I think Guderian mentioned in his memoir that they realized they could split mines 50/50 with fakes because the effect on US mine clearing was the same.
The hessian screen across the road also makes them halt and deploy. Like any obstacle even a false one benefits from being covered by fire. Even a little. If infantry is deployed to check then a single machine gun with occasional effective bursts will delay the infantry reporting. If some poor sod in a vehicle is volunteered to drive forwards a single hit on it will delay deployment further. The purpose is not to stop or draw down the advancing enemy but to delay them and briefly pin them in place for indirect attack or ambush.
I would 100% be ok with sponsorships so long as they are time stamped in the video. It need not be said be careful with who you accept sponsorships from but otherwise take that bag you deserve it for the great content you put out.
Strange tank battle: that time an American AA unit came accross Tigers being loaded onto flatcars (yes, it is _that_ engagement, mentioned in _that_ video). They started raking the Tigers with the 37mm and .50 guns, thus preventing the Tiger crews from entering and firing back. Ref: Steve Zaloga, "Pershing v. Tiger: Germany 1945" , chapter "Tigers in the west"
Timestamps: 0:00 Admin 3:23 Opinion on Boxer vs Stryker 7:12 Strangest/weirdest tank battle in history 7:37 Tank damage, repair or write-off 10:05 MBT classification 11:26 Which is more realistic, Girls und Panzer or World of Tanks? 11:45 Best and worst filming location for the Chieftain 12:31 M10 and the fate of the M1128 MGS 13:54 Tank and anti-tank deception 15:42 Brigades giving way to the division once again? 17:07 Favorite NA diesel locomotive 18:04 Why were tank destroyers used in urban combat? 19:24 Causes for Ukrainian losses to mines? 21:01 Lack of training for new equipment 22:55 The Schofield tank 25:00 Ideas from foreign militaries for the US to consider 26:43 Amphibious capabilities for a Bradley replacement? 29:39 Are 200 Zeroes A Lot? 29:59 Sherman Calliope 30:50 Solid side skirts 32:11 The tactical zig-zag 33:17 Tank turrets on US naval vessels 34:19 Commonalities in vehicle design 34:46 "Borrowing" vehicle designs 35:07 Autoloader out of ammo 35:22 Crewman height limit 36:00 Ajax vs Boxer 36:36 Good tank simulator games 37:31 Lack of dedicated tank engines 40:51 Soviet/Russian correlation of forces and means 41:22 Drone swarm defenses for a battalion 42:09 Why no ACAV for Europe? 42:40 Salvage or destroy an M1 43:16 Status of Stryker Dragoon 45:13 MPF and M1A3 conflicting niches? 46:48 Most overrated WW2 tank 47:03 Ukrainian airborne T-80 47:30 French vs Russian autoloader 47:40 Why only M48 in Vietnam? 48:02 Pros and cons of HESH 49:01 Soviet opinion of Valentine 49:53 Initial omission of muzzle brake on 76mm 52:03 ARSV program 56:29 Designing a future US recon vehicle 58:19 Aberdeen Soviet test reports 58:46 Rarity of infrared countermeasures 59:34 Belleville washer suspension 1:01:22 Soviet rear-facing MG 1:02:05 US Army equivalent to Constant Peg 1:03:13 Autoloader types and unmanned turrets
Regarding meetings - a Consultant (Surgeon) I used to work with used to say "Any meeting that takes more than 20 minutes isn't a meeting, it's a group therapy session. She had a good point! Her other method was to say on arrival "I have to be somewhere by X", and if things were dragging on, stand up at X and say "I have to go". After a few times, the message got across...
@@alanwatts5445 one ITU I knew of many years ago used to see how fast one could hand over a patient while giving all relevant information. The practice was discontinued after a chap sat down and gave a handover of “John Doe, 67, head injury, cream-crackered”, stood up and walked off. It was generally reckoned a two-word handover was unbeatable.
Scottish units in the desert war often used valentine as a battle taxi or external IFV.. as a full section could clamber onto it and be transported to the next debus point.. this proved a very satisfactory arrangement for both infantry and tankers
@@thequeensowncameronhighlan7883 This photo would appear to corroborate that... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_tank#/media/File:Valentine_tank_Mk3_desert.jpg
It says something about TV documentaries that I've enjoyed just watching a man at a desk talk straight to camera for over an hour and enjoyed it more than most stuff on TV. Thank you Nick.
