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MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#3201: Nov 19th 2015 at 5:39:15 AM

The supply sergeant told them, "There's thirteen thousand miles on this self-propelled disaster area, and they're supposed to be turned in for a complete rebuild at five thousand."

What kind of warranty and bullshit deal are they getting these from? And here I have an older (2000 model) Ford Mustang that has 150,000 miles. At 5000 miles it should just need some minor maintenance work and a new barrel of oil for the engine, not a complete factory rebuild. What kind of crap are they making if it needs that?

Night The future of warfare in UC. from Jaburo Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
The future of warfare in UC.
#3202: Nov 19th 2015 at 6:08:25 AM

The battle for Peleliu Airfield had a tank on tank engagement. Sure it was only about 17 IJA tanks vs the mish mash of LVT's, Shermans and whatever else the Marines got on land at the time but it was there.

The Japanese vehicles were dug in deep enough they were effectively bunkers, not tanks. Actual tanks-in-motion unit-level combat happened happened during both Philippine invasions and the Japanese night tank attack on Saipan. (The later being a marginal case as most of the Japanese tanks were destroyed by infantry and artillery; the last few penetrated US lines only to run directly into a platoon of Shermans coming up to seal the hole they got through.)

Actual Japanese tank deployment is a bit more common, but mostly it either saw them pitted against US infantry, or dug in to the point they were immobile.

Nous restons ici.
entropy13 Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#3203: Nov 19th 2015 at 6:40:35 AM

The first Philippines Campaign also featured a cavalry regiment repulsing an armored assault (led by the 4th Tank Regiment).

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#3204: Nov 19th 2015 at 8:19:31 AM

So, the Panther was shit.

http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/10/02/from-the-vault-british-report-on-captured-panther-tank/

http://tankandafvnews.com/2015/11/13/from-the-vault-post-war-british-report-on-panther-reliability/

The amount of mechanical trouble experienced on this trial suggest that the Panther compares very unfavourably with any British tank now in the service.

Despite the fact that no less than five vehicles were available for test, very little information of any value was obtained from the trials owing to the extreme unreliability of the Panther tank.

During the cross country trials a fire occurred in the engine compartment and due to the considerable internal damage sustained the trials were abandoned.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#3205: Nov 19th 2015 at 8:22:53 AM

Five perfectly good tanks and they couldn't keep them running long enough to garner any kind of information from them?

I knew Panthers were bad but holy shit that's bad.

Oh really when?
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#3206: Nov 19th 2015 at 8:23:53 AM

But but but

>Muh german engineering

>Muh Kurp steel

>Muh over 9000 Shermans and T-34 destroyed

edited 19th Nov '15 8:24:00 AM by AngelusNox

Inter arma enim silent leges
pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#3207: Nov 19th 2015 at 1:14:13 PM

@Tom: Your Ford Mustang isn't getting hit repeatedly by antitank rockets, running over land mines, getting blown up by roadside bombs...

Comparing a main battle tank to a passenger car is apples to oranges. Instead, it would be more comparable to a bulldozer or some other piece of heavy construction equipment. They don't rack up high mileage, either.

edited 19th Nov '15 1:59:28 PM by pwiegle

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#3208: Nov 19th 2015 at 4:22:01 PM

The tank is also rolling cross country and hauling around a few tons of steel. You start adding things like a big heavy dozer blade and hill billy armor on soft spots it adds up and increases wear and tear.

Tanks are notoriously high maintenance vehicles. I would imagine if it was getting smacked by AT and other things it got partial rebuilds in some parts anyway possibly extending the life before it finally gave up the ghost. It is why if possible it is preferable to haul them around by train then have them travel along a road for long distance travel.

Most dozers and similar vehicles also get hauled around by large flat beds and they aren't hauling around tons of armor, ammo, and guns taking weapons fire.

Who watches the watchmen?
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#3209: Nov 19th 2015 at 9:58:51 PM

@ Tom: A tank is a lot more complicated then a Ford Mustang — hell, a lot of cars are more complex then a Ford Mustang! There's a lot more to go wrong.

Keep Rolling On
TairaMai rollin' on dubs from El Paso Tx Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Mu
rollin' on dubs
#3210: Nov 20th 2015 at 12:30:10 AM

@Achaemenid:

We've known that "German engineering" is the "Katanas are under powered in D&D" of World War Two tropes. I just keep thinking about how the SP howitzer that the US Army fielded weighted the same as it's WWII German counterpart, but had half the parts. One of the reasons they lost the war, an addiction to complexity.

@Angelus Nox: don't forget that the Russians got better at tank warfare than the Germans and only had a 2:1 advantage. This got Fladerized into Eleventy Zillion to One when people wrote the first wargames and movies about the Eastern Front.

edited 20th Nov '15 12:33:47 AM by TairaMai

I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#3211: Nov 20th 2015 at 2:10:10 AM

[up]Yeah with the gradual improvements both Sherman and T-34/85 received, the rations started to become more favorable to both Yanks and Rooskies.

