The Armored Vehicle Thread

You've been watching this, haven't you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wackiest_Ship_in_the_Army_(film)

At the risk of explaining the joke, yes, the US Army operates a pretty sizeable fleet of LCU 2000 class landing craft. They're very flexible logistics craft for inshore and riverine work, and if you squint it kind of makes sense why Army has them.

Now all that's missing is SOCOM getting its own space program.

^ We will call that unit the Space Marines! Or maybe Spartans, or maybe ODST's.

Space Spartan ODST Marines!

What if that results in one of the officers saying "SPESS MEHREENS"? ;)

That officer will therefore be publicly flogged, demoted, and sent to peel potatoes.

Or sent alone on a suicide mission. Depends on whether or not that unit is deployed at that moment.

edited 11th Jan '17 6:20:32 PM by MajorTom

No. We shall reserve that punishment, justified as it may seem for that offence, for the first officer to shout out "Our enemies hide in METAL BAWKSES!!"

I am having dread visions of the various projects to launch troops by rocket.

It will be weaponized 'hold my beer and watch this.'

How about a bear launcher?

No, for that particular offense, the officer in question will merely be beaten down and left hanging from a tree upside down on his bootlaces. Then he will be demoted and sent to peel potatoes once he's brought down from the tree.

A defense clause however allows the officer to avoid a beatdown if he can claim he has dialect/pronunciation issues that can be demonstrated on the part of "METAL BAWKSES!". That however doesn't allow him to avoid being hung from the tree on his bootlaces and beyond.

Exclusive image of the US Department of Ressurection of Extinct Megafauna's latest tank program.

edited 12th Jan '17 7:21:40 AM by math792d

What is it with you and peeling potatoes for a punishment?

It's a boring, tedious, repetitive and demeaning task with no real benefit for the peeler. Plus it's reinstating a classic punishment.

Unless you got a better idea that exceeds that.

Angelus: There was some batty idea fielded by the army to launch soldiers and possibly vehicles from massive rockets either from land or massive sea going ships to be quick reaction forces. They would debark via ladders, ropes, inflatable slides, or even jet packs. The vehicle ones would have either a ramp or some other means of debarking light vehicles like jeeps.

Almost nuttier then flying M-113's or flying light tanks.

edited 12th Jan '17 6:47:33 PM by TuefelHundenIV

^ Hey now, the Soviets actually built those flying light tanks. That's already an order of magnitude or more better than the Aero Gavin.

Tis a pity those flying tanks kinda sucked and couldn't fly on their own.

So i finally got my english tigerfibel. It's a fun read, specially the overenthusiastic claims about tje tiger's superiority and the way it explains some concepts. For example, when talking about angling your tank, it compares it to your mother cutting sausage slices. "If your mother cuts the slice at an angle, it becomes thicker." That page ends with "We want more sausage now!"

I do, actually: make them watch either Cloud Atlas or Noah.

Hey, Cloud Atlas is a great film. You just have to watch it with subtitles in order to catch all of the subliminal messages and easter eggs.

Since every English source uses the same bad machine translation: Enter the T-90 Proryv-3.

Looks a lot like the MS, and so does the spec sheet. The addition of cage armor around the turret ring is quite interesting to note, as does the unditching beam being moved to the side armor.

EDIT: What appears to be some drone imagery of those 3 Turkish Leopard 2s lost in Syria.

edited 17th Jan '17 10:10:06 AM by Krieger22

New initial budget recommendations is out for military spending. Subject to change and the whims of politics.

For Armor this means pushing for the upgrades to a lot of existing kit including the Abrams and Bradley as well as the M113 replacement. Also the updates for the armies long range strike capabilities. Further pursuit and fielding of active protection systems for armored vehicles. Suggestions for funding pursuit of new equipment as well. Some recommendations for UGV's. Fixing the Army SHORAD issues. Recommended development of a new ground vehicle is in there as well. It is mostly about modernizing and restocking munitions, long range strike, and boosting army numbers.

Yeah, they're 40+ years behind on that one. Maybe we can hybridize a vehicle to do SPAAG/SHORAD work as well as AFV fire support and infantry fire support. Kinda like the BMP-T on steroids but having radar and missiles (New generation ADATS for dual-role?) in addition to 30-57mm cannon(s).

Fucking finaly, why is it that UCAV have been around so much longer then something simpler, and more direct. ._.;

Not so good, you guys already have more troops then China who has 10 times as many people for total population, that money would be better spent going all in on tech.

edited 21st Jan '17 12:37:27 AM by Imca

Immy: They need the numbers for rotations and to reduce pressure on existing units. They are also increasing the numbers of combat units so they can deploy to more places as well as reduce strain on existing forces.

UGV has been kicking around for a while but aerial drones have had a longer history of successful development. That and people are really nervous about armed remotely operated ground vehicles for some reason.

Tom: The recommendation is further upgrades for Stinger and Patriot systems while pursuing some sort of mobile SHORAD platform. So who knows if that will happen.

There are off the shelf options open to the army now for Stinger options alone. The HUMVEE system, Stryker ADA variant, Bradley ADA, and even some older ground based radar guided gun options.

Edit: Correction not Stryker but LAV-25 which has a 25mm gun and two 8 packs of stinger missiles.

There is also CRAM weapons that can be made to fill the same role namely the land based Vulcan CIWS platform. So they can get off the shelf stuff now and pursue new options later. But like I noted this is just the early proposition and will likely change once it meets politics.

It will depend on what is open to the army by the time they get around to it.

edited 21st Jan '17 12:21:08 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Could the adoption of the AMPV lead to the return of a Bradley-based SHORAD vehicle?