Nick is an exceptional storyteller. If he had an extra few hours in his day, he should be narrating audiobooks - but I guess he has to sleep sometimes!
On "Decoys and Fakery"--My dad was US Army in late 70s. During desert warfare training, acting as OPFOR, they chained bus hulks from the target range sideways between 2 M113s to make a big dust cloud whilst the actual attack circled around and managed to enter the "good guys" rear unchallenged. The opening attack was grenade simulators into the command tent. The graders were merciless.
When I was in the British Army on 80s and early 90s withdrawal in contact was one of the favourite problems set for Lieutenant to Captains exam. The absolute favourite was reserve demolition for I believe both practical and historic reasons.
Well, the nice thing about being an Abrams tanker when it comes to flying, is that you already have plenty of turbine time. 🤣Unfortunately, the FAA won't let you log any of that. 😁 Getting my rotary license was a lot more fun than my fixed wing, but you do have to pay attention more depending on the environment. High tension power lines are not your friend, and neither are the towers they are suspended from. Settling with power, or vortex ring state is correctable - you have to get out of the rough patch of air you generated. Realizing you are in this condition is key. Reading about it in the NTSB report after the crash is too late. 😮🙃 Happy flying! ✈
I'd recommend looking into sending Cobi an email, the polish company producing "quasi Lego" kits of basically every tank under the sun, many aircraft, ships, etc. They did sponsorships with Wargaming and with the Tank Museum, i'm sure they'd be all too happy to work with you, and the fans would be all too happy to have a 1/32 scale Chieftain lookalike as a minifigure :P
For the question at 33:17, there was the experimental mounting of a modifed M551 Sheridan turret on the USS Flagstaff (PGH-1). There are photos on the Navsource website.
The Germans also prototyped a 155mm artillery piece on a naval vessel. One of the biggest problems is that army vehicles aren’t really designed to handle the oceanic environment. All that salt water is not good for steel. :P So they need to tweak things to minimise unprotected steel.
The 30mm turret from the USMC Advanced Amphibious Assault vehicle is currently also employed on San Antonio Class LPDs, LCS's and some Military Sea Lift Command Ships.
About Poles and their amphibious capabilities requirements, as far as I can tell, they stem from the fact, that the entire Poland-Krolewiec, and a big chunk of the polish-belarussian border runs alongside Masuria, which is effectively wetlands pockmarked by a huge amount of lakes. So the idea is to have vehicles there that wouldn't need to go around every puddle that proved too deep to wade through.
Regarding 2:00, If youre looking for a nice casual DCS server, Tactical DCS is a great spot. The name is a bit misleading. Its pretty laid-back, with a focus on learning. There are a few courses run there every now and then too. Basic flight, basic rotary, specific airframe courses, etc. Bunch of casual events too. Links can be found online, but I can share one if needed. Its a great group, cant recommend it enough.
Sadly budget cuts mean that each French division now has one guy who has to bake bread, sell garlic and perform mime all at the same time. The role of regimental Gauloises smoker is now only ceremonial, and is taken up by the senior NCO for parades and so on.
Reference use of Soviet/Warsaw Pact vehicles as OPFOR: I was an O/C at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft Chaffee/Little Rock AFB, AR from 90-93. Our OPFOR (at the time, 1-509 PIB, later 2d Cav Rgt when moved to Polk in 93) used VISMOD M551 Sheridans and other ground vehicles to replicate T72s and BRDMs, but the REAL thing was the use of an Mi8 Hip helicopter for OPFOR airmobile insertions. I vaguely recall that there was also an AN-something single- or twin-engine prop plane used, again by the OPFOR, for aerial resupply and POSSIBLY small scale airborne drops. Good Q&A today Chieftain! RLTW
Regarding the mounting tank turrets on ships, the german navy tested the feasibility of equiping frigates with the turret of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 in a study called MONARC. The mounting was capable of absorbing the recoil but it was deemed to costly to proof the turret against salt water.
That was to give modern surface Combatant ships a gun which is useful for shore bombardment. The guns on modern ships other than the American 5" are not useful for shore bombardment. 😊
We need to see an "Inside the Engines Cab" show now. Whats the steam locomotives version of Tensioning the Track? Oiling the running gear. "This 4-8-4 was build by Lima in 1942 for the XXX Railroad, she was in service for....."
