ITT: Sea Skimmer rescues it from stupidity [Damage to tanks]

[Lord Revan]

Now cars have a role in modern military but it's as scouts or urban patrol vehicles not as tank replacements (since you wouldn't use tanks in an urban battlefield if can avoid it anyway).

It depends on the nature of said urban battlefield. I believe they were used fairly frequently in such situations in Iraq, because a) the insurgency didn't have anything that could hurt them, b) they attracted an enormous volume of small arms fire and c) their training rounds could punch holes through walls to kill snipers/MGs/etc without flattening the whole building.

That is true but doesn't really change the fact that cars or APCs are the preferred urban patrol vehicles, not MBTs.

[Sea Skimmer]

Now cars have a role in modern military but it's as scouts or urban patrol vehicles not as tank replacements (since you wouldn't use tanks in an urban battlefield if can avoid it anyway).

It depends on the nature of said urban battlefield. I believe they were used fairly frequently in such situations in Iraq, because a) the insurgency didn't have anything that could hurt them, b) they attracted an enormous volume of small arms fire and c) their training rounds could punch holes through walls to kill snipers/MGs/etc without flattening the whole building.

Yeah the US and ilk used light armor 4x4s because COIN tactically needed the dispersion of combat power, and we could get away with it. I will point out the much more linear and conventional fighting of the Iraqi civil war against ISIL has put a lot more emphasis into tanks.

In many areas of Iraqi cities though the US did outright patrol with MBTs, and this was vital to keeping the main supply routes open. But a patrol was usually just a pair of tanks with engineers to clear IEDs, not even a whole platoon. Iraqi opposition to the US occupation would have been able to close many roads had US troops not had tanks at all. Helicopter gunships just can't fly enough hours to make up for that kind of presence.

A technical is pretty effective as a way to upgrade the firepower of what would otherwise be a 100% foot mobile force, but its predicated on large mobile battlefields where dispersion can protect the force from being slaughtered by even a weak enemy artillery-mortar force. If no artillery is in play at all, or at least nobody is able to directit then so much the better. So this why it appears so much in Africa and the Middle East, but not in the Nazi-Cossack War.

If the enemy has a modern defense in depth unarmored vehicles are near useless attacking, defensively they could still carry ATGMs, but a light armored hummer is a way better idea at that point. Stuff like airborne troops have armored hummers and the like as weapons carriers, and had them before the Iraq war, but that's the limit of sense before you just want some kind of proper infantry carrier whatever. That kind of vehicle is too cheap to ignore for what it will gain you in ability to withstand artillery fire. It may not do too much more to save you from enemy direct fire, but you just try to stay behind your tanks in that situation.

As far as tanks in cities overall, they've proved utterly invaluable in urban warfare of all types everywhere, short of the roads being dirt and too wet for the weight of your tanks (job for light tank!) you always want tanks. Sure many things can destroy them, but most things only damage them and with proper recovery the damaged tanks can be pulled out of the way and repaired within a few days. As long as they don't burn you can almost always fix a tank. A lot of structural testing has gone into making modern western tanks particularly repairable. Russian ones are a bit variable on that point. Yeah you'll loose some of the crew too, but such is combat. The tank will kill many enemies since only the heaviest stone walls offer any sustained protection from tank fire, and normal 8-12in thick structural concrete walls can be breached by a single HE round. Big concrete buildings can be fortified to provide protection, but you have to build that stuff inside the building.

Any other vehicle in these situations...tends to get utterly destroyed. With a tank the enemy needs to either burn it, or hit it with a triple stack of anti tank mines to ensure total destruction, and burning probably won't kill the whole crew on an Abrams style tank. Light vehicles getting blown to pieces starts to create serious obstructions in its own right in situations where a tank would simply need a tow. Russia infamously got slaughtered in the first battle of Grozny but that was all down to horrible intel + lack of any tactics at all + the T-80 has the worst ammo storage ever

A tank is also by far the best solution to the tactic of sending out multiple armored suicide vehicle bombs against a force. Tank fire will destroy any such vehicle and generally detonate the bomb. Even high caliber automatic cannon really can't promise that kind of performance at close ranges, heavy machine-23mm kind of fire can't even be certain of penetrating the enemy vehicle, since ISIL and Al-Nursa and certain other Syrian groups have all used BMP vehicles and once or twice T-55 tanks with inoperative guns as bomb vehicles. With upgraded+ spaced armor added, even if its made of bullshit, nothing smaller then ~40mm has any real chance frontally.
.

