panzersaurkrautwerfer
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Posts posted by panzersaurkrautwerfer
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Russians are B team.
The mental image I find more useful for this is trench warfare. With Russian, and then the US/Ukrainian assets, the airspace on either side of the frontline is going to be supremely dangerous. The US and Russians will at the start of the campaign be largely able to defend their airspace, but will have difficulty penetrating each other's air space. The ability for aviation to mass rapidly, both for defense, and offense, and the ability for sensors to detect offensives at range all make again, some sort of truly contested situation where both sides are getting in a fair number of strikes to be very unlikely. The reality is both Russian and USAF forces will be almost entirely committed to either making the skies safe enough for operation, or denying skies to same. Until the defenses on one side are sufficiently reduced it's going to be difficult to suicidal to operate especially with the Russian generation of strike fighters.
So again, contested doesn't mean the sky is shared, it means its a battlezone where it's dangerous to everyone. And reasonably speaking given the lethality of fighting, the life expectancy of the Russian airforce as a solvent threat is pretty short. Achieving air superiority/dominance over the Russian side of the fence will take a while, but that's because SEAD is tricky, and Russia has a lot to SEAD/DEAD. Reasonably it'll be fairly safe for Blueforces to operate behind the various PATRIOT/CAP/other SAM networks, and it's doubtful that NATO would be on the offensive until the Russian forces were fairly well mauled.
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Yes. That would look bad on CNN. And as for what Russia Today would be saying I shudder to hink. Assuming it had not been taken off the air on the outbreak of war of course! :-)
Orbital bombardment? Really? :-)
It would certainly look bad, but if there's a burned out BMP in the courtyard, and wrecked Russian hardware in the pews, it rather makes it play better internationally. Russia Today is trash and I honestly don't think it has traction outside of Russians or people who think Putin is the Lord Emperor here to save them from American Jackals or something.
Re: Orbital bombardment
While not universal, I've found in some quarters that statement from the movie Aliens is often used to express the extreme end of dealing with a situation (or alternately as a "Things are messed up enough we'd be better off burning it all to the ground")
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Are the Leclercs that bad?
When I was a junior Captain and fresh back from Iraq, I got wrangled into a command post exercise to prepare our Division HQ to deploy to Afghanistan to assume control over...I think it was RC East. Dunno. I never went to Afghanistan myself and as it turned out I had precious little to do with the actual exercise. 2e Brigade Blindée would be falling under that HQ when they deployed some months later, so they actually sent a good part of their command team to Fort Riley KS to participate. one of my counterparts and I were both loaned out to the French contingent to help with helping them understand the various US systems they had to be linked in on, and explain the various Americanisms ("What is this fuel amber?" and so forth).
It was actually really good times. Towards the end we had a sort of social event, snacks were bought, booze consumed (in the middle of a duty shift no less), and I started chatting up the various officers with good English skills. Being a curious sort I couldn't help but ask various questions about their hardware. Some takeaways:
AMX-10RC: The recon guys seemed to like it lots, but the fleet was getting long in the tooth and they had a lot of "This vehicle is old" sort of maintenance issues.
Tiger/Puma: Good, so long as they're not required to fly at high elevations or hot temperatures (this was actually a problem during the exercise, that on days the computer decided were pretty hot, the French required US helicopter support because their birds couldn't fly with load).
Leclerc: Here's pretty much how the conversation went down:
CPT P. "I hear the Leclerc is quite mobile
MAJ Frenchguy "When she runs"
CPT P. "The autoloader on the Leclerc sounds most impressive"
MAJ F. "When it loads"
CPT P. "How's the optics on the Leclerc?"
MAJ F. "Quite good when they turn on"
There's more, but that's effectively the jist of everything he said about the Leclerc, was followed "When it works" or "if it <whatever it was suppposed to be good at>." Leclerc hasn't done much to give 3rd party observation, but none of the French guys I talked to seemed to regard it as reliable.
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What if it had been a hospital or a school? Or perhaps a church or a mosque? Does this make much difference in a high intensity conflict as opposed to COIN?Rules of land warfare say that a protected site loses its protective status once it is used for military purposes. If there's Russians in thar monastery-orphanage-hospital complex, it's free to be bombed to pieces.