There are some equivalents of that, the National Railway Museum in the UK does narrated video walkarounds of trains in their collection for instance. I beleive there's a channel called Hyce who is an employee at a US railway museum who does a similar thing.
On the subject of tank(ish) turrets on ships, in the 1970s, Vickers designed a thing called the Autonomous Patrol Gun, which was essentially a Centurion tank turret, complete with it's 105mm L7 gun, fire-control system and three crew, adapted for use on naval vessels. The idea was to provide a self-contained, highly accurate gun that could be used for shore-bombardment or anti-ship work, that wouldn't demand much from the parent ship in terms of power, fire-control or other external support. I've never seen a picture of it or seen more than a paragraph of text about it (nobody bought it), so I don't know if it had the stabiliser upgraded (probably) or used the Centurion's actualy armoured turret shell (probably not). It may have been insired by earlier RN work from the 1950s on guns for Coastal Forces called CFS-1 and CFS-2, at least one of which used the 20 pounder gun originally developed for Centurion. I do know there was a study of available guns in the 1960s that showed the 105mm L7 was the best way to get a kill on a torpedo boat at 6000 yards. More recently, there was a study to use the PzH2000 turret as the basis of a 155mm naval gun, and there have also been projects to mount the Swedish AMOS twin 120mm mortar on smallish boats for inshore/riverine warfare. IIRC both of these got at least as far as hardware tests on ships, though how far that went I don't know.
I hear you about the extra cost-and greater expertise-of a professional camera man-and editor. It was also a bonus to see him trying out your ‘new worst drivers position’. I have become an S4 Patron. Keep up the good work. Cheers from NZ🇳🇿.
Well, there were some US Navy light cruisers there. That was the second time the US Navy bailed the US Army out of serious trouble in Italy. I seem to remember that the British Army was better organized.
Situations like that remind us all how big a difference there is between the weakest ships and the strongest land units. The "fearsome" 88mm anti tank gun fires 10kg shells. The "wimpy" 4.7" QF guns on a British Tribal class fire a 22kg shell, and fire them faster and further. Oh and the Destroyer has 8 of them.
Boulogne-sur-mer, 1940, evacuation. A Pz IV of the 7th Panzer decided it would be a good idea to engage a RN destroyer evacuating troops from the pier. In fairness, they did set a fire on the stern, however destroyers seldom travel alone. And so it was that another RN destroyer started shooting at the tank using her 4.7" (120mm) naval guns. The tank was described as "cartwheeling" upon being direct impacted by a naval shell.
@@lostalone9320 it's mostly a factor of range, a ship generally struggles to hit a point target like a tank and can't go hull down or similar. Whereas a tank if it finds a ship in range can target specific parts of the vessel. In the practice ships very rarely get into the range of direct fire weapons. In 1982, some RMs beat off a corvette with a Charles Gustaf.
For one of the strangest tank engagements , the cleanup operation around the bosnian border on october 9th 1995. During one of these operations an american WW2 TD either an M18 or more likely an M36 in croatian service knocked out several mode "modern" serbian tanks T55, 60 series or 72 in rapid succession in basically extreme close range combat reminiscent of kelly's heroes... it then proceeded to nearly wipe out the command staff of its own guards brigade while shooting an friendly officer who tried to "requisition" an abandoned vehicle to serve as an ambulance. It did however kill the commanding officer of the brigade who was effectively in retirement but stayed in just to oversee the final cleanup the unit was to be involved in. There is bunch of extra stuff that followed but that would be too political so i will avoid that.
On the topic of kit not trained for and therefore not used, some Marine Corps units were issued AN/PEQ-2's in 2002 and carried them in their bags for months because they had no idea what they were or how to use them. In the anecdote I saw online, it wasn't until one sergeant returned to the unit from Ranger school who knew what they were and how they worked that they came out of their pouches. He showed them how to use them and they zeroed them shipboard on the way to Iraq with no other training or instruction.
@@high633 why? usmc has been shit on since birth, being unwanted dept of navy. only thing we have are some bullshit stories of being best and toughest ra ra ra. I used the shit equipment in the 90s, we spend 8 hours erecting a lego bridge when army would run up a bridging tank and deploy same gap in 3 minutes. pathetic lack of equipment and ego bull stories make next generation so much more fodder.
