German tanks-not good enough?

[Vanir Ausf B]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

Yeah, that is what they are telling the tankers and "for now". But when all the threat guys have top-attack ATGMs and smart IR-homing HEAT mortar rounds (which the Swedes will already sell to anybody with hard currency), the M-1 will go the way of the dinosaur.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Um, maybe. But I'm always a bit skeptical of claims that such-and-such new weapon will make such-and-such obsolete. Truth is, these things go in cycles. A way to kill something is invented and then a way to counter it follows.

The demise of the MBT was predicted as early as 1973 following the Yom Kippur war. Back then it was the ATGM that spelled the doom of armor. That lasted for a decade or so until Chobham and ERA came along. You now see the Russians using anti-missle defence systems on their tanks.

People have been saying for 15 years or more that the proliferation of man-portable SAMs has made helicopters absolete, but I don't see anyone scraping their Apaches yet.

EDITED for defamatory statement regarding kippers

[ 09-26-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

Yom Kipper<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why did Yom make war on Kippers? Did he not believe in a hearty breakfast? They are good for you! He must be an evil agent of the Kellogs Foundation...

Hmmm, Caster Kippers...

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Why did Yom make war on Kippers? Did he not believe in a hearty breakfast? They are good for you! He must be an evil agent of the Kellogs Foundation...

Hmmm, Caster Kippers...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Even in Evil America where we heap scorn on all things Commonwealth (from bolt action rifles to bridge building tanks) there are a few among us who wolf down kippers. Yea verily. And mightily do we soak them in HP sauce as well.

Did you get my email, Andreas???

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

Even in Evil America where we heap scorn on all things Commonwealth (from bolt action rifles to bridge building tanks) there are a few among us who wolf down kippers. Yea verily. And mightily do we soak them in HP sauce as well.

Did you get my email, Andreas???<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But only historically well researched kippers.

However, and let me make this clear, I will never eat a pudding called "spotted dick" no matter how much the limeys like the stuff. Having eaten blood sausage and blood pudding, and discovered they tasted like (you guessed it) blood, I have no desire to try my luck with the other concoction, just in case.

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

However, and let me make this clear, I will never eat a pudding called "spotted dick" no matter how much the limeys like the stuff. Having eaten blood sausage and blood pudding, and discovered they tasted like (you guessed it) blood, I have no desire to try my luck with the other concoction, just in case.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that is actually called Spotted DOG, but the basic principle holds.

There is also a British "delicacy" called Drowned Baby or sometimes Boiled Baby which you might also want to avoid.

Also in that category you can put Toad in the Hole, Dog's Body, and some archaic thing called Soused Hogs Face which they reference in the Patrick OBrian series, but I have no idea what it is...

It probably involves suet.

And yes, I know, the Americans put syrup on their bacon sometimes at brunch and are responsible for inflicting the horror known as Jello Salad on unsuspecting world cuisine. We are a nasty bunch.

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence:

Even in Evil America where we heap scorn on all things Commonwealth (from bolt action rifles to bridge building tanks) there are a few among us who wolf down kippers. Yea verily. And mightily do we soak them in HP sauce as well.

Did you get my email, Andreas???<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kippers, Spotted Dick, now the only thing we need are Bangers and Mash and that cabbage/potato concoction whose name escapes me, and we are firmly in the centre of the desaster zone that is English Cuisine.

Got the mail Terence, just been busy. Will reply tomorrow.

[Vanir Ausf B]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hansfritz:

Is this biased by the American programmers,do they refuse to see the Sherman,like most allied tanks were ****.Over to you.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you think the Sherman was ****, and that BTS didn't program them to be ****ty enough, please provide specific evidence that shows exactly what it is about the Sherman in CM that is not correct, and how it could be changed to make it as ****ty as the real thing.

[Michael Dorosh]

Germanboy, pardon my French, but only a square-headed Limey would sing the praises of what Canadian soldiers called "sewer trout." Go eat some poutine and consider yourself cultured for it!

