24 Fencers, Su-34 Fullbacks, and heavy rocket artillery bombardment. Then maybe only 20% of the fuel might reach your unit. And if you after refuling, can drive only 40 miles, or in the Leopard case 82 Miles. With the delivered fuel. Thats not relevant to You?
Sorry going to be a little mean here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nm5jl7aM08
Firstly as to "damaged" by COIN:
I spent about four years in a Cavalry squadron (Bradley and HMMWV equipped) doing Iraq rotations. My last six-ish months there was spent building a training program to move away from an Iraq focus to preparing for conventional conflicts. I then went to our course for captains preparing to take infantry/armor company command/staff primary positions, and the additional course for cavalry troop commanders (as is common for Armor officers). This was mostly simulator/map exercises (it's not like they have companies laying around for us to command in training), of the ten scenarios we had to work with though, only two of them were "low intensity" (one being basically Grozny with Strykers so I don't think that fully counts, the other being a Battalion staff exercise focusing on relief in place/transfer of authority). Then I went to Korea where I worked as a Battalion planner getting ready for a DPRK invasion/ROK offensive north, and then as a tank company commander doing the same.
Then I left active service, working as a Brigade planner in the National Guard for a time preparing variously for my unit's "domestic" mission of disaster response, but also our templated part in a European contingency I'm not going to describe in detail. I've been "off" the combat arms trail for about 7 months now for some other reasons (I found a "fun" field to work in within the Guard, and I'm too senior to do much of the combat arms stuff I liked, so less appeal there), but of my "armor" time, only about four of the ten years were strongly COIN focused with the rest being very conventional focus.
So yeah I think I can speak with some authority here in regards to "conventional" conflict.
The push to Baghdad had plenty of attacks, and hangups. More interestingly though it was only possible through a massive logistical thrust of the type that literally no one else on earth can do. Which is part of the reason I eyeroll so hard when people talk about some massive Russian offensive simply because their logistics are comically inept/corrupt/inefficient/not up to the task. In Korea we practiced a lot of stuff intended to make it difficult to engage our logistical elements difficult to acquire, engage or even locate. The same goes for NTC/JRTC rotations in that the logistics elements like see more combat than the units they're supporting.
Firstly if the Russians are destroying all but 20% of my fuel, then we're done anyway. No logistics chain, combat unit, whatever can survive 80% losses. Secondly if it's coming down to a 40 mile radius of action then I'm boned.
Like, if I'm at 50% fuel (or ammo, "class I" etc) I'm already well into "resupply immediately" realms. Which is getting to the silliness of the noble last 40 KM of Leopard 2 roadmarching, basically if it's coming down to the last fuel in the bottom of the tank you're already into the realm of "welcome to defeat, population you."
Basically you're describing the Russians accomplishing a level of interdiction the US military would consider a profound and massive success beyond our wildest expectations, using less resources, less capable platforms, while fighting the largest air force in the world, a wide variety of over the horizon threats, etc, etc.
As to "Red Air," NTC gives every advantage to the enemy. Like in so many words, we get to fight as if we're not backed up by the world's largest air arm, but there's a lot of absurdity to the idea of SU-24s really getting much mileage (between AWACs vectored F-22s, F-15s, and then PATRIOT, basically if the USAF's odds of getting a F-16 over Russian formations is low in a high intensity war, the Russian Air Force's odds are not even measurable at that point).
Re: BATTLE PRIUS
Funny story. I responded to a wild fire as part of my duties in the National Guard (basically as a liaison to the civilians in charge of the fire fighting/officer in charge for the National Guard assets deployed to that particular complex of fires). I was given a rental car to get to the fire area and to do whatever driving I needed in the area.
I was given a Prius to this end. And boy let me tell you, my confidence in my survival was not that great. About a week in I wrote "DERP" (Disaster, Emergency, Response, Prius) in the ashes that had accumulated on the car and simply accepted that at least it wasn't the Fiat the Prius had been parked next to at the rental lot. -
Re: Flaming Abrams
There were a few issues with the early models. One of the big problems I already mentioned was the fuel and smoke generator not cooperating.
