panzersaurkrautwerfer

Easy. The T-90AM alone has gone through several weapons "changes" on paper (2A46M, 2A46M+, 2A82), several different layers of protection (K-5, Relikt, Afganit etc) all depending on the press release. You only need to look at Antaraess73's posting history to see how many times a "Definite" T-90AM was announced as heading into production. Then toss on the T-90M for giggles and you've got enough "models" to make up a half dozen easily. But as the case is I was using a common idiom for a unfixed number beyond one or two. Russia's concept of warfare is inherently linked to the concept of disinformation and less than truthy statements. Basically the point of having many tanks "in production" is that the information effect targets the following audiences: 1. For domestic consumption, or not especially savvy external observers it gives this image of a rapidly gaining strength armored foe. The fact that deadlines are never met is simply overridden with a newer more dramatic announcement (the T-90AM shift to T-90M is a good example of that), which basically continues to give an image of improvement despite stagnation or very little practical improvement. 2. For external observers of limited collection means, it creates some doubt to what Russia's actual course of action is. By Russian information, the Armata is happening as we speak, the T-90 is being massively modernized across the entire fleet, the T-72 is going to be totally upgraded, there's a plan to make the T-80 modern etc, etc, etc. Without an inside view, which is something Russia obviously denies or controls access to extensively, it's difficult if you are say, not a major intelligence agency, to reliably read Russian intentions in regards to military production. 3. Even for external observers with reasonable collection means, it still plants doubts and forces those collection assets to basically spread around more than needed. While obviously fake programs get discarded, instead of simply being able to dogpile collection assets on tank progam A because we know A is the next tank, there's still a need to make sure B isn't also being done, confirm C isn't happening, and that D isn't the low budget thing Russia is actually doing because A's ambitious design just won't stop having catastrophic issues with the sensor system, and B relies on systems that are not working on A. Given the role of the Russian media, and various content generation sources in this information warfare, it's right to doubt pretty much anything that cannot be reliably sourced or verified from external sources when referring to content releases from Russian or Russian managed sources. Further along that line, some of that content may even prove to be accurate, but it's generated intentionally in a way to be Texas Sharpshooters, that "correct" data is intentionally released amid an ocean of "incorrect" data with the intention of making the correct data appear equally wrong, or at a future date to build credibility of the content generator while ignoring the times it stated blatant falsehoods. Which again gets to the Russian concept of warfare as it is, the conventional aspect is entirely secondary to the information-political spectrum of options, and is only to be employed once the "battlefield" as been adequately prepared to allow for a conventional effort to succeed (dismembering NATO by fostering nationalist-populist political movements, fostering pro-Russian seperatists etc). In this regard the Russians are ahead in a meaningful way because their information generation is not bound by law or truth, and given the historical basis of strength in disinformation and deception is operating at a point that is rapidly becoming something that will need to be dealt with, although that means of warfare has not been without its own setbacks to Russia itself.

Anything he disagrees with. Russia is capable of making perfectly good hardware, it's just: 1. The stated performance values are virtually always inflated, or purposefully vague. 2. The process in which equipment transitions from "idea" to "test concept" to "limited fielding" to "actually in common use" is both opaque and likely not understood by the parties navigating it themselves. Various bits of kit have 100% been selected as the next generation Russian something or other...only to never reach fieldings, or the entirely of one Brigade has a complete set, and no one else. 3. Russia's limitations are well known in broad strokes but poorly understood in detail, while the official statements broadcast nothing but strength and the impending amazing something or other. This is intentional on the part of the Russian government, but it makes it hard to gauge actual outcome. A complete revamp of the Russian armor fleet appears unlikely in the short term, but there's a possibility we might still see low number updates, or a wider, more modest project. When watching armor, and really especially armor for the Russians it needs to be taken with a giant grain of salt. Here's my rules of thumb when dealing with Russian armor, but could still totally be applied across the defense industry: 1. Never ever ever take press releases as factual. Some of them may actually still be correct, but enough of them are internal politics, fluffed up to gain interest in proofs of concepts, or simple falsehoods that you cannot take them at face value. 2. Watch the numbers in service vs the capabilities of systems. Part of Russia's information operations is presenting their cutting edge equipment as representative of the common Russian military formations, when in reality they're only found in limited fieldings. 3. Always ask why you're being given information when dealing with anyone's military capability claims. You're being exposed to information with the intention of getting you to come to conclusions and outcomes supported by the body releasing the information. This is especially true with Russia given the absolute absence of separation between media and state. As the case is Russian armor updates are something that certainly appear to be taking their time, and barring dramatic changes in world situation, will continue at a slow pace. It's premature to assume anything about future T-90 models, because we've seen at least a half dozen T-90 upgrade packages, all of which were totally happening, none of which have actually occurred. We're all prone to grab onto whatever bits of information come over the fence, but again, a skeptical curiosity is really the only way to approach this field, let alone the Russian corner of it.

