Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation [NO MECHS] Type 6

[The New Lowlands]

But a competant force will tear it open with a sneaky LAV w/ ATGMS before it can even fire :c

Chances are I'll have heavier vehicles nearby, and plus thanks to cheapness I can deploy several per each enemy vehicle, and 20mm can take out armor up to a light APC

Murphy.

You should probably not use a SPADS to do an MBT/IFVs job.

[Stahn]

That's why I use this
(Image)

Guns?

Our cursed enemies, the steam punk Welgians use both.

The Umbrella Anti Air Landship:

[Fordorsia]

But a competant force will tear it open with a sneaky LAV w/ ATGMS before it can even fire :c

Chances are I'll have heavier vehicles nearby, and plus thanks to cheapness I can deploy several per each enemy vehicle, and 20mm can take out armor up to a light APC

Per each enemy vehicle? You have no idea what sort of vehicles you'll be going up against, including APCs. Also, chances are that you won't even see any APCs, as they've dropped off the infantry who have already set up AT positions, and are already far away. Sending AAA to seek out one of it's biggest threats is the worst thing you can do.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Surprisingly, insanely high rates of fire are not as well-suited to anti-infantry work as one might be tempted to believe... or else we would be seeing tanks with Gatling-style RWSs.

A single high-explosive or thermobaric shell will kill that squad in the open more effectively than a scattered burst of 23mm rounds, and well-aimed GPMG or HMG fire will do it more economically. Neither of those options, just as importantly, will burn through your entire ammunition load in under a minute.

[Imperializt Russia]

Assuming you are fighting a second or third world fighting force, yes.

It's firing 20mm ammunition, which Kevlar cannot stop

Those vehicles also do not have the protection against infantry-carried MANPAT systems. And probably not infantry fighting vehicle armament.

But a competant force will tear it open with a sneaky LAV w/ ATGMS before it can even fire :c

Chances are I'll have heavier vehicles nearby, and plus thanks to cheapness I can deploy several per each enemy vehicle, and 20mm can take out armor up to a light APC

Doesn't matter, it'll still get torn asunder before its covering vehicles can respond.

[Stahn]

I believe it is a picture of a ZSU-23-4. It uses 4 × 23 mm autocannons and was a fine vehicle during its prime.

It also had some succes in use by Iraq during the gulf war. It was pretty good at shooting down helicopters.

I think autocannons are effective enough against infantry but they are rather overkill. They will shoot trough thick walls causing many civilian deaths in urban areas.

A 20 mm cannon will also be effective against most APC's and some IFV's.

[Imperializt Russia]

That's half the point, it will be capable of penetrating cover in urban environments and the light protection of dug-in infantry.

[Anemos Major]

I suppose it's my fault for not being clearer. What I'm trying to say isn't that modularity in general is bad - only that there's a certain point at which the marginal returns of saved production costs are outweighed by the opportunity costs of a non-optimal chassis. The main issue I see with the bulk of :NS: adaptations is that IFVs typically need to be acceptably well-armored and acceptably small-profile in order to increase survivability in combat, while many rear-line vehicles need to be acceptably large in order to accommodate whatever equipment is being mounted inside or on top. So an IFV chassis makes a good basis for a battlefield reconnaissance vehicle, a mortar carrier, or a low-level short-range air defense system, but might not be the best choice for the regimental command post or ammunition carrier. As you said, it's a case-by-case question of how well an IFV's unique features fit the intended role.

I understand what you're saying, but what I'm positing is that the threshold at which this 'outweighing' occurring rises somewhat if you design your chassis accordingly/provide a lengthened chassis at the production level, and that you can create a modular family of vehicles that achieve much higher levels of optimality, even in 'rear area roles'.

Concerning the dual issue of protection and profile:
- The general trend, especially in the West, towards modular armour arrays is a fairly well documented one. As such, you can, in a sense, both have your cake and eat it - provide your vehicles with extensive applique and armour additions where necessary, and remove them likewise. As noted earlier, applique armour doesn't function quite as well as cast protection, but the benefits of modularity in this regard are considerable, your vehicles are still going to be adequately protected and it has the added bonus of being easier to maintain and replace.
- As for profile - again, there's no reason a modular vehicle can't be low and high profile at the same time while still reaping the benefits of parts and production commonality. The key to modularity is commonality in high maintenance areas and the ability to streamline the production of particular components - whether your chassis is elongated or not, or whether your vehicle has a high profile or otherwise is besides the point, so long as you have, say, a common drivetrain and components of the cast hull (say, the forward area), you're still vastly reducing costs and inconvenience at the production and maintenance level. Hence, a command vehicle on an 8x8 hull will have a higher back to create more internal space than an IFV configuration on the same vehicle, but it will still achieve a significant level of commonality.