(GAGHHH) You probably like mushy peas, too.

With warm mushy regards,

I remain,

MAD

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Kippers, Spotted Dick, now the only thing we need are Bangers and Mash and that cabbage/potato concoction whose name escapes me, and we are firmly in the centre of the desaster zone that is English Cuisine.

Got the mail Terence, just been busy. Will reply tomorrow.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Aaaah... English Cuisine.

Someone once advanced the theory (was it Douglas Adams?) that once the English had turned the Catholic church out of power during the days of Henry VIII, they still found they needed absolution for sins.

So they turned to the execrable food as a sort of culinary scourge.

Someone else once said of England that they did not understand a country with 87 religious sects but only one sauce.

All British Friends: Please note I admitted the culinary shortcomings of the US in a previous post and am just taking the piss out of you guys a little bit. For fun, like.

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

With warm mushy regards,

I remain,

MAD<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Indeed you do.

Now here is a good one - the German Military Secret Service (a hopeless bunch of wastes of space) is called Militaerischer Abschirmdienst - abbreviated MAD.

Mushy peas - looks like it was eaten before by somebody else. Yikes. I had forgotten about 'sewer trout', but it is an apt name for it.

The funny thing is that the English soldiers complained about the quality of German food they captured. Makes you wonder how bad that must have been.

What was this thread about? Ah yes, ****ty Allied tanks. Well, add ****ty Allied breakfasts, and you wonder how they ever won the war. I am certain the German Sonderbreakfast 1299 was far superior to any breakfast the Allies could field.

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

I am certain the German Sonderbreakfast 1299 was far superior to any breakfast the Allies could field.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Probably bulletproof too.

[Jeff Duquette]

Why El Alamein? Why not

Briefly…obviously any operation during WWII can attribute its success or failure to numerous factors. I certainly would not focus on tank armor or tank gun power as being irrelevant nor would I over emphasize whether one side or the other has 3 inches of armor or only 2 inches on their glacis (although clearly the immediate participants were no doubt keenly interested in such details).

But as to how this relates to the original contention of Jason's; El Alamein involved a contest between British and German Armor in which British tankers enjoyed a rare moment of equipment superiority in N. Africa. The Backbone of the 8th Army’s Armored Divisions were built around some 400 newly acquired Sherman tanks, and another 100 odd Grant\Lees (plus the ubiquitous Crusaders Matildas, Stuarts, Valentines etc). German Panzer strength in front of Alamein consisted of 300 obsolete Italian Tanks and 210 Panzers of varying models…Mk II, MkIII’s, and MkIV’s. Only 30 odd MkIVF’s with the long barreled 75mm were present with the Afrika Korps during the Alamein Operations. Clearly the Sherman was a veritable “Panther” with regards to its armor and gun power and when stacked against Rommel’s MkIII’s and Italian M13’s.

[Michael Dorosh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

Why El Alamein? Why not

Briefly…obviously any operation during WWII can attribute its success or failure to numerous factors. I certainly would not focus on tank armor or tank gun power as being irrelevant nor would I over emphasize whether one side or the other has 3 inches of armor or only 2 inches on their glacis (although clearly the immediate participants were no doubt keenly interested in such details).

But as to how this relates to the original contention of Jason's; El Alamein involved a contest between British and German Armor in which British tankers enjoyed a rare moment of equipment superiority in N. Africa. The Backbone of the 8th Army’s Armored Divisions were built around some 400 newly acquired Sherman tanks, and another 100 odd Grant\Lees (plus the ubiquitous Crusaders Matildas, Stuarts, Valentines etc). German Panzer strength in front of Alamein consisted of 300 obsolete Italian Tanks and 210 Panzers of varying models…Mk II, MkIII’s, and MkIV’s. Only 30 odd MkIVF’s with the long barreled 75mm were present with the Afrika Korps during the Alamein Operations. Clearly the Sherman was a veritable “Panther” with regards to its armor and gun power and when stacked against Rommel’s MkIII’s and Italian M13’s.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The moral is as to the physical on the order of ten to one - or sumptin' like that...