Meanwhile is faced with a 3,000lb suicide truck bomb at 50m the tank is rather better suited to surviving this, and still mobile no less, then anything that has tires. It varies with APCs.

You can reach tactical situations where no vehicle can advance in really dense urban areas, like the 'old city' parts of the Mid East, but tanks and heavy dozers will be the last things stopped. This is generally where your just going to employ massive precision bombing from the air, or if you lack that, Syria has proved siege mining is still relevant.

[Bedlam]

As long as they don't burn you can almost always fix a tank. A lot of structural testing has gone into making modern western tanks particularly repairable. Russian ones are a bit variable on that point. Yeah you'll loose some of the crew too, but such is combat.

Do current militaries work on this basis? I.e. do you have multiple replacement crews around on the grounds that you'll loose more crews than vehicles?

[Sea Skimmer]

Not in the unit, but you have reservists you can call up, and you can reorganize crewmen from tanks that were wrecked beyond repair. Some armies also have dedicated replacement holding battalions attached to major units, a place to collect a balanced group of reserve-replacements to supply on demand close to the front.

The idea isn't that the tank lives forever but that you can keep a much higher percentage of the initial force in action for longer, and because more tanks are fighting fewer of your tanks will be destroyed in the future via superior fighting power. In a battle only lasting 2-3 days this isn't very important, but past that even major damage can be fixed on MBTs on a constant rapid basis. This is why western divisions are so big in support units.

The structural armor steels they are made of are tested carefully to be suitable for repair, and generally resistant to actual damage. For present day standards varying sizes of plates plates get shot through with 90mm-105mm full caliber shot, and raked with 20mm tungsten rounds for example.

The point is not that they resist penetration, they fail, its that when they do so they do so with little or no spall, and no cracking at all. It is simply a mushed hole that is the desired result. You can grind that down and weld a doubler plate over that hole and the metal is good, it's not just a BS repair to make the crew feel good. The damaged interior, depends on the details. The behind armor effects of lighter anti tank weapons like RPG-7 are limited in a large vehicle like a tank without a fire.

These tests have to be passed at very cold temperatures too, many superalloy kinds of steels are okay at room temp, but heavily breakup at -40C test points. Testing like this is also conducted by firing into directly into welded plate joints. The weld shall not crack is a key result of this, something that was not easily done in WW2 but not a problem now. It is a reason why specifications of military RHA and HHS kinds of steels are not as super amazing looking at certain other materials apparent specifications. They hold up incredibly well where many other materials will just breakup when they do go get hit by an enemy 100mm+ caliber shell. You have more and different options with armor against stuff smaller then ~30mm cannon fire in real life. Boron carbide for example typically outperforms silica carbide for body armor, but in trials against shaped charges and tank fire at a much higher velocity range the results are flipped. At least with present technology, processing tech for armor ceramics keeps evolving. These however are prime examples of non repairable, non durable armors.

Meanwhile can you imagine repairing a armored hummer from being hit by a 105mm round of any sort? Its just not going to be possible or much worth the man hours for what you get back.

[Gerald Tarrant]

As far as tanks in cities overall, they've proved utterly invaluable in urban warfare of all types everywhere, short of the roads being dirt and too wet for the weight of your tanks (job for light tank!) you always want tanks. Sure many things can destroy them, but most things only damage them and with proper recovery the damaged tanks can be pulled out of the way and repaired within a few days. As long as they don't burn you can almost always fix a tank. A lot of structural testing has gone into making modern western tanks particularly repairable. Russian ones are a bit variable on that point. Yeah you'll loose some of the crew too, but such is combat. The tank will kill many enemies since only the heaviest stone walls offer any sustained protection from tank fire, and normal 8-12in thick structural concrete walls can be breached by a single HE round. Big concrete buildings can be fortified to provide protection, but you have to build that stuff inside the building.

Would this qualify as a light tank, or is it just too lightly armored? I just remember seeing a link somewhere showing that an Iraqi armored division is using these.

[Sea Skimmer]

Its not a tank, its an armored car. It can't cross any kind of trench or really deal with obstructions at all. Point of a light tank is it still has tracks to do that kind of stuff. If you have soft ground a really light tank can have less ground pressure then a walking man, allowing it to literally float its way over bogs. That was the logic behind a lot of light tanks in WW2. Helicopters made that role relatively less important, because boggy ground generally has little cover from tactical air attacks and helicopters can insert heavy weapons teams and artillery rapidly on whatever firm ground does exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmXEly5_u38
This Swedish 1940s trials video illustrates the issues at hand pretty well, and how much the original Sherman tank tracks sucked due to lack of design experience. A lot of stuff here like going through trees an armored car is just going to be horrible at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiqAAuoL3_A
This shows T-80U against the Centurion and S-tank for ground mobility comparison in the 1990s.