Essentially, we can agree on the point that the ability of a vehicle to fulfill such roles is largely dependent on its base design, but that design can be made a lot more flexible than it might seem at first glance. What I'm not suggesting is that the same IFV hull should be used for everything, but rather that between doing things like commonalising the drivetrain or implementing elongated or raised hulls in a productively efficient fashion, you can create a family of vehicles that can fulfill a variety of tasks at acceptably optimal levels while vastly reducing associated costs.

Thus, within one reinforced infantry battalion, you want the mortars, fire support vehicles, and so on to have the same chassis as the APC/IFV the troops are riding in. And within one SAM system, you want the command posts, TELs/reloaders, and radars on the same chassis as the TELAR that they're supporting. But putting the TELs on the IFV or the mortars on the TEL chassis is stretching that relationship too far. For instance, note the tracked S-300V complex (V = Voyska, or [ground] forces, as opposed to PVO, strategic air defense) - all components share more or less the same chassis, but the chassis is much larger than a BMP-2 because both have very different requirements.

What I'm suggesting isn't quite mounting S-300s on BMP-2 hulls - rather, I'm noting that IFV hulls can be adapted on the production line to other tasks, reducing development, production and maintenance tasks while not necessarily retaining the characteristics of the original. The Bradley example here is key - by elongating the Bradley chassis, you end up with a vehicle that isn't the original IFV, is more suited to carrying an MLRS on its back, but still reduces costs and logistics stresses at various points. Of course, I won't take that example too far, but what I'm suggesting is that you can further streamline the process and make modularity a more realistic prospect by creating a flexible vehicular base that shares key components across modified hulls. Hence, the MA11 IFV wouldn't be the same base vehicle as the MA11 SPH - but despite the latter having an extra road-wheel and a different hull, it'd still have the same forward section, the same suspension arms and the same powerpack. This design principle can be extended to MSAMs to an extent - no, your IFV won't be carrying S300 TELARs, but what you can do is use the same elongated hull as, say, the SPH to carry a lighter array of three or four missiles on an MLRS-esque launcher, a light radar system and a battery command vehicle. It wouldn't have the same capabilities as the S300, sure, but it'd fill its own operational niche if so desired.

If you see what I'm saying. In essence, what I'm not proposing is what you're critiquing - rather, I'm trying to streamline a process which plenty of designers have already followed, which is to modify IFV hulls to fulfill a more diverse range of roles. By creating an elongated tracked chassis that's purposefully designed to effectively commonalise parts and maintenance, I can subsume the roles of, say, the BMP-series and the GM-569A into a family of cost and maintenance effective vehicles. In a sense, I can afford to be lazy later by making an effort at the point of design.

[Nirvash Type TheEND]

Guns?

Our cursed enemies, the steam punk Welgians use both.

The Umbrella Anti Air Landship:

Why can't we have both?

[Oaledonia]

Our cursed enemies, the steam punk Welgians use both.

The Umbrella Anti Air Landship:

(Image)

Why can't we have both?

Russian SPAAGs are poop.

[Stahn]

I made this one some time ago for Stahn:


("Shelob" air defense system.)

But I don't like it much.

[Imperializt Russia]

I made this one some time ago for Stahn:

(Image)
("Shelob" air defense system.)

But I don't like it much.

Well, if you go over it like you have your other vehicles, you'll have something pretty cool.

[Stahn]

Thank you.

I still have a lot of vehicles from the 50's to do before I get to that one. IC the "Ananis" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, that is an older design, was always more popular than the 'Shelob'.

I do plan to reboot the Shelob but I will keep it IC as a unpopular vehicle by the Stahnese forces. Basically a failed design that made use of a missile that was supposed to be effective against both tanks and aircraft but ended up not being very effective against either.

[The Kievan People]

I think autocannons are effective enough against infantry but they are rather overkill. They will shoot trough thick walls causing many civilian deaths in urban areas.

A 20 mm cannon will also be effective against most APC's and some IFV's.

Autocannons are not all the same. The ZSU-23 has an absurd ROF for shooting at things on the ground and it just ends up wasting ammunition, it also eats barrels.

[Yukonastan]

Twenty millimetre M163 Vulcan Air Defense System pressed into antipersonnel or antistructure use?
It'd give a use to it, and it'd give the country using it a way to burn through old 20mm ammunition stocks.

[Anemos Major]

Twenty millimetre M163 Vulcan Air Defense System pressed into antipersonnel or antistructure use?
It'd give a use to it, and it'd give the country using it a way to burn through old 20mm ammunition stocks.

