The Armored Vehicle Thread

You could also ask on r/warcollege.

/k/ tests Mike Sparks' spastic "BATTLEBOX" concept on Kerbal Space Program:

edited 10th May '16 2:15:19 PM by Achaemenid

God that explosion was much larger than I thought it would be.

Dear lord, air droppable container stored mini-Gavins.

What is next? A container filled with C4 replaces MOA Bs?

Reminds me of an anecdote from The War Magician. They were trying to find a way to air-drop supplies without using parachutes, and were experimenting with shock-absorbing containers.

A test drop of artillery shells did not go well, and someone commented, "Hey, we can use them to dig instant foxholes."

Nyet, tovarich. Air-droppable containerized Gavins full of C-4.

Sabre is phoneposting so there are limits to the magic he can work. :P

Working as intended, CruiseGavin air launched cruise missile tests impressive success.

Lol. that was pretty amusing.

At least it had somewhat apropos and amusing 80s music.

Now that I could actually see the video, it was every bit as horrifying as I expected.

And Now For Something Completely Different.

US Tanks Are Now In Georgia. (Not Atlanta! The other Georgia!)

Say, does anyone know why the German term for tanks was changed after WW 2 from Panzerkampfwagen to Kampfpanzer (both of whom get shortened to panzer)? Of course, it kinda makes sense that they would want change it since the former literally translates to "armored fighting vehicle", which would cover a lot of other kinds of military vehicles, but still... "Battle armor" does not make sense as a rename choice for this one.

To be perfectly fair to the Germans, "Tank" never made any damn sense in the context of an armored vehicle.

Panzerkampfwagen literally translates as armored fighting wagon, so panzer which means armor being referred simply as a generic term for armored vehicles makes some sense as a contraction of panzerkampfwagen once the association between pzkpfw and armored vehicles such as AF Vs was made.

Plus it is German, they hate singular short words until some sense is beaten into them.

It wasn't supposed to make sense, originally. When the British were developing the very first armed/armored fighting vehicles in WWI, they disguised all references to them in official communiques by calling them "water carriers for Russia" — until someone pointed out that "water carriers" would be shortened to "WCs" (i.e., toilets.) So they began calling them "water tanks" instead, and the name "tank" simply stuck.

Yeah, but... Why the change to kampfpanzer? Going by your logic, it's like kampfpanzer is short for kampfpanzerkampfwagen, which translates to "combat armored fighting vehicle".

Nazi Germany used the term. In the climate of the post-war era, that was enough.

Most folks I knew when I was in the British Army called our tanks and fighting vehicles "panzers". Even some officers.

Yeah, but some Brits also have this annoying habit of calling any handgun a "revolver," even when it's a semiautomatic. If it doesn't have a multi-chambered revolving cylinder, it's not a revolver, it's a pistol.

Mind you, our media has the habit of calling any military vehicle a "tank"....

Any ARMORED vehicle I could kind of understand.

But are they calling things like light attack vehicles tanks too?

edited 11th May '16 1:43:02 PM by Imca

To the uninformed (like most of the media), any two of the following constitutes a "tank" —

• Military green or camouflage paintjob
• Armor plating
• Caterpillar treads
• A big gun ("big" being a highly subjective term)
• A turret (even open-topped ones)

So...like, if I slap caterpillar treads and armor plating on my truck, would that constitute as a tank?

No, I'm not saying that it would become a tank. I'm saying that some airheaded reporter might mistakenly identify it as a tank in her on-the-spot segment.

Remember Batman Begins? "Suspect is driving a black... tank." (Even though the Tumbler had none of the features I mentioned.)

edited 11th May '16 2:43:49 PM by pwiegle

Nothing new under the sun really.