As a possible correction, it might have been a JP8 problem though. Again keep in mind I was 7 for the 1991 conflict, so a lot of the early Abrams stuff is just what I've read/stories from my crustier counterparts. Having talked to a few dinosaur tankers recently, it appears the US Army used diesel with the Abrams not at all infrequently in the 1980's to no special ill effects. With that said, the JP8 we use now has a higher ignition threshold, so unlike the diesel which would smolder on the smoke generator, the JP8 would just splash onto the heating element and slosh around, which could have been a hazard at a later date.
As to the case of 500 fires, doubtless some of them were constructive losses, but the high number can be deceiving. Or basically the system for tracking automotive incidents doesn't have a "small fire" or "big fire" box, it has a "fire" option. Like one of my tanks caught fire, but it was an electrical short the fire suppression system handled it, and the tank would have been mission capable had it happened in combat. But because there was a fire, it was treated much the same as if the tank had actually burned (but not burned to destruction).
The Thunder Run Abrams that burned took a recoiless rifle hit to the aft. This did not disable the tank automotively, but it did result in an extensive fuel leak that dumped fuel onto the very hot engine surfaces. The fire suppression system knocked out the fire, but it couldn't cool off the engine, or stop the leak, and repeated efforts to stem the fuel leak failed (although the fire was "put out" several times over, only to reignite). The choice was made to abandon the tank to keep the rest of the element from getting fixed in place and massed on, and it proved as is common with the Abrams, frustratingly hard to destroy.
On 9/6/2017 at 2:57 PM, Armorgunner said:First of, I made it like a question. Could it stop 30, 40, or 100mm APFSDS, Right? Not that 30mm fire would suck in there and kill it?
And i dont really care, about your low intencive wars since after GW1. My only thinking is what happens when we meet Russia, in a high intencive war. When total airsupremacy might not be. And you might encounter capable enemys at all ranges.
And since i´m very familiar with the disignchoises of the M1 to. I also knows the pros, and cons with the design. As with the Leopard. The design is the same today, even though the armored modules is better.
And even if the Russians of today, to my knowledge. Dont have any topattack at-missiles. They do have been known to extensive use of topattack artilleryfired bomblets in the Ukraine, from time to time. Even though that has nothing to do with the gap in frontal protection. It might show that the US have been to busy, fighting lowintensive wars for to Long. Neglecting more advanced modern threats?
Now, dont missunderstand me. We are on the same side. And my wish is that the US armed forces is at peak performance level. Since you are the only credible help we might hopening to recive, maybe with a little help from GB and Germany. If Russia decides to take the Baltics, and thereby needs the Swedish Island of Gotland. For example.
The implication is that there is a big weak spot in that region. My instructors, and subordinates pulled no punches about places on the Abrams that were weaknesses and to be kept away from the enemy, or to be aware of. I know people who've lost crewmen or tanks. The "weak spot" you mentioned has never came up again, outside of internet speculation. Maybe the armor there is actually weak, but the small practical side of the low armor area is just hard to actually get at. I don't know, but again, there's just no "evidence" there's an especially weak area in that region, and the Abrams has been pretty extensively destructively tested in multiple settings.
As to "not really caring" about low intensity, I'm sorry but clearly you're not paying attention to armor operations.
a. The most likely setting for most tanks to be employed will be in a situation short of "full spectrum" conflicts. How well an AFV performs in a asymmetrical conflict is profoundly important.
b. Even an enemy who's less capable, but very motivated to kill you will find a way to test your systems. Just because a test set doesn't exactly mirror what you're looking for, doesn't mean discarding it is a wise choice.
As to "neglecting modern threats" not so much. It might have been the case closer to 2011-2012, but the last few years have seen a renewed focus on what the Army calls "full spectrum" conflicts (basically a recognition of Russian hybrid warfare, the entire range from unconventional/terrorist type fighters working on the same battlefield or in conjunction with near-peer adversary forces). There's a certain understanding and much discussion of Russian capabilities.
Basically when you do a training rotation (tabletop/computer to NTC/JRTC/YTC type rotations), you're facing a fictional version of the Russians that literally have all the advantages. All their stuff works exactly as advertised. They have effectively infinite logistics, can afford to lose 70% of every airframe, tank, naval asset without suffering any political repercussions etc.
You get to show up, and you'll get your teeth kicked in over and over again until you've ironed out all the kinks. It's a profoundly frustrating experience, but it's a lot of learning to be done.
