Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation [NO MECHS] Tranche 7

[The Akasha Colony]

What about the high turn-over rate for nations in general? What about the ret-conned bad ideas, that reduce research costs?

What of them? The former would just push prices higher; companies would be wary of doing businesses with new nations because there is a chance they could "disappear" and leave the contract unfulfilled.

[Doppio Giudici]

What about the high turn-over rate for nations in general? What about the ret-conned bad ideas, that reduce research costs?

What of them? The former would just push prices higher; companies would be wary of doing businesses with new nations because there is a chance they could "disappear" and leave the contract unfulfilled.

It negates the concept of the overabundance of first world nations in place driving down mineral costs. At the same time all the weapons floating down would provide strong competition to actual new weapons.

[The Akasha Colony]

What of them? The former would just push prices higher; companies would be wary of doing businesses with new nations because there is a chance they could "disappear" and leave the contract unfulfilled.

It negates the concept of the overabundance of first world nations in place driving down mineral costs. At the same time all the weapons floating down would provide strong competition to actual new weapons.

It doesn't, because most of the long-lived regular nations are both extremely large and very highly developed. Just take a look at, say, Gholgoth, and how large the average nations there are and how well-developed they are. The big nations are the least likely to turn over, but also usually the most developed and the neediest in terms of resources.

And the simple existence of a weapon is not sufficient to necessitate a countermeasure. Only if that weapon is likely expected to be used against a nation does one need to consider it.

Nor does it in any way alter cost or the simple laws of physics that regulate how much a tank would weigh given the equipment mounted to it.

[Doppio Giudici]

By that logic we would have trouble affording even RL tech MBTs, because everything you mentioned would drive up the cost.

[Padnak]

I was doing some late night googling and I stumbled upon something rather interesting, the Teletank. From what I've worked out they were the soviet's attempt at creating a remote control armoured vehicle controlled with radio signals and capable of doing a number of actions. If anyone has any info on them it would be greatly appreciated, everything I can find is in russian and is making google translate spazz out

EDIT

There's plenty of stuff in English, but its all basically the same stuff worded slightly differently-

[Yukonastan]

I was doing some late night googling and I stumbled upon something rather interesting, the Teletank. From what I've worked out they were the soviet's attempt at creating a remote control armoured vehicle controlled with radio signals and capable of doing a number of actions. If anyone has any info on them it would be greatly appreciated, everything I can find is in russian and is making google translate spazz out

Assume you've seen this already.
This is the cited article, which is in Engяish.

[The Akasha Colony]

By that logic we would have trouble affording even RL tech MBTs, because everything you mentioned would drive up the cost.

I'm not entirely sure you understand the economics at work.

As before, nations rarely rely on external sources for their defense contracting in the first place. This is one way in which NS is rather odd. There are large, reasonably wealthy nations that willingly contract out their entire defense industry to nations they have no other dealings with. Which politically is a rather unusual move, to place the supply of your military's equipment in the hands of a stranger. Arms exports are as much political deals as they are economic, but on NS, they are mostly economic. The obvious reason of course is that people are too lazy or not interested in designing their own gear so they just pick a popular storefront and buy without much thought.

But that aside, what matters when issuing "regular" defense contracts isn't the international price or availability of inputs, it's the availability and price of inputs which you are willing to buy. Usually this means buying domestic, at a higher cost which is considered "worth it" for the political advantage of a domestic defense industry. It doesn't matter how cheap or expensive steel is in China, the US would only care about the price of steel in the US. Or maybe Western Europe, but the Berry Amendment would almost certainly keep it within the US unless it were for a product that the US simply does not produce domestically.

You've also once again conveniently sidestepped the "physical possibility" argument, which is the real issue. Even at $100 million a unit, there are problems.

[Padnak]

I was doing some late night googling and I stumbled upon something rather interesting, the Teletank. From what I've worked out they were the soviet's attempt at creating a remote control armoured vehicle controlled with radio signals and capable of doing a number of actions. If anyone has any info on them it would be greatly appreciated, everything I can find is in russian and is making google translate spazz out

Assume you've seen this already.
This is the cited article, which is in Engяish.

