The Military Thread

Cover yourself in poison ivy.

Hug your opponents.

Or dry hump them in order to assert your battlefield dominance.

Gotta footstomp the importance of knowing what you're trying to blend in with. Remember the Gulf War "Cookie Dough" camo with those weird white and black blobs? Those were supposed to simulate the scattered white rocks native to Arizona where they tested the camo pattern. No such rocks existed in the landscapes of Iraq, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia, which is why that camo pattern was quietly phased out.

edited 20th Mar '14 1:32:18 AM by AFP

Nah, what they should have done is start introducing white rocks into the ecosystem.

With no natural predators they'll overtake the area and our boys will be completely invisible.

Ah, but that's the rub. What do you do with all those crystalline invaders when they get so numerous they pile up against the walls and stage break-ins? No natural predators, remember?

Well then we leave after claiming mission accomplished of course.

Then come back in like 30 years once they become a bigger problem

Ever get tired of people calling anything a tank when it's really not?

A simple guide.

Also, I think I know where they took the picture...
Also also, at the beginning 'tank' was a codename.

You guys don't call these "Iron Chariot"?

Man, we suck at coming up with new words these days don't we? Everything's either accidental or based off other words.

Uh... no? We call them 'tanks' like everybody else. Though 'Merkava' is Hebrew for 'chariot', so there's that.

You won't be pedantic about its proper nomenclature when it's steaming through a building at your ass.

It was just a popular reference to Salvation War.

So...we are to call tanks...battle wagons?

We can call them barrels.

No, Iron Chariots are that thing that stopped God.

Well, according to the Bible anyway.

edited 20th Mar '14 11:36:48 AM by TheHandle

So, guys. Which of these should I watch first, Band of Brothers or The Pacific?

Personally I like to watch the more depressing one first and then less depressing, but that isn't a necessity.

What is it that makes putting more than one gun in a tank's turret (a la Command And Conquer's Mammoth Tank, its not-necessarily-same-named derivatives, and the original Red Alert's Heavy Tank) impractical?

edited 20th Mar '14 11:37:17 AM by MarqFJA

re: Marq: Well, in most cases, you're optimizing for single-shell performance or rate of fire. Tanks optimize for the first, IFVs and SPAAGs optimize for the second. In that case, the question becomes: how can you most efficiently use your weight and size constraints to mount the most effective single-shell weapon?

In that case, the answer becomes that a single 105mm or 120/125mm gun is much more efficient than, say, a twin 57mm or 76mm design: the heavier gun is more accurate over range, more powerful, et cetera. The only advantage to mounting the smaller guns is rate of fire, which isn't as useful when you're fighting enemy tanks as opposed to light armor. (The calculation changes when you're optimizing for anti-air, which requires rate of fire; hence the multi-barreled antiaircraft vehicles you see.)

And if you want the mass to mount two heavy guns and all their associated equipment, you're going to have to expand the rest of the tank, too. At that point, though, the weight and cost of a single superheavy tank comes into serious question, which is why there aren't tanks with multiple main guns. It's technically feasible, but such a vehicle would be a massive target on the battlefield, and it'd be much more efficient to build two main battle tanks instead of a single multi-barreled monster.

Good points. So under what circumstances would it make it plausible for a near-future setting to have superheavy tanks of such kind that are actually feasible, if only to act as the land equivalent of "capital ships" that form the center of a tank force (a la Baneblades in Warhammer 40,000), the same way that a modern-day aircraft carrier is the centerpiece of carrier battle groups?

edited 20th Mar '14 11:55:00 AM by MarqFJA

Well, they might work as the equivalent of antiaircraft vehicles. If it turns out that there exists a kind of fast and well-armored target that requires direct hits from armor-piercing 76mm to 105mm shells to seriously affect, then some vehicles that are designed to defend against them might mount multiple large-caliber guns. They'd work in conjunction with missiles vehicles and the like, of course.

Or, somewhat like the Baneblade, have them mount a single ultraheavy cannon for dealing with enemy superheavy threats/Titan-equivalents/what-have-you, and a smaller battery of heavy autocannon for close defense. The comparison to the battleship is a little misleading. While it's true that the average battleship mounted anywhere from eight to twelve main guns, naval combat was such that hit rates for individual guns were very small. Hence, rate of fire was important: a battleship would pump out salvo after salvo, and some of the shells would actually hit. Land combat relies on single hits, which takes away the rationale from mounting multiple main guns.

edited 20th Mar '14 11:58:48 AM by SabresEdge

Mentioned it a few pages back but for whatever it's worth the Russians now have this thing with a pair of 30mm cannons It's called the BMPT and it's supposed to be supporting their bigger tanks that only have the one 125mm gun in tight areas

Yeah, that'd be like an IFV, albeit one with a lot of armor. You'll notice its main target isn't enemy tanks, it's soft infantry and the like. And a pair of 30mms is easy to mount in a turret, compared to a single 125mm.

@Marq

Well, one concept from the interwar period was the "breakthrough tank"; large, heavily armed and armored but not very mobile super-heavy tanks which would smash holes through heavy enemy defenses into which could be poured faster medium and light tanks to attack the enemy's rear areas and collapse their formations. Some mounted multiple turrets; the Soviet T-42 and FCM F1 being obvious examples.

The trouble was, the breakthrough tank wasn't fast enough for the new mobile warfare; the heaviest tank designs were things like the King Tiger and the IS-2. The heaviest operational WWII armored fighting vehicle was the Jagdtiger, which had it's own host of problems. The concept enjoyed a revival when the Allies contemplated the huge German fixed defenses on the Rhine, with the British and Americans designing the Tortoise and the T-28 respectively. In the event, they weren't needed. Had it been fielded, the Maus was to be used in this role.

You could have a look at that; though a modern breakthrough tank would be extremely vulnerable to air attack and getting stuck.

edited 20th Mar '14 12:02:35 PM by Achaemenid

Interesting ideas. What about urban combat, though? I believe that no modern roads would be able to withstand the ridiculous mass of a Maus treading upon it in its glacial pace, let alone anything even heavier (and WH40K's Baneblades are quite heavier — and taller and wider — than a Maus).

Hmmmm... Super-huge construction vehicles becoming more commonplace as mega-structures become more feasible?

edited 20th Mar '14 12:08:14 PM by MarqFJA

I think the only time we'll see a multi-gun design will be when we finally manage to scale down railguns, but have no idea how to make HEAT, HESH and Canister work with it,