Any tank that got into modern service or any one kept, however horrible in other ways will be able to cross normal trenches and barbed/razor wire obstructions so infantry can attack. Armored cars are generally going to fail at this sort of thing completely.

The EE-9 has spaced armor, unusually good for a 1970s armored car but still only meant to resist .50cal steel AP gunfire, as it would face world wide in the 1970s. Its own gun could deal with a T-55 or M48 but not much more on a reliable basis. In Europe the need to go to at least 105mm guns on armored cars to deal with the better vintage of Soviet tanks drove up sizes enormously. Look at the Vextra 105 as hugest latest example. 31 metric tons, and its still not that well armored.

As comparison the lightest T-64A was only a 38 metric ton tank, and on that weight on the front it has functionally better then twice the armor of a King Tiger. Ammo explodes like horrible because of bagged charges, but I don't see that working out worse then say, a bunch of mech pilots attrition rate.

The best light tank around would seem to be the CV40120 variant, but it looks like no more then a handful of those were ever built. The Russian Sprut-SD also ceased production after very few vehicles. People want armor. Planning for short victorious wars is bad planning.

[Lord Revan]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't one of the reason why the T-34 is considered so successful was that it had so wide tracks that it could more easily move if the muddied fields of the Eastern Front while the earlier german designs sank in and got stuck?

[Elheru Aran]

I think the reason it succeeded was more that the Soviet factories could crank them out like bullets in a M61 belt. It had reasonable armour, a pretty decent power plant, and an OK gun. The Sherman was very similar and had a pretty similarly decent reputation.

Honestly I don't know anything about the wide tracks, but I can buy it, though...

[Sea Skimmer]

Number sure count!

The T-34 had wider tracks then German medium tanks, and Shermans before late 1944. It certainly did better on bad ground, if that matters or not depends on if the ground is wet. Russia tends to be wet. The US military basically tested the Sherman on a couple simple rough road test tracks that did not reflect much cross country reality. Better testing concepts gives the HVSS Sherman and American tank suspension has been very good ever since. The German response was the Panther which had wide tracks and super complex suspension, but not Tiger 1 bad, to even out the pressure even better.

T-34was a terror in 1941 for the Germans because not just its front but much of its flank and rear armor was functionally immune to 37mm anti tank guns, and that stubby Panzer IV gun, which was still the overwhelming majority of German anti armor weapons. The slab sides of the Sherman make a difference against really light rounds like that. Against 75mm+ gunfire this doesn't mean much and the T-34 is just as vulnerable. All medium tanks were. Honestly exact armor thickness and all, they only matter so much. Diverse weapons fought, but relative scales mattered a great deal because they affect the operation of the weapon in combat.

Worth pointing out that the 1941 Germans ass was saved by the ability of their 105mm field howitzers to stop the T-34 and KV-1 with direct fire in no small part. 88mm guns were not in prolific supply. The Germans artillery superiority in general was considerable in the early part of the war,and day to day throughout it, Russia always had lots of guns but the ammunition supply was very low and low caliber outside of a major offensive. With most troops on both sides being foot mobile infantry artillery was just a huge componet of the total firepower. Germans had something like 3,500 tanks invading IIRC, many if not most with small 20mm and 37mm guns, while they had over 9,000 artillery pieces of 75mm and over for the opening barrage.

[Sea Skimmer]

http://www.1-33rdar.org/SMRR65.jpg
Here is optimal Soviet spec regimental zerg rush predeployment idea. Very wide image.

This sort of formation would deploy to attack on a front of 4-5km, though distances of 3-8km could be employed depending on the ground and enemy position. Deployment into this, from long distance transit column formations, was to take place by commie norms 8-12km from the enemy unit. That was in the 1980s, dispersing at a greater range can be a requirement today to avoid clustered anti tank smart weapons and concentrated air attacks. But it illustrates the kind of scale and battlespace that will go into a mechanized ground battle like what's been happening in Ukraine. A deployment is very large, but immensely overlapping. It's direct support artillery is placed as far forward as possible because it provides better support that way. Huge amounts of divisional and corps/army artillery can be dumped onto the sector a single such regiment will attack on.

You will not stand up to that in technicals.