In technical terms, we're cooking up some interesting stuff. A lot of it isn't the kind of stuff you put on a parade and need to tow off when it breaks down, but there's a recognition of Russian strengths and weaknesses, and our deterrence options have evolved accordingly. Some of that might be the fairly modest stuff about better recognizing Russian influence/unconventional conflict indicators, and adapting law enforcement behaviors accordingly, some of that is crazy weirdo over the horizon stuff that if it was Russian would have been furiously masturbated over by that lame James May knockoff they use for their RT programming.
On 9/6/2017 at 2:36 PM, Armorgunner said:I Think you missed my Point totally here. This is what i wrote:
"And that might not seem to be a problem in Peace, and in a war when you are in Control of what is happening. But in an allout war, when your supplychain is britteling, that can be of most importence"
And thats only when the big difference in fuel consumption, really kicks in as a gamechanger.
As already discussed, the big fuel suck isn't tanks and tanks alone, it's mechanized/motorized unit on a whole. If your logistics cannot support mechanized/motorized units, then yeah maybe skip out on the M1. Or the Leo 2. Or just tanks in general. But in practice the Bradley and M1 both required about the same amount of logistics push on the march to Baghdad, which opens interesting questions about just how relevant the on-paper fuel consumption/testing circumstances are.
-
5 hours ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:
Some interesting thoughts on he Abrams engine issue here - although the military professionals here will probably know all of this already
http://g2mil.com/abramsdiesel.htm
Nthing the "Sparky is an idiot" line of discussion. Addendum to points:
1. It's worth keeping in mind that while the Abrams burns more fuel to do it, it does have a similar radius of action to other tanks thanks to larger fuel tanks. Sparky's contention that the tanks halted in 1991 because of gas turbine fuel consumption would be wrong. Diesel tanks would have had to have stopped to fuel too around the same time, they'd just have had a slightly longer fueling period (slightly. It's not like it takes an hour to fuel a tank or something).
2. Utterly stupidly irrelevant. Any engine is going to glow pretty good, along with the tracks, and modern thermals will pick up the difference in heat raditating from different colors of camouflage.
3. There's an infantry phone on the back of most Abrams now, and we used to stand in front of the exhaust pretty often on cold days or if we were wet. Basically it's like a massive hair dryer in terms of comfort level. Which is to say unless you're willing to characterize a hair dryer as death ray, not exactly a valid point. The reason not to ride the tank has more to do with the fact the only really safe place to ride on the Abrams is on top, and dismounting in a hurry from that high up in full battle rattle is risky in terms of causing injury.
4. It is expensive. So were the Bradley power packs, etc, etc, etc. That said, of course the engine is going to account for a lot of the maintenance costs. It's where most of the moving pieces are, high temperatures, etc, etc. A tank might make it all the way to the scrap yard with most of the "Systems" original, but engines break and wear out. Fact 'o life. -
2 hours ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:
Thanks for the info on fuel. What, in your professional opinion, would happen to the gas turbine engine if you tried to run it on diesel fuel? Maybe you could get away with it once but, as you say. the Australians found hat they required increased servicing
Regarding the T-14 budget, as we both agree is likely to be the issue for the Russians https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/14/russias-t-14-armata-tank-may-feature-a-fatal-flaw.aspx
Likely the result might be smaller high tech tank fleets. In 2014, after budget cuts. Britain only had 227 Challenger II
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/british-army-has-just-227-tanks-left-after-spending-cuts-1442463
The diesel doesn't burn as cleanly. It means you need to clean out the engine more often. I wasn't a tank mechanic, and worked more with the doctrine and the "tank as a tool" vs "tank as machine" element, but there was no problem running the tank on diesel beyond the simple fact it needed the periodic engine tear down more often to keep everything ship shape.
So in game terms if I had to fight my company off of diesel fuel for the duration of operations in the Ukraine, it'd have about zero effects in that 1-4 month window. The Australians opted o run their tanks hard, on diesel, and for budgetary reasons chose not to do the more frequent periodic maintenance, in addition to being new to the platforms and suffered as a result.