If there was some value to the site, like beyond it just being a hospital, it was an internationally recognized center for research into curing death or something, there would be some plan to deal with it. Easiest option would be simply to bypass the site all together, and once it's surrounded start conducting tactical callouts, or blasting them with heavy metal music or something.
The way you can lose victory points for destroying a "protected" location is proper, in that it'd be a real shame if someone dusted the church, and it'll look bad on CNN, but as long as the answer to the question "was it full of Russians" was "yes" life goes on. It's important to ask as the scenario designer if the town church of whatever small town is the halfway point on their map is something that will matter in a war that's likely killing a few hundred people daily. To that end having seen some of the point values attached to "preserve" objectives, I think folks have gotten a little overboard.
ROE is really not something that is designed to keep commanders from committing violence against things, it exists to give a practical progression from "I am not shooting" to "it's time to dust off and nuke this place from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"
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Which has actually been my point too. I'm not really saying the armored vehicle is disappearing, it never will as long as the gun continues to exist. What i'm saying is that the MBT may be on its way out. The proper "tank" as we know it. I mean Apocal is right too, muskets didn't get rid of Cavalry, they just changed them so drastically that they weren't the cavalry they used to be anymore. That's how we look toward the future in my mind.I have to differ on the tank being on the way out. There's not really a viable tank alternative, or a technology that tank alternatives can use, that tanks cannot. And there's no "musket" as much as ATGMs were supposed to herald the end of the tank (as were mobile AT guns in the 1930's) the two systems are very much locked in a evolutionary arm's race, but neither really claims a massive advantage.
The fate of the FCS and the marginal performance of the MGS seems to indicate the highly mobile gun platform sans protection isn't practical (and may honestly never be, the active defenses those all rely on also will mount right on a tank).
The only system that I can really imagine that could represent a "musket" would be a railgun, in that it's something that could effectively penetrate any armor yet known to man from any range or something. But it's still a system literally decades away from fitting on a platform that might be mobile enough to see battlefield use
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Extra range without the reasonable ability to acquire and track targets is a bit of a waste though.
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All true and fair enough. For a specific scenario a certainlevel of air superiority or contesed air space might be ssumed. To be fair the US army has not had this problem in a real war for decades and perhaps this has made them lax. A mistake that could prove costly in a real war. It is highly lkely that, after the first few weeks the USAF will indeed gain air dminance but, in the meantime, significant casualties and even some early defeats on the ground couldd be the consequences of e neglect of tactical air defece systems pre war. Many of the scenarios could take place during the early prt of the conflic before the air war is won.
Event then of course the airforce has to contend with the Russan SAM capability which, of course is another problem. Looking at what happened to the IF in 1973 could be a useful object lesson in what can go wrong. Altough no doubt ways would be found to defeat this Russan capability later in the conflict.
Again, I will emphasize, a lack of US air control is not defacto Russian air control. There are many forward bases available, many with their own NATO aligned air wings. The USAF for all its faults can surge into theater pretty quickly, and odds are Russian strike fighters will have a life expectancy that makes the old cold war A-10 life expectancy seem like practically dying of old age.
The USAF simply is a better trained, equipped, and more ready force. If there's a US ABCT in the Ukraine, there's already going to be fixed wing augmentation in theater. The most pragmatic, and realistic situation is the Russian resistance is such to force the USAF to focus on eliminating the Russian air defense threat, but the question is how long it'll take before those defenses crack, not by any rational observer if the Russians will be able to fly meaningful strike missions.