Re: Politics I wonder if you could eat an Armata. Like you're really hungry, your state collapsed again after pursuing an international role it cannot support and it's alienated everyone, again. So like if you just got really hungry, could you eat it? Or maybe trade it to India or something for some rice? Perhaps you could just sit on it as a monument to all the hopes and dreams wasted, adrift on the miscarried neu-USSR as it slips out of mother Russia into the trash. Stiff lipped and proud, the Red Star a omen of the bad old days, brother to all the Lennins facedown in the scrapyard of history. It falls from it's perch to crash into the cobblestones, the facade hollow. Will the endless fields of steel mean something to future generations? When the novo-Siberians pick through their archaeological records, will the acres of tanks be anything more than an explanation of where their grandparent's wealth went? Will burning PAK-FAs be enough to apologize to the Potemkin Villagers? I do not know. I do know regardless of what sins you can accuse NATO of, Russia will dig it's own grave, and climb in it unassisted. Re: Abrams. What's gotten interesting is after a few years of fairly modest upgrades is we're now seeing a wide variety of near term, long term, and then "distant future" upgrades with the distinct possibility many of them will actually reach wide fielding. In that regard it's becoming harder to filter what is a likely "far" objective (like how APS used to be), vs a "near" objective (M829A4/AMP/datalink). I'm a little envious of this generation of tankers, as I'd loved to have gone to Poland and gotten to do some of the stuff they're getting to do out there.

The older M1A1 lasers had a better hypothetical range, but the risk of accidentally becoming a laser weapon if they hit someone incorrectly (like you're gazing into the front of the tank and it's trying to lase something you're standing around). At combat ranges, the eyesafe laser that replaced it was equal in performance, but at outlying circumstances (extreme range, long range in truly appalling weather) it was somewhat inferior (this is largely one of those "from my understanding" things, I shot with an eyesafe LRF in a heavy snow storm out to 3+ KM, and also in a monsoon/heavy fog out to 2.5 KM so there's that to consider too). So from my understanding the new laser is some combination of still eyesafe, but closer to the historical M1A1's eye murdering laser capability. Also just taking advantage of some of the other various upgrades in electronics and such over the last decade or so as far as reliability/precision etc.

APS is a separate program. The M1A2 SEP v3/4 will go into production regardless, but the Army and Marines are both actively seeking APS type systems. Good guess would be a bolt-on system vs integrated, much the same manner in with ERA is employed across the Abrams fleet. If you read the article you'd see it mentioned. The LRF is fine, or at least not bad. There's been some improvements in laser range finders from my understanding, mostly in balancing eyeball safety with still maintaining a good tight beam over range. FLIR technology hasn't been stagnate either. Basically the Abrams was pretty darn good when I was on her, and she'll still be pretty good likely into the 2020-2030 range until whatever next comes along. Tank development worldwide is fairly stagnant (with Leo 2s taking a similar track to the Abrams, the rest of the west more or less being out of the "new" tank game for the time being, and the Russians are curiously getting pretty deep into upgrades for existing model tanks despite the T-14 being totally and in wide usage according to last year's announcements on how soon there'd be sky dropped Armatas saving Russians everywhere from HATO rape squads), it's hard to see a real challenger coming up with the state of the art right now.