There are those who would say that Montgomery's influence on the 8th Army was what really saved the day at El Alamein - though US made tanks no doubt made a large difference, too...

Not just an influence on morale, but on tactics/strategy Monty had. I still remember my WW II professor in University recounting how, after being able to such British armour into hopeless and futile front-on attacks time and again, when Monty refused to commit his armour at El Alamein, Rommel cried out in desperation "Why won't the ****er attack?"

Validity? Beats me. But sometimes the non-appearance of armour (with its 2, no 3, no 2 inches of protection) can play just as big a role.

Add brussels sprouts to my "ick" list. German bread is gross, too, but Zwieback and sausage - I could live on that.

[Joe Shaw]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I am certain the German Sonderbreakfast 1299 was far superior to any

breakfast the Allies could field.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ah but you see Andreas, those of us who KNOW you can easily detect the telltale quibble of your "source" on this bit of grogdom.

Were you indeed certain, you'd have said "It has been proven that ...", or "As Otto Von Peters stated in his groundbreaking work, 'German Field Nutrition 1939-1945' ..." or something of the sort. Your weak "I am certain" is proof positive that you are, in fact, GUESSING.

In fact, the U.S. Army did field tests on the Sonderbreakfast 1299 in 1946 with the following officially tabulated results:

14% Tastes like sh*t.

27% Looks and tastes like sh*t.

31% Absolutely IS sh*t ... no, really it is.

20% I'M not gonna try that sh*t, no way man.

8% Oh I don't know, it could be worse, not bad once you get past the taste ... and smell of it, mind you I wouldn't want it on a regular basis but it makes a fair change from ...

and so on. Poor scholarship, Andreas, you're getting lazy now that you're gainfully employed.

Joe

[M Hofbauer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Now here is a good one - the German Military Secret Service (a hopeless bunch of wastes of space) is called Militaerischer Abschirmdienst - abbreviated MAD.

Mushy peas<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

(left the mushy peas bit in because it somehow seemed to fit with the first part)

Yes the MAD is something of a castrate (the german one, not the Canadian one):

(quote)

§4 (Befugnisse des Militärischen Abschirmdienstes)

(1)(...)

(2) Polizeiliche Befugnisse oder Weisungsbefugnisse stehen dem Militärischen Abschirmdienst nicht zu; er darf die Polizei auch nicht im Wege der Amtshilfe um Maßnahmen ersuchen, zu denen er selbst nicht befugt ist.

(end quote)(more available upon request)

->the cannot do anthing really

->all they are allowed to do, as far as I can gather (§4 Abs.1), is read and evaluate collected data. They are definitely only double-zero material in the rest-room sense, not in the Bond, James Bond - sense.

[M Hofbauer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

Why El Alamein? Why not <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jeff,

because JasonC could argue that this was a matter of overall numerical superiority, and not of technical superiority, as the advantage of those Shermans and Grants over the Pz IV Ausf.F2 (IIRC) is debatable (to put it carefully).

The way I understood his original premise was that he was referring to an edge in technology, in armor development having a practical relevance. Al-'Alamayn seems more an example of many good (but not cutting-edge, superior design, latest-breakthrough-in-armor-technology, amazing discoveries - type) tanks facing a small number of at least similarly good tanks plus a number of obsolete tanks.

best regards,

M.Hofbauer

[Mark IV]

Nomonhan was a case of much better tanks being led by a much better tank commander (Zhukov) in perfect tank country, against a fanatical enemy who had much worse tanks and less idea what to do with them.

Both had lots of field artillery and airplanes, to boot. The tanks are what made the great Soviet encirclements possible, however. The 45mm Russki guns shot the junky Japanese tanks to pieces, and the Imperial forces were powerless to stop them (they had better luck with their version of Molotov cocktails).