I’m sure you’ve been contacted a million times since Ian launched it, but the Weapons & War app that he started would benefit massively from your content. I know of none of the behind the scene details, but selfishness demands I put it forward as I’ve been immensely enjoying the lack of YT ads.
for the record, I totally support you taking on sponsorships. most youtube channels have sponsors and i see no reason why you shoudnt as well. channels like Drach and Forgotton Weapons do it fairly well in my opinion without impacting the content or sometimes even adding to it
I saw some pictures of russians taking a ww2 valentine of a bog/marsh couple of years ago, was totally surprised at the huge amount of ammo they took out of it, looks like it was almost fully loaded for combat.
Equipment issued but not used because commanders weren't aware of it? The Canal Defense Light in WW2 is a good example. Two battalions were issued them and trained to use them, and then they turned in their CDL tanks for real tanks without using the CDL in mass.
Re: Armour fighting vehicle turrets on ships. The 30mm turret from the USMC Advanced Amphibious Expeditionary fighting vehicle is currently employed on USN San Antonio Class LPDs, Littoral Combat Ships (Surface warfare mission package), and some Military Sea Lift ships.
I was a Stryker MEV (M1133) Commander in Iraq 06-08 (with 1-14 Cav, 3rd SBCT, 2nd ID) and I won't hear a word spoken against the platform. It's fast af, modular, roomy, and...most importantly...QUIET. We earned the moniker "Ghost Soldiers" for a reason.
Piggybacking off of your deception discussion around the 15:00 mark. In World of Tanks, one of the best strategies to utilize when you find yourself outnumbered without support is to find a defensible position or chokepoint and fight as though you have more tanks behind you, even though you actually do not. Fear of what is not known with certainty is a very powerful demotivator in combat, both in-game and in real life.
The amount of information you convey in such a short amount of time is amazing. Thank you. Fellow fixed wing pilot, btw. Always sump the fuel, never trust the fuel gauges or the performance charts, and have fun!
The main benefit of the modular bay is that it is easier to build custom variants that use the same engine/control/drive train and therefore share most spare parts. The germans used a similar approach in their cross country MAN trucks (that share a lot of parts between 5/7/10 to. Basically the military equivalent to a 20ft container
In regard to the modular capability of the Boxer, it was my understanding that the principal perceived operational benefit was the ability to transfer an urgently needed module from an unserviceable chassis to a serviceable chassis, as you mentioned with your ambulance example. Such a practice would also enable base and mobile workshops to more effectively utilise their personnel and equipment in real world conditions. There is nothing more annoying than having a specialised vehicle out of service, because: either it has been run into the ground OR more likely, reported vehicle faults have been ignored, due to the vehicle being parked out the back, straight after every exercise. You will know exactly what I am talking about😁. Cheers from NZ🇳🇿. The option to have spare modules seemed to be more of a sales manager’s wet dream than a realistic purchasing option. The marketing presentations that I watched, seemed to be focused on the ability to keep urgently needed modules in use.
The battle of Skylloura in 1974 has got to be one of the most obscure tank battles in history. Turkish tanks get stolen by Greeks, Greeks drive it back through Turkish lines and at Skylloura engage and destroy multiple Turkish tanks who are confused about the friendly fire.
51:00. Similar reasoning behind the m4's A2 bird cage design, while the primary design hides the flash a slight bit and also helps reduce recoil, the bottom is closed off allowing for less dirt to be kicked up when firing, reducing and effect on the shooters view
Strangest/weirdest battle: it is a mechanized battle, not tank on tank. During the Great Emu War of 1932, the Australians were in wheeled vehicles and the commander stated if Australian armor could absorb as much munitions as emus, they'd be unstoppable. I suppose the emus were considered tracked since they leave tracks?
I would also note that amphibious vehicles necessarily need a lot more maintenance support than regular ones. I will leave it to you to decide whether or not it is worse to have to rapidly exit the vehicle because it is on fire than to have to rapidly exit the vehicle because it is sinking due to various seals not having been properly serviced.
The big downside with a bustle autoloader for a remote turret is size and weight. The TTB turret is tiny compared to the AbramsX, for example. And doesn't need armor to protect the ammo. If you use the weight saving to fit more side armor and a better APS, I suspect you're better off.
@@morat242 reasonable assumption. It's one of those dilemma of is worth having X at risks of Y? A small turret with a carousel in the hull may be a smaller target, thus less hits - but if it's hit, the tank is a write-off. A bigger bustle turret may be hit more but saving the hull? Where is the balance?