Sigh. Okay I've got five minutes before work. In so many words the point isn't that 400 tanks will completely destroy the Russian juggernaut great victory high fives, it's that it'll force a large enough commitment on the part of the Russians to be OBVIOUS they're up to something, in the event of hostilities buy time for more forces to arrive (likely already in route given the hand tipping from the build up to deal with those 400 tanks and such), and in the event that fails make it enough of a fight to destroy the quick and easy victory that would make such an action viable. Which gets to the root of it, this isn't preparing for "war" directly, it's posturing forces to make military against the Baltics unviable, either too expensive or kicking off a war of a scale well beyond what Russia desires. Without those NATO forces in place, a hundred or so BTRs filled with "Latvian" volunteers might be enough to accomplish regional Russian goals. With those NATO forces it would require the overt war against the west Russia is not capable of, and has built its whole doctrine around avoiding now. As to Antaress, please just stop man. Every time the Russians announce anything involving a tank or AFV you post how it'll kill the Abrams from the front, and needs to be in the game now, when much of it, even assuming Russia's capability to get such things out the door improves, is still best set for a 2020-2025 game (optimistically).

Seems legit for IBCT squads.

I go into semi-retirement and this happens. Sweet lawrd Jebus. As far as "updating" the scenerio/family: Not much is needed for the Russians outside of maybe some T-80s or weaker historical armor. The Armata is still a long time out, the T-90AM/BMP-2M are still semi-real. Ukrainians need a decent overhaul simply because what they look like now organizationally is pretty different, and there's some equipment that could use a little love. For the US as discussed having the M1A2 SEP v2 as it is in reality would be nice, although it having the M829A4 as the sabot is a shoe-in simply because it does exist and can be fired from even a 1989 vintage M1A1 with some minor tweaking (you can alter the FCS values to match a variety of things). Maybe M2A2 ODSes for the National Guard crew, or M2A3s without ERA. M1A1SA is on its way out across the fleet though, so not sure about its inclusion any more. Re: Russian hardware Until it's in some Battalion somewhere I will 100% doubt any AFV the Russians show off will ever reach serial production. It's been decades of "HERE IS NEW SUPER ULTRA BETTER THAN AMBRAM!" or reveals of a sweeping fleet wide update that literally never happens. Armata, still happening somehow. T-90M ALSO TOTALLY REAL. New model T-72B3+ YES OCCUR. Until there's more to go on, really seeing it as silly to keep chasing whatever the Russia Today's flavor of the moment is only to be discarded for the Armata MBK2000 Mastertunk that'll come out to replace the ten Armatas in service in 2045.

Do you have any sort statements attesting to that fact? The level of destruction on the tank in question is on par for how a T-72 can cook off, especially if you're getting a sympathetic vs sequential cookoff. Re: Leo 2/Turks The Turks fell into the classic "Why don't we just SHOOT terrorists?" trap, in as far as the assumption is the nominal arrangement of their ISIS opponent was a poorly armed but generally willing to engage in conventional shooting/geography based warfare organization. To that end they pursued a very tank-mechanized infantry sort of operation, largely counting on tanks to provide protection/firepower overmatch of their opponents. Where this all goes wrong is they're fighting people who've been dealing with tanks for decades. And they've gotten quite good at dealing with them. The key missing piece in Turkish employment of armor (or the easiest to discuss) is failing to understand the importance of mobility on the COIN battlefield. This is likely shaped by their experience in using their tanks basically as sentry turrets against the Kurds, but is wholly out of place elsewhere. When employing armor against an insurgent, you cannot lead with the tank, or leave it exposed for long, as that invites the enemy and allows him time to employ his assets accordingly. Armor is best employed as a very powerful supporting tool, in that you gain and maintain contact against the insurgent (by using highly mobile infantry generally), and contain where the enemy is, and then once the battle is joined, you use the mobility of the tank to deploy it against enemy strongpoints once identified, and that armor-firepower to provide localized overmatch. Or basically: 1. If looking for a good "historical" and conventional example, try Aachen. Locating the enemy, containing him, and then piling on with the tanks/direct fire assets. 2. Tanks should not be left out where someone can kill them. This is true in both conventional and unconventional fights. When the US was highly successful against insurgents with stationary armor, it generally did so because the tank was part of a wider surveillance-fires-protection plan (or properly dug in, with local security, with sensors aligned to cover the tank). This is not what the Turks are doing.

