NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Austrasien]

And yet you think they are wrong?

That one enemy [NATO, perhaps] will not use chemical weapons, when every "major" war of the late 20th century involved tactical chemical weapons use, means they are wrong? Saddam used tabun, sarin, phosgene, and mustard gas in the 1980s and phosgene in the 1990s. The only time he didn't use chemical weapons was when he was staring down the barrel of an atomic cowboy's revolver. The USA used chemical weapons (CS) in Vietnam to flush troops from positions and destroy them with artillery, in accordance with its then ancient urban warfare manuals dating from WW2 (or earlier).

You can't actually know if future war will involve chemical weapons or not without actually experiencing future war, so being prepared for future chemical wars is a good way to be prepared for war in general. Not preparing for chemical weapons is sort of silly, since chemical weapons exist, people have used them as late as 3 months ago, and (as far as we can tell) will forever exist so long as industrial civilization persists. So preparing for use of a weapon that exists is rather important, isn't it? If you tell people, "don't prepare for this," you automatically make yourself vulnerable to that thing you are trying to prepare against, which in your very own statements you have said this. Since humans are lazy, if you tell them "this will not happen, but we need to prepare for it," they will do the exact opposite of that, and not prepare for it, because it will not happen. Thus, they make it happen, by not preparing for it, which seems rather intuitive.

Yet you disagree with it in practice?

I think you are missing the unstated part, which is implied by the command to prepare: "if you do not prepare for x, then you will allow x to happen". I can see this being a pretty subtle message though.

Giving troops guidance to the effect of "prepare for the USA American VX attacks" might not be wrong to the extent it is supposed to encourage preparedness, but it isn't true. An objective assesment of NATO's chemical warfare capabilities is that they don't really have one ATM. The only chemical weapons they need to prepare for the usage of are their own (Russia has a long history of attributing to NATO what it intends to do in training material probably to get around security and political restrictions on what is acceptable to put in open publications); which is likely the intent of their NBC training. But of course they already know chemical weapons would not be very effective against NATO troops, the Novichok R&D program failed, so any insistence on maintaining this capability at a high level is most likely institutional inertia and make-work for specialized industrial suppliers of NBC gear.

The USSR also had an extensive bioweapons program in the 80s without bothering to develop or field anything to dispense bioweapons - the USSR was not a paragon of rationalization.

[Gallia-]

Sperg
Onion
<3333

[Allanea]

And yet you think they are wrong?

I'm suggesting there's a discrepancy between what Soviet senior commanders knew (that NATO was reducing its chemweapons stockpiles, and that chemical weapons were of limited tactical utility as compared to guided, or even unguided, munitions), and the fact they issued guidance to their men on the assumption that it would happen.

Soviet miltiary theory states chemical artillery requires more chemical shells to achieve a result comparable to what HE-F unguided would achieve.

As Kyiv states, Soviet chemweapons and bioweapons production continued long after utility of these weapons was reduced. The historians I've talked to about these facts - and these are facts - suggest that this was due to lobbying by senior members of the plants making the weapons and the design bureaus developing them.

Not preparing for chemical weapons is sort of silly, since chemical weapons exist, people have used them as late as 3 months ago, and (as far as we can tell) will forever exist so long as industrial civilization persists. So preparing for use of a weapon that exists is rather important, isn't it?

Preparedness is not, however, an on/off switch.

More to the point, you've argued that chemical weapons are tactically valuable, and the fact people prepared for them is proof that they're tactically valuable.

This is false because people prepare for weaponry for other reasons than it being tactically valuable. Propaganda is one reason. (You of all people know this, because this is part of Gallia's backstory in-character). Sometimes people make a mistakes. Sometimes entire nations do.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

Political history question.

With regards to the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth, is it true that higher-up western allied officers knew just as much as their German counterparts how the Wehrmacht had participated in many of the atrocities, but specifically chose to popularize the idea that the Wehrmacht was guiltless in order to allow for West German rearmament to be less of a bitter pill to swallow for everyone else?

Also, I've heard that there were riots in Berlin when the Germans heard that they were going to get a Bundeswehr. I'm certain that the Germans were the last ones who were for German rearmament, but was this forced on them by NATO or voluntary?

[North Arkana]

Political history question.

With regards to the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth, is it true that higher-up western allied officers knew just as much as their German counterparts how the Wehrmacht had participated in many of the atrocities, but specifically chose to popularize the idea that the Wehrmacht was guiltless in order to allow for West German rearmament to be less of a bitter pill to swallow for everyone else?

Also, I've heard that there were riots in Berlin when the Germans heard that they were going to get a Bundeswehr. I'm certain that the Germans were the last ones who were for German rearmament, but was this forced on them by NATO or voluntary?

The Wehrmacht was so disorganised the Nuremberg Tribunal didn't think it was worth charging such a fractured entity as a single defendant.

[Gallia-]

And yet you think they are wrong?

