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Future US AFV development


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7 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

See, if you don't know something as central to US Army training and preparedness as that, you shouldn't be sounding off so assuredly as you obviously like to do. NTC stands for National Training Center and is what might be called the post graduate course for soldiers. It is very (you might say "extremely") rugged and demanding and passing the course is far from easy. Its focus is on preparing active units to fight against a prospective first-class OpFor using the equipment and tactics of that OpFor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Irwin_National_Training_Center

Michael

I know what that is. But all the shortenings that is fully natural for you, its not for me.

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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.  

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LOL so far, from my vantage point, @panzersaurkrautwerfer is the only person on this thread who has written anything serious. He is probably the only one entitled to poke a little fun. I look forward to your showing your tremendous maturity and putting together a serious response and elevating this thread back up.

 

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That wasn't low. I was serious. You have an opportunity to show you are no snowflake and can put forth an argument against the one above. Or better yet concede on some points and expand on others. Ignore the jibes and know that I'm not trying to do that. Better yet if you think I am being a jerk, ignore me too. But show up the mistakes and acknowledge the good points in the above argument.

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50 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

I think we are way of the M1 talk now. Your fanclub is only going for person, not what our conversation was about from the beginning. 

I think we have to take our discussion in PM instead. And stop here.

There's no fan club you're just wrong and won't admit it.

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Guys, give the fella a break, he's trying to mount a hypothetical discussion in a second language FFS.....Maybe take the discussion forward in Swedish and see how that goes for you?  ;)

Seriously, there are some valid and interesting points in this thread, don't let them get drowned out in silly and pointless antagonisms.  Clearly the Abrams baseline fuel consumption was a matter for consideration at some point or they wouldn't have added the APU (in whichever upgrade). 

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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21 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Guys, give the fella a break, he's trying to mount a hypothetical discussion in a second language FFS.....Maybe take the discussion forward in Swedish and see how that goes for you?  ;)

 

What's the phrase for "No, you. I'm in the right" in Swedish? Seems like I learn that and I'll have graduated with top honor's at the AG crash course in diplomacy.  :unsure:

Edited by Rinaldi
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The Pentagon has long had something of a fetish for 'revolutionary' leaps forward but more often than not their reach has exceeded their grasp. In the fifties they were looking at a design for a nuclear reactor-engined tank! Their first attempt at fielding a smoothbore gun firing a sabot round (also in the 50s) failed because the over-ambitious long thin guntube would flex during firing spoiling the shot. Combine that with a  'revolutionary' rigid gun mount rattling the screws loose in the tank when the gun fired. Their first attempt at tube-fired missiles didn't fare much better. The Shillelagh missile had a whopping 800m *minimum* range which meant M60A2 was obliged to carry squash head HE rounds to defeat armor at closer ranges. There are example-after-example of Pentagon programs relying on scheduled 'breakthroughs' in technology that simply refused to arrive, or of 'breakthroughs' bringing with them unintended consequences. Stryker MGS very nearly got itself declared combat ineffective and withdrawn from service because of all the bugs and glitches. If you're wishing for a 'revolutionary' new tank be careful what you wish for. There's a 30% chance its going to be a lemon, at least the initial production vehicles.

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7 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

"No Boiling Vessel!"  Well that's it then, the thing's utterly useless!  :o

I was wondering if this would crop up and I'm rather pleased to see that it did.....We Brits really don't do anything without a decent cuppa.  :D

I lived in London for two years [and Ingatestone Essex briefly] and never once had a decent cuppa.  Wilty tea bags, kettles instead of Mr. Coffee machines, Nescafe instant-- it's the stuff of nightmares.  I had to add milk and sugar just to survive.  And I'll tell you what, when you trust someone else to add the sugar and milk for you over there, you're playing with fire-- the milk from Sainsburys goes bad in like 3 days flat and people tend to not notice they've added bad milk to your drink till you're swigging curdles.  I'm shuddering right now as I'm imagining your decent cuppas.

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And I yours, I suspect.  ;)

I'm a Yorkshire Tea man.....Two sugars in with the tea-bag, good long stew & mash, add (fresh, semi-skimmed) milk until a rich terracotta colour is achieved (always remembering to remove the tea-bag first), preferably in my Airfix Spitfire mug:

wwl.airfix_plane.right_box.jpg

If you didn't know I was British already..... 

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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3 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

I lived in London for two years [and Ingatestone Essex briefly] and never once had a decent cuppa.

I hear you. I have twice been served tea by a Britisher and both times it was a ghastly undrinkable mess. I would be inclined to think that obligatory throughout the Commonwealth but for a gentleman from South Africa who taught me the proper way to do it, bless him forever. We had just met and had hit it off famously, so he invited me to go with him to a local coffee shop for a cup of tea. Now you should understand that all my life up to that point I had always brewed my tea the conventional way: three minutes in the cup then pull the bag out and squeeze it. So I was very surprised when he pulled his out well before the allotted time. I commented on the fact and he replied in this fashion: "If you brew it for half a minute, it is like the kiss of a young virgin. If you brew it for a full minute, it is like the kiss of a mature woman. If you brew it for three minutes, it is like the kiss of an old hag!"

Well, I tried it and found he was right. For about the next three decades I brewed my tea for half a minute and delighted in the subtle flavor of the tea. But for the last couple of decades I have gradually increased the brewing time and now I enjoy the love of a mature cup of tea. I will leave the Brits to their love of old hags. I expect Freud would have had something to say about the practice.

;)

Michael

 

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