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I see what you were trying to say now, Thing is Russian tanks do not get sent without support of other units this is a big fail if done. Russian tanks will be sent forward with recon units and ATGM teams and other assets, Plus the battle management system will provide this info, Im sure the Abrams will have its recon bradley units too. On a 1V1 if its flat terrain good vibility it all depends on range closer the Abrams is the more likely it will win, The farther the more likely the T-90 will win because of its ATGM even if it does not penetrate it will take out possibly the gun or sights. Same for any other situation, It all depends on who will get the round off, And I agree the Abrams will have the advantage of identifying the Russian tank first but if we are talking about a 1V1 it will not matter because both will know they are enemies.The recon unit still cannot actually acquire the target for the firing platform. And the level of visability you get at 5 KM will be entirely inadequate to ensure a hit on anywhere but "somewhere" on the target, assuming other variables remain in favor of missile hit. The Abrams has proven very resistant to HEAT type rounds, and again when your target is "a blob" your odds in terms of frontage are most likely to be part of the tank that's fairly resistant to hits.
And of course, 5 KM sightlines are not at all common.
The one vs one stuff is pretty silly. But simply put the Abrams is better able to find targets, engage them accurately, and achieve first shot kills within most combat ranges. The T-90 isn't again, a bad tank, it's just very clearly the best of 1999, stacked up against the various 2007-2014 era upgraded NATO tanks, which means it'll struggle to achieve results in situations where an Abrams, Leo or Challenger would likely succeed.
It will however beat the Leclerc, simply because Russian tanks are able to leave the garage for more than five minutes at a go.
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Would that be somewhat realistic in this setting ?If we're looking at a Army unit about to assault a town full of Russian regulars, no one is going to care about private property.
Simple as that. I got my knuckles rapped for being too soft during one of our scenerios at Captain's Career Course. I went out of my way to Iraq the situation, planning to keep the enemy occupied police compound intact, etc etc. My instructor just leaned back and asked if I knew the building was full of bad folks (which for the purposes of the scenario, it was 100% full of bad dudes) why didn't I just JDAM the building?
Recent COIN operations has given a really skewed impression of ROEs. In a real shooting war Soldier's lives will always take precedence over how many holes the village has at the end of the day. You'd really have to go above and beyond to get prosecuted for ROE violations (shooting up suspicious looking buildings? No one is going to say a word, better safe than sorry. Announcing "HEY WATCH THIS!" before shooting a canister round into a gas station? Better hope it was secretly full of "separatists")
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It has a recognition of 5KMNegatron, it has "Detection" out to 8 KM, which is to say the sensor can locate something vehicle sized around 8 KM, but it won't be sure if it's a Tank, IFV, T-90 or M1A2 until around 2 KM. It's the diffrence between seeing something moving down the street and being able to tell if it's a woman worth getting a phone number from.
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I´m a lawyer not a tank commander!And for that you will die.
Kidding.
Maybe.
It's a question of what level of identification. In 1991 US tanks were shooting at targets they could reasonably assume were enemy and armor type targets well beyond "identification" range.
This led to a few of the friendly fire incidents, but it also lead to more than a few Iraqis assuming they were under air attack because they couldn't even see or make out the signature from the firing tank.
If I'm sitting in a T-90 in a defensive position, and I know without a doubt that the friendly scouts are not in front, and I've got a 5 KM sightline, I'm pretty safe to spike a ATGM into the first tankish looking target coming down the road. If I'm part of a dynamic fight in which friendly positions are not known, or it's complex terrain and there's more than a few hotspots/areas where visibility comes and goes, engagement ranges are goin to get a lot shorter.
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It's really something I think the SOF community will get the most mileage out of. While drones are handy, they also have a pretty tell tale audio signature (think, do the Tribal regions in Pakistan get much air traffic?). It's the sort of thing that a ground observer could call within a certain window, and get the same results with no warning except for the missile's terminal phase. It's too expensive for massed battlefield use, and the reaction time is well suited to "Shiek Muhammed and Abu Abdul Mutleb are sitting down for tea and terrorism" sort of strikes, but less so "Three tanks in the open fire for effect!"
If they ever do include MRLS type weapons into the game, ATACMS would be interesting purely because it has been employed in a more conventional artillery role (largely because of COIN mind you), but offers the same sort of profile that a tactical Tomahawk would.
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As pointed out already:
1. The Stryker and LAV share a common ancestor in the form of the Mowag Piranha. Both vehicles are built off of versions of that vehicles as license built by General Dynamics Land Division (Canada).