I'm suggesting there's a discrepancy between what Soviet senior commanders knew (that NATO was reducing its chemweapons stockpiles, and that chemical weapons were of limited tactical utility as compared to guided, or even unguided, munitions), and the fact they issued guidance to their men on the assumption that it would happen.

Soviet miltiary theory states chemical artillery requires more chemical shells to achieve a result comparable to what HE-F unguided would achieve.

As Kyiv states, Soviet chemweapons and bioweapons production continued long after utility of these weapons was reduced. The historians I've talked to about these facts - and these are facts - suggest that this was due to lobbying by senior members of the plants making the weapons and the design bureaus developing them.

Iccc, I will cede the point [to whatever extent I held it] then that they may be wrong, should current trends of self-hardening against chemical attack continue, that the West will not attack them with chemical weapons. But also I'm suggesting that said discrepancy has more a pragmatic motivation than self-delusion alone, besides the noted statement that Russia may seriously be describing its own chemical capability rather the West's, because Russia is hardly a paragon of straight talking.

Not preparing for chemical weapons is sort of silly, since chemical weapons exist, people have used them as late as 3 months ago, and (as far as we can tell) will forever exist so long as industrial civilization persists. So preparing for use of a weapon that exists is rather important, isn't it?

Preparedness is not, however, an on/off switch.

More to the point, you've argued that chemical weapons are tactically valuable, and the fact people prepared for them is proof that they're tactically valuable.

This is false because people prepare for weaponry for other reasons than it being tactically valuable. Propaganda is one reason. (You of all people know this, because this is part of Gallia's backstory in-character). Sometimes people make a mistakes. Sometimes entire nations do.

I'm actually suggesting with the quoted statement that by preparing for use of chemical weapons, they are pre-empting a return of offensive chemical weapons programs within the democratic countries.

Preparedness may not be an on/off switch, but rather it is a muscle. Muscles atrophy, and atrophy rapidly, after you stop using them for a bit. It is difficult to fathom why someone would do a thing which they do not believe to be terribly plausible, yet requires considerable investment in time, mental and physical resources, and a fairly regular practice schedule. It's a bit silly to think that the democratic nations would take up chemical weapons again, especially considering how squeamish they are against mines and ICMs, but maybe Russia is projecting itself onto the West again.

It is a bit like preparing to use a firearm in a society which neither allows ownership of, nor use by civilians of, that particular firearm. Like if a Briton were to practice their handgun use, without actually ever using/owning a handgun in their lives, but extended to hundreds of thousands or millions of Britons. Perhaps they would buy an indoor air simulator or something, like the US military uses to practice firearms training, and a handgun simulator. Why would they do this with intrinsic knowledge that their ability to use a handgun is neither allowed, nor will ever actually be allowed, because the UK does not have a civilian handgun market? The USA tells its soldiers that (previously) Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Un will bomb them with sarin gas, and that is how it gets men to prepare for ABC combat, or more simply that they must be prepared for this because it will eventually happen, or that by doing this they make themselves less vulnerable to attack by enemies who would do this.

I suppose it may only be a partial explanation, but it is the reason that the USA practices chemical warfare which still needs an actual threat, even if hyperbolic to the point of absurdity, hanging over troops. I do not know to what extent other NATO armies practice chemical weapons defense training, but I cannot imagine it is at all to the same level of preparedness as the US Army, given that they face no actual boogeymen with chemical shells or rockets anymore. After all, without a threat, you simply do not train for things: cf. the entirety of Western European NATO.

Giving troops guidance to the effect of "prepare for the USA American VX attacks" might not be wrong to the extent it is supposed to encourage preparedness, but it isn't true. An objective assesment of NATO's chemical warfare capabilities is that they don't really have one ATM. The only chemical weapons they need to prepare for the usage of are their own (Russia has a long history of attributing to NATO what it intends to do in training material probably to get around security and political restrictions on what is acceptable to put in open publications); which is likely the intent of their NBC training. But of course they already know chemical weapons would not be very effective against NATO troops, the Novichok R&D program failed, so any insistence on maintaining this capability at a high level is most likely institutional inertia and make-work for specialized industrial suppliers of NBC gear.

The USSR also had an extensive bioweapons program in the 80s without bothering to develop or field anything to dispense bioweapons - the USSR was not a paragon of rationalization.

So then NBC gear production/use falls of once they realize this, they return to being vulnerable to chemical attacks, followed by an increase in development/maintenance of chemical weapons stockpiles by Russia's enemies, thus beginning the "cycle" to whatever extent it will exist, anew? Or is it possible to maintain chemical defense preparedness in absence of a perceived/imaginary threat indefinitely? I do not think that is possible, given that Western European militaries have fallen to such extreme lows of conventional war readiness after openly acknowledging the alleged non-threat of Russia, so I'm suggesting that to at least some extent Russia's statements about "impending chemical wars of the future" is a boogeyman to keep NATO from re-arming itself with suddenly far more tactically valuable chemical weapons once Russia's NBC preparedness slacks off.

