outontheop

And yet that's exactly how HMGs are (at least, were) moved into attack positions on the offense; with a man on either side (or with one man on each tripod leg). You can certainly move them while crawling; you crawl forward a foot or two, lift the tripod leg, and drag it forward. It's slow, exhausting, and fairly loud, but then again, moving a .50 cal or Mk19 or similar and the large amount of ammo they consume is *always* slow and exhausting. Some of the older machine guns actually had fittings for trail spikes to be mounted to the tripod to make convenient handles, such as the tripod for the Japanese type 92. Long story short, this is in no way unreasonable as an in-game movement method for heavy weapons, *but* the crews probably shouldn't be able to go farther than 20-30 yards before exhausting themselves. See 10:08, official training film (WW2 era, but still):

Question for any T72 (real-world) users here: can the NSV MG on the commander's station be rotated independently of the cupola, or is it slaved to the cupola rotation?

Not in my unit, they weren't. We used a callsign for the company, and an all-numerical system for platoon and below. So Bronco 11 was first platoon leader, and 34 was third platoon sergeant. 6 was the company commander, 5 the XO, 7 the 1SG, 53 the FSO, 51 and 52 the mortar carriers.

Paladin has, and every other M109 before Paladin, had a panoramic sight. (Only M109A6 and up are "Paladin", by the by. The name came with the GPS/INS aiming system) How on earth would you think a howitzer would aim for indirect fire, if it had neither an INS/GPS, nor a sight to aim at the aiming stakes? Direct fire with the Paladin is easy: set the deflection on the pano sight to 3200 (IE, straight forward boresighted), set gun superelevation based off the chart on the direct fire range data plate conveniently placed at the gunner's position, and Robert is your father's brother. The only time I've heard of US artillery aiming down the barrel for direct fire was the M12 howitzer motor carriage in Aachen and against fortifications of the westwall. The only reason they aimed through the bore with it was because it had an unarmored superstructure: if you got up on top of the vehicle at the gunner's position to aim it, you would be exposed to gunfire from the guys you're shooting it at. However, if you stand on the ground behind the vehicle, you can look through the breech and see if it's aligned. Yell directions to the driver (the only protected position) to get the deflection aligned, and let 'em have it. Only effective at quite close ranges.

Sure, but sending a company team or two, via someone else's transportation system, supported largely by someone else's logistical tail, is not exactly the same thing as having an army with the organization, equipment, lift assets, logistics, and doctrine to fight expeditionary. Georgia sent forces to Iraq. Estonia sent forces to ISAF. So did Slovenia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Jordan... and none of those are nations with significant expeditionary capability, either. The Japanese *have* picked up a few amphibious landing craft lately, too, so perhaps they are looking to move toward expeditionary capability, but if so, they have a long, LONG way to go. (and I suspect their neighbors would have some significant complaints if they do)

You're probably right. I bet they fold the mantlet over 10,000 times in a special tatara forge :luxhello: ...but in all seriousness, hard to gauge. The Japanese have proven extremely adept in some technologies, but they haven't much practical experience in a lot of the military aspects. Without real, hard intel, anyone's guess how sophisticated (and more importantly: effective) the setup is. Curious that they're going for a lightweight, easily-transported model, though. Japan's not exactly known for expeditionary warfare, and their rail system should be more than capable of bearing 70+ ton designs.