To an extent, superior tanks led to superior tactics, because the Russian realized what he could "get away with", operationally speaking. Net result of a huge month-long operation was a total Japanese defeat, which might well have been averted with an even comparable tank to the T-28s, BT5s and 7s, and ACs the Russians had (I don't think there were many- if any- T-34s in this battle).

As with any operation this size there were many contributing factors to the outcome, but I believe the tanks made the difference (so did the Russian and Japanese commanders). If the Japanese had had the equivalent of a Pz III it would have been a lot different, and WWII would have changed dramatically if the Japanese had been victorious there.

[Brian Rock]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

If the Japanese had had the equivalent of a Pz III it would have been a lot different, and WWII would have changed dramatically if the Japanese had been victorious there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think that follows at all. Quite apart from the poor tech specs of Japanese tanks they had no sensible doctrine for how to use them. If decent-tanks/poor doctrine didn't work for the British and French in June 1940 I see no reason why it should have worked for the Japanese at Nomonhan.

[JonS]

Brian

True, but did the Russians have decent-to-poor tanks and decent doctrine to round out the rest of your analogy?

Regards

Jon

[PJungnitsch]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>WWII would have changed dramatically if the Japanese had been victorious there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Scary thought. A Japanese victory would have meant a Japanese attack from the East to coincide with Barbarossa, therefore no transfer of Siberian troops to save Moscow, therefore no USSR. With no USSR German victory over England would have been assured and WWII would have been over.

The Soviet purchase and development of Christie's designs couldn't have been money better spent.

[Brian Rock]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JonS:

Brian

True, but did the Russians have decent-to-poor tanks and decent doctrine to round out the rest of your analogy?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, the Russians had superior tanks and decent doctrine.

I'm not saying the situations are strictly analogous, simply pointing out that it's not a given that a good tank will make up for lousy doctrine.

[Jeff Duquette]

Marcus:

First and more importantly what is the most recent scoop with Eric Young and his future design work.

Second and much less importantly:

IMHO the F2 and Sherman are probably somewhat of a wash as to gun/armor match up. To clarify; My comments above were more directed at how a Sherman matches up against M13/40’s, MkIIIh or MkIIIg or even the MkIIIJ and MkIVe’s. The inclusion of F2's in my above posting was simply an indication as to how few of these fellows were present with the Afrika Korps during Aleiman....less than 10% of the total Axis tank strength.

Yes the odds were long for Rommel, but there wasn’t any stipulations regarding numbers of vehicles in the rather odd colored gauntlet that Jason felt the urge to cast in front of us I am simply pointing out a series of operations in which coincidently the losing side also had inferior gun power\armor.

Do I believe the operations around El Alamein hinged on the superior gun power\armor of the Sherman vs. the MkIII? Not really. But than I don’t believe that superior gun power\armor hurt the British cause either. I also believe that superior German armor\gun power helped prolong the Normandy Campaign.

Rommel indicates the extreme advantage the Sherman had over his own tanks in several locations of “The Rommel Papers”. I suppose some will say Rommel is simply whining about why he lost. Be that as it may.

The dual-purpose gun the Sherman was equipped with gave British tankers the unheard of ability to throw a decent HE round at German Anti-Tank gunners. Something they really didn’t have in their 2-pdr equipped Cruiser and Infantry tanks. You begin to see a change in battlefield tactics as well as battlefield results in the Western Desert which can be directly correlated to the Sherman (and to a lesser degree the employment of the Grant @ Gazala….all be it this was a British disaster).

Sure the numbers didn’t hurt…but nobody who has studied military history as long as many of the folks on this board have (including yourself) should place an excessive amount of faith in numbers as a gauge of who is likely to win a battle. Rommel was known for his abilities to beat the odds on numerous occasions...ala Gazala, Battle Axe, Brevity, as was Napoleon, as was Henry The Vth at Agincourt ( We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother …I love the way The Kenneth Branagh does that speech)

Just an aside but one could argue that the only reason superior German armor\gun power didn’t prevail in Normandy was because of Allied Air superiority, or Allied logistical advantages, or the numbers of jeeps the Americans had, or whatever other advantage you can think of. Personally I think the German lost in Normandy because of the superior generalship of Sir Bernard Law Montgomery.

