The Military Thread

If you want the absolute lowdown on what the Soviets thought on Lend-Lease tanks, this hero of a Russian blogger translates Soviet archives into English and posts them on the internet: http://tankarchives.blogspot.co.uk/p/lend-lease-impressions.html Go nuts.

I have done some digging through it for you:

Valentine:

The Valentine was the only British tank they had real effusive admiration for, though they note disadvantages. They liked the Valentine for its good gun, better armor, ability to fire on the move due to elastic suspension and compact, reliable design. They do note a few weaknesses, though - it has poor performance on slippery terrain, numerous weak spots and shot traps, a lack of spare parts, and weak suspension and transmission. They conclude:

It also performed very well in mobility tests.

Matilda

Archive Awareness doesn't seem to have anything on the Matilda.

Loza calls the Matilda "unbelievably worthless", which is probably over-egging the pudding, but it was disliked for its weak engine and gun, as well as the tracks - those sideskirts meant they got gummed up with mud and debris and ended up breaking or jamming. Because you can only get at the tracks on the Matilda by opening up hatches in the sideskirts. Which is inconvenient if they're jammed full of Russian steppe. Loza's account is full of hilarious anecdotes:

Churchill

The Churchill was considered unfinished and rough. It was unreliable and had bad mobility (contrary to its impression in the West, interestingly).

Still, we Brits can take comfort from the fact nothing we sent them was as despised as the M3 Medium Tank the Americans sent them - or, as it was known in Soviet service, the Bratskaya Mogila-6; "Grave for Six Brothers". Get a load of this:

edited 23rd Jul '14 6:27:22 AM by Achaemenid

Was anyone using the M3 Lee in frontline service after 1942? There's probably a reason it was phased out in favor of the Sherman.

They said similar things about the trucks that were sent there too — complaining about them performing poorly when running on poor-quality fuel and heavily overloaded! There's another site which is also good on this subject, and includes soft-skin vehicles.

Here's something else from the first site:

AEC Armoured Car MkII

Unsurprisingly, the Soviets weren't too impressed with AEC's heavy armoured car, which had a lot of parts from the (legendary) AEC Matador.

There were some in use in Burma right until the end of the War — they even saw action at Imphal and Kohima against Japanese light tanks^note  And captured M3 Light Tanks .

edited 23rd Jul '14 6:48:12 AM by Greenmantle

In the CBI theater, but that's about it. It wasn't bad for infantry support and Japans tanks were pretty useless so anything with a gun could fight them.

edited 23rd Jul '14 7:49:03 AM by batter

IBM's Watson advises US soldiers on life after service

Great just what the troops need. Hal 9000 doing service counseling. "Dave I need you to quietly suffer and be shuffled around in limbo at VA"

I'd hate to question your well grounded expertise on armoured warfare, but the whole tank destroyer category sort of does exist for a reason. I mean, asides from being steel tracked battering rams in urban battles to level occupied strongholds.

It should be mentioned that that happened after those T-34's effortlessly ripped through whatever the UN tried throwing at them on the ground, Swiss cheesed all those poor M24 Chaffees that were part of the first wave of foreign troops, and casually laughed off up to six (twelve by some U.S accounts) bazooka and anti-tank rounds. It's less that the KPA "didn't use their vehicles that well" than they used your stated intention of using tanks as breakthrough weapons Gone Horribly Right; battle accounts support the notion that the KPA tank crews seemed more interested in being Big Damn Heroes and The Cavalry than actually clashing with opposing forces or even supporting the infantry accompying them for the matter. I recall an account where an entire U.S line of anti-tank weapons was overrun when the T-34's charging it simply rolled over their trenches and foxholes without even firing a shot and the defenders panicked and fled as a result. Even when they did fire back at enemies, the KPA T-34's often did so while on the move, inadvertingly pushing the front forwards instead of being dragged into set piece battles where the UN defenders could rally and set up more ambush positions to counter them with. However, this method of armored warfare bite back at the KPA when the tanks often ran too far ahead of the supporting infantry and the supply lines needed to refuel and resupply them.