Huh. Personally, I think the turret looks decidedly Leclerc-ish

LOL ok, Hoss. I con-seed. Yer jus tu smart fer me! Really? You didn't? Not even the part where you implied that my source wasn't "recent enough", like this: Ah, gotcha, so the opinion of individual Marines are invalid when they refute 12Alfa, but valid when they agree with 12Alfa, except the parts where they disagree with 12Alfa. Also, the report in the OP link is not WRITTEN by MAJ Greenberg. He is quoted. All of once. And what does he say? Why, "Major Paul Greenberg, a Marine Corps spokesman, offered the estimate of 65 percent reliability and said Gilmore’s 'review and assessment was done with our full cooperation.' " and " 'Although some the report is factually accurate, the Marine Corps does not agree with all of the conclusions and opinions,' Greenberg said in an e-mail. 'In some instances, the report contains statements that do not provide proper context or qualifying information, possibly leading readers to form inaccurate conclusions.' ". So... ok, he claims that the F-35B had a 65% reliability rate, and that some individuals present this information out of context (for example, failing to provide a baseline comparison in the form of average readiness rates of currently deployed fighters, say?), in order to change the conclusions made by the recipients of the report. Wow. Funny, this sounds startlingly familiar to what I've been saying this whole time... By the way, that report you posted was was for a Naval Postgrad paper; a SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT, not an official report. It ALSO actually agreed with me, despite not actually addressing the period of time which I had referenced- namely, the first three operational years of the F/A-18E. Oh, and the actual thesis of the paper was that there is no statistical linkage between the two methods of measuring readiness; RFT versus FMC. It just so happens to also include even more reinforcing information indicating that yes, indeed, the F/A-18E FMC rate is regularly under 70%. It *also* has information on RFT rates, which are on by-squadron rather than by-airframe basis, and, as the very thesis of the paper states, CANNOT be compared directly to FMC rates.

My response was hardly "I am right, you are wrong". It was "Here is what the evidence says. It backs up my earlier assertion. Therefore, if you cannot disprove my assertion, I am right." I'm not looking for an "argument", but at the same time, I was not looking to change *his* mind. He seems quite set in his opinion anyway. I would, however, like to present the actual evidence, so that *other* people don't fall for the spun tripe the media puts out about the F-35. Now, to be precise, I said his *argument* was crap (specifically, that a particular comparison was horseshit), and that he appeared, to my perception, to be biased. Neither of those are personal attacks. But you are right that I took a very aggressive tack to my argument, and I will say I did so deliberately: his response to my initial statement was (justified, in the initial case) questioning of the veracity, but was followed by a) ignoring the sources, implying they were invalid (because his opinion invalidates them, I guess?), b) failing to provide any contrary evidence, c) establishing strawmen arguments, in the invalid logic that casting aspersions on pedantic interpretations of individual sentences of my supporting evidence rather than confronting my main thesis, will invalidate the primary claim itself d) building red herrings (the "oh, it's single-engine" : implied low reliability), and e) pretty much blowing off my entire statement as irrelevant. As to people implying someone is an idiot... well, I would say that the part where he essentially went "whatever, I'm not going to even present contrary evidence, but thankfully Canada is smart enough to not buy the F-35" (with the implication anyone who supports the F-35 is an idiot), without actually addressing the relative reliability rates.... well, may not be as direct as just bluntly stating that you perceive bias in someone, but it's a lot more insulting. Might as well say "yeah, well... whatever. You're wrong because I'm smarter than you". Now, saying that something is "wrong with people" IS a personal attack. It is directed against the person, not against their argument. You can say my argument is total crap if you want, that's fine. I would expect you to back it up with evidence to that effect, but you're welcome to say whatever you like about my argument. Fight the argument, not the man.