Sure, they might keep atropine around or something, but to what extent would it be issued or trained with in a world where chemical weapons have been forgotten? Did Iran, a notoriously well prepared country as any, suffer any sort of initial "wave" of casualties when the Iraqis first used chemical weapons in Iran-Iraq? Did they have a period where they were suddenly vulnerable to chemical attack, before the casualties began slackening off after they realized atropine is great?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, why keep CB defense systems/practices around (cf. MOPP suits/masks and CB attack drills) if you have no expectation of being seriously attacked by CB weapons? Is the statement "we do this, since no one in the world retains any serious chemical arsenals and we successfully deter those who do have them with our atomic weapons, so that we won't become vulnerable and invite surprise chemical attacks by suddenly resurgent stockpiles of chemical weapons because we forgot to practice our drills," actually valuable enough to motivate people to do something short of outright being told "do this"? Would it even ensure that people saying "do this" actually do that, and not just check it off on their training list before moving onto sexual assault prevention presentations?

Perhaps more concisely: It is like inducing a deliberate third-order effect in this manner: State "NATO will attack us with chemical weapons," which leads to Russian Army units, or at least hopefully leads to, sincerely believing this statement or at the very least believing that it describes that they will be using chemical weapons in the future despite knowing their tactical futility; which leads to Russian Army units practicing for ABC drills on a fairly routine basis and keeping the manufacture/research of ABC defense products a core part of the MIC; which keeps NATO from re-arming itself with chemical weapons and making the hyperbolic statement a true statement, of which preventing NATO's re-armament is the actual intention of the initial statement.

Which means that Russia neither has any serious designs on using chemical weapons in combat (although I suppose if NATO's chemical weapons readiness is anything like its conventional weapons readiness, Russian design bureaus must be masturbating to the thought of twitching imperialist corpses) nor on maintaining a stockpile, but rather it is a roundabout way of keeping a defensive ABC capability intact.

Perhaps the simple existence of the plastics industry is enough to keep ABC defense products alive, because it would be a very minor thing to convert phosgene factories to making weapons stockpiles, though.

[Gallia-]

But really I just like MOPP a e s t h e t i c and don't want it to disappear into history forever. Something about this makes my panties super wet:

and I start squirming my seat to avoid awkward questions like "is that an energy drink can in your pocket" and whatever.

[Laritaia]

Chemical warfare at it's pinnacle

[Gallia-]

N o .
o
.

relevant to interests of Truspegen:

Human Senses

A target is likely to reveal its presence because of characteristics which are inherent either in its design or its tactical employment. In the simplest case such characteristics can be recognized by the five human sense. As an example a tank is most likely to be detected and recognized by sight and hearing. It has a shape which can be seen and with training, identified. The power plant, transmission and running gear of the tank make a noise which will disclose its presence and give some idea of the type of vehicle. It also emits exhaust fumes which can be smelled, but this is normally a short range effect as are touch and taste which are unlikely to be used in the detection of enemy armour.

"unlikely"

we will see about that OwO

specifically we will see if mbt70 has the taste of...a liar OwO

[Gallia-]

Also is there a lot of sense to have a "bridge" between M977 10-tons and LVSR 20-tons? The US Army has a 20-ton truck in the form of Palletized Load System, which also has a 10-ton equivalent in the HEMTT M1120. Is there really a capability gap between those two things since the LVSR/PLS/HEMTT appear to be built on the same overall chassis (although this may merely be a coincidence)?

Because I'm not sure if Galla will have a 10-ton truck and a 20-ton truck like the US Army or just have a single 20-ton truck like the USMC.

[Greater Allidron]

If a nation doesn't prepare for CW defense it is inviting CW use by its enemies.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

Political history question.

With regards to the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth, is it true that higher-up western allied officers knew just as much as their German counterparts how the Wehrmacht had participated in many of the atrocities, but specifically chose to popularize the idea that the Wehrmacht was guiltless in order to allow for West German rearmament to be less of a bitter pill to swallow for everyone else?

Also, I've heard that there were riots in Berlin when the Germans heard that they were going to get a Bundeswehr. I'm certain that the Germans were the last ones who were for German rearmament, but was this forced on them by NATO or voluntary?

The Wehrmacht was so disorganised the Nuremberg Tribunal didn't think it was worth charging such a fractured entity as a single defendant.

Where can I read more about that?

[The Akasha Colony]

Also is there a lot of sense to have a "bridge" between M977 10-tons and LVSR 20-tons? The US Army has a 20-ton truck in the form of Palletized Load System, which also has a 10-ton equivalent in the HEMTT M1120. Is there really a capability gap between those two things since the LVSR/PLS/HEMTT appear to be built on the same overall chassis (although this may merely be a coincidence)?

Because I'm not sure if Galla will have a 10-ton truck and a 20-ton truck like the US Army or just have a single 20-ton truck like the USMC.

IIRC isn't PLS a 16.5-ton truck? It's got the same powerplant as LVSR but the suspension is older.