2. They are different generations however. The USMC vehicles belong to the LAV-I generation of platforms, which is smaller and more lightly armored, while the Stryker is based on the LAV III which is better protected, but also much larger and loses the amphibious capabilities of earlier generations.
3. There are LAV III variants that mount the 25 MM, however when the Army was designing the Stryker units it was seeking firstly a vehicle that could mount an entire rifle squad in each vehicle without crossloading. This would not be possible in the 25 MM armed Stryker models. Further for fire support, the 105 MM equipped Mobile Gun System Stryker was to be allocated at a rate of three per rifle company. In summery, by the Army's first go, the LAV III with autocannon wasn't enough transport, or gun to fill either of the potential roles.
4. The postscript however is that the Mobile Gun System has proven deeply unpopular and has not lived up to advertising. It's either too much gun for COIN, or not enough firepower and armor for full spectrum operations. The number of MGSes has been reduced to just three per Battalion, and there's talk of procuring autocannon armed Strykers to replace the MGS at the Company level (either the cheap fix of 25 MM, or a larger turret mounting a 40 MM gun).
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You forgot CusterNah. He's talking more in terms of "Cavalry" as men specially trained to fight chiefly from horseback. The US Cavalry tradition was always closest to Dragoons in the European sense, which was a soldier who used a horse for battlefield mobility, but chiefly fought from the dismount. This is not to say Dragoons did not operate from the mount from time to time, or Cavalry never dismounted, but we're talking in terms of primary use.
The US Army stood up three regiments of Dragoons (technically, the 3rd Regiment was stood up as a "Regiment of Mounted Riflemen" but same difference), and then started standing up Cavalry Regiments in the 1840's. Ultimately the distinction was discarded as the distinction between Dragoon and Cavalryman blurred (effectively, the US Cavalryman was a Dragoon who was trained to be able to fight from his horse when tactically advantageous, but still generally actually fought from the dismount). The three Dragoon regiments became Cavalry Regiments, and the Cavalry Regiments were re-numbered accordingly (which is why the 4th Cavalry Regiment's lineage actually starts off as a the 1st Cavalry Regiment).
TLDR: US Cavalry would be US Dragoons under European standards, thus a lack of Cavalry tradition.
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The big problem with Javelins is they've got a max effective range of 2500 meters vs the TOW's 3750 meters, and the TOW has a better conventional warhead.
Personally I think a Javelin with an optional booster would be best, basically at 2500 meter+ ranges an additional engine would punt the missile a little further before noseover, while shooter ranges the additional rocket would just be dropped out the back of the tube. Would also allow for turret down firings without leaving the launcher above horizon (and concealing most of the launch signature).
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Unfortunately it really happened, There was no fire, just a hole about big enough to stick a pencil through one of the side skirts and then the lower hull near one of the support rollers. When I saw the write up on it, they weren't sure what it was but most people at the time agreed it was most likely a .50 SLAP.There's more than a few "wrong place, wrong time" penetration instances on otherwise very tough tanks. The .50 cal SLAP penetration should be viewed as a fugitive from the law of averages, and an example of the whole "Alle Kunst ist umsonst Wenn ein Engel in das Zündloch Prunst" thing (translation milage may vary) rather than an example of armor quality.
Re: Challenger 2
Again, by all accounts I've seen it was an impact under the hull, which on the challenger II was not especially protected at all. The round partially clipped the lowest sets of ERA, triggering them, but not in a way that'd prevent a penetration.
So basically the .50 cal SLAP round again, and improbable event occurring. You'd struggle to replicate it, and the RPG-29 for all it's lethality is still best reserved for flank shots.
I don't get this whole T-90A vs M1A2 SEP v2 debate. One for one, it's finest mid-late 90's tech vs finest late 00's tech money can buy.This is true. The irritation for me is that the T-90 is very much a late 90's piece of equipment, and it shows. Having to explain that it is not at all on the same level as a M1A2 SEP V2, or that the hardware mounted on it is last generation/sometimes not even as good as it's late 90's peers is something that's important to understanding the tank vs tank fights in CMBS. It's not a bad tank, it's just not the same as a M1A2, or even a "almost as good as" M1A2. It's catastrophic overmatch for the "might as well be 1989" Ukrainian designs, something fearsome against forces without much dedicated modern AT assets, but it is certainly something that is not a high performer in a armor fight vs US armor.