See, now this is why I took an aggressive stance to you, and why I think you have an axe to grind: you hold me to a level of evidenciary standard that is WAAAAY above what you hold for sources that argue the opposite ("F-35 sucks!") side of the argument. You also have yet to provide one shred of evidence to counter either my primary argument, nor my supporting claims. So, let's see here: 1) When you asked for a source, you were asking for the source that the F/A-18E's IOC OR rates were as low as I claimed, because *that* was the claim I made. Actually, I guess you were asking for a source for whatever bit of information I *wanted* to provide a source for, because you didn't actually clarify what you wanted a source for. That's a very intellectually lazy demand right there: you have not provided any sources to prove your own assertions- despite demanding doctoral thesis style citations of mine- but didn't bother to clarify the information you wanted beyond a single word: "source?". But ok, I'll indulge: the 65% F-35 OR rates were straight out of the media reports in the OP. The F/A-18E OR rates for the first three years after F/A-18E IOC were from a friend of mine that worked with an F/A-18E squadron, as well as the GAO report I attached as written verification. You are welcome to the opinion that neither a Marine radar tech who worked on F/A-18Es during the first three years of their deployment, nor a GAO report for those years, are credible sources for that claim. Yet you seem from all appearances perfectly happy with a *Bloomberg* news report as a credible source for your opinions. I will respectfully disagree with your stance on source credibility. 2) Source is simple logic: The Wasp-Class Amphibious Assault Ship was designed before the F-35 was developed. It could not possibly have been optimized for that class of aircraft. Also, a basic understanding of the design purpose of the Wasp-class Amphibious Assault Ship. The clue should be in the name. Not the "Wasp-class carrier", oh no. The Wasp class AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP. The primary purpose of the Wasp-class is to put a Marine Expeditionary Unit ashore, and to support the operations of the MEU. A MEU is a Brigade-sized unit. That takes up a lot of space aboard. It should be blindingly obvious that this entails certain design compromises that affect the efficiency of the vessel in operating high-performance fixed wing strike aircraft. The Wasp itself had to be redesigned from the Tarawa to accommodate Harriers: this shows that the introduction of a new VTOL aircraft may require design changes (the Tarawa was already designed to operate rotary-wing VTOL. This logically means that, unlike your assertion, not all VTOL aircraft have the same operating needs). The F-35B has 1.5 meter wider wingspan, 1.17 meters greater length, and 208% (over twice) the empty weight. It also has RAM coatings, which are notorious for requiring additional maintenance (with associated special tools and workshops). An obvious example of the vessel not being optimized: the landing deck needed reinforcement and thermal shielding to prevent damage from the F-35 engine. Cogent to this discussion: they did not discover this was an issue until they started testing the aircraft on Wasp decks. So, no, I don't have a convenient single quote to indicate a handy quantifiable number of how perfectly or imperfectly the Wasp is optimized for the F-35, or how far from complete are the SOPs for handling and maintenance of F-35 on Wasp-class. I *do* have a wide selection of indications that they are still working out the bugs to find the most efficient ways, and enough knowledge of SOP development to know that it is virtually never perfect in the first iteration. How much modification is necessary is up for debate, but the vessel was not optimized for it. ...Am I required to now source the source for each and every one of those contributing bits of information? Also: show an article that claims that they are NOT still working on developing the SOPs and optimizing the vessel. Provide proof to the contrary. Prove that the Wasp is the perfect vessel from which to operate F-35, and that therefore the OR of the F-35 is not affected by any limitations of the vessel. Provide sources. 3) Again, basic logic: The aircraft is new. There are not that many trained maintainers. What maintainers there are, do not have extensive experience. I would think this went without saying. You have implied that the inexperienced Marine crews are irrelevant, considering that company reps were aboard. However, I have had plenty of experience with New Equipment Training in the US Army: in my experience, the company reps are there to teach the servicemen; the servicemen do all the work. That's the point of having the reps aboard; they teach the people that will actually do it in wartime. In the big picture, no one cares how good the company reps are at repairing things, because in wartime, it's the servicemen that do it. So in the contracts, they explicitly limit the company reps to an advisory-only role. Is that speculation on my part? Sure. But it's speculation backed up by repeated personal experience, and by the statement in the OP article that " 'Marine maintainers ...received significant assistance' from Lockheed and subcontractor personnel," which would indicate that the servicemembers were, in fact, the primary workforce, and company reps merely *assisted*. I could link you to USAF Public Affairs Office video reports about the beginning of the first classes training maintainers (in the past several months) to illustrate that the maintainers are new to the airframe, but that seems a bit needless to me. 4) See 2), above. Among other things, the Wasp did not have F-35B spare parts aboard. That alone seems, to me, pretty poorly set up to operate F-35Bs. You claim that the vessel *is* set up perfectly to operate the F-35B. What's your source? 