As to the T-14, a overall smaller tank fleet is possible but doesn't seem to match Russian strategic intentions or posturing. It seems likely a large mechanized army is part of their doctrine and posture for some time to come. Unless we see a mass scrapping/conversion of mechanized to motorized units/units being closed I think the most likely COA is continued T-72/T-90 upgrades, a very small "prestige" amount of T-14s (see KA-50/Russian fighter jet procurement for a good example of this), and continued saber rattling. -
25 minutes ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:
I guess it depends how good he much hyped T-14 turns out to be. As you say though actually building a new tank now probably isn't a good idea. But we should a last be thinking about it on the drawing boards, Maybe the next tank would be designed around lasers/particle beam weapons or, as you say, rail guns. Likely this technology is some way off yet though
The current technology curve indicates the T-14 is not going to make it in numbers, as described. Basically if there were several T-14 equipped Brigades right now, working as advertised it might be interesting. But again as of right now, they're parade floats. Interesting additional caveats:
1. The Armata program was supposed to replace several different vehicle fleets in their entirety. This was part of the economics argument for a mass overhaul. It looks like the procurement will be much slower, and there's lot of legacy programs that need replacement right now though. This opens an interesting question to if the Russians will basically have to focus on updating their current fleet...or will have to move ahead with replacement at the expense of keeping a large amount of the Russian Army on BMP-2s and T-72s into the 2030 range.2. There's a distinct lack of progress in the industrial situation in terms of actually producing the T-14, and a lot of the technology for it still relies on imports. Arguably it'd have almost made sense to instead skip the whole T-14 business, focus on T-90 upgrades, while working on building the basis to actually build domestic high technology vehicles.
31 minutes ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:Probably for the same reason that running your car (regularly) on the wrong type of fuel is also a sub optimal decision
As Apocal has pointed out:
1. JP8 is the fuel the US Army. If the US Army is out of JP8, then something likely is wrong to the degree that fueling tanks is a secondary concern.
2. The Abrams does JP8, other avgas, kerosene based fuels, conventional gasoline pretty well. Diesel or less refined products have the following caveats:
a. The Abrams used to have a smoke generator that was run by basically pouring fuel onto a heated surface. This has been disabled because diesel does not smoke properly or burn completely in the smoke generator area, leaving a possible fire hazard (or at the least, fuel outside the engine system).
b. Extended diesel operations basically lower the mean time between services requirement. This isn't "I drove the tank on diesel once and now I need to tear it down!" it's "I should do the annual services as a biannual as a preventative measure." I believe this is one of the issues the Australians ran into with their Abrams fleet, they basically ONLY ran on diesel, without the accompanying increase in services.
In terms of combat operations, we fully anticipated being able to basically loot fuel if required (or, if there was someone at the service station they'd get a receipt, and assuming the second Korean War didn't kill them they could make a claim later). With that said, the use of JP8 as a primary fuel is about as valid as claiming the Russian use of fuel in general is a mistake, and not having wood burning tanks (no need for fuelers! Issue axes and buckets! Steam worked for the railroads!) is a critical error. -
3 hours ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:
Yes I have heard of these issues as well. The reliance on aviation fuel and the high fuel consumption rates are certainly problems. Of more concern however is whether the Abrams can continue to retain its' lead given technological developments in gunnery, armour and ATGMs. What happens when Russia develops top attack capable missiles or instance? Trophy and similar point defense systems will help but sooner or later Abrams will meet its' natural limits. This might not be a problem now but i a couple of decades this will likely change. Given the time it takes to develop a new MBT thinking about what will be needed in he 2030s or 2040s is clearly a good idea. It is also possible that the Russians or Chinese make a technological breakthrough sooner than that
1. The ATG1500 will run on pretty much anything that'll burn. From aviation fuel, to regular gasoline, diesel, kerosene etc, etc. It's actually one of the advantages of the engine in that regard.
2. In terms of technical leads, one of the problems is in general, the state of the art hasn't advanced much on a whole. Basically if there's a technical breakthrough than yes a new tank would be wise, but right now without that technical breakthrough there's no sense to building something completely new (or rather, maybe the next technical breakthrough is rail guns, and the entire tank will have to be designed around heat sinks, separate drive and "power" plants, or it'll be in using some crazy armor array that the entire vehicle will need to be designed from scratch for).
Again, people are working on these things, just it's not exactly the kind of thing shouted from rooftops. -
13 hours ago, Armorgunner said:
Every modern tank, has big gaps in frontal armor protection. If you deny that, you just make youself look stupid. When we (Sweden) bought new tanks in the mid 90´s, the last, and best conteders where the Leo 2i, the Leclerc, and the M1A2 (export armor) The target was that the tank with a Swedish made addon armor, would have protection against the highest threats at that time in 70% of the frontal 30 degree aspect. With the Swedish addonarmor, the M1A2 was 50% more protected, than the original one (export armor). But the Leo 2 with the Swedish addonarmor was the best protected tank in the competition.