Firstly as to being totally on topic: There really needs to be a step back and a better understanding of just what the Raven was designed to do. It's a short duration, Company level tool designed to give the commander the ability to check out near objectives prior to moving in. In terms of being able to operate in a high EW environment, a lot will depend on how it's being used, and where even on an encrypted digital link. They're being given to the Ukrainians because on a scale of 1-10 in terms of how "sensitive" the contents are, ranks somewhere around a -4, enough disappeared in Iraq, or have gone to other less reputable allies. If this was closer to what Russia claims the fighting in the Ukraine is, the Raven would be an excellent tool. However with EW support, it's effectiveness obviously will suffer. Flagrantly off topic: Arguing who "saved" who, or really "won" World War Two is dumb. If the Western Allies just never showed up or sent lend lease, the war would look differently enough to make it impossible to really call what would have happened. If the Soviet Union collapsed, there's a wide variety of outcomes that we could totally make up with equal "reality"* In speaking about the Soviet Union, saying the west "helped" is selling that support short by a large margin. To put it in broad terms, while the military weapons end of the Soviet War effort was majority production Soviet equipment with a not-insignificant US/UK pile of kit, but in terms of petroleum products, locomotives and rolling stock, trucks, food, steel, etc, etc, it is really hard to imagine the USSR in Berlin by 1945. Would it have been enough for a German victory? That's uncertain. Maybe even doubtful given the vast depths of Russia, and the limitations of the German war machine to span those lengths. The fanatical Soviet defense also seems to indicate a force that was not going to break anytime soon. However looking at the millions of dead Soviets, it's hard to imagine what a harder road would have done to the Soviet people, or even if the outcome would have been "victory" as much as survival. *My favorite alternate history is actually "Festung Europa: The Anglo-American-Nazi War" which supposes Stalin kicks over dead after the Nazis win at Stalingrad (If I remember right). The Allies are unable to return to Europe as the Nazis are all now concentrated on the Western front, so after winning in North Africa, they turn to defeating the Japanese. Then there's a longish semi-cold war (both parties agree to a bombing holiday, Naval combat continues basically), before the Allies return to Europe in the late 40's early 50's for a nearly apocalyptic war with nukes, jet fighters and the like flying left and right.

Hey everyone, I'm going to be away from the forums for a bit, I strained my ocular nerve with the sheer violence I eyerolled at the last post and it's difficult to see the screen now.

Hospitals, aid convoys, and markets too! LOLZ!

It's just a statement about the kinds of targets the Russian Air Force has been hitting. You yourself saw this, and Aleppo bears witness to it. In any event it's experience sure, but it's in the vacuum of still putting MIG-29s into the ocean, significantly less flight hours even with a lifted optempo, and an aging airfleet. If I change the air freshener in my car, the car is somewhat improved. But it does nothing to fix the oil filter, low coolant and dead hobo in the trunk.

In the event NATO attacks with apartment blocks, I imagine this will be useful.

I mean, to be clear, I don't know of any collection efforts, nor would I be able to comment on them if I did, but I done read my Cold War history, and what Russia is doing now is providing the sort of collection targets I know would have made certain people very excited.

One of the interesting things about Russia is it's desire to expose its fullest capabilities in places where someone with the right eyes or ears could learn a lot.

On the Abrams it's two levers for the gunner's primary (you turn one and then the other to close both doors). CITV rotates to the rear where there is a plate to mask the optic itself.