5) .....are you really arguing the semantics difference between a "shakedown cruise" and "a 12-day exercise" to declare IOC? Wow, ok. You're right. It was a "12-day exercise" cruise. Intended to shake down the processes and procedures for operating the F-35B from the deck of Wasp-class vessels and determine if the system as a whole (IE, aircraft, vessel, maintainers, and supply) was ready for IOC. :heu: 6) Re-hashing of the same point for the third time. Again, see 2) and 4) 7) Even in the OP article, it is stated that "Lieutenant General Jon Davis, the head of Marine Corps aviation, told reporters on Monday that the service wants to achieve that rate eventually, but doing so depends on how much funding is provided for spare parts.", which heavily implies that spare parts ARE indeed in shorter supply than needed. It also said, as you handily point out, "Marine maintainers had rapid, ready access to spare parts from shore”. I would contend that even with the rapidest (that's a word now, I swear!) shore access, this lowers OR. While waiting for an aircraft to be dispatched for a trip to shore, gather up the required parts, and return (a process that could take many hours), the maintainers are NOT replacing the part and fixing the fault on the aircraft. This would, I contend, result in a significantly lower OR rate, because the AC in question would spend much, much longer out of service awaiting parts than if they were already aboard. You know, like they would be if the vessel was actually equipped for the AC (as it will be in the future when F-35B is standard onboard compliment). Reference above re: "Wasp-class is not currently optimized to handle F-35 operations" 8) Yes, you're right. There was "significant assistance" from company reps. Not "company reps conducted all repairs on the aircraft". Not "the entire maintenance crew was provided by company reps". This, in turn, means that the *bulk* of the maintenance crew were Marines. Now, the company reps' experience may have been critical in ensuring maintenance and repairs were done CORRECTLY, but that does not mean they were done QUICKLY. The company reps can provide as much advice as they like, but if they have to talk maintainers through unfamiliar processes, it is going to take longer. Period. I'm not even quibbling about how MUCH longer. It will take some unknown variable longer. The longer a repair or maintenance procedure takes, the more time the aircraft is on the deck NMC and the less time it's airborne, which detracts from OR rating. Now then... none of your points actually matter at all, because those were all just supporting points to reinforce my main argument, which is, AGAIN, that the F-35B OR rate on this "12-week exercise" was higher than the average OR rate of operational squadrons of F/A-18E in the first three years of Superhornet operations. The WHY of how the F/A-18E OR was so low, or the F-35B so high (or, I guess in your perspective, so low), is immaterial. My contention was simply that the F-35B OR rate is already comparable to that of other fighter aircraft, and that 65% OR is actually really quite good in comparison. Now, let's assuming that you're right on all your quibbles, and the Wasp is already as optimized as it can possibly be, and is the perfect vessel to operate the F-35, and that all the spare parts, tools, and workshops were aboard, and that the maintenance crews had perfect familiarity with the aircraft. Even *if* that was all true, the F-35B *still* had a 65% OR rate, which was *still* higher than that of the F/A-18E in it's first three years of operations. The only way that your argument can hold up (at least, what *seems* to be your argument: that the F/A-18E is inherently more reliable/ has a better OR than the F-35B) is if the F/A-18E, three years after IOC, had more room for improvement in OR than does the F-35B. This would implicitly mean that three year into IOC, the F/A-18E maintainers were less adept on the airframe than F-35B maintainers now, that F/A-18E parts availability on land basing and dedicated aircraft carriers was worse than that on this USS Wasp, and/or that land bases and dedicated aircraft carriers have worse maintenance and repair facilities than a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, despite the primary design goal of land basing and Nimitz-class (the locations from which the F/A-18E operates) being the operation of fixed-wing combat aircraft, while the PRIMARY design goal of the Wasp is NOT to operate strike aircraft, but rather to put ashore and support a 2,000-man Marine Expeditionary Unit, including 30 armored vehicles, two artillery batteries, 70 utility trucks, and the LCAC landing craft to get them all ashore. If nothing else, that's a lot of on-board volume on the Wasp being used for things other than supporting the embarked air wing (and the Wasp at 40,000 tons displacement already has a lot less internal volume than a Nimitz at 106,000 tons, and CERTAINLY a lot less volume than a land base!) You still have not disproved or addressed my actual, fundamental claim: that the F-35B OR rate is already better than that of the F/A-18E three years after F/A-18E IOC, and that therefore, 65% OR for the F-35B is, in context, rather good. That makes thrice now that you have predicated your argument purely on straw men. You have explicitly picked out select components of what I said, in the attempt to redirect attention from my ACTUAL argument, to bits of it that you think you can discredit. Even if you *do* discredit them by claiming that my sources aren't "official enough" (and by the way, requiring that I cite every source of every contributing bit of data does not actually discredit any of them, and CERTAINLY does not do so when you fail to provide any sources of your own to *show* that I'm wrong), you have provided no sources to counter my argument. Zero. None. Nothing whatsoever. So, even if you manage to completely discredit all my contributing points, we are, at best, back at a zero sum game: even if I have no credible sources, neither do you. But that's beside the point, because my original contention still stands: the F-35B OR rate cited in the OP article is comparable to, or greater than, the early OR rate of the aircraft it's set to replace.... or at least, than ONE of the aircraft it's set to replace; the F/A-18E. If you really want to compare it with the AV-8B Harrier, I guess I could look up the data on the OR rate of that one, too, but I *very* strongly doubt the results would strengthen your argument any. (actually, you know what? Here you go. Figure 29, page 82: http://www.gao.gov/assets/250/248242.pdf . Surprise, surprise, 60-70%, exactly on line with that of the F-35B) So... what're your sources? A Bloomberg news report? Please. What are your sources that 65% is worse than 58%? Or that those are not accurate OR rates for the respective aircraft? Please, prove to me that the F/A-18E, in it's initial three years of operations, had a higher operational readiness rate than the F-35B on this exercise.