I don't really know to what extent it's necessary though. The problem with a fleet of 20-ton trucks is that most loads will bulk out short of that aside from liquid carriers. The fact that the US Army is able to get along fine with 11 and 16.5 ton trucks indicates that the benefits of a 20 ton truck are probably limited just to POL and water so long as the bed length is roughly the same as HEMTT's. I believe the British found the same thing in the Balkans when they bought those Multidrive fuel carriers to supplement their logistics force beyond what the existing DROPS trucks could manage efficiently. But the regular trucks did everything else just fine, and so far as I know the British never had a 20-ton truck, and the current HX77 tops out at 16.5 tons.

AFAIK the US Army considers PLS and M1120 LHS to be interchangeable for most roles, so even 16.5 tons may be superfluous for most applications. But this might just be because the Army's existing logistics train has grown around HEMTT's 11 ton capacity and the Army is loathe to modify its existing arrangements lest it end up with a bunch of loads that are PLS-only and thus can be moved by only a portion of the heavy truck fleet.

FWIW, Carthage only has 6-tonne 4x4 (stretched) Multidrive FCVs and 20-tonne 10x10 trucks that were supposed to be a sort of super-FCV, like the related models of the MAN HX/SX line. The 4x4 is mostly deployed in a flatbed configuration while the 10x10 is deployed almost exclusively as a hooklift unit and all of its cargo is mounted on flatracks. The longer bed of the 4x4 allows it to handle bulk cargo aside from POL, leaving the 20-tonne trucks to handle very large cargo or heavy bulk goods. So I guess it's basically MTVR and LVSR. I would guess it's easier to skip the HEMTT-tier if your medium trucks are more capable than FMTV, like MTVR is.

[Allanea]

Iccc, I will cede the point [to whatever extent I held it] then that they may be wrong, should current trends of self-hardening against chemical attack continue, that the West will not attack them with chemical weapons. But also I'm suggesting that said discrepancy has more a pragmatic motivation than self-delusion alone, besides the noted statement that Russia may seriously be describing its own chemical capability rather the West's, because Russia is hardly a paragon of straight talking.

I'm not suggesting that delusion is in play. I'm not even against NBC defense training.

However I am against NBC use, not because of any humanitarian concern, but because I believe maximum efficiency calls for guided weapons and HE-F strikes.

[Gallia-]

Also is there a lot of sense to have a "bridge" between M977 10-tons and LVSR 20-tons? The US Army has a 20-ton truck in the form of Palletized Load System, which also has a 10-ton equivalent in the HEMTT M1120. Is there really a capability gap between those two things since the LVSR/PLS/HEMTT appear to be built on the same overall chassis (although this may merely be a coincidence)?

Because I'm not sure if Galla will have a 10-ton truck and a 20-ton truck like the US Army or just have a single 20-ton truck like the USMC.

IIRC isn't PLS a 16.5-ton truck? It's got the same powerplant as LVSR but the suspension is older.

I don't really know to what extent it's necessary though. The problem with a fleet of 20-ton trucks is that most loads will bulk out short of that aside from liquid carriers. The fact that the US Army is able to get along fine with 11 and 16.5 ton trucks indicates that the benefits of a 20 ton truck are probably limited just to POL and water so long as the bed length is roughly the same as HEMTT's. I believe the British found the same thing in the Balkans when they bought those Multidrive fuel carriers to supplement their logistics force beyond what the existing DROPS trucks could manage efficiently. But the regular trucks did everything else just fine, and so far as I know the British never had a 20-ton truck, and the current HX77 tops out at 16.5 tons.

AFAIK the US Army considers PLS and M1120 LHS to be interchangeable for most roles, so even 16.5 tons may be superfluous for most applications. But this might just be because the Army's existing logistics train has grown around HEMTT's 11 ton capacity and the Army is loathe to modify its existing arrangements lest it end up with a bunch of loads that are PLS-only and thus can be moved by only a portion of the heavy truck fleet.

FWIW, Carthage only has 6-tonne 4x4 (stretched) Multidrive FCVs and 20-tonne 10x10 trucks that were supposed to be a sort of super-FCV, like the related models of the MAN HX/SX line. The 4x4 is mostly deployed in a flatbed configuration while the 10x10 is deployed almost exclusively as a hooklift unit and all of its cargo is mounted on flatracks. The longer bed of the 4x4 allows it to handle bulk cargo aside from POL, leaving the 20-tonne trucks to handle very large cargo or heavy bulk goods. So I guess it's basically MTVR and LVSR. I would guess it's easier to skip the HEMTT-tier if your medium trucks are more capable than FMTV, like MTVR is.

LVSR is 20-ton on-road/16.5-ton off-road. I assumed PLS was the same, but Oshkosh doesn't make a differentiation on their website between PLS's load capacities.