[Lord Revan]

We should note also that modern AT missile small enough to be mounted on a pick-up or similar sized car still have a non-trivial chance of missing their intended target or simply getting a bad hit. while a solid hit from AT missile will generally mission kill a tank, a hit from a bad angle might not.

where as even the lightest weapons on APC, tank or IFV will generally mess up a civilian car rather badly and 120mm-125mm cannons tanks have as their main weapons would turn a car into a twisted wreck with 1 hit and that's assuming the tank formation doesn't have artillery support or close air support either of which would ruin any technical's day without the tank having to even notice the cars. So the Technicals would get at the realistic best case scenario only 1 shot.

[Archinist]

We should note also that modern AT missile small enough to be mounted on a pick-up or similar sized car still have a non-trivial chance of missing their intended target or simply getting a bad hit. while a solid hit from AT missile will generally mission kill a tank, a hit from a bad angle might not.

where as even the lightest weapons on APC, tank or IFV will generally mess up a civilian car rather badly and 120mm-125mm cannons tanks have as their main weapons would turn a car into a twisted wreck with 1 hit and that's assuming the tank formation doesn't have artillery support or close air support either of which would ruin any technical's day without the tank having to even notice the cars. So the Technicals would get at the realistic best case scenario only 1 shot.

But the technicals are also much cheaper to produce and maintain, since the only thing that means anything will be the mounted weapon and the ammunition, the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

What if you had a group of 500+ cars hidden behind a hill and had a armoured division of let's say 100 heavier vehicle behind it, on flat open ground? You could just have about 50 (depending on terrain) cars drive up to the ridgeline on the hill for a few seconds, just enough to fire their missiles and then drive back down below the hill so that the armour cannot fire at them, while the 50 or 40 missiles would probably take out at least a dozen enemy vehicles.

Since the technicals are very fast and nimble, this could be cycled again and again very quickly, with only a few seconds in between each firing with the fresh cars coming up over the hill while the used cars sit behind it and reload. So within a minute or two there would have been hundreds of missiles fired at the enemy vehicles which would probably have destroyed most or all of it, with possibly only a very few technicals destroyed by autocannons firing blindly at the ridgeline.

So while the enemy would lose dozens of extremely advanced and expensive tanks and AFVs, the enemy would only lose a bunch of missiles, launchers and a few jeeps with some mostly untrained men driving them.

How would a convoy of only MBTs (no supporting LAVs or lighter vehicles) defend themselves against a scenario like this:

The MBTs are in the middle of perfectly flat and open terrain, which is wedged between two steep ridgelines which extend to the entirety of the route. Each ridgeline is populated densely with technicals which wait for the tanks to drive into the best position. Now, the ridgeline technicals appear on one side of the ridgeline, and fire a mixture of AT shells and some sort of very dense dust/dirt that would hopefully cover the tanks and temporarily blind them for a few minutes at the least.

Then the technicals on ridgeline A could disappear, while ridgeline B could open fire with pure AT shells, dealing heavy damage to the convoy. Sure, some tanks might fire randomly with their HMGs and destroy a few technicals, but nothing really major. The technicals could continue firing in a random sequence behind the ridgelines until their movement becomes properly countered by the enemy tanks and they organize a effective strategy of firing at both ridgelines, then the technicals could retreat from the ridgelines and instead drive onto the flat opening itself.

The tanks would still be very confused and probably still firing at the ridgeline even though nothing is there, not to mention half of them are gone at this point, and then the technicals could suddenly appear on the flat open ground with great speed and fire at the enemy tanks. The enemy tank's firing views will be severely limited, since they positioned their tanks in such a way that they would be firing only at the ridgeline.

Now, only the forward and rear tanks will be able to fire at the approaching technicals, since the the other tanks will be hemmed in by their own comrades and will not fire from the risk of friendly fire.

Since the technicals are firing directly at the frontal and rear tanks, they will most likely be destroyed reasonably quickly, which would allow the rushing technicals to quickly retreat behind the ridgeline again, and at this point the enemy tanks will be most likely nearly wiped out or at least taken extremely heavy casualties, at which point the technicals could either retreat or just pop up from random, sporadic locations on the ridgeline and firing to finish the convoy off.

[Korto]

Archinist, please don't fuck this up.

Now I know sweet eff-all about military shit, but I'm going to have a little go at this, and see what others agree with.