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On the Eastern front shooting would have been far too good for him. On the whole, U.S. troops in France, though, were amazingly self restrained according to everything I ever read about it. You do get more surrenders that way. And yes, I know you knew that, but there less encyclopedically knowledgeable people reading the board.
I think I joined the military at least at first to give purpose to knowing half the stuff I do.
The POW-friendly attitude does see a bit of a decline after the Ardennes. One of the things the movie Fury really needs to be commended for is showing what the American Army looked like on D+210 in terms of mentality and veteran nature.
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Think it's been a see-saw. I remember hearing that IFVs ATGMed everything in Beta. Could use a tweak, I have only seen a few TOWs in flight.
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Still genuinely unfun for all parties.
Russian helicopters have to expose themselves a fair bit more to actually engage ground targets, while Apache users and some of the other NATO CCA guys can engage very effectively from standoff, making a lot of the ADA disparity less important to who's helicopters fly where (or to further illustrate, there's less shooting back at the Russians at the short-range realm, but the Russian short range ADA assets have a lot less to shoot at). While hunting helicopters with fixed wing assets as proven tricky historically, at the same time, you're looking chiefly at the question of the helicopter being killed by fixed wing. On the other hand the fixed wing just has to be dangerous enough to make the rotary wing be evasive to achieve a sort of mission kill vs actually shooting the helicopter down.
It's also worth noting that the Hind flight profile given the size, speed and altitudes employed will put that airframe at much greater risk to air intercept compared to MI-28/KA-52 platforms. Further unlike Russian fixed wing, barring extraordinary measures such as replacing ordinance with fuel Russian rotary wing will have to deploy forward from the kind of locations NATO would be able to attack without going onto Russian soil. This is equally true for NATO rotary wing, but NATO for reasons stated earlier is more likely to be able to get bombs on those targets.
There's not many scenarios that put Russian aviation as something US ground forces would have to be deeply concerned with on a regular basis. On occasion yes, and scenarios with some redair are legitimate (representing a lucky Russian mission, the results of a Russian surge to achieve air parity, etc) but SU-24s stacked up to 30,000 feet and a half dozen HINDs swooping in are very dubious.
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It might take a while for the USAF to gain air dominanceYes. But it'd be because the Russian Air Force would need to be committed to holding off NATO almost to a plane. Further the same complications that make heavy NATO CAS doubtful are equally strong, if not stronger against the Russians (given a smaller air force and less capable system for the Russians, robust long range ADA from NATO and more common, and better air defense fighters).
It's not going to be a period in which Russia bombs more or less at will with the US vainly flailing at waves of Russian CAS before a turning of the tide with NATO taking air dominance, it's going to be a bloody messy initial fight in which it's hard for anyone to accomplish air strikes, with Russia not having the strength or capabilities to continue this struggle, followed by a general decline in Russian resistance and increase in NATO capabilities.
Russian air defense will make it hard for NATO to bomb Russian forces throughout, but in terms of pushing Russian air strikes onto NATO positions, the number of 2S6s is going to be less relevant than then number of AWACS or recent generation fighters NATO fields.
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Your link doesn't exist.
Re: Challenger 2
It was a magic bullet sort of strike (the round struck the ground and skipped into the almost bottom of the hull from my understanding, so no ERA, and not in an area well armored on any tank), and not typical of RPG capabilities. If it'd come head on vs effectively up from the ground, it would not have been effective, and even at that, the strike damaged the tank, but it was still more or less functional.
Re: FCS
T-64 was good for its time because everyone was using transistors. T-80 started to slip because it was still using technology based on the finest the 70's could offer vs then modern electronics. Russia has never managed to catch up in terms of computing and electronics, which is why they're content using the CATHERINE based systems vs having an original home grown design.
You can look at the sales brochure posted earlier. CATHERINE only claims vehicle identification out to a little over 2 KM without upgrade, which is well short of recorded identification/kill distances accomplished by Abrams and Challenger type tanks.