I'm less certain about a Bradley gun upgrade given the existing size of the turret. It started off a little cramped, but with the CITV, BFT, body armor worn by the crew I don't think it could fit a larger gun. If they went for a straight up new turret that might make some more sense though.

re: Balance Eww. re: IEDs Think of an object. Someone has put an IED inside of it. Popular places for the "large" artillery based IEDs (buried/deep buried non-inclusive): 1. Inside of guard rails on highways (the sheet metal kind, it'll mask a 152 MM pretty easily) 2. Underside of overpasses (again, there's usually a lip that the round could be hidden behind) 3. Dead animals (always classy, and blends in well with Iraq in general) 4. Parked/derlict vehicles 5. Etc The "minelike" employment was again, largely because the "roadside" or even under the bridge types did not achieve meaningful effects against tanks on a regular basis, very large buried IEDs did pose a threat to most tracked vehicles which had a flat bottoms, and later the the EFP type IEDs had more utility against pretty much everything. Groundburst HE just isn't the best tool for disabling tanks. A lot of the subsystems people seem to believe should be taken out by ground level explosions are actually pretty well masked by the side of the tank, and also were designed shockingly enough to be somewhat robust against artillery barrages. Direct hits, I'm uncertain about and perhaps they should be more lethal, but it isn't strictly an Abrams problem as I've seen a few T-90AMs staring at me from the bottom of impact craters, immobile but otherwise no worse for wear. But HE-PD and HE-VT in your normal concentrations are not exactly prime AT tools. If they were, you'd never have seen ICM or all the various other anti-armor warheads.

Real fast: Re: In general I'm really not sure at this point if we're seeing realistic/unrealistic behavior. The number of Abrams suffering direct hits from artillery is...not extensive. There's a wide number of them hit by very large HE type munitions as deployed from IEDs though from virtually all angles. From the IED experience, simple individual HE shells were not enough to do the job, it generally took several made into a larger "bomb" to reliably kill an Abrams (often in the neighborhood of 3-5 152 MM rounds wired together). From the FA end of things, the only realistic difference as far as I can tell is the energy imparted from the shell impact. But looking at the naval gunfire example, would the shell have penetrative effects if it's destroyed so quickly? Re: Expected damage For an HE hit to the turret deck I'd be worried about: Direct hits on the hatch, it's not the thickest, and whatever spalling/damage is perfectly aligned with someone's body. I would not expect the CROWs to survive any direct hits to the turret roof. Loader's MG is likely not going to be in good shape The radio and GPS/BFT antennas are going to be tricky just because the radio ones are such small profile and might be able to flex with the blast. The BFT one is low enough it might be masked by the hull. For optics, a lot will depend on how close the round hits, but they are reasonably armored from every direction but front. I'd be more worried about ricochets from the front part of the turret into the optic myself. The main gun tube is also tricky. Short of a soild hit on the tube I think it at least stands a good chance of being operational. The sponson boxes (where about five of the rounds in TFO's example hit) would likely be blown off, it's just regular steel mounted to the exterior of the armor array. The bottom line is I would prefer 0 hits to my tank at all times. But I don't really think I've got the background to confirm or deny effects on an Abrams.

Off topic because whatever: Just saying this isn't the first time someone has come in promising to make everything better with Russia. On topic: Re: 30 MM There isn't a 25 MM organic to the SBCT. Army-Strategic level there was a little logic to something bigger, but the 25 MM is already pretty far down the state of the art for what it can do, if we're going for a system that'll be around for 10-20 years going for bigger makes some sense. Re: Mobility The complaints about the Stryker aren't really "Stryker" specific, nearly as much as wheeled APC sort of thing going off road problems. It's not going to be more mobile than the previous iteration, but I'd contend it's not going to be worse enough you'd notice the difference.

It's worth bearing in mind the Obama administration started off with a "reset" to relations with Russia in an attempt to improve relations. Wouldn't exactly count chickens at this point.

RELEVANT: Artillery is ineffective against roof armor on Lada type assault platforms.

Like a decade ago. I went through Cadet summer training for ROTC (UNLIKE CERTAIN WEST POINT NERDS ON HERE) the summer before they started giving ACUs to cadets. For our squad tactics lanes we were equipped largely with M16A1s and M60's, which gave a sort of Cold War-Vietnam vibe. Most of us posed for Rambo action shots with the M60s once we were issued them though hence the photo.

ARGH CADETS WHY We got to do 155 MMs at LDAC. It was fun but I missed the burn off as we rotated through the firing line, so the dudes loading in the morning (like me) were calling the fires in the afternoon and thus far from the inferno.