First off,

the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

What the fuck are we talking about here? Match-box cars? What "normal civilian" can afford to buy hundreds of frigging utes and 4 wheel drives!?
Anyway, I'll ignore that, as a government could certainly afford a fleet of hundreds, or indeed thousands, of light vehicles.

Your plan is to hide a group of five hundred plus light vehicles, and a hundred armoured vehicles on open flat ground and behind a hill.
First, and most important question. HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET THERE WITHOUT BEING SEEN? Five hundred plus vehicles, open terrain, all massed together? They'll be seen by aerial surveilance, satelite surveilance, intercepted radio (even if they can't decode it, they can still be interested in where it's coming from), and probably a bunch of other. Then they're going to fly some planes over the top, and drop a whole lot of cluster bombs, which you have conveniently all packed together for (or many, many, other alternatives. Mostly involving artillery. Arcing right over the top of your stupid hill).

...the enemy would only lose a bunch of missiles, launchers and a few jeeps with some mostly untrained men driving them.

You know, those untrained men are pulling off a pretty impressive-sounding maneuver. One that would seem to require an awful lot of coordination and training.

How would a convoy of only MBTs (no supporting LAVs or lighter vehicles) defend themselves against a scenario like this:

I've decided to stop here, as the scenario has made me tired. I will just say, they would deal with this situation by not getting into it in the first place. Combined forces are a thing. AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE IS A THING.

[bilateralrope]

But the technicals are also much cheaper to produce and maintain, since the only thing that means anything will be the mounted weapon and the ammunition, the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

I own a cheap car. One that is of surprisingly good quality given its price. It cost me $500. What kind of normal civilian has $50,000 that they can easily spend ?

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Since the technicals are very fast and nimble

My car isn't. I doubt any down at that price range are. Then there is the matter of reliability.

[Archinist]

Archinist, please don't fuck this up.

Now I know sweet eff-all about military shit, but I'm going to have a little go at this, and see what others agree with.

First off,

the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

What the fuck are we talking about here? Match-box cars? What "normal civilian" can afford to buy hundreds of frigging utes and 4 wheel drives!?
Anyway, I'll ignore that, as a government could certainly afford a fleet of hundreds, or indeed thousands, of light vehicles.

The average second-hand 4X4 ute thingy costs around $1,000 to purchase, while the "average" wealthy citizen (not the official average probably) might have around 3-5 million dollars, so if they really wanted to, they could purchase a few thousand of them, depending on how many cars actually are being sold at that price.

Your plan is to hide a group of five hundred plus light vehicles, and a hundred armoured vehicles on open flat ground and behind a hill.
First, and most important question. HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET THERE WITHOUT BEING SEEN? Five hundred plus vehicles, open terrain, all massed together? They'll be seen by aerial surveilance, satelite surveilance, intercepted radio (even if they can't decode it, they can still be interested in where it's coming from), and probably a bunch of other. Then they're going to fly some planes over the top, and drop a whole lot of cluster bombs, which you have conveniently all packed together for (or many, many, other alternatives. Mostly involving artillery. Arcing right over the top of your stupid hill).

Well, they could plan ahead and know that there is a pretty good chance of the enemy moving it's people there sometime and then slowly move some technicals there, not all at once, but instead just trickle their technicals there over time. While this is happening, the jeeps could be covered with a desert-coloured blanket which will look like normal desert sandy dunes when viewed from above so no one will get suspicious. While the men are waiting for the enemy to arrive, they would obviously have all their vehicle motors switched off, and no will will suspect a thing.

They will only use their radio rarely, everything else could be covered by word of mouth.

...the enemy would only lose a bunch of missiles, launchers and a few jeeps with some mostly untrained men driving them.

You know, those untrained men are pulling off a pretty impressive-sounding maneuver. One that would seem to require an awful lot of coordination and training.

Well, all they need to do is follow orders. There could be 1 instructor vehicle with signal lights and other things per 20 jeeps or so, plus all the officers that would organize the mission to start with.

How would a convoy of only MBTs (no supporting LAVs or lighter vehicles) defend themselves against a scenario like this:

I've decided to stop here, as the scenario has made me tired. I will just say, they would deal with this situation by not getting into it in the first place. Combined forces are a thing. AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE IS A THING.

[/quote]

Artillery wouldn't be all that useful once the jeeps have already started firing, as a good chunk of the armour convoy would have already been destroyed, plus the artillery would take a long time to actually see where the fire was coming from, a long time to react, and by the time it can actually do anything useful it's probably been destroyed or the convoy is gone anyway, at which point the technicals could just retreat to somewhere safe.