Anyway I basically have it down that Galla's trucks are named like x20/x40/x50/x60/x70/x80/x90 where x is the "generation" (current is "10", but this is actually the fifth truck generation, which began with "2" and skipped a couple numbers), and the second number is a load classification used for vehicles of different payload capacities, as follows (subject to change!):

20: 0.1-0.5 ton cf. Mechanical Mule/Haflinger
40: 0.25-1 ton cf. Type 183/M151 MUTT/UAZ 469
50: 1-1.75 ton cf. HMMWV
60: 1.75-4 ton cf. LMTV/M39/ZIL 157
70: 4-8 ton cf. MTV/M939/Ural 4320
80: 8-16 ton cf. M520 Goer/HEMTT/PLS
90: 16+ ton cf. T813/LVSR/M1070 HET

OTOH, it seems that LVS can tolerate a 20-ton capacity on-road and a 11-ton capacity off-road; and this compares favorably with what I know that HEMTT can do (10-tons) so I suspect that HEMTT's capacity on-road may be closer to 20-tons and is limited by ground pressure rather than suspension, much like LVS/LVSR. I also think that LVSR's mega capacity might be related to applique armors and the need to retain mobility at such increasing GVWRs more than anything.

The only real difference between LVSR/PLS/HEMTT/LVS is the fact that they have one additional axle in LVS/LVSR/PLS and LVSR is rated for a higher GVWR to deal with applique and retain off-road mobility? Possibly?

Iccc, I will cede the point [to whatever extent I held it] then that they may be wrong, should current trends of self-hardening against chemical attack continue, that the West will not attack them with chemical weapons. But also I'm suggesting that said discrepancy has more a pragmatic motivation than self-delusion alone, besides the noted statement that Russia may seriously be describing its own chemical capability rather the West's, because Russia is hardly a paragon of straight talking.

I'm not suggesting that delusion is in play. I'm not even against NBC defense training.

However I am against NBC use, not because of any humanitarian concern, but because I believe maximum efficiency calls for guided weapons and HE-F strikes.

I'm just saying that Russia's saying that "chemical weapons are the future" is a cover/smokescreen to serve as a boogeyman for NBC defense. Otherwise, why bother doing training? We don't train for close order formation in any serious capacity because no one fights in close order drill anymore. If there's no chemical threat, why train for chemical warfare? You can barely get people to go to the gym (myself included) if they don't see any immediate benefit, so the principle applies probably accurately to the the military as well. You can probably barely get people to care about chemical defense drills if they don't believe that chemical warfare is a possibility.

If chemical warfare isn't a possibility, there's questions of whether or not maintaining a chemical defense capability is needed. And when you let that atrophy, you inadvertently make chemical warfare potentially highly advantageous again, or at least potentially more dangerous al a WW1, since you will have no chemical detectors, suits, or masks, or at least no training to use them properly. Which I think is the real reasons Russia plays up the chemical warfare meme: to keep the institutional knowledge of chemical combat conditions alive. It is somewhat becoming a bit like close order drill, except that chemical weapons become useful when you lose that knowledge, unlike close order drill.

Does it make more sense what I am saying now? It would be difficult to keep funding for a capability that deters its own use so much that it superficially seems unnecessary.

The USA could have gone into both Iraq Wars with zero chemical condition posture and suffered not a single casualty and possibly suffered fewer casualties because there would be less heat stroke. But that would be rather stupid because it would open up the USA to chemical attack in a General War between an atomic power, who successfully deters the use of nuclear weapons with his own nuclear weapons, because it has clearly lost the capability and knowledge of defense under chemical conditions. Which means if you can deter the USA's use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons (which Iraq could not, which is the real reason it did not use chemical weapons against USA or Israel) through your own nuclear weapons, then you have free reign to slather American troops in phosgene, sarin, mustard gas, and whatever else chemicals you have lying around.

Which applies to anyone else who forgets the art of defensive chemical conditions, which is easy to do when there is no obvious threat. Just ask all the European NATO militaries. You know, the same people who forgot the art of combat conditions in general, because Russia is our friend now or something.

When the last boogeyman disappears, so will chemical combat preparedness, and the [initial anyway, perhaps not final, since Iraq lost Iran-Iraq War] winner of the next chemical war will be the man with the biggest plastics industry.

[The Akasha Colony]

LVSR is 20-ton on-road/16.5-ton off-road. I assumed PLS was the same, but Oshkosh doesn't make a differentiation on their website between PLS's load capacities.

OTOH, it seems that LVS can tolerate a 20-ton capacity on-road and a 11-ton capacity off-road; and this compares favorably with what I know that HEMTT can do (10-tons) so I suspect that HEMTT's capacity on-road may be closer to 20-tons and is limited by ground pressure rather than suspension, much like LVS/LVSR. I also think that LVSR's mega capacity might be related to applique armors and the need to retain mobility at such increasing GVWRs more than anything.

The US Army seems to only care about their off-road capacities in briefing materials. At least those materials relating to brigade-level logistics, where roads may well be in shorter supply.