For weird tank battles...I came across a random reference to a purported encounter in which a US Marine LVT destroyed an IJN Ka-Mi during the fighting off Leyte. No idea if it's true or not, but if it is it would be the only known example of two amphibious tanks engaging one another at sea.
Boxer modularity: Maintenance is made much easier when you can separate components. As you said it's easier to keep desired modules online, but it also simplifies shipping damaged modules back to your logistics base or even the factory. With tight budgets armies don't like to buy stuff that's sitting around, but once you deploy a small portion of your fleet to some far away land they'll start saving on the logistics bill by only shipping what's necessary to keep the mission running. Loading only the chassis saves a lot on the cost of airlift, and for non time critical stuff you can send mission modules around the globe as (oversized) containers.
About that Irish locomotive shipped from London Ontario to Ireland, I had just moved to London that year and was among the many spectators who gathered to watch the locomotive be transported to the airport. Cool memories.
IIRC, Donn Stary’s Armored Combat in Vietnam claimed there was one M60 battalion deployed to Vietnam. He did not identify which unit it was and seemed to indicate it was in the Saigon area.
This reminds me of that old song: "how many mines must a man crawl by, before he no longer a man? His legs torn away, his arms after that, he gnawed his way forth thru the fields. His bowels in trail, his blood leads the way, he broke a tooth still gnawing on. Gnawing on, gnawing on, until all his teeth are gone, his mind starts to fracture from pain. Hopeless and cold, bleeding gums, stumps and guts, he wiggles from side to side into a roll, now rolling on rolling on, his mind truly gone, and yet another mine about to go,"
EW against drone swarms may be quite effective against off the shelf drones and probably even the current generation stuff but we have the tech to install enough image rec etc in the drones to let them find a target even if they lose comms (not to mention that if you use directional antennas and control them from satellite it gets much harder to jam since you are further from satellite than drone on top of inherent adv of avoiding jamming...and you never fully block comms if properly designed just drop bit rate so u could still issue very short messages)
Just to add something about the boxer, the modularity part weight 2 to 2.5 tonnes of dead weight. Dead weight that did not exist in others 8x8s. I learned about it discussing with engineers during Eurosatory a few years back and it was a big critic of the concept. Also the armor was deemed to be poor (lot of weight being used for modularity instead of armor), they "plugged the holes" regarding armor by adding some, but this made the boxer the heaviest 8x8 and drastically decreased performances. But the modularity seem to be selling well with politicians, so i guess it has its use (even if they never buy complementary modules for it).
I may have an answer to your Lionel question! I could also be completely wrong and if I am I’m sure I’ll be corrected by replies. As for the Sounds of Steam board, I have a similar loco with the same technology. Based on what I researched when I was trying to learn, once the board burns out, that’s it. No one makes replacements. You’d need to cannibalize a second locomotive to get a new board. It’s possible that the “incident” you described might be remedied by re soldering wires that got knocked loose but I haven’t seen the loco so I wouldn’t know. As for traction tires, there’s probably several model train stores out there that ship replacements. A google search of the locomotive model number and “traction tires” might suffice. With older locomotives the SKU number is often the cab number. Hope all this helps!!
1:02:05 -- I have also seen claims -- more with regard to Japanese tanks in WWII than to Soviet tanks -- that the purpose of the rear turret MG was so that the tank commander, when in a situation supporting infantry where the main gun would be overkill, could spin the turret around and use the rear MG on enemy troops, although given the ~19,000 awards of the Heer tank destruction badge, having German infantry engaging Soviet tanks in close combat would seem to be a more significant threat than the limited utility of a flexible MG mount in the turret.
47:25 Hey! 2/11 is a fully airborne brigade! Granted 1/11 is a bunch of legs but they are getting around to becoming air assault one of these days. Also we have this fancy arctic tab which is genuinely the only organization in the active army explicitly trained and equipped for arctic operations.
Glad I'm not the only who was indignant/incensed at that statement. Sincerely local populous to 2/11. Still wish they kept binky the bear as the mascot though.
If I could afford to buy Belgian beer in the U.S., I'd drink a lot of beer too. 😂 Seriously, the U.S. Army should be sponsoring your channel, along with other countries' militaries. But Pilzner Urquell would be a good substitute!