As for air support, how effective are air units against fast-moving technicals anyway? I remember a video where a gunship was firing at a technical on the ground, and it seemed to use up a vast amount of ammunition for just one car, plus I don't know, but wouldn't some shoulder-fired rockets make it quite dangerous for helicopters?

But the technicals are also much cheaper to produce and maintain, since the only thing that means anything will be the mounted weapon and the ammunition, the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

I own a cheap car. One that is of surprisingly good quality given its price. It cost me $500. What kind of normal civilian has $50,000 that they can easily spend ?

Don't most people have around that much money? I mean, a half-decent house costs around $400,000, and there are many many people who own more expensive houses than that. Plus there are even "common" cars such as brand-new toyota cruisers, nissans, ford sedans, etc which cost around $60,000 - $90,000. These are relatively common and you see them driving around in small towns quite often.

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Since the technicals are very fast and nimble

My car isn't. I doubt any down at that price range are. Then there is the matter of reliability.

[/quote]

If one breaks down, they can always be towed by another, or replaced by other cars. Anyway, I am pretty sure that the government should be able to have very bare-bones basic engines attached to wheels produced at a very low cost which are reliable. I mean a brand-new sedan costs around $15,000 today, and that is with all the unnecessary features such as wifi, A/C, crumple zones, airbags, windows, etc.

[Broomstick]

The average second-hand 4X4 ute thingy costs around $1,000 to purchase, while the "average" wealthy citizen (not the official average probably) might have around 3-5 million dollars, so if they really wanted to, they could purchase a few thousand of them, depending on how many cars actually are being sold at that price.

Er.... what?

Maybe 30 years ago that was an accurate price but not now. Not if you want a vehicle that actually works. Then you have to modify all those vehicles.

And, again, rich people don't stay rich by doing stupid shit.

And no, not even in the wealthiest nation on Earth does the average citizen have anything near a million dollars, much less multiples of that.

Your plan is to hide a group of five hundred plus light vehicles, and a hundred armoured vehicles on open flat ground and behind a hill.
First, and most important question. HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET THERE WITHOUT BEING SEEN? Five hundred plus vehicles, open terrain, all massed together? They'll be seen by aerial surveilance, satelite surveilance, intercepted radio (even if they can't decode it, they can still be interested in where it's coming from), and probably a bunch of other. Then they're going to fly some planes over the top, and drop a whole lot of cluster bombs, which you have conveniently all packed together for (or many, many, other alternatives. Mostly involving artillery. Arcing right over the top of your stupid hill).

Well, they could plan ahead and know that there is a pretty good chance of the enemy moving it's people there sometime and then slowly move some technicals there, not all at once, but instead just trickle their technicals there over time. While this is happening, the jeeps could be covered with a desert-coloured blanket which will look like normal desert sandy dunes when viewed from above so no one will get suspicious. While the men are waiting for the enemy to arrive, they would obviously have all their vehicle motors switched off, and no will will suspect a thing.

They won't notice the sudden appearance of 50 lumps/small hills appearing on a flat desert terrain?



Yes, they will. Comparing photos of the same location over time has been a standard military practice since WWI. Not to mention people coming and going. Footprints. Disturbed sand.

...the enemy would only lose a bunch of missiles, launchers and a few jeeps with some mostly untrained men driving them.

You know, those untrained men are pulling off a pretty impressive-sounding maneuver. One that would seem to require an awful lot of coordination and training.

Well, all they need to do is follow orders. There could be 1 instructor vehicle with signal lights and other things per 20 jeeps or so, plus all the officers that would organize the mission to start with.

Good god - no, it's not that simple. It would require rehearsal. Which would be noticed.

How would a convoy of only MBTs (no supporting LAVs or lighter vehicles) defend themselves against a scenario like this:

I've decided to stop here, as the scenario has made me tired. I will just say, they would deal with this situation by not getting into it in the first place. Combined forces are a thing. AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE IS A THING.

Artillery wouldn't be all that useful once the jeeps have already started firing, as a good chunk of the armour convoy would have already been destroyed, plus the artillery would take a long time to actually see where the fire was coming from, a long time to react, and by the time it can actually do anything useful it's probably been destroyed or the convoy is gone anyway, at which point the technicals could just retreat to somewhere safe.

Just shut up. You haven't a fucking clue.

But the technicals are also much cheaper to produce and maintain, since the only thing that means anything will be the mounted weapon and the ammunition, the vehicle itself is so inexpensive that a normal civilian could easily purchase 100's of them and still live in comfort.