I'm not entirely sure why Oshkosh wouldn't just improve PLS' GVWR to bring it into line with LVSR though. They did that for HEMTT A4 to allow it to wear armor without impacting rated cargo capacity. I think there's a case to be made for the suspension because the M984 wrecker has a higher GVWR than even PLS despite still only having four axles (and the same powerpack as HEMTT rather than PLS) but does have an improved rear suspension. With armor M984 has nearly the same GVWR as LVSR, despite having a weaker engine and fewer axles. So it seems the primary shortcoming for M985 was the suspension because aside from mission equipment that was the only part that was changed.

Oddly enough though Oshkosh decided not to bring the suspension into line with PLS as part of the A4 modernization even though they replaced the engines. And they've been trying to push their TAK-4 suspension really hard lately.

There's presumably some kind of mobility formula used to determine what meets the requirements, because I imagine a HEMTT could probably take a 20 ton load off road if it really wanted to, it'd just have to be extremely careful about it. Like how FCV could meet the high mobility requirements with 6 tonnes but could still function with a 9 tonne payload, albeit limited to the improved medium mobility category.

The only real difference between LVSR/PLS/HEMTT/LVS is the fact that they have one additional axle in LVS/LVSR/PLS and LVSR is rated for a higher GVWR to deal with applique and retain off-road mobility? Possibly?

There are various small differences. HEMTT obviously started with a smaller engine but A4 now has the same C15 as LVSR and PLS, albeit derated. All three have different transmissions though, and different powerpack configurations. HEMTT and PLS also have two-speed transfer cases while LVSR has a single-speed case. But these are all minor and fairly nitpicky details.

They're almost certainly more alike than they are different, but they probably look more alike than they really are since all of their major features are the same and their cabs are nearly identical, presumably so that they can share armor kits with each other. Remove the cab and they're probably only a bit more similar to each other than they are to MAN's offerings in the same class. Or at least how MAN's trucks would end up if they were modified to meet US specifications.



Subtract the cab and you can see the differences. They're slight, but they're there. Especially if you further subtract the parts that would have been standardized anyway, like the wheel sizes, axle count, and axle arrangement etc.

Anyway I basically have it down that Galla's trucks are named like x20/x40/x50/x60/x70/x80/x90 where x is the "generation" (current is "10", but this is actually the fifth truck generation, which began with "2" and skipped a couple numbers), and the second number is a load classification used for vehicles of different payload capacities, as follows (subject to change!):

20: 0.1-0.5 ton cf. Mechanical Mule/Haflinger
40: 0.25-1 ton cf. Type 183/M151 MUTT/UAZ 469
50: 1-1.75 ton cf. HMMWV
60: 1.75-4 ton cf. LMTV/M39/ZIL 157
70: 4-8 ton cf. MTV/M939/Ural 4320
80: 8-16 ton cf. M520 Goer/HEMTT/PLS
90: 16+ ton cf. T813/LVSR/M1070 HET

Seems like a lot of truck types on the low end, although I guess the US Army has M-Gator and the British played around the Springer for a bit.

Carthage has a much smaller pool of vehicles in its current time period, and doesn't have a particularly organized system. There used to be finer gradation in the past but consolidation has reduced the number of variants as the army has tried to rationalize its inventory.

Up to 0.75 tonnes: M-Gator, M1161 Growler
Up to 2 tonnes: JLTV
Up to 6-9 tonnes: Multidrive FCV
Up to 20 tonnes: 10x10 super-FCV
AFV transport: HETS

[Gallia-]

The Type 183s are around to fit inside V-22s for most part. Haflinger is just a toolbox with wheels for aviation crew chiefs to pull around. It's also a tractor for bomb trolleys and other really small things. You list M-Gator and Growler, which are the same class as Haflinger and Type 183 respectively, but Galla would just call them different names. In reality I think the number of trucks that Carthage and Galla use are the same, but Galla just chops them up into even finer divisions because the Gallan Brain is essentially autistic. The examples were for comparison, Galla only has one truck in each weight class, respectively:

Haflinger
Type 183 Iltis
HMMWV
LMTV
MTV
HEMTT? LVSR?
Undecided Super!Truck

The real meat is just HMMWV/FMTV/FHTV. Although Galla probably doesn't use HET, but maybe some gigantic Super!HEMTT that can pull 70 tons.

I'm just wondering if there's really a need for a 10-ton truck when you have a 20-ton truck. Or if I can get by with nothing but LVSR ripoffs forever. Or if a 20-ton heavy is even possible with 1980s technology. I guess I'd be shooting for a 10x10 heavy lifter al a PLS/LVSR instead of a 8x8. Skip the 8x8 entirely, actually, and go from 6x6 to 10x0, in the '80s. Galla would be all over that because a 20-ton heavy mover would be exactly what it thinks it needs in the 1980s to cut down the tooth:tail ratio to produce the ideal army:



Each toy is a battalion.

