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UK choose Boxer


ChrisWerb

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43 minutes ago, TSe419E said:

Careful, you're about to make Sparky happy.

 

Ahem...

 

It should also be fully amphibious, so that it can land in the Tigris River inside of an A-10 carried Battle-Box (tm) and that it's accompanying Super-Gavin amphi-tanks can take Baghdad in an Air-Mech-Strike Blitzkreig attack.  Also it should carry it's own armor plated roof with it everywhere it goes so that it can't be hit by top attack munitions.

 

(lol, OK seriously guys that's a parody...If you don't understand it, then consider yourself lucky.)

 

 

Getting back on track...

We're risk adverse, and we're casualty adverse.

 

Frankly, we're talking about war.  People die in war.  You try to splatter the enemy all over the battlefield, and he's trying to do the same to you.

It's nice to think about making all of your vehicles completely invulnerable to attack, but it's not realistic.

 

People die in war.  It's a fact.

 

Besides, the very first APCs out there weren't very complicated.  Hell, they didn't even have a roof.  They had a few MGs and a bunch of dudes in the back who would shoot you, or throw grenades at you, or get out and then shoot your and throw grenades at you.

 

And they worked.

german_half_track_SdKfz_251_Ausf_A_and_w

 

halftracks_seinecrossing_700.jpg

 

Edited by Maj.Hans
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4 hours ago, Maj.Hans said:

People die in war.  It's a fact.

 

Besides, the very first APCs out there weren't very complicated.  Hell, they didn't even have a roof.  They had a few MGs and a bunch of dudes in the back who would shoot you, or throw grenades at you, or get out and then shoot your and throw grenades at you.

 

And they worked.

 

Arguably, they didn't.

They were very vulnerable, once that variable timer artillery fuzes were introduced to the battlefield. A single petrol bomb could wipe out an entire squad, if confronted with urban terrain.

 

The fact, yes, that people die in war is no justification for complacency. The history of engineering is a history of things which conventional wisdom told that couldn't be built -- until someone invested some serious thinking and came up with a new way to deal with a problem. While I have been critical of both overly complex requirements (and the resulting impossibility to manage such a procurement process in a controlled fashion) as well as the excesses of risk aversion the reality is that as open societies we're dealing with a situation where the press will document much of what once was privileged knowledge of those who directly witnessed combat. The press ("If it bleeds, it leads") is being rewarded for blowing things out of proportion, and there's an unrealistic expectation of the public that leaders will perform 100% perfect per default, so we can mercilessly blast them for every mistake that is being made. Like it or not, after the very cavalier attitudes that the military had to the loss of like ("Your men died splendidly during the last attack" - Paths to Glory), every own loss these days is seen as a mistake by the public.

So our leaders develop a zero defects mentality in response, even if that paralyzes our ability to keep wars short, decisive, and ultimately with less bloodshed.

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5 hours ago, Maj.Hans said:

IMHO, part of the problem is that buyers keep blending requirements together...

 

Built a lightweight multipurpose platform on wheels.

 

Okay, done.  It's light, it carries troops, and machine guns, and mortars, ATGMs, low-pressure low recoil guns like Canadian version, you can do lots of stuff with it and it's very mobile because it's got thin armor and no big guns.

 

Okay, now make it resistant to IEDs and mines.

And put a tank gun on it.

And armor it to go toe to toe with tracked IFVs.

And make it fly.

And it should be able to land on the moon.

And drive under water.

You forgot a major requirement of any British army vehicle.

Its so important I don't think any British soldier would go in to battle with out it

And there's even documented proof they will stop in the middle of a firefight to get it.

A boiling vessel and a cup of TEA.  No BV /Tea no fight. LoL .

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1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

 

Arguably, they didn't.

They were very vulnerable, once that variable timer artillery fuzes were introduced to the battlefield. A single petrol bomb could wipe out an entire squad, if confronted with urban terrain.

 

The fact, yes, that people die in war is no justification for complacency. The history of engineering is a history of things which conventional wisdom told that couldn't be built -- until someone invested some serious thinking and came up with a new way to deal with a problem. While I have been critical of both overly complex requirements (and the resulting impossibility to manage such a procurement process in a controlled fashion) as well as the excesses of risk aversion the reality is that as open societies we're dealing with a situation where the press will document much of what once was privileged knowledge of those who directly witnessed combat. The press ("If it bleeds, it leads") is being rewarded for blowing things out of proportion, and there's an unrealistic expectation of the public that leaders will perform 100% perfect per default, so we can mercilessly blast them for every mistake that is being made. Like it or not, after the very cavalier attitudes that the military had to the loss of like ("Your men died splendidly during the last attack" - Paths to Glory), every own loss these days is seen as a mistake by the public.

So our leaders develop a zero defects mentality in response, even if that paralyzes our ability to keep wars short, decisive, and ultimately with less bloodshed.

 

Perhaps I did a poor job of making my point.

 

Yes, open top APCs were very vulnerable to VT artillery fire, and a single petrol bomb could wipe out an entire squad in urban terrain.

In regards to VT artillery shells, there were versions of the German half-tracks made post-war with a roof over the fighting/transport compartment.  That would be an example of a deficiency in the design, and the implementation of an effective solution.

 

The problem I have is with the apparent desire to make every vehicle a multirole vehicle that is protected from everything, capable of destroying everything, and capable of doing every mission.  Trade-offs have to be made at some point.

 

That's going to mean sometimes building more than one vehicle when you have more than one job to do.  Sometimes you'll build a light APC on wheels to be a fast light transport, other times you'll build a heavy tracked APC with a 40mm main gun.

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I think that the Boxer's concept of separating the vehicle chassis and the mission module is actually a pretty clever solution, allowing you to modify vehicles with little effort even in theater to tailor your force for the task. This is a great way to give the troops on the line some flexibility, particularly if the chassis of a mission-critical vehicle is damaged but the mission module is still intact.

 

We can probably agree on points about too complex vehicle concepts, but the Boxer seems to be a "bad example for a bad example" simply because it seems to work well.

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Top attack munitions in combination with thermobarics have proven very capable vs "normal" mech/armoured infantry vehicles in the Ukraine. They are definitely threats that need to be taken into account in the design of AFVs and already have been to a limited extent. It seems likely that swarming drones will one day attack from vulnerable directions too. The ever increasing penetration capability of direct attack munitions are arguably making it less feasible to make the vehicle impenetrable from the front. That and focus on mines and IEDs, COIN ops in cities etc, I wouldn't be surprised to see the former almost all or nothing bias toward frontal armour give way to a much more balanced approach.

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