]I own a cheap car. One that is of surprisingly good quality given its price. It cost me $500. What kind of normal civilian has $50,000 that they can easily spend ?

Normal 4x4 or Utes cost more like 2,000-5,000 even used. Then there's the cost of fuel for all those. And the cost of guns.

Don't most people have around that much money?

No, they goddamned don't!

It's official. You live with your parents and you don't have a job.

I mean, a half-decent house costs around $400,000, and there are many many people who own more expensive houses than that.

Which people take 20-30 years to pay off! They don't pay cash up front for that.

Plus there are even "common" cars such as brand-new toyota cruisers, nissans, ford sedans, etc which cost around $60,000 - $90,000. These are relatively common and you see them driving around in small towns quite often.

Where the FUCK do you see even new Toyotas going for $90,000? Holy fuck you are clueless.

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Not a surprise as you seem to know nothing about pricing anything.

If one breaks down, they can always be towed by another, or replaced by other cars. Anyway, I am pretty sure that the government should be able to have very bare-bones basic engines attached to wheels produced at a very low cost which are reliable.

Yes but a Ford Model A wouldn't be effective for what you propose.

[Archinist]

Er.... what?

Maybe 30 years ago that was an accurate price but not now. Not if you want a vehicle that actually works. Then you have to modify all those vehicles.

And no, not even in the wealthiest nation on Earth does the average citizen have anything near a million dollars, much less multiples of that.

You could probably produce those cars from a dedicated factory for about that price except the cost of the factory itself.

Okay, so obviously not the average, but still A LOT of people have near or over a million dollars either in raw cash or in assets.

Yes, they will. Comparing photos of the same location over time has been a standard military practice since WWI. Not to mention people coming and going. Footprints. Disturbed sand.

The sand can be replaced by people with rakes and shovels to make it look natural, and if the sand blanket they used is good enough,it won't show any wrinkles or noticeable bumps. For example, each third or so wave of cars could have equipped it's rear cars with sand rakes to erase their tracks.

Good god - no, it's not that simple. It would require rehearsal. Which would be noticed.

Then the troops would be sufficiently trained BEFORE the mission, not during the mission. And they would plenty of time to prepare while they're waiting as well.

Normal 4x4 or Utes cost more like 2,000-5,000 even used. Then there's the cost of fuel for all those. And the cost of guns.

They could set up a proper factory for that kind of stuff, not just go around buying them off eBay. By the way I am talking about a proper developed government doing this, such as USA, China, England, etc.

Which people take 20-30 years to pay off! They don't pay cash up front for that.

Not all the time, sometimes people do actually purchase houses outright. One million isn't really all that much, considering that you can win 50 million dollars in a simple lottery draw.

Where the FUCK do you see even new Toyotas going for $90,000? Holy fuck you are clueless.

No, you are clueless. Just have a look at this link, and notice that not all of these cars are actually brand-new, and they still cost ABOVE $90,000.

http://www.carsales.com.au/cars/results ... =makemodel

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Not a surprise as you seem to know nothing about pricing anything.

I think you quoted the wrong person...

Yes but a Ford Model A wouldn't be effective for what you propose.

[/quote][/quote]

Here is a nice sedan for $250: http://www.carsales.com.au/private/deta ... 0592/?Cr=3

A nice removeable ute for $300: http://www.carsales.com.au/private/deta ... 510/?Cr=13

A lovely 4X4 for the ultra-high price of an excruciatingly expensive $900: http://www.carsales.com.au/private/deta ... 418/?Cr=13

As you can see, you can easily get a very good vehicle (possibly not road-legal) for less than $1,000.

[Lord Revan]

rather discussing how pricy a car is, we should remember one very important fact that hasn't changed at all in the 100 years or so and that is if you could easily replace tanks with unarmored cars it would have been done already, yet it hasn't been only ones using cars as tank replacements are the ones that CANNOT AFFORD TANKS. the term technical might be from the 1990s but the concept has existed for more or less as long as there's been cars

then there's the weapons. High quality AT weapons aren't cheap or easily avaible, there's a reason you don't often see large numbers of TOWs or other guided AT weapons in the hands of warlords. in terms of AT weapons most technicals would have RPGs (probably the russian RPG-7) or recoilless guns neither of which are guided. Oh and at least in case of the RPGs need a very good solid hit on weak spot to mission kill a tank.

[bilateralrope]

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Not a surprise as you seem to know nothing about pricing anything.

I think you quoted the wrong person...