A fun one: I took my family to the Ft Sill artillery museum a couple of years ago. We got to one of the WW2 mobile pieces. Ordinary, i wouldn't do this but I let my kids climb on and into a self propelled 105. I figured they couldn't break an inch of metal designed for soldiers. One thing that surprised me was how small BM21 was. I am only 180cm tall but i was going: I would hate driving this thing. It's like a Kia Rio (20 year old style) with a rocket launcher welded on.
In regards to the question about Ukranian VDV troops using the T-80, my understanding is that most ex-Soviet nations who maintain VDV units now use them more as high-mobility elite units of some description than the stereotypical paratroops. I know Russia divided its VDV units pre-war into Airborne and Air Assault units, with the former specialised in the typical deep strike missions most people associate with paratroops, whilst the latter were just supposed to be air-mobile elite troops and therefore had organic armoured support in the form of a tank batallion. My understanding is that the Ukranians focused far more on the 2nd type, and were not particularly interested in the whole unit being air-mobile. Rather, they were mostly high-readiness elite mech infantry to respond to Russian attacks, as opposed to being a bunch of lunatics who were ready to air-drop on the Kremlin at a moment's notice (though were Ukraine to need troops to do that, I'm sure these guys would be at the front of the queue) The T-80 is the most high-mobility tank that the Soviet/successor states have access to, and it's the best tank Ukraine had pre-war, so it makes a certain kind of sense that it would be attached to their elite high-mobility units. I'm not sure how the fuel-hungry nature of the T-80 meshes with the general idea that most of these units would be intended to be able to operate at the furthest end of the logistical chain in austere conditions, but I would assume that is somewhat balanced out by the fact that the T-80 has a fuel commonality with the Helicopters that VDV units would make far more extensive use of than regular units, which would possibly decrease the logistical burden of operating the tanks as it doesn't add an additional fuel type requirement to the unit.
I would say that the most wierd engagement would be between a Dominican L/60L and a US Marine M50 Ontos during the Dominican Civil War. A M48 Patton also engaged a L/60L. But at least I figure that the L/60L's Madsen 20mm would be able to penetrate the Ontos 13mm amour. (the Ontos is just so wierd. Imagine the safty distance behind its 6 105mm recoilless rifles ?? I know that your main task as a 84mm Carl Gustav loader is to check behind to ensure that nobody get KFC'ed :) )
You'd think that, then you'd see the steep angles of the Ontos' armor. The upper front 13mm plate is sloped at 71 degrees back from vertical! Gives it an effective almost 40mm thickness from a dead on shot from the front. A modern M53 20mm API round fired from an M61 Vulcan can only penetrate 6.3mm of vertical armor. M56A3 HEI rounds can only blast through 12.5mm. Even allowing for the older cannon to have better performance for various reasons, it was going to struggle to get through that level of armor and it was likely to ricochet when hitting such an angled plate anyway. You're right, Ontos is a really weird and deceptive little beast with a monster alpha strike on tap.
@@TexasSpectre You are probably right about this. And because the Ontos is a small sneaky TD the L/60L wound probaly not have seen the weird thing before the significant emotional event occurred ;)
@@larsmathiesen8999 To be fair to the L/60L crew, even if they'd seen it they likely had no clue what the heck that strange looking thing with the weird pipe racks on each side was.
"36:36 Good tank simulator games", for whoever asked this, "Steel Fury Kharkov 1942" is also a great game. You might want to mod it, but the mods that are around (and surprisingly updated for such an old game) are pretty damn good.
For your master’s thesis, would it be better to pick a topic you already know well, or choose a topic that would require you to do more background research? Potentially giving you a reason to study something you wouldn’t put much priority in?
On dealing with drone swarms: I wouldn't be surprised if something along the lines of (miniaturized) Flak cannons were to make a comeback. Cant really fly a small drone through a cloud of metal fragment too easily.
Regarding your train issue...I have no idea but... You could always vocalize the sounds until some other solution makes itself apparent. "WOO WOO! CHCHCHCHCH...PSSSHHHHHH...." Just make sure the wife isn't around, unless your trying to get some private time by slightly creeping her out. You do you, sir. Your numero uno dirty old Irishman fan here! Good to see you back!!! WOO WOO!!!! PS: I agree that the Panther was the 1st MBT.