That's not a personal insult; it's an accurate statement: his argument was, twice consecutive, a strawman. He had not refuted my claim, nor addressed the issue with any evidence to the contrary. I am sorry if you feel that pointing out the gaping logic flaws in an argument is a "personal attack"

Well, you're just full of strawmen, aren't you? The company reps weren't providing the entire force, and the fact remains that on the FIRST test cruise, you cannot expect all the techniques to be worked out. That's literally the entire purpose of a shakedown cruise: to figure out what you need to do to operate efficiently. Dude. A cleared patch of dirt is "equipped to handle VT and landings". No, that vessel is not designed to maintain 6 high-performance fighters, it is designed to handle helicopters and no more than 6 low-performance Harrier (and indeed, the Wasp had to be redesigned from the Tarawa-class specifically to handle the Harrier). And even if the repair and maintenance shops *were* large enough and with sufficient tool compliment, do you think it had a full compliment of F-35 parts? No? Yeah, me either. Something more current would not be relevant to comparing the initial operating rates of the F/A-18E versus the initial operating rates of the F-35. I proved my claim: three years after IOC, the F/A-18 had a lower OR rate than the F-35 has BEFORE IT HAS EVEN HIT IOC. I mean, unless you REALLY think it's fair to compare PRE-operational OR rates for the the F-35 to OR rates for an aircraft that's been in inventory for over a decade (the report you linked is data from March 2007 through June 2012) and has had all the bugs worked out? I mean, sure, if you think that's logical, right? Personally, I think that comparison is a bag of horseshit. It seems to me that you are willfully ignorant and have an axe to grind. *edit* also, did you actually READ the 2015 report you just posted? It doesn't seem to disagree with my contention: from the Executive Summary (thanks for citing a specific paragraph, by the way //sarc), "Of 74 deployed observations, 28 achieved the FMC standard of 0.63 (37.8%), while 97 of 219 non-deployed observations attained the non-deployed FMC standard of 0.53 (44.3%)." So... ok, over half the time, they couldn't even manage 44% OR? Wow, great job, Superhornet. Sure showed that F-35 who's boss *rolls eyes* *edit 2* oh, also, before you try to argue from the RFT data rather than the FMC; that is, again, apples to orangutans: The F-35 was assessed on ALL six aircraft to be available for some unknown mission set at ALL TIMES, while the RFT for the F/A-18 in the 2015 report only requires... well, some unknown portion of the aircraft to perform some missions at some times. RFT is compared on operational NEED versus operational READINESS. IE, if the squadron has 12 A/C and only required 2 of them to fly at any given time, as long as it had two FMC at all times, it would have an RFT of 100%... which would be a really miserable FMC rate. It's not a logical comparison between FMC and RFT (which, by the way, is precisely the thesis of the paper!). And even if we DID accept RFT data as a valid comparison (it's not!), the F/A-18, after a DECADE IN SERVICE, only managed a WHOPPING 78.6% RFT (table 3, page 14)!!!! *edit 3* By the way, the single/ double engine thing is a red herring. There have been less engine-failure-related losses of block 42/ 52 F-16 in the past decade than there have been of twin-engine F-15, despite both using the same series of engines (P&W F100). Studies have shown that the likelihood of loss of an aircraft due to engine failure is about the same for single or twins, because while modern turbines are extremely reliable, when they DO fail, the failure mode is catastrophic: they blow up pretty violently, often causing enough secondary damage to force abandonment of the aircraft even if the other engine was not shredded in the failure. ...oh, but wait, speaking of survivability: unlike legacy fighters, the F-35 has completely isolated electrohydraulic systems for each control surface. So unlike all the other aircraft that would bleed their hydro system dry and be lost if anything punctured a line anywhere in the A/C, they can be brought home. Not even the A-10 has isolated control surfaces: it has a manual cable connection that can be used for minimal control to get the A/C back over friendly territory if the hydro system is perforated, so the pilot is not captured when he/she subsequently punches out. The only A-10 pilot that ever attempted to actually *land* in manual reversion mode cartwheeled the aircraft, totally destroying it and killing himself in the process, because manual reversion control mode ISN'T intended to get the aircraft home. The F-35 control system *is*.