Saw the wiki article, thats were I learned about them-

Strange that the soviet's didn't develop them further, or at least develop remotely controlled combat vehicles after the war

[Yukonastan]

Assume you've seen this already.
This is the cited article, which is in Engяish.

Saw the wiki article, thats were I learned about them-

Strange that the soviet's didn't develop them further, or at least develop remotely controlled combat vehicles after the war

From what I can make of the Odintsovo link is that the teletanks were hard as shit to control effectively. An argument which holds credibility in my eyes, since you just try aiming a paintball or airsoft gun hooked up to an RC car, from near maximum radio range. This while being inside a buttoned-up tank, with old radios that can be drowned out by corona discharge. That don't always respond instantaneously.

However, with modern technology, UGVs are indeed a possible future.

[Rich and Corporations]

You're also confusing long write ups with good write ups.

Obfuscating fluff.

I was doing some late night googling and I stumbled upon something rather interesting, the Teletank. From what I've worked out they were the soviet's attempt at creating a remote control armoured vehicle controlled with radio signals and capable of doing a number of actions. If anyone has any info on them it would be greatly appreciated, everything I can find is in russian and is making google translate spazz out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

As steel becomes more and more common on the market, it's value decreases. As hundreds of thousands of nations are mining iron, comparatively it's cost is much lower on NS.

You are missing the point. There is simply always a fixed minimal price dictated by factors you as the producer can not control. Be that labor costs, material price, the cost of bought in parts or other stuff. Hell if nothing else you have the fact that you are dealing with finite resources of skilled manpower and electric energy. So you simply can not decrease cost indefinitely simply by upping the production count.

Production costs decrease logarithmically. For every 10x increase, costs decrease by around 10%. So, increase production by a million, and costs are halved.

Yes, that is all. Only half.

[Lydenburg]

At the end of the day, when you are up against wank levels; you ether outwank or you lose. NATO didn't upgun it's tanks over and over for nothing.

No. There are a myriad of factors that come into play during wartime, not all of which can be manipulated by winning the tech wank.

[Lydenburg]

Was looking at pushing the limit on tacking extra armour to light recce vehicles, and what do you know:

(Image)

That's a Syrian BRDM-2.

So bloated it probably couldn't reconnoitre over its own shoulder.
What did they do to it?

It has the paint scheme of a child on Battlefield 4.

The cammo scheme belongs to the Syrian National Police. These modified BRDMs started appearing last year for patrols in high-risk ops areas.

[Purpelia]

By that logic we would have trouble affording even RL tech MBTs, because everything you mentioned would drive up the cost.

Indeed. In fact, I would argue that the sheer size of the nations involved and their populations would make using steel prohibitively expensive as it is needed for construction work. I mean can you imagine building up infrastructure like bridges and apartment blocks for a nation that has many times over the population of China?

[Stormwind-City]

By that logic we would have trouble affording even RL tech MBTs, because everything you mentioned would drive up the cost.

Indeed. In fact, I would argue that the sheer size of the nations involved and their populations would make using steel prohibitively expensive as it is needed for construction work. I mean can you imagine building up infrastructure like bridges and apartment blocks for a nation that has many times over the population of China?

Not really, the government would help pay for the price of the materials if they were actually interested in having tanks.

[Questers]

Once upon a time we confused novel with better.

Yes.

A good design is simply one that fulfills the parameters set out before it was designed. This is why most Soviet tanks are good designs. In fact, most designs are good ones.

Long long ago on NS we did assume longer writeup is better. Thats plainly untrue, however. In the first place a lot of huge write ups consist of history fluff. That may be interesting but doesnt make the design better. It actually served to obfuscate. A lot of designs are adjectival - an improved, hypermodern suspension developed by NS Suspensions Inc - doesnt tell you more than "hydrogas suspension" in fact it tells you less. More words isnt better.

On a similar theme, more words doesnt indicate more research or work. I have spent a lot of time researching autoloaders and how they work and drawing schematics of them. In my tank I chose manual loading however so that research wasn't present or visible. The same is true of the gun.