Achaemenid: If you want the absolute lowdown on what the Soviets thought on Lend-Lease tanks, this hero of a Russian blogger translates Soviet archives into English and posts them on the internet: http://tankarchives.blogspot.co.uk/p/lend-lease-impressions.html Go nuts. I have done some digging through it for you:

Whole most of the judgements seem relatively realistic and even handed, I can't help but get a nudge that the interviewed Soviet personnel couldn't help but get a little nervous when praising the Western designs for their alleged "superiority" over Soviet ones for the sake of losing face.

edited 23rd Jul '14 1:25:38 PM by FluffyMcChicken

Well yeah, but the 60mm bazooka and the 57/75mm recoilless rifles were horribly outdated as AT weapons by then anyway; ditto Chaffees. I do agree that much of the North Korean success early on was due to factors other than the thickness of the armor or the caliber of the guns, though—particularly the sheer underpreparedness and shock of the defending troops.

Is that sarcasm? I don't mind if it is, but if I'm full of shit then I'd prefer you told me so I could do something about it.

If not - I suspect and hope you'll overcome your hatred of questioning me

...but the whole tank destroyer category sort of does exist for a reason. I mean, asides from being steel tracked battering rams in urban battles to level occupied strongholds.

In my book, tank destroyer =/= tank. I should have made that more clear - and, actually, it was bloody stupid not to mention "tank destroyer" on that list But it actually feeds into my point - people associate tanks (ie, the Sherman etc) with battles against tanks, when this isn't really warranted. I've got The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force by Harry Yeide on order - after something interesting he said in an interview: despite the American Tank Destroyer Force being present for just about all of the major engagements in the WTO, their story has very rarely been told or even mentioned, because people just want to hear about the M4!

That's all very true on Korea - though, in fairness, the poor little Chaffee was supposed to be a reconnaissance vehicle, and the US Army initially deployed to Korea had been more concerned with hitting the sake and getting their nooky in Japan than maintaining peak combat readiness, and were rather miffed to be dragged across the ocean and chucked into a war with nearly no training - whilst the Norks had been training for GLORIOUS REUNIFICATION and were quite prepared to SACRIFICE THEIR LIVES FOR GENERAL KIM IL-SUNG.

Could well be. That said, the Soviets weren't, despite what some have written (*cough Clancy cough), idiots. They well knew that Marx (God rest him) and Lenin forgot to cover armored warfare in their work Unlike Hitler, who actually told Halder (or was it Zeitzler?) when he dismissed him that "it is clear we need National Socialist ardor, and not practical considerations"(!).

The US army that was sent to Korea at the start of the war was probably the most unprepared and unprofessional ever deployed by the United States. No fault of the soldiers, but the post-WWII drawdown just bled all the expertise they had accumulated.

edited 23rd Jul '14 2:36:11 PM by Achaemenid

Not to distrct from the current conversation but I found this sexy gif of a submarine launched missile.

Anyone know what kind it is? Someone said a Russian BrahMos-I but I dunno.

edited 23rd Jul '14 2:30:53 PM by LeGarcon

It reminds me of that marketing video of the Russian company that makes Buk missiles that everybody's now heard about - they were shooting at stuff from there, too.

The launch spot doesn't seem to match the view I can find of any Russian missile subs, the missile is launching right next to the dish by the look of it, and that doesn't seem to match any pics I can find. Though It's possible I'm wrong, as I can't seem to find any pics of Russian missile subs with dishes viable.

Does India have subs? I know they use the BrahMos

edited 23rd Jul '14 2:46:37 PM by LeGarcon

Not Ballistic Missile ones, they're building a class of them but the first one isn't due till 2023.

So I'm watching Operation: Think Tank, and look who gets a mention.