A former Marine radar tech I'm friends with, who now works for the aerospace industry (and before you claim bias, he works for BOEING) And if you are dying to verify, how about this 2003 GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04112.pdf Page 70, and I quote: "We assessed the condition of the F/A-18 as yellow because it consistently failed to meet mission capable and fully mission capable goals of 75 percent and 58 percent, respectively. " F-35, with newly-trained crew and maintainers, on a vessel not set up to support it properly, for which proper SOPs and TTPs need to be developed, managed 60-65% OR on their first try. F/A-18E at land basing and dedicated fixed-wing carriers, with crews that had three years Superhornet experience (and many more on legacy hornet) struggled to manage 58%. Please, tell me again what a hangar queen the F-35 is.

Operational readiness rate of the F-35 on the test deployment was already better than that of the F/A-18E OR during the first three years of the Superhornet's "fully operational" period. 60% may sound bad... but that's just when taken out of context; if you don't have anything to compare it against. Typical of the media to throw out numbers that *sound* bad, without actually quantifying anything.... Also, it was while deployed on a vessel not really intended to for that class of aircraft, being maintained and handled by personnel new to the airframe.

*maybe* it is elevation-limited. *Maybe*. There are vertically-mounted tubes. Regardless, whether T14 in particular has a blind spot high in the vertical axis, future APS systems likely will not. What tactics do you use then?

It also makes me think that a combo between an autocannon (preferably HEAB ammo) and an arcing trajectory ATGM (not necessarily ballistic, but something that flies above the line of fire; preferably fire-and-forget) would be effective: 1) launch ATGM 2) immediately follow ATGM launch with a burst of autocannon ammo to shred the radar while the missile is still in mid-trajectory 3) .... 4) Profit! IFVs would actually make comparatively good tank-hunters against APS-equipped AFVs

Not the idea. The flechettes are not chaff, their purpose is to physically kill the radars (the weak link in the APS system) Exactly. The idea is to have the flechette round (or flechette preliminary charge) detonate and disperse OUTSIDE the effective range of the APS munitions, and destroy the radars- ideally, outside the detection/ classification range of the radar. It's not necessary to fire two separate rounds, if (and this is a big "if") you can design a projectile that can both disperse flechettes forward in sufficient density to destroy the radars, AND contains a sufficient HEAT or other primary warhead. If the flechettes destroy the radar before it cues on the HEAT portion of the round (assuming it's a combined flechette/ HEAT- if that's even feasible to do, given the destabilization of trajectory that would result from dispersing and accelerating the flechettes), the APS may never even activate. Of course, there is also the potential for offensive EW to fool the radars into seeing incoming contacts and blowing off their munitions on a whole lot of empty airspace. As to the earlier question about M1s/ Leos and APS... yes, the west (I know the US and Israel, and I'd imagine Germany and UK as well) have developed APS.... they just haven't employed them much, because no threat so far has really required them. Kind of like there has been ERA available for ages, but until the M1 was required to fight in built-up areas, they didn't bother to mount them.