You mangled your attempt to quote me, making it look like one line from me was something that you posted. Don't blame Broomstick for your screwup.

You need to use the preview button.

[Archinist]

Plus however much the armaments cost. I know nothing about pricing weaponry so I won't guess.

Not a surprise as you seem to know nothing about pricing anything.

I think you quoted the wrong person...

You mangled your attempt to quote me, making it look like one line from me was something that you posted. Don't blame Broomstick for your screwup.

You need to use the preview button.

Dude, chill. I edit my posts after I post them, and it looked okay apart from the multiple end quotes. I'm not "blaming" anyone, I'm just pointing out that he quoted the wrong person. Wtf man.


How much could a 25mm autocannon damage a M1A2's frontal and sidal armour? And what about a .50 BMG to it's rear?

[Korto]

Yeah, the cost of the vehicle is a complete red herring. For one thing, it would be the government doing this; they could just pass a "War Act", and take possession of whatever they needed. "Mr Smith, we've come for your vehicle. Here's your receipt"
Although Archinist, you cannot "easily get a very good vehicle (possibly not road-legal) for less than $1,000", you can easily get RIPPED OFF for less than a $1000, and the lower the price, the higher the chance. That sedan for $250? It scraps for $170. There is something seriously wrong with it!

I think more interesting is the sudden evidence of psychic powers in the defenders, in knowing just where, weeks in advance, to mass their technicals. This is a pretty big operation, when you add in all the food, water, fuel, ammunition, spare parts for inevitable repairs, toilets, first-aid stations, and all cunningly hidden!

Or, it's a place where the attackers MUST go, and it's a natural ambush point, too. Which the attackers are also going to know, and they're going to give it real close attention.
If, by some miracle, they don't see the hidden vehicles, they're going to send advance patrols to seize those heights. Best case scenario, you see them first, so you get the drop on them. But all that preparation has still all been totally wasted.

I don't know why you're thinking helicopters and guns. I'm thinking high altitude bombers and cluster bombs. They make all kinds--high explosive, armour piercing, they even make cluster mines! Now that would be real fun, just imagine the area all around you has been scattered with hundreds upon hundreds of mines, and then the artillery starts raining in...

I edit my posts after I post them,

That's why your posts keep on changing!
Good night. Going to bed.

[Lord Revan]

I think Archinist gets all his info on how militaries work by watching FPS bots set to "easy" or low level players, since those often run to blindingly obviously ambushes, dying over and over because they're too stupid or too prideful to change tactics. However in real life warfare you haven't had armies using more or less exclusively 1 unit type since ancient times (hell even ancient Rome used primitive form of combinied warfare). Also World War 1 was the last time that generals would tell their men to charge an obvious death trap with minimal support.

the idea that you could ambush a tank convoy that's unsupported isn't really realistic at all.

oh and most modern tanks can shoot while moving with minimal(read:practically nonexistant) loss of accuracity while technicals not having that electronic targetings methods would suffer massive drop in accuracity if they tried to move and shoot.

And while I'm on a roll, US army has Humvees with TOW missiles but still uses tanks as well I wonder why that is, could it be because cars aren't a viable replacement for tanks?

[Lord Revan]

You see it doesn't matter if you can find 1 specific situation where the cards are so strongly stacked in favor of the technicals that they win against tanks. In order for technicals to be a viable replacement for tanks you need to have more situations where they're superior to tanks then situations where they're inferior and that doesn't exist. I most combat situations if you had to choose between a technical or a tank you'd choose the tank.

Oh and about tank durability in this video it's said that "anything fired from essentially a shoulder fired rifle was insufficient to damage a modern tank", noted that tanks have become a lot more durable then in the 1940s when the rifle in that vid was developed. Tanks aren't easy things to kill unless you have access to high-end AT weapons (like guided missiles) in which case you probably have access to tanks as well.

[Simon_Jester]

This is a very important recurring pattern.

Good ideas aren't good ideas because I can imagine a way to make them work, if I get to set up the situation so that things go perfectly.

Good ideas are good ideas because they work all the time, even when unexpected or unknown things happen, even when the situation is set up in ways that give me a disadvantage.

[Lord Revan]

Well I'd say most of the time rather than all the time but the sasic point still stands.

There's a military saying that goes "no plan survives the contact with the enemy", now this doesn't mean you don't plan, but rather you prepare for the fact that plans most likely will have to be adjusted to suit the changing situation. That's why to go for the things that work most of the time, even if you can think of a very specific situation where that thing wouldn't work.