[ 09-26-2001: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

[Gyrene]

German Tanks not good enough? Nope, their guns weren't good enough, their planes weren't good enough, their Generals weren't good enough and their troops weren't good enough.

They lost the war, beaten by a bunch of poorly trained and led subhumans equipped with poorly designed, badly manufactured, antiquated junk.

The Mighty Teutonic Knights should have rolled over them all.

BTS...You know the drill, fix or do somefink.

Gyrene

[JasonC]

Uranus

It does qualify as a campaign. The Russians did have better tanks and won. I already mentioned this case. The reasons for the victory had to do with operational factors - hitting the thin flanks of the Stalingrad position with vastly superior numbers of both men and tanks. It is true the Germans and their allies on the north wing had only 37mm Pz38(t)s in the immediate path of the attack, and they were engulfed in a matter of days and overrun. But they also had only around 200 of them, only half commanded by Germans - who did manage to delay for a couple of days, against 1000+ Russian AFVs. The Russians could probably have done that with 45mm light tanks, the odds were so steep, but certainly the T-34s made it easier.

In terms of forces already fielded, the Germans have shipped ~2500 AFVs with 75mm long by then, and twice that number as towed PAK. In terms of the rest of the campaign, one of the most picked over of the war, one does not see at the operational level any marked effect from the tank spec match up. When the Russians push too deep into the German rear, their T-34 columns get chopped up. When the Germans push with whole panzer corps, they gain ground against armor or infantry. But 6th Army gets trapped for operational reasons and strategic decisions, both before and during the battle, and that is what mattered.

The Germans recover from that loss only after losing a lot of ground and railing in significant additional forces. In the Kharkov counterattack, the T-34 columns lose to the German tanks, stabilizing the front. Mostly because they are fought in sequence by tight combined arms forces, while the Russians are scattered, armor heavy, and poorly coordinated.

El Alamein

Who had the better tanks? The British, going by weight in the mix. The best tank on the field was certainly the Pz IV long, but only a few were present. The second best was the Sherman. The Brits had more Shermans, and they had more tanks overall - by about 2 to 1. Their force was certainly not all Shermans. The main factor that led to British victory, though, was simply superior numbers.

The Brits had -

251 Shermans

165 Grants

76 Stuarts

250 Crusaders

186 Valentines

The Germans had only about 500 tanks, half of them Italian. Most of the German tanks were Pz IIIH with short 50mm or Pz IVE with short 75mm. They had a moderate portion of Pz IIIJ with long 50mm and a handful of the new Pz IVF with long 75mm. I haven't found the exact numerical breakdowns, but that much is familiar from the histories. The Italian tanks (M13/40s) could match the Crusaders and Stuarts in pure gun-armor terms. But the Sherman was better than either standard German types, and the slow, infantry-support Valentine was heavily enough armored to stop most of the AP rounds in the German force, at range.

Did the Brits roll over the Germans because of these armor grog advantages? No. Attempts to advance with armor forward in areas the Germans massed against proved costly failures. Combined arms operations supported by Valentines worked better, and German counterattack attempts were defeated rather handily - which was not surprising given the overall odds. The overall losses in the whole fight came to ~450 tanks on the Axis side and ~500 on the British side.

It was this subtraction effect of attrition that decided the battle. Because after it, the Brits still had 400 runners and the Germans had well under 100. Which left them at the mercy of the British armor thrusts. Start with 1.85 to 1 odds and lose only 1.1 to 1, at a high absolute loss rate, and the odds ratio swings dramatically in your favor. To as high as 8 to 1 by the end, in this case. The main factors allowing the reasonable attrition ratio were superior numbers, sound combined arms tactics (compared to previous Brit attempts in the desert), better supply, air, and fire support, etc.