The problem is, Russia's electro-optical industry has never been particularly good. For the T90 FCS, they had to go to France for a thermal sight. If nothing else, field of view, rapidity of effective slewing/scanning, and directional awareness (where the sensor is looking in relation to the hull/ map directions) badly suffers when relying solely on remote sensors. ...kind of like spotting things from the top or a real vehicle, versus playing SB (or any flight simulator): it's a heck of a lot harder spotting in-game. The human brain is wired to use the human eye, and does some self-stabilizing tricks that allow rapid, effective slewing that doesn't translate well to monitoring screens. (oh, and yes, I know that viewing through vision blocks has it's own share of issues, but it is still direct optics, and benefits from the eye-to-inner-ear linkage) On a semi-related note, I wonder if the proliferation of APS will lead to a renaissance of flechette rounds? Flechettes distributed from an airburst 50-60 meters away would be almost ideal for stripping a tank of APS: shred the (necessarily exposed and vulnerable) radars, and the APS becomes so much dead weight. I could even see HEAT rounds that have a forward compartment of flechette, with a HEAT warhead that follows the cloud of flechettes in to the target....

teh lulz! :luxhello: ...still, I'm sure some ingeneous Ukrainian will shoehorn a Soviet-era diesel engine in them and make them run another 50 years. The Yugoslavians had M36 Jacksons running well into the 90's, after all. Something about necessity being a mutha'....

Hm. One can say they're "useless", but in context, that seems a bit... stupid. The roles they're taking over are almost certainly currently carried out by completely unarmored vehicles, and at that price tag (less than most unarmored trucks!), it's hard to argue that they're at not worth at least what was paid. After all, obsolete armor is better than NO armor... if it'll stop shell fragments and 7.62, it's more than adequate for ambulance and CP vehicle duties. I certainly don't know of any vehicle used for those duties that will reliably stop dedicated AT systems anyway. It was a reasonable deal. ...assuming they're in good running condition, of course.

I'm no comptroller, but having been involved in the planning of several overseas deployments, I would not be entirely surprised if it were cheaper to buy twice as many vehicles, and stow them near conflict areas, than to ship stuff back and forth every few years, particularly for "cheap" vehicles like HMMWV and FMTV Moving equipment costs a fortune!

That's just fine by me: having worked with the Koreans, I can say the ROK army is one of the most professional militaries I've had the pleasure of working with. Certainly the officers were, at least. Some of the standard problems of conscript forces, but amazingly disciplined and dedicated.

...you do realize Excalibur is not a FASCAM round, right? It's a GPS-aided HE round. Setting up a mission with it takes no longer than a conventional HE fire mission, though of course if you don't have a refined target grid, you lose most of the advantages of the guidance. But if you have a laser rangefinder/ INS-GPS target locator, you can have a round on the way with meters-class accuracy in under a minute.

No, I don't have an issue with the photo; it's hilarious. I had an issue with what appeared to be the implication that US soldiers are all incompetent and the only ones that would ever turn up in a photo like this. ...don't make me post that video of the German soldier bouncing a grenade back into his fighting position... or the Chilean (I think?) dude shooting his hat off doing rifle drill. Everyone has a stupid now and then.

You start calling out particular nationalities for perjorative comments, that's bashing. You may not have meant it as such, but it came across decidedly dick-ish. Now, if you meant that that particular "drill" must be a US thing, well... yeah, of course. If nothing else, I wouldn't expect an English-language rhyme mnemonic device to be used anywhere except a select few nations where English is the first language. It's not an "actual, dedicated stoppage drill", in that it's not in the manual. It is, however, a verbal mnemonic used to remember which way to put the belt. Just like there are a number of unofficial-yet-official three-syllable-phrases said while firing to time how long a proper burst from a GPMG is. Most of them are not particularly family friendly.