For political reasons, we could not buy DU rounds. But since our otherwise politicaly neutralness, we where not bound to buy ammo from a specific country. So after comperehensive testing. We bought the best 120mm non DU ammo at the time, from Israel. Since i am not in the military any more, since about 15 years. I dont know where the ammo of today is from.
But offcorse, the pyrophoric effects after penetration with a DU round, you cant get with a tungsten penetrator. Even if you can get to the same level of penetration.
Every tank has vulnerable spots within it's frontal arc. That said, your contention is there's an especially big one on the Abrams that's just asking to suck down 30 MM fire for a vehicle kill. My contention is that no such special gap exists, and having been shot at extensively, and having had several major overhauls, nothing that been done to adjust the described gap. The only place I've seen people claiming that gap is a real thing to kill Abrams from the frontal has been Russian trollposting, and repeating of said trollposting.
I worked around Abrams for most of my active military career. I'm pretty familar with the places not to be shot. While I wouldn't like to get hit anywhere on the tank, I revert to my bear analogy. It's distinctly possible that if you could somehow get a round into that gap, you might be able to exploit it. However, getting that round there apparently is an uncommon enough event to as to be unheard of.
So as to your contention, again I'm doubtful about this "big gap" and "Achilles Heel" thing.
12 hours ago, Armorgunner said:Worth noting is, the fuel consumtion. Even though it not has anything to do with the armor.
M1A2: 148 Liter/10km
Leo 2i: 72 Liter/10km
Leclerc: 138 Liter/10km
And that might not seem to be a problem in Peace, and in a war when you are in Control of what is happening. But in an allout war, when your supplychain is britteling, that can be of most impotence.
This is not the official fuelconsumption, but the actual from the Swedish comprehensive tests.
That's cool and all, but it's not really that relevant. Or at least, the assumption is somehow the Abrams is especially vulnerable to fuel shortage. My company had access to enough fuel to give each tank a little over a third of complete fuel capacity (in as far as a fueler that accompanied my company's HQ element). That was usually consumed daily (or even if wasn't consumed, we'd still do an extra top-off before sending it back), and replaced with another fueler. For longer movements, you'd have used ROMs (basically a linkup with a fueler element, sort of a fly by night gas station), but there were other sneaky stuff we'd do (a neat trick was dropping fuel blivets by helicopter) if forced.
Basically my contention is that the logistical "needs" of your tank are going to be based on the logistical capabilities of the Army it's built for.
And frankly if there's a fearsome branch to the US military, it's the logistical one (there's no many countries that can hack 150,000 soldiers over the horizon).
I don't know if I'd buy it as a foreign customer simply because the "export" armor package isn't that great, and the gas turbine is something that takes some serious dedication to use (I wouldn't have traded it for a diesel though). Also cheap Leo 2s are still a thing for reasons.
6 hours ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:thhhppppppppttttttth.
I'll worry about the Armata when it's not a parade float. We were supposed to be facing down a few Brigades of them RIGHT NOW by Russian claims/some "expert" opinions. rummit indicates technical hurdle on the production, let alone design side are going to take time to resolve, if they get resolve.
6 hours ago, LUCASWILLEN05 said:Being overly complacent is, historically, a bad idea. Arguably this is a mistake the IDF made prior to the Yom Kippur War. In consequence, while hey did still win the war they paid for it with heavy casualties. The danger is that complacency may have a similar result in the event of a war with Russia or China. There probably won't be time to upgrade the Abrams in a relatively short high intensity conflict which most people assume will be the most likely scenario.
Yes the upgrades might be enough to handle such a war but eventually the M1A2 will need to be replaced either by an M1A3 or with something else
It's not "complacent" nearly as much as okay, let's roll with this concept:
What out there right now demands a new tank?
Let's examine this quickly as I have a paper to write:
1. Protection: Abrams has one of the best passive arrays in the world. There is no better armor type currently in serious development (or at least, far enough to design an armored vehicle around) ERA, APS, are both bolt-on systems that do not require a wholly new platform. It might be possible to make a thicker array with existing technology, but an 80+ton tank is not practical.
