Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation Mk X

[Allanea]

NATO looked at the Soviet collapse and saw it's greatest adversary slip into the depths of economic despair and its military was seen as impotent. Unfortunately Putin turned Russia around.

No he didn't and they just got lazy. Western countries have always been short sighted and incapable of seeing past next week, though. Only Israel has some modicum of foresight and that's probably because it's facing genocide.

The meme of 'Israel is a tiny country surrounded by foes' is at least two-three decades out of date.

[Xia-]

No he didn't and they just got lazy. Western countries have always been short sighted and incapable of seeing past next week, though. Only Israel has some modicum of foresight and that's probably because it's facing genocide.

The meme of 'Israel is a tiny country surrounded by foes' is at least two-three decades out of date.

That probably explains Carmel, then! Another 20 years and the IDF will be as impotent and incapable of buying weapons as the U.S. Army.

[Allanea]

The meme of 'Israel is a tiny country surrounded by foes' is at least two-three decades out of date.

That probably explains Carmel, then! Another 20 years and the IDF will be as impotent and incapable of buying weapons as the U.S. Army.

Hopefully sooner.

[Xia-]

That probably explains Carmel, then! Another 20 years and the IDF will be as impotent and incapable of buying weapons as the U.S. Army.

Hopefully sooner.

War is as natural a human behavior as sleeping and breathing. So no, unless you have something to gain from the destruction of Israel I guess?

Anyway Israel is an island of democracy adrift in a sea of autocracy. It's surrounded by enemies until places like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran's political systems cease to exist and are replaced by Western European-type liberal democracies. Won't happen to all of them, and probably none that border Israel, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Israel's enemies are still the same ones they've always, and in the future it might have some new ones, like Russia and Western, Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe. Northern Europe, possibly, possibly not.

[Allanea]

Hopefully sooner.

War is as natural a human behavior as sleeping and breathing. So no, unless you have something to gain from the destruction of Israel I guess?

Yes, this is why Belgium maintains 5% of the GDP in endless rows of tanks.

[Xia-]

War is as natural a human behavior as sleeping and breathing. So no, unless you have something to gain from the destruction of Israel I guess?

Yes, this is why Belgium maintains 5% of the GDP in endless rows of tanks.

Belgium is a democracy floating in a sea of democracies. It has no reason to have an endless row of tanks. It did 20 years ago, when it was on the frontlines of the war against despotism. Now it is Poland, Finland, and the Baltics who are on the frontlines. And Scandinavia hasn't moved an inch. Russia still exists, too, and Russia is still an enemy of the West and that has never changed once in the past 25 years.

Good fake analogy. You're good at making bad arguments. Israel has been surrounded by literal foes and enemies for the past 50 years, though.

[Allanea]

Yes, this is why Belgium maintains 5% of the GDP in endless rows of tanks.

Belgium is a democracy floating in a sea of democracies. It has no reason to have an endless row of tanks. It did 20 years ago, when it was on the frontlines of the war against despotism. Now it is Poland, Finland, and the Baltics who are on the frontlines. And Scandinavia hasn't moved an inch. Russia still exists, too, and Russia is still an enemy of the West and that has never changed once in the past 25 years.

Good fake analogy. You're good at making bad arguments. Israel has been surrounded by literal foes and enemies for the past 50 years, though.

Jordan and Egypt are not meaningfully enemies of Israel and have been at peace with it for over a generation now.

Syria has destroyed itself militarily in the throes of civil war. Even should it completely suppress all resistance tomorrow, it would take years and years for it to rebuild itself militarily.

[Xia-]

Belgium is a democracy floating in a sea of democracies. It has no reason to have an endless row of tanks. It did 20 years ago, when it was on the frontlines of the war against despotism. Now it is Poland, Finland, and the Baltics who are on the frontlines. And Scandinavia hasn't moved an inch. Russia still exists, too, and Russia is still an enemy of the West and that has never changed once in the past 25 years.

Good fake analogy. You're good at making bad arguments. Israel has been surrounded by literal foes and enemies for the past 50 years, though.

Jordan and Egypt are not meaningfully enemies of Israel and have been at peace with it for over a generation now.

Britain held Hong Kong for ten times as many generations, "in perpetuity". Lost it (albeit, lost Hong Kong in favor of "the Falklands" because I guess penguins matter more than some place actually productive). But clearly whatever magic has entranced the Jordanians and Egyptians, who have been at war with Israel multiple times since its very brief and short existence of "50 years ago", will forever and perpetually be sustained. No need to make new weapons!

Syria has destroyed itself militarily in the throes of civil war. Even should it completely suppress all resistance tomorrow, it would take years and years for it to rebuild itself militarily.

And if Israel stopped working when Syria starts rebuilding, who would be stronger at the end of that? Stopping something is easy. It's much harder to start again, even after a brief spell of inactivity, just look at Ukraine's entire arms industry. Which is why you don't really get breaks in arm races. You simply fall behind your enemies and become a target. Anyway some of Israel's are weak right now anyway. The correct solution is to attack the weak ones and annihilate them before they can regain their strength. One down, half a dozen to go. Next time when they try to gang up on Israel, they'll be down a club member or three, ideally.

That would be actually ensuring its survival into the future. When your enemies are weak, you destroy them. Easy!

The alternative, and IMO best solution, is if Syria, Egypt, Israel, etc. all became disarmed UN Trust Territories or something though. But that would require beating Israel up because they might protest with 155mm and nuclear weapons.

And it would require the world to actually care about the Middle East I guess. So really the only two options to prevent Israel from potentially losing another war are to spend more money on new weapons in the future, rather than the opposite, or to advocate for the complete and enforced disarmament of the region. The UN comes in and