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Or, when I REALLY want to hunt down that one unit which was making my life miserable during the game.This. Once in CMBN I'd basically killed the hell out of everything the Germans had, except for this one Panzer that always seemed to get a magic spot in and kill some infantry or kill/damage a tank. Without fail "HALLO I AM HANS!" bam, it killed something.
Rest of his platoon? Slaughtered. Didn't leave an impact. German infantry? Dead in their holes. But this one stupid MK IV always managed to just escape after killing something.
So right as I had him dead to rights, gun knocked out, three Shermans bearing down on him, that last firepower kill apparently was the breaking point and the Germans surrendered.
I have to imagine it was fairly likely Hans and his crew were shot while attempted to escape, but it'd have been nice to watch the tank burn.
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When I was a driver, gunnery was pretty boring. The only fun I got to have was hauling ass back to the ready line after we were done. So I got way into helping spot. Especially when the TC was busting .50. I don't know how table 8 s done now, but in my day the most difficult was Bravo 3 Swing, the dreaded widowmaker. PC, rpg team and troops with a very short time hack. There was a "fire, fire heat and adjust. Caliber fifty!" Command in it. If the TC did not drill the rpg team in the frst burst, you lose that one. Was happy to help.The new driver's night sight is thermal. It makes spotting a lot easier.
The tables are a bit different, the "widowmaker" now generally refers to...if I remember right a tank-PC-PC on delay engagement. The one you're talking about is what we call the "simo" which is the TC's .50 cal on a PC, loader's truck target, and coax on troops. It's a bit easier with the CROW, although the CROW is sort of....special.
Re: Dunnage looting
It helps that Rod range is super-short and as a mountain as a backstop. Getting an aftcap now though is hard as heck. Your acceptable loss rate is something insane like 2 aftcaps for a company during crew gunnery, and 2 more if you're doing collective gunnery.
Usually the ones that get disappeared are set aside for parting gifts for important people, like Company commanders, 1SGs, for real retiring NCOs etc.
Very good point. Crew safety is very important. If you fire the main gun when the loader is in the way, he is at least crippled for life, at best. I agree that first round fired he would be out of the way. However, just for the record, I would never fire the main gun without a loud and clear UP!The way I was trained is that at gunnery we will do the full commands, but it was made clear the only non-optimal part of the fire command was "up" in combat. Even to the degree of the gunner yelling "TANK" and the loader just belting out UP and then shooting if something popped up at 300 meters or something.
Thanks for the fun chats. I could talk tanks all day. Miss it a lot.You and me both man. The only parts of my Army career I really cared for were Armor Officer's Basic Course (as that was lots of tanking), and then my time as a tank company commander. The rest was pretty much take it or leave it.
M1A1 was beautiful by the way. A2 is a beast, but she feels sort of like something from science fiction, but the M1A1 made you feel like you were in a tank, and you felt just a little short of being superman hanging out of the TC's hatch on that.
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Saying that Russia didn't develope these things and falls behind America may be true but not by a very large margine in fact Russia has catched up. Also saying that Russia has not made FCS really makes me cringe as the T-64A and so on started getting FCS in the 70s, US started mainly installing thermals in the 80s and now a lot of their gear has thermals but so does Russia and if it doesnt have thermals it has advanced night vision sights. Russia has been developing FCS from early 70s to present I do not understand why you are saying we lack on something.Russian optics, and computing are all largely derivative of western designs, or if entirely Russian origin tend to be significantly less capable compared to peer systems. There's not much professional dispute of this reality.
Re: Fire Control Systems
Fire control systems are not optics. There's been fire control systems as long as there's been tanks. If we're going to argue how long a country has been building tanks equals ensured capability, we are all rightly and truly screwed because the Brits and the French have been doing it for almost a 100 years.
The key failing of Russian FCS type systems is largely in the electronics/computing. Western tanks could take advantage of the various advances in computing, miniaturization, and somesuch to make FCSes that were far more robust, smaller, and more capable in terms of data input (see adjusting crosswind, gun tube temperature, and similar variables on Russian vs US tanks). To this end the Russian inferiority in this sort of system makes however long the Russians have been building FCSes irrelevant, they simply are not as modern in key areas.