2. Firepower: 120 MM is still the standard system. The only really likely option for a "bigger" gun would be a 140 MM system, and frankly the jury is still really far out on that. While it'd offer frankly disturbing anti-armor capability....it'd be likely half the carried rounds, would almost certainly require an autoloader (the 140 MM rounds trialed on the "thumper" prototype were almost twice as long as the M829A2). Also it'd only improve one dimension of the firepower element, anti-tank, doing little to improve any of the other performance metrics. If vastly improved armor arrays became a possible threat, revising the STAFF concept, or adopting a LAHAT with top-attack would keep the 120 MM relevant for some time to come.
3. Mobility: If the choice was made to equip the Abrams with a diesel it would not require a new hull. The rest of the automotive system is as standard for tanks at this point. Some sort of hydropneumatic suspension might be neat, but not worth a new tank/complete hull overhaul.
4. Electronics: It's been reworked a million times already. There's no need for a totally new vehicle.
There's the M1A2 SEP V3, and there is indeed a M1A3 program lurking out there. Not really complacent, as much as a lower key, less bombast preparedness compared to the coming aramamtamta T-14B42V1 Apocalypse Putin Extreme. -
2 hours ago, antaress73 said:
It's only a first batch of 100. This is not the end total . They are going to equip a brigade , learn how to use the new toy and how to integrate it ( write the tactical and operational employment manual) then make a bigger order. Though I would not expect the grand total to exceed 600-700. They can probably build 150-200 a year . These numbers are only for the T-14 MBT version.
The 2300 number probably also included the infantry version T-15 (both the IFV and APC versions , one has autocannon and kornets, the other has 12.7mm only) and the other versions for engineering vehicules, medical, anti-tank missiles vehicule , etc.. This is the grand total for the whole family of vehicles.
That's fine and all, but for some time we were all told very confidently from some circles that by the time the "war" in CMBS kicked off, there would be Armatas in battalions ready to fight.
As the case is, there might be a limited number of them available in 2-3 years. Plenty of 'freude to pass around there.
A Marine artillery battalion in Syria fired more rounds than any artillery battalion since Vietnam.
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
One of the more common tactics used by ISIS, and to a lesser extent before them, AQI is the "House Born IED" or "HBIED." There's a variety of tactics involved with it:
1. The simplest and most direct is just a conventional booby trap. ISIS does this TONS in places they are anticipating losing or placed they are evacuating. This are sort of hit/miss, the detonation means are usually mechanical which again your success rate varies, and can range anything from something designed simply to cripple/main the person who triggers it, to full stop leaves a 3 meter deep crater where the house used to be.
2. A tactic preferred during Mosul/Raqqa type fights is to strongpoint a house into a fighting position (element size is usually team or squad, but sometimes up to platoon), and then equip that building with large scale explosive devices. In urban operations, the attacker is usually obligated to clear hostile occupied structures (to make sure the folks within are really dead vs waiting for the lead elements to pass), so the structure serves the dual purpose of serving as a place to fight from, and killing enemy forces once the position is taken out/no longer tenable.
3. Sometimes buildings that offer cover within an engagement area will be rigged, so direct/indirect fire is used to force the attacking element to seek shelter near the booby trapped buildings, which are detonated when most convenient for the defender.
Beyond the structure based devices, ISIS loves vehicle borne IEDs, and many of these are quite large in terms of explosive potential.
So yeah ISIS bombed "itself" pretty often, frequently using quite large devices in urban settings.
As far as 155 MM, again while that's a lot of rounds, that's a lot of rounds spread over dozens of miles, inclusive rural targets. Without getting into a lot of detail, the US howitzers are not used for mass barrages because simply put there's not that many guns (again there was only 18 guns+crews, while guns were replaced, to the best of our knowledge there were never more than 18 firing weapons), and our Allies/"Allies" are doing the massed fires themselves.
What the US brings to the table is precision/semi-precision (or more like, guided, and highly accurate conventional fires) synced to intelligence gathering and surveillance tools well beyond what most countries are capable. What this often works out to is hitting enemy VBIED concentrations while they're massing, firing on ISIS artillery assets, killing enemy supply elements (both the more conventional truck based, but also smuggler "ratlines") or killing enemy strongpoints that are "danger close" to friendly forces. A lot of these missions/desired effects would fall more on direct fire/aviation/missiles in the historical context, but the capabilities of tube artillery have grown, and their battlefield persistence vs say, helicopters simply mean the system is getting a lot of use.