It would be a cool toy
We had a platoon of 106MM gun jeeps in ‘73
You get to annoy people with a Wiesel 1 in the game Armored Warfare by My.com
A friend of mine has a genuine 1945 WWII Folding Paratrooper Bicycle. Very cool.
You overlooked “lightweight and air-dropped” as being two of the requirements of the Wiesel. Panther & Tiger tanks were definitely NOT “air-droppable” or planned for it. The Wiesel was used as a reconnaissance vehicle for Leopard tank units. One recon version carried a 20mm cannon. It was also used by their artillery forward observers, at the time when I was running around Germany in my M-151 jeep as my Forward Observer’s vehicle. There were other variants designed as light anti-tank missile (TOW, HOT & Milan) and anti-aircraft missile (Stinger) platforms.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiesel_AWC
Embarrassment?
The Krauts were INNOVATORS, if nothing else.
This is just another innovation that fills a niche that other nations ignored.
As tanks have gotten bigger and heavier, and become larger targets, there was an opening for smaller vehicles. Looks like a good alternative to an armored up Humvee.
How about an unarmed version? Think swarms of them.
Weisel on the right.
It's also probably considerably cheaper than an Abrams, so you can have a lot of them. Now, visualize a remotely controlled, unmanned version of this, staying in front of the infantry.
Why have small tanks [armored vehicles] when for 5 times the cost, you can have just as many large tanks?
Under the assumption that strategic mobility is irrelevant, who cars if you can deploy small tanks with C-130s? Just replace the C-130s with C-5s. There’s no limit to how much money we can spend to defend foreign countries.
Under the assumption that you don’t need to operate in urban areas or in hilly terrain, that main battle tanks have limited mobility in those places isn’t a problem.
And why use small yet fast armored vehicles in reconnaissance and screening missions? Every battle is against a force equipped with main battle tanks. Who needs reconnaissance and screening.
By this kind of thinking, the Japanese invested in a small number Yamato-class battleships, instead of dozens or even hundreds of destroyers.
The Germans built small numbers of Tiger tanks (and heavier) that totally out-classed our M-4 Shermans and even Russia’s T-34, but were impossible to maintain, simply by-passed on the battlefield, or were swarmed.
And let’s not forget the F-35. A magnificent plane. Designed to achieve air dominance. To kill enemy planes over the horizon when supported by ground, air and space-based radars. But, of very limited range, time over target, or munitions capability (except when its stealth is compromised).
Yes, let’s put all our eggs in that basket and let the Army and Marines figure out how to provide their own fire support now that they’ve lost their organic artillery and tac air. And let’s let the Navy figure out how it’s going to fight in a high threat environment with littoral combat vessel that are prohibited from entering threat environments and carriers that have no stand-off.
Kind of a throwback to the Ontos.
Fun and games until someone brings a .50 to the party.
Everybody likes light and fast.
Until the shooting starts.
Then, they’re out trying to superglue sandbags to their vehicles.
My Infantry Soldiers thought their M113s were invulnerable until I took them down range to look at the M113 targets.
“Here’s where the fifty cal bullet came in and here’s where it went out. It went right through the vehicle.”
Mighty quiet ride home that day.
Poor armor protection is dangerous because the Soldiers think they can do more with the vehicle than they can actually do.