Additionally passive/active night vision is vastly inferior in terms of spotting targets at range. It's why the US has moved to composite thermal-night vision type optics for infantry, conventional night vision is better for something like walking through a building at night, while thermal is much better at finding targets at range, which is to say thermals are the relevant optics for tanks vs other vision enhancement tools.
I do not deny the Abrams is good im just against when people underestimate Russian armor capabilities.
Nor am I underestimating it. It's got reasonable anti-armor capabilities, good surviability compared to peer tanks, and the only real threats it faces are high tier NATO equipment like the M1, Leo 2, Challenger, or the most advanced ATGMs available. It just isn't on the same level as much more advanced, much more expensive tanks.
Saying is easy I can say that the Abrams has a german smoothbore cannon based fail gun but obviously thats not true it fires the world's most powerful sabotOnly it's the 120 MM gun that is so terrible that it represents the overwhelming majority of NATO tank cannons these days. It's pretty handy. Russian optics on the other hand represent the step up from things offered for sale to the police department, but don't compare to more modern systems.
I was thinking of the price, not because of the domestic sales but for foreign exports.This is certainly a factor. However the raw price is deceptive. Many countries recieve either sharp discounts or have some sort of weirdo-trade deal with the vehicles. The Australasian M1A1s came at a pretty sharp discount in exchange for other things (like increased basing rights for US troops, commitment to more joint training, several pallets of Fosters etc)
I seem to recall the Finnish F-18 deal involved a US agreement to buy some amount of reindeer meat. You only really get into cash for tanks with the Russians.
This is not intended as an offense mind you. Think of it more like, the only folks who really aren't able to use diplomacy to get discount tanks, are the sorts that could not possibly afford M1s or Challengers at sticker price.
Your description of supply and maintenance doctrines and routines with M1 Abrams family tanks sounds very interestingThe increasing complexity of military equipment almost demands you have a very sophisticated logistics and maintenance unit. This is something professional armies are better able to leverage, as you retain a much higher number of these mechanics, and let me tell you, someone who's been fixing M1s/M2s for the last decade or so is a sight to behold (I had one diagnose an engine fault over the radio based on a crewman's description of the noise it was making).
You're almost safer with conscript/inexperienced tankers vs conscript/inexperienced maintainers.
And no need to discuss from other Western countries or their tank designs, especially from western europe (Netherlands just sold us to Finland 100 Leopard 2A6s because they don't seem to need them). All the countries seem to have very little interest on investing to improve existing designs or design new models. Russia and United States seem to be most dynamic on that sector.It also has a lot to do with the changing priorities of the west. When the M1, Leo 2, and Challengers were all built, there was a distinct possibility of a large continental war in Europe within a few months of downward spiral relations. The Dutch could reasonably expect to be up to their eyebrows in communists, and having tanks was a reasonable choice.
Now? It's debatable but the immediacy of the threat is gone, which makes it easier for politicians to make military cuts to make up for budget shortfalls/buy off the electorate with benefits.
As the case is however, the M1, Leo 2, Challenger 2 all are still seeing current updates with a good chance that their respective services will be able to continue to upgrade them into the 2020's at the least.
The reason the Armata is a big deal is the potential of the T-72/90 series was more or less tapped out in the early 2000s. The ability to upgrade them much further is limited (see the T-72B3's ambivilent reception, the T-90AM's still lagging pretty far behind expectations). Of course I'm still doubtful we'll see an Armata on time and in service. It's a heck of thing to be in the hands of Russian soldiers in 2016, and common service by 2017 with literally no idea of what it even looks like.
I do have to wonder if it'll be like the various top shelf planes and rifles from the 90's, and we'll see two or three Armata battalions with the remainder operating the T-90/T-72 models. Seems more reasonable and the two tier thing is nothing new to the Russians.
US Anti Aircraft defences
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Said it better than I was saying it.
See my Reply 13# in this thread. BLUFF is it'd be harder than it looks, and you're still looking at them being infrequent visitors.