For strangest 1 vs 1 tank battle with my limited tank knowledge I nominate a US Sherman vs a captured one being used by the Germans on either side of a railway embankment at shouting distance. They both fired, both hitting the railway track on their far sides of the embankment because of the high bore offset. The American crew bore sighted the next round while loading and destroyed the German Sherman.
The best DCS server right now, especially if you want to fly the viggen, is Enigma's Cold War. It's got a large playercount but is tailored for players of all experience levels, the large playercount means there's always someone there who can help you if you have some kind of issue. They have an aim to roughly simulate the 70's to early 80's cold war (though they let cold war era airframes with mid 00's era electronics like the A-10C on the server but that's due to limitations). They have a dynamic campaign going so your actions in the server kind of matter, and there's multiple different jobs you can do while on the server such as recon, transporting troops or supplies, air to ground, air to air, FAC, GCI so you can do what you feel like doing but the system isn't ridiculous and convoluted and semi-impossible to use like the mission systems on some other servers are. About the only downside to it is that it is only a 50 slot server, so is often full.
Not tank related wdf moment - but I remember in the early 2000’s reading in the paper some Afghan Farmer one shot a Apache heli to force a emergency landing with his WWll Mosin Nagant bolt action
On the subject of recce vehicles, a 1984 Jane's that I have lists a number of CVR(T)-derived vehicle concepts submitted by Alvis to two American studies: Mobile Protected Weapon System (MPWS) and Mobile Protected Gun System (MPGS). Originally MPWS was USMC and MPGS was US Army, but the two services agreed to merge the two programmes. These are all based on the stretched CVR(T) chassis, which had six road wheels compared to five for the mainstreal CVR(T) series, and did go into limited production as the Stormer APC variant. The variant with a lower, Scorpion-style hull and a two-man turret was called "Sagitar": 1. Sagitar chassis with a Scorpion 90 turret, fitted with a Cockerill 90mm Mk.III gun. 2. Sagitar chassis fitted with a new turret similar to Scorpion but with a square planform and vertical sides. This was armed with the Scorpion's 76mm L23A1 gun, and an external twin TOW launcher on one side. My impression is that you could probably fit another one on the other side if you wanted to. 3. Sagitar chassis fitted with a different new turret armed with the ARES 75mm automatic gun. 4. Sagitar chassis fitted with a different new turret armed with a 105mm low pressure gun, either from Royal Ordnance or Rheinmetall.
On tank autoloaders. Would it be possible to combine the two types of stowage, with the projectiles in a carousel and the propellant in the bustle with blowout panels?
For casual DCS servers, Hoggit really is the gold standard. I also highly recommend Flashpoint Levant and Tempest Blue Flash servers for something that fits the Viggen airframe's time period a bit better.
The Ukrainian parachute regiments having tanks is a holdover from the USSR and similar in Russia with the VDV, the airborne forces were fully mechanised and better trained than regular soldiers so they received tank divisions as well to reinforce their role as being highly mobile shock troops.
One of the major fault of the Soviet divisions in WW2 was the lack of doctrines for defense. Hence they were largely unable to resist German attacks until some time after Kusk. So, not training for defense can hurt bad.
Heyo, For the Boxer it can fit inside a C-130J-30 but you're absolutely at the upper limits and it would need to be in 2 pieces like the A-400. I don't believe we (Australia) ever actually did the testing for that during the LAND 400 Phase 2 Program when the Boxer was competing against the Patria 35. The air transportability trials we did were around Canberra using C-17s so far as I understand it. But the RAAF has just recently ordered enough C-130J-30s to double it's fleet, and we're pushing hard on Amphibious transport power as well. So it might be the case that the Boxer is theoretically transportable with a C-130, but not desirable. As such the ADF is making sure it has enough other Transport options, by freeing up C-17 and using amphibious transport where possible. You also mentioned Motorbikes being proposed for the Bradley. I've seen that the Australian Army was testing E-bikes alongside out new Boxers.
I think the AVLB's used in Vietnam were probably M48 chassis. I only base this on the very unscientific reasoning that when I was in Korea in 1995-1996 (2nd Engineers (Heavy) Camp Castle) we were still using M48 chassis AVLB's.
Regarding Navel Vessels using tank turrets: (Sort Of). LVT-A1 used a Stuart turret with the 37mm for fire support, (Bunker Busting). When this proved inadequate, M8 turrets with the 75mm gun were used with varying results.