This was at first a fight of only a few days, but it did decide the subsequent months-long campaign. The side with the best individual tank on the field (the Pz IVF in gun-armor terms) was not the side with the superior armor mix, overall, and the side with the superior armor overall certainly won. They won because of overall odds, however. Which in turn were largely a function of their superior logistics picture, with the Germans short of fuel and ammo for the tanks and guns they already had, let alone trying to field twice as many, to match British numbers.

Both of the above are decent examples in that the side with the better tanks did win an operational campaign. But the tanks being better, while it undoubtedly helped somewhat, was not the decisive factor. Odds were, and the exploitation of those odds. In Uranus the method of exploiting them was maneuver - putting forces larger than the defenders could match at key points. At El Alamein, the method of exploiting numbers was attrition. Careful attacks banged forward until about even losses on both sides had run the defenders clean out of tanks. Breakthrough followed.

The rest

All of the other five names mentioned are affairs of a few days that are all part of one two-month campaign, the British front in Normandy. Here there is no ambiguity that better tanks - which the Germans had, with more than 100 Tigers and 400 Panthers against at best only Sherman Fireflies - were useful. The German tank kill ratio on the British front may have been as high as 3:1, and almost certainly reached 2:1. British doctrine also helped on that score. But it is much less clear that the side with the better tanks *won*. They held for a while, but by the end of two months of fighting had been ground down as much as at El Alamein, with similar eventual results.

The Germans lost 830 AFVs on the British front through the time of Cobra (out of ~1250 sent to oppose the British), and another 100 or so afterward. As late as before Totalize (in early August), they still had 20 Tigers, 60 Panthers, 40 Panzer IVs, and about a company each of Brumbars and Jagdpanzers to oppose the attack. But after it, they had around 50 runners. The same basic attrition logic still decided the whole campaign - of course, along with the US breakout, which there was insufficient remaining armor to stop, despite transfers of reserves and KG to the US part of the front.

The examples are thus reasonable choices but not entirely unambiguous. Better tanks in quantity on defense certainly drove the cost of success in Normandy higher, particularly in the British sector, and may have delayed the eventual result by a month. Useful, but not able to outweigh other operational factors. In the other two cases, the victor did have better tanks and that was doubtless useful to them. But in both cases the winners probably would have won, and just about as handily, had the tank types been exact copies of each other on the two sides. The main operational factors in both western cases were numbers and attrition logic; in the eastern case, numbers and operational maneuver.

[JasonC]

Oh, the Brad was entered in the tests alright. And beat the pants off of the LAV variants in most respects. The wheel mafia engineered a flunk for it anyway by setting the weight requirement just below a stripped down cavalry Brad. They were slightly embarassed to then find that the 105mm gun version didn't make their own weight limit. They decided to go with it anyway, because standardizing on one chassis was also written in stone.

The chassis they picked couldn't meet the gun requirement at the weight they set, and the Brad beats holy tar out of all the other LAVs on everything but that one item. And what is the supposed justification of the weight limit? It has to fit into a C-130, a 50 year old airplane. When we already blew a boatload of funding on C-17s precisely so we wouldn't be limited to such small loads.

The logistic types are firmly in command and they have sided with the procurement dons and the friends of congressmen who will get the new vehicle orders, which they wouldn't get with Brads. They want wheels to save gas. As though every future fight will be on a wonderful road net.

Everyone up at the pointy end will tell you the lessons of combat are uniformly in favor of fully tracked. The LAVs are so light only a portion with have ATGMs at all, and only another portion guns. Divide the combat power by three to save 50% on the weight.

It was completely stacked. Rear echelon idiots always think the grunts are supposed to solve the rear echelon idiot's problems - in peacetime. They only wake up to the fact that instead, they exist to solve the grunts' problems, *after* they get flack for dead grunts and lost battles.

Oh, and a Brad will stop a 50 cal round from the front. LAVs are armored like Russian BTRs - the Afghans made swiss cheese out of those with slightly upmarket 7.62mm MG ammo (SLAP rounds). It is just incredibly dumb, and the price for it will not be any joke.