Ammunition expenditure is waaay too high for what you're looking to do. Why bother expending 6000rpm on a target that can be brought down by a few well placed HE rounds of a similar calibre? It's far better to use a handful of rounds from an autocannon that doesn't have a bulky rotary mechanism, doesn't have to spool and uses fewer rounds to get the job done.

[Fordorsia]

Twenty millimetre M163 Vulcan Air Defense System pressed into antipersonnel or antistructure use?
It'd give a use to it, and it'd give the country using it a way to burn through old 20mm ammunition stocks.

The point of modern AA guns is to put as many rounds into the air as possible, directed at a single aircraft or a single group of aircraft, in a very short amount of time. That's not how fighting infantry works. You'll just run out of ammo and be a sitting duck.

And using old ammunition is never a good idea.

[Yukonastan]

Twenty millimetre M163 Vulcan Air Defense System pressed into antipersonnel or antistructure use?
It'd give a use to it, and it'd give the country using it a way to burn through old 20mm ammunition stocks.

The point of modern AA guns is to put as many rounds into the air as possible, directed at a single aircraft or a single group of aircraft, in a very short amount of time. That's not how fighting infantry works. You'll just run out of ammo and be a sitting duck.

And using old ammunition is never a good idea.

Hence burn through it so new ammunition can be shot into the sky.

[Fordorsia]

The point of modern AA guns is to put as many rounds into the air as possible, directed at a single aircraft or a single group of aircraft, in a very short amount of time. That's not how fighting infantry works. You'll just run out of ammo and be a sitting duck.

And using old ammunition is never a good idea.

Hence burn through it so new ammunition can be shot into the sky.

Or, ya know, get rid of the old ammunition and keep your stockpiles constantly full of fresh, dependable ammunition.

[Yukonastan]

Hence burn through it so new ammunition can be shot into the sky.

Or, ya know, get rid of the old ammunition and keep your stockpiles constantly full of fresh, dependable ammunition.

To get rid of the old stock in a useful manner, why not use it for training, logging, or demolition?
Edit: Or as the US used it in Panama? They didn't have any planes to shoot it at, so they used it for ground support.

[Fordorsia]

Or, ya know, get rid of the old ammunition and keep your stockpiles constantly full of fresh, dependable ammunition.

To get rid of the old stock in a useful manner, why not use it for training, logging, or demolition?

Because it's unreliable and possibly dangerous. How long do you plan on using such a vehicle? If you have ammunition for a vehicle that is old enough to be considered unreliable or unsafe, then you're not using the ammunition enough and have no use for it.

[Anemos Major]

Hence burn through it so new ammunition can be shot into the sky.

That'd be a fine idea if overall ammunition stockpiles are the only concern a vehicle faces in the field, but it's not - just in the realm of ammunition alone, there's a considerable difference between your national stockpiles and your theatre stockpiles, your theatre stockpiles and the ammunition your individual formations have, the ammunition your formations have and the ammunition your vehicles have - and so on, and so forth.

Put simply, it's not as easy as 'drive in, expend 20mm, drive out'. If you want a consistent warfighting capability, your vehicle needs to be efficient and effective in realms other than overall budgetary cost. If your 20mm SPAAG happens upon ground targets, sure, shoot ahead, but if you just need an excuse to fire off 20mm rounds at something, there're better ways of doing that than pressing a substandard ground support gun into service.

[Yukonastan]

To get rid of the old stock in a useful manner, why not use it for training, logging, or demolition?

Because it's unreliable and possibly dangerous. How long do you plan on using such a vehicle? If you have ammunition for a vehicle that is old enough to be considered unreliable or unsafe, then you're not using the ammunition enough and have no use for it.

I never said that it was old and unreliable, I just said that it was old.

[Bulgaria-Serbia]

Because it's unreliable and possibly dangerous. How long do you plan on using such a vehicle? If you have ammunition for a vehicle that is old enough to be considered unreliable or unsafe, then you're not using the ammunition enough and have no use for it.

I never said that it was old and unreliable, I just said that it was old.

30x6 ammo for the M1 still works perfectly fine, same with 16 inch shells from battleships

[Fordorsia]

Because it's unreliable and possibly dangerous. How long do you plan on using such a vehicle? If you have ammunition for a vehicle that is old enough to be considered unreliable or unsafe, then you're not using the ammunition enough and have no use for it.

I never said that it was old and unreliable, I just said that it was old.

Old implies unreliable. Small arm ammunition is fine, but I wouldn't even go near decades-old shells with explosive warheads.

You need to explain just how old you're talking about.