Yep, That always works out well.
The U.S. Navy took one look at H.M.S Sheffield during the Falklands and said "We can build Aluminum ship that burn brighter and kill our soldiers faster than the British can!"
Dolts, all of them.
speed kills
Can you name a historical instance when that has happened? Just curious.
Yep, That always works out well.
The U.S. Navy took one look at H.M.S Sheffield during the Falklands and said "We can build Aluminum ship that burn brighter and kill our soldiers faster than the British can!"
Dolts, all of them.
Ditto. Between every major conflict navies and armies trade armor for mobility. Once the SHTF, armor quickly becomes relevant.
But why do we have to learn this lesson again? They are selling off the MRAPS that replaced the under armored HUMVEES as we speak.
Rumsfield wanted to get rid of the M1, and Bradley heavy infantry and replace it with the Stryker family of vehicles. When SHTF we needed the armor. Yet here we go again.
Rinse and repeat.
UCAVs or large drones mounted with sniper and mini HeLLFire capabilities.. That’s the future in combat.
Until conditions shut’em down, that is.
And then , it’s back to boots on the ground..
Troops in exo-armored suits..
Evidently these nimbos never watch youtube FSA knocking out Syrian T55 T72 tanks and BMB`s [going at full speed] with rpg`s, ATM`s, RR`s and IED`s .
WELLL, DUHHHH goombahs
I think the Volkswagen Van fits the requirements from Fort Benning. Let’s put the Commandant of the Infantry School in a Volkswagen Van and have him charge into ambushes in Afghanistan. Everybody wants light vehicles until they start receiving fire.
Until somehow they’re slowed down and then .....
Right on! Just look at what happened to the British battle cruisers during and after WWI. They all turned out to be death traps.
When I was a baby Armor lieutenant studying where things were going back in the early ‘80’s, I realized that the idea of heavy armor was going to be obsolete unless it was a force field or something.
$100 man portable anti-armor vs $n million heavy platform is not a good tradeoff.
With modern equipment, if you can find it, you can see it, if you can see it, you can hit it, if you can hit it you WILL kill it.
There are times that heavy armor is the right weapon.
Stealth, speed, surprise.
Without those, with drones, missiles, new generations of explosives, computer control of systems which can be 10,000 x as fast as a human, you are liable to be the guest of honor at a bar-b-que.
Modern tanks are survivable.
That means you hose them out, replace the electronics and optics, and put in a new crew.
When there is heavy armor on the field, you have to have a counter. In the past that was your own armor.
The Russian stuff was no match for ours in Iraq. Ask H.R. McMaster.
But with the increasing availability of drones with missiles, I don’t want to be in a tank, a ship, an HQ area, etc.
Be a ghost or be a ghost.
The first contracts go out for the ultralight combat vehicle, first order requirements: nine person capacity and sling loading on a blackhawk.
during acceptance testing, the marines will insist on an amphibious variant, the air force will add a requirement for aircrew transport, and the army will find out the things only fit inside c-130s sideways. The ULCV project becomes the ULCV family of vehicles and additional contracts are bid out.
some time after initial fielding a part common to all variants will be found defective and each branch of service bids out contracts for replacements, none of which are interchangable.
in its first deployment, the armor will be proven ineffective for any combat condition and the next set of contracts for up armoring will be signed, no bid of course, for expediency’s sake. The uclv will no longer seat nine or be sling load capable, but fulfillment of all the accumulated contracts will now span a majority of congressional districts.
meanwhile, the special forces guys are using old toyota pickups purchased on the economy.
Here we go again. During the Iraq invasion, our troops in unarmored humvees were getting slaughtered. Soon the DOD starting bringing in up-armored humvees and started slapping ACAV gunshields on the roofs to protect the gunners. JUST LIKE IN VIETNAM! Then they brought in MRAPS with V-shaped mine resistant hulls WHICH THE SOUTH AFRICANS CAME UP WITH IN THE 1970’s!
And now JUST LIKE POST VIETNAM the lessons learned will be thrown away, common sense lost, and the Army will have to learn the same lessons with rivers of blood in the next conflict.
US Army, hundreds of years of tradition untouched by progress.
British S.A.S. Desert Rats vs Rommel's Afika Korps
All field tested.
what DOD really needs is to gather NASCAR and Baja Race mechanics, a bunch of SeaBees, a passel of light trucks, a steady supply of cold beer, and a huge hanger. Lock them in and let them party and voila!
As some body pointed out up thread, they ain't ever going faster than 2500 fps much less an IED.
If fly in shoot and scoot fly out is the name of the game then the HMVs and Strykers is a prime example of what not to do.
But the very first big damn thing to do is change the ROE and lock up all the JAGS in Guantanamo for the duration...or maybe until an asteroid strikes earth.
On the actual battlefield they will, like the HUMVs be uparmored with whatever shielding can be fastened on by the troops and will be found to be terribly underpowered..
Once the lead starts flying, you don't want "light" separating you from the hot lead, and the "lethal lite" doesn't break the other guy's heavy so well. In the end, it will get you killed.
People want "light and lethal" because they don't want to deal with heavy air and sea lift required to the get the heavy stuff to where the bad guys are. But heavy lift ultimately wins wars.
This is what happens when stupid people are elected
In WW-II the US fielded the M18 “Hellcat” which was a lightly armored but fast tank destroyer.
"Highly transportable, all-terrain vehicle..., travel 75 percent of the time across country and on rough trails, ...light enough to be sling-loaded by a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter"
Hmmmm, I think I might know of such a vehicle...
/bonus: it's inexpensive as hell
What, no votes from the guys actually riding in these death traps? Why is it that the REMF’s get to make all these decisions?