As said above, Tank Destroyers are not tanks, they just look like them. Tank destroyers basically mess with the three-way balancing act played by all armored vehicles and stack the odds in favor of firepower (and usually either armor or mobility). Your typical American tank destroyer was a tankish vehicle which carried a BFG, could move like a cat on cocaine, and was evidently armored with guncotton. Compare to your typical German tank destroyer, which would lack a turret, instead just having the comically oversized main gun sticking out through the glacis of the very very thick forward armor. In order to save weight, many tank destroyers lacked a roof, which was unfortunate for the crews if it rained.

Also also, the Chaffee was not really a typical tank, being designed with scoutwork in mind. They'd screen ahead of the main force, locate the enemy, call it in and probably beat a quick retreat so the Shermans and Pershings could roll in and drop the hammer. Nowadays they'd use something like a Bradley IFV for the same work (and a modern APC or scout vehicle can also be very dangerous in the Tank Destroyer role due to the advent of modern anti-tank missiles and night vision/thermal vision equipment that can let them spot the enemy tank and get the first cheap shot off).

Also also also, we've mentioned before but it's always a fun discussion topic, American combat doctrine of the era (just as in the current era) put a lot of emphasis on combined arms tactics (actually, what we use today is evolved from what we used then). Armor would fight in coordination with infantry, artillery, and anti-tank units, ideally with air support. This stuff did not all come together until a few months into the war (around the time the Busan Perimeter was formed, if I had to ballpark an estimate about a period of history I've not gone in depth into)

@Silas - The INS Arihant IS a ballstic missile submarine. It'll be commissioned next year.

I read the Wikipedia page on it wrong, it says that the lead four will all be ready by 2023, for some reason I misread it as saying the lead one would be ready by then.

Meanwhile, as a result of an odd hobby/access to Jane's handbooks with my volunteer job, I've been looking up various makes and marks of medium-caliber cannon ammunition—60mm to 90mm, mostly. You know, the ones fitted on Panhard and Commando armored cars, the fast and cheap tank destroyers. Modern 90mm ammunition can get surprisingly powerful; the Cockerill Mk 8 Kenerga gun and the GIAT F4 are both guns fitted onto armored cars that could fire pretty powerful APFSDS rounds. (French 90mm F4: RHA 120mm @ 30 deg at 2000m, and fits nicely onto an ERC Sagaie chassis; Cockerill Mk 8: 150mm RHA @ 60° at 2000m (!), but requires a heavier vehicle to be installed on.) Even the older low-pressure 90mm guns are getting into the act. If you've got a V-150 Commando armored car sitting around, a change to the muzzle brake will let it fire a lower-powered sabot round with 100mm RHA/60deg/1500m.

But the silliest sabot shell I've found is a 60mm offering made by the French...which is designed to fit the 60mm mortar on the AML 60 armored car. Yes, you read that right. Performance is quoted at 25mm/45 degrees/unknown range. For the love of de Gaulle, France, why?

For those familiar with Soviet design bureaus, can anyone tell me why Yakovlev is even still around? Mi G and Sukhoi earn their keep, as does Tupolev and Illyushin. Beriev has a niche market that it has a monopoly in, and Irkut just builds other bureaus designs. But Yakovlev doesn't seem to have done anything of note since the 60s. Yeah they built a VSTOL fighter later on, but that thing hasn't seen the light of day since the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

So what the hell do they even build now?

Achae: That was great. As soon as they read the question I knew what was coming. That look between them was priceless.

Even better was the answer followed by immediate laughter.

"Gavin"

Yakovlev exists? I thought they faded into obscurity after that failed VTOL thing a couple decades ago.

The Yak-130 is doing quite well in sales as the most heartmelting adorable little jet trainer ever (NATO codename Mitten! ), and I think older Yakovlev birds are still banging around in the civil market.

The US army that was sent to Korea at the start of the war was probably the most unprepared and unprofessional ever deployed by the United States.

I don't know about "the most", the state militia forces during the earlier parts of The War Of 1812 could probably give them a run for their money, with less excuse thanks to winters that weren't as shitty as those in Korea.