The problem: What good is a 8x8 10-ton truck and why are they so common in a world when 10x10 20-ton trucks can exist and have almost an identical ground footprint? This is why I am confused. Only the US Marines have a solidly 20 ton heavy truck. So why not just use LVS instead of HEMTT and forget 10-tons even exist? Then the "x80" classification becomes "8-20 tons" and "x90" becomes ">20 tons".

Although dig this: LVS is an 8x8 that can still pull 20-tons. So maybe HEMTT has the same muscular legs that LVSR does on roads, but LVS can't match that. So there's still a break somewhere between the 10- and 20-ton line that can't be met. I just don't really want two heavy trucks that do essentially the same thing running around being redundant. That means I'll have to include the caveat that "x00" is actually a ">20-ton" heavy truck that pulls tanks. So Tgb 1100 isn't a tiny mover like Haflinger or a motor bike, it's the biggest of them all.

But that can explain why every truck generation skips the next number set LOL. Every odd numbered "n00" is a mega mover. All the way back to Tgb 100.

[Allanea]

[When the last boogeyman disappears, so will chemical combat preparedness, and the [initial anyway, perhaps not final, since Iraq lost Iran-Iraq War] winner of the next chemical war will be the man with the biggest plastics industry.

Or, you could just dump HE-F on your fellow man.

[Kassaran]

How realistic is the latest in BI's Milsim games: ARMA III? Been playing it a lot, and it's futuristic setting seems to lend credence to the idea that we're pretty much near the peak of what we're going to feasibly see in combat with our current technology. additionally, it actually supports the idea of an advanced Asian state to counter NATO when WP becomes defunct and it's made up primarily of ME and EA nations to boot. Additionally, American economy tanking, asian industry booming... I never realized all the points the game made in the sidelines that you guys occasionally touch on here... that's why I'm asking: how real is ARMA III? How faithful is it to real life military development and whatnot?

[Gallia-]

[When the last boogeyman disappears, so will chemical combat preparedness, and the [initial anyway, perhaps not final, since Iraq lost Iran-Iraq War] winner of the next chemical war will be the man with the biggest plastics industry.

Or, you could just dump HE-F on your fellow man.

You don't even read my posts.

What's better: sarin without atropine or HE-F with Special Armor IFVs?

It's a rhetorical question, you've already answered it:

But the point is, people were at the time of the belief that they were going to invent some solution that doesn't just 'force the other battalion work in NBC gear', but actually somehow penetrates the gear and kills them.

If you can actually sit down and read my posts instead of pretend to read them, you would understand what I am saying, but you can't even put in the effort to read a handful of sentences I guess. So answer this: Why would you need to penetrate "the gear" when "the gear" has vanished from existence? You wouldn't!

Given that Western European NATO has more or less forgotten how to fight wars in absence of a war threat, why do you think people won't forget how to fight chemicals in absence of a chemical threat?

[Allanea]

You've moved the goalposts again.

[Gallia-]

You've moved the goalposts again.

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Incredible.

I've been making the same point for at least four posts now. Ever since you mentioned Novichok was nothing more than cyclosarin, or about. You've just been too lazy or too disingenuous to read it. Possibly because you're unable/unwilling to read it (maybe your bias tinted glasses are getting in the way), or because you can't actually answer the question because it goes against your idea that chemical weapons are useless, because you think that people will never abandon chemical defense in absence of a chemical threat.

Your point has been:

1) Chemical weapons are useless because the equipment we have defends them against them too well.
2) I ceded this when you mentioned the lethality of Novichok after many of your unique brand of non-direct statements.
3) My statement afterwards was: So then perhaps Russia's belief that chemical weapons are the future is more about retaining the institutional knowledge than actual, literal truth. I even mentioned Western Europe's lack of conventional training as an analogy in this regard. Like twice.

Apparently you've never gone beyond 2 during this entire conversation. So I'm starting to think you don't actually read the posts you quote, you just find the one sentence that you do read and try to address that instead. FFS.

[Allanea]

3) My statement afterwards was: So then perhaps Russia's belief that chemical weapons are the future is more about retaining the institutional knowledge than actual, literal truth. I even mentioned Western Europe's lack of conventional training as an analogy in this regard. Like twice.

Okay.

So what? I've never argued that we shouldn't retain the institutional knowledge.

It's also not very hard to retain it because a lot of the knowledge and skillsare still necessary in non-military applications.

I'm still hung up on why 3 is even relevant.

[Gallia-]

3) My statement afterwards was: So then perhaps Russia's belief that chemical weapons are the future is more about retaining the institutional knowledge than actual, literal truth. I even mentioned Western Europe's lack of conventional training as an analogy in this regard. Like twice.

Okay.

So what? I've never argued that we shouldn't retain the institutional knowledge.

It's also not very hard to retain it because a lot of the knowledge and skillsare still necessary in non-military applications.

I'm still hung up on why 3 is even relevant.

OK.

What knowledge/skills of NBC defense are applicable in non-military applications? Emergency services defense suits are nothing at all like those of the military's. They are much bulkier, much sillier, and don't use the same infrastructure at all. Possibly because commercial chemical spills are not intended to be partially habitated in for many hours. The operational concept of a chemical cleanup is wholly different from that of an attack or defense under chemical combat conditions.