Besides the maintenance issues with the Tiger I, Panther and the Tiger II were turning those things into liabilities, not assets.

The Germans decided to go the bigger and heavier route for tank development when they couldn't afford to.

Inter arma enim silent leges
MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#3212: Nov 20th 2015 at 5:02:31 AM

But but but

>Muh german engineering

>Muh Kurp steel

>Muh over 9000 Shermans and T-34 destroyed

Were there even 9000 Shermans destroyed in the war? Most tank loss counts I've come across suggest that while total western Allies losses were in the thousands of tanks they were neither all Shermans nor were there 9000 losses.

I know T-34s had an atrocious attrition rate at times.

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#3213: Nov 20th 2015 at 7:32:33 AM

[up]The joke is the Germans inflating their kill count to credit the effectiveness of their Tiger and Panther tanks, not them literally destroying over 9000 tanks

Inter arma enim silent leges
TairaMai rollin' on dubs from El Paso Tx Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Mu
rollin' on dubs
#3214: Nov 20th 2015 at 8:19:54 AM

And worse was that after the war, the Nazi "untermench" sterotype was somehow "de-nazified" as German officers wrote their memoirs. Why did they lose the war? Pick one:

After the war, Rooting for the Nazis was the cankersore on wargaming fandom for years. Those handsome, scrubbed clean "Heer" soldiers vs. those dirty dirty Ruskie hordes played well during the Red Scare.

Now there were several books from the tinfoil hat crowd and the green ink brigade that seemed to think this was some conspiracy when the realty was that a lot of German officers didn't want to admit that they were beaten. It's not like Hitler was gonna complain about being blamed for "losing" the Eastern Front.

It all got flanderized into "german engineering" and "If the Nazis had [INSERT WONDERWEAPON HERE] they would have won".

This took a massive dive in The '80s, in part because it was the 40th anniversary of The Holocaust. It picked up again because most hack authors found it easy to write about Nazis With Gnarly Weapons and movie Kitch had made the Nazis Acceptable Targets.

But NATO and the DOD had long since found out the truth. The '70s saw leaks from Soviet archives and people began to look at the actual history. The US Army was scared straight because the Soviet "Operational Art" explained a lot of the reason Ivan does what he does. We even adopted it.

The "Muh Germans are Cool" has faded from most wargaming fandom aside from those idiots who post on Image Boards and very old grognards who bitch when your Russian units curbstomp their hand painted Panzers....

edited 20th Nov '15 8:20:36 AM by TairaMai

I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
AFP Since: Mar, 2010
#3215: Nov 21st 2015 at 5:40:24 PM

It got mentioned a bit above, but the bit about a Ford Mustang being extremely lightweight compared to any armored vehicle you can name will play a big part on the level of wear-and-tear and maintenance required for it. One issue they found when they uparmored Humvees was that everything started breaking, not just the shocks, due to the additional weight. The extra weight means the suspension is under more stress, which means it doesn't absorb shocks as well, which means every bit and piece is getting rattled around.

Plus, whenever the vehicle needs to stop, go, or change directions, there's a lot of inertia to swing around.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#3217: Nov 22nd 2015 at 7:34:32 AM

@Taira

Literally every time I bring up German tanks you make some post as though I've just found out about it. I knooooooooooooooooooooooooow, girl. I already knew. It's like the first thing you learn when you research WW 2. tongue

Also, I'm kind of curious as to what the source is for the Hummel having 2x as many parts as the Priest.

edited 22nd Nov '15 7:35:15 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#3219: Nov 22nd 2015 at 12:55:12 PM

[up] Infra-Red searchlight, used for night fighting.

Keep Rolling On
Imca (Veteran)
#3220: Nov 22nd 2015 at 12:56:34 PM

Thanksies~

It looked kinda like a search light, but I did not think they were normaly that bulky.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#3221: Nov 22nd 2015 at 1:00:03 PM

They usually aren't, it's pretty old.

Oh really when?
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#3222: Nov 22nd 2015 at 1:01:54 PM

Also, we've moved past infra-red searchlights for night vision.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Imca (Veteran)
#3223: Nov 22nd 2015 at 1:06:37 PM

[up][up] Its a Type 74 Garcon, old is kinda with the teritory.

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#3224: Nov 22nd 2015 at 1:19:55 PM

wink Yep; Type 74. The design was started in 1962, and after a protracted design process, was built 1975-80.

Keep Rolling On
Imca (Veteran)
#3225: Nov 22nd 2015 at 1:29:58 PM

It was already out of date when it entered service, the fact that it is STILL used, is why I maintain insistence we cant into tanks.


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