Posted on 02/23/2021 5:43:42 AM PST by RomanSoldier19
That may be all they have operable at any one time - the German military is really the sick man of Europe.
Wow, I had missed the G36 story. How in the heck does a major military allow rifle procurement to go that sideways? Hot weather sustained performance is easy to test.
In terms of the armor, yup, four tracks per platoon plus two tracks in the HQ element. Some countries have played around with three track platoons or removing one track from HQ or both, but the ostensible standard is as stated.
Russian standard is three tracks per platoon, but they’ve been playing around with an intriguing concept for their AFVs - five tracks per platoon, where four are tanks and they work with/around a BMPT as the fifth. The BMPT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMPT_Terminator
It’s an interesting response to urban warfare with tanks. Combined with their Arena APS it means that a platoon is going to be able to respond to and counterfire against high angle threats in urban terrain. The scenario would be this - ATGM crew launching down on a tank platoon has their ATGMs taken out by Arena, the BMPT takes out the building with its own high angle ATGM or the 30mm autocannons where the tanks can’t elevate their main guns enough.
The G36 story is not quite what it seems to be, though. There have been independent tests that show the problem isn’t necessarily the barrel or trunnion or receiver as the German government claims. I’ll link one at the bottom; there seem to be political concerns that make it expedient for the Germans to dump H&K as their official supplier. The replacement is, after all, an H&K design (the 416) just being made by someone else so there’s a layer of plausible deniability.
Mind, the G36 needed to be replaced but not for the reasons the German government stated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4StCCv8QW0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfPHZFsw40M
Quite interesting, it seems very real-world and practical based on what I think I know of the Russian experience in Chechnya.
“They might need it if the Ruskies shut their gas supply off.”
NO WAY!
More likely Putin threw the system in as a sweetener on a gas deal!
One whole Company?
I never did get a TOE tattoo, but clearly less than a dozen vehicles. Probably in a training unit far from the gap.
Putin sells gas.
Israel sells equipment.
Bidit believes it will cover the gap.
WIN_WIN!
Sadly the USA will bear the burden should the time come.
And the new VW’s are on sale now!
SUCH A DEAL/NOT!!!
“What is it? Like a polyglycoat paint protector?/s”
You can run the tanks through Earl Scheib. Takes only 45 minutes to coat the vehicle.
First Chechen War was much like the Winter War - a real embarrassment for the Russians. The Second... not so much. The Russians brought their A game and it did not go well for the Chechens.
Worth remembering that the Russians are our peer or near-peer in terms of their military at a minimum, and that the Chechen Wars were a literal peer fight in terms of tech, with Russian equipment on both sides and Russian/Soviet veterans fighting for Chechnya (so no issues of one side getting front line gear but not knowing how to use it or being grossly inexperienced). At least to start; the Second Chechen War had Russia bring out their revised gear built off the lessons of the first one. That’s when the Chechens discovered that they had to launch a saturation attack of at *least* six heavy ATGM at a Russian tank equipped with the latest version of the all up Arena APS to even have a chance of a damaging hit. Often they had to launch more or just give up. NATO ignored this.
NATO kept ignoring this until the Syrian civil war proved that NATO frontline tanks were horribly vulnerable to modern heavy ATGM. At this point, I’m very willing to at least seriously consider the Russian doctrine for modern urban warfare because they seem to be looking quite seriously at it. APS to protect the tanks and a BMPT to take down the rooftop threat... or the building that the threats came from.
The Israeli solution to this involves the 60mm mortar their Merkavas mount. We (and most of the rest of NATO) don’t really have a solution for this that is contained within the tank platoon. Yes, “call in air support” is a solution, but it’s one with problems.
Check post 13 and 16. The US did the same thing.
Putin would offer the Arena export version if anything.
The Chinese will have it within a week after Israel sells it to the Germans.
>>>At this point, I’m very willing to at least seriously consider the Russian doctrine for modern urban warfare because they seem to be looking quite seriously at it.
Meanwhile we’re using our military to push alphabet people political points.
It’s not going to end well if we have a real conflict.
To be fair, it’s also worth remembering that Russia (”Ivan” for those that don’t know) generally does not care about collateral damage in war. If a building shoots at them, they are perfectly happy to level the building. Unfortunately, we don’t have that capability in modern American society.
I would also point out that Ivan is also the reigning world champion of urban warfare (albeit not undefeated) since 1941. Both offensively and defensively. :P
The Chinese already have their own APS.
There’s a pretty big gulf between a 60mm mortar and a BMPT!
Your points are unassailable.
America’s commitment to total war to inarguably defeat an enemy ended in 1945.
I agree, but the *entire* Merkava platoon will be shooting at the building with their mortars, which will do the job. The Merkavas are also fitted with high angle capable remotely operated M2HB .50s and sometimes Mk19 40mm grenade launchers (the sometimes part is for remote operation - they ALL have the Mk19 in some kind of mount). They seem to have worked fine in Lebanon in recent years.
The point is, the Merkavas were designed to have some high-angle firing capability because of this threat, and the Russian tanks generally weren’t. The BMPT has to be able to cover its entire platoon and rapidly deal with all the high angle threats by itself.
Neither one is really a *wrong* answer, I think. The Israeli approach is combat proven through multiple actions, and the BMPT has proven itself in Syria.
The US did the same thing.
IMO, Nato has become a transfer mechanism for the Euros, long past any useful function.
Especially when anyone can and do, negate overflight, landings, troop movements...
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”
Henry K.
Yes, but if the Germans are stupid for making a trial buy of Trophy systems, so are we.
Also, Kissenger has proven to be a disastrous idiot - name one thing he did that worked. China turned out to be a knife in our back.
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