In my view the best designs are those which clearly display and explain the most relevant information CONCISELY and CLEARLY with a minimum of obfuscation.

That said my ground vehicles have never been an export success, so perhaps im mistaken.

[Lyras]

Lyran and VMK tanks, from what I know, go to wankish levels of protection and firepower.

Yohannes even said that himself.

This actually quite offends me.
Some folks don't dig the premises of my designs (ie, that if its possible with today's understanding of technology, then its MT), but to call it 'wankish' is flatly wrong. I take a great deal of time to work out what is do-able, and present what I assert is a combat-effective piece of hardware.

If you have an issue with an article, have the decency to bring it to my attention, and/or discuss it, not slander me and my efforts, and those of others with whom I design.

Further, Yohannes is someone whose company I enjoy, in a manner of speaking, but he does not speak for me, and his propensity for throwing anti-NationStates hissy fits is well known. Tarring me with a brush tainted by one of those also offends me.

Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy today...

[Questers]

The Type-99is the tenth best RL modern tank, but it only costs two million.

Both of those things are false.

[Questers]

I don't understand why there is this uproar about ETC when most of the major companies won't touch 152mm guns and all go for ETC anyways.

So are we going to ignore some of the best designs on this site? Even thou thy are ridiculously popular?

You should listen to Yohannes talk about his own designs. He openly admits they are wanks.

[Gallia-]

where is xe?

[The Akasha Colony]

I don't understand why there is this uproar about ETC when most of the major companies won't touch 152mm guns and all go for ETC anyways.

So are we going to ignore some of the best designs on this site? Even thou thy are ridiculously popular?

You should listen to Yohannes talk about his own designs. He openly admits they are wanks.

And he isn't even interested in military hardware anymore, last I heard.

In my view the best designs are those which clearly display and explain the most relevant information CONCISELY and CLEARLY with a minimum of obfuscation.

Hear, hear!

[Questers]

Some folks don't dig the premises of my designs (ie, that if its possible with today's understanding of technology, then its MT), but to call it 'wankish' is flatly wrong.

This is the crux. In the past few years the trend has been towards an ever stricter understanding of MT.

[Chebucto Provinces]

What is the average line of sight in modern tank battles anyway? Obviously depends on the terrain, but say in an average area of Western European countryside? Not 4km, surely.

I think you and others have previously suggested 2-3km at max and often 1-2km and frequently less.

In my long and illustrious career I only ever sighted the gun of my tank on another tank with intent to kill three times. And never fired.
All three were under 1km.

[Yukonastan]

Yohannes even said that himself.

This actually quite offends me.
Some folks don't dig the premises of my designs (ie, that if its possible with today's understanding of technology, then its MT), but to call it 'wankish' is flatly wrong. I take a great deal of time to work out what is do-able, and present what I assert is a combat-effective piece of hardware.

If you have an issue with an article, have the decency to bring it to my attention, and/or discuss it, not slander me and my efforts, and those of others with whom I design.

Further, Yohannes is someone whose company I enjoy, in a manner of speaking, but he does not speak for me, and his propensity for throwing anti-NationStates hissy fits is well known. Tarring me with a brush tainted by one of those also offends me.

Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy today...

Maybe you are.
However, and I'm going to admit this, my opinion is harsh.
And in my opinion, I find your military equipment wankish in several ways, including its size, price, true feasibility, design constraints, usability, armament, protection, you name it.

Now I'm not shooting you down, or discrediting you in any way. even if i wanted to i wouldn't stand a chance

Your designs don't speak to me, frankly, even if they're well-researched and completely possible by today's standards. I have no doubt about being able to ask you for a complete design brief, call up GM, AM General, Newport News Shipbuilding, hell, Samsung shipbuilding, and get one of your designs into reality, after getting laughed at.

However, while they're possible, in many/most cases they're not too practical due to the above mentioned considerations. They're the preferable system in even less situations.

[San-Silvacian]

Yuko maybe if you had a more frank understanding and didn't seem to rush into things knowing little to nothing about a subject you could offer better criticism.

[Lydenburg]

where is xe?

It's called "Academi" now.