A civilian "chemical suit" is a hot, airtight, monstrous thing that offers no advantage to a combat unit. The military does use these, actually, here are two US Army soldiers, one wearing a chemical combat suit, the other wearing a chemical cleanup suit that the US Army makes/owns:



But as you can see they are clearly not applicable for combat situations, because they exist simultaneously alongside the combat chemical suit.

Possibly because they are massive, bulky, obstructive things to wear.

The knowledge and skillset only applies on the most basic, fundamental levels. The specific tools and techniques are entirely different. An apt comparison would be a nuclear reactor vs. nuclear bomb. The reactor is much more difficult a problem and nothing comparable the radioactive contamination of a nuclear bomb, which is why the procedures developed to deal with both are entirely different and not interchangable.

I don't see civil defense suits or techniques like the above disappearing, but without a combat chemical suit you cannot fight under chemical conditions.

So if you don't have boogeyman, how do you keep chemical combat training alive? Blame NATO? That seems to be Russia's strategy. And that's why I'd say they say the future of war is still chemical: to avoid losing the knowledge of chemical combat training.

---

Yes, it's just that this point has nothing to do what I've started with discussing:

Possibly because I was under the impression that, since I started the conversation, my questions were leading it? Shocking: I asked questions and got answers and asked more questions after those answers. The sperg on Novichok was esp. illuminating because I do not know very much about it given English literature's dearth of information.

Sarin isn't particularly good against people in NBC gear ('battalions') and particularly good against civilian infrastructure ('cities') because even if the 'cities' are well-prepared they're going to be damaged horribly (contaminated) even if nobody dies.

So what? I gave you that point literally five or six posts ago. Or did I not ask about the reasons of Novichok's failure? You act as if I'm some kind of unthinking creature that never changes its positions based on new information? Why do you do this? Are you projecting? Do you think I am not signalling my change in stance enough?

You even mention this in your first ten words: "in NBC gear". So now I am asking, what do you do when the knowledge of "NBC gear" dies like the knowledge of "tanks" and "rocket propellants" have already died in the United States?

I suppose the answer is: "Oh, you just die I guess [but that will never happen because 'robots']."?

I'm not suggesting we should not ever have NBC gear in use, I'm suggesting we shouldn't have sarin in use because in almost all situations using a comparable amount of conventional weapons (eiother by volume or by cost) will inflict more casualties.

I'm suggesting we will only have NBC gear use in because of one reason: we have because we have chemical threats. Which are threats that are more or less imaginary (cf. Syria, Saddam, North Korea, NATO/Russia, at various points in time). And these imaginary threats will evaporate in the near term future. And then the knowledge of chemical defense is lost.

Then chemical weapons become far more valuable, and given that phosgene is a vital industrial chemical in the plastics industry, it is practically impossible to "ban".

Perhaps in some grim darkness of the far ffuture NBC suits will somehow be so forgotten nobody will remember how to make them.

Grim darkness of the far future? I'd wager 5-10 years after the last chemical stockpile is "destroyed". So maybe 15-20 years hence this date, when Syria and North Korea have been forcibly disarmed.

That's how long it took Western Europe to forget everything it knew about ground combat and pretend Russia wasn't a real enemy. What makes chemical weapons so special that people won't forget how to fight them?

(But by that point we'll also have UGVs all over the place so who cares).

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You mean teletanks that require people in armored vehicles with hatches to open to use them? And people to disembark from those armored vehicles to act as infantry?

Do you honestly think that humans are going to literally disappear from the battlefield because of "UGVs"? I guess humans disappeared from air combat because of UGVs and maybe from naval warfare because of UGVs? Oh wait, people still fly planes and sail submarines. Guess "UGVs" doesn't really mean "replacing people" but perhaps "augmenting the capabilities of existing ground troops".

[Gallia-]

The real point I'm trying to make is that while Russia can always blame NATO or PRC for bringing the chemical war of the future, the democratic countries have no recourse. Just like thousands of Western European troops would have/may still die on the future conventional wars because the USSR disappeared and they forgot war existed; thousands of democratic soldiers will die on the battlefield of tomorrow if they forget how chemical combat conditions work, because North Korea or Syria blew up their last chemical arsenal and people forgot the plastics industry exists.

Russia stockpiles empty bomb casings to be filled with phosgene and the entire army of democracy is gassed to death in the 2040s or something because all NBC suits expired 20 years ago after North Korea/the last chemical boogeyman collapsed. While Russia can fake their boogeymen utterly, democratic states have no such recourse, and will forget how to fight chemical wars in the future. Which will ironically bring chemical weapons back into their previous deadliness until they learn how to deal with chemicals again.

It happened every time in major wars when the USA and other democracies forgot how tanks worked. Why not chemicals too? Or, in fact, any other article of war?

I think there will still be infantry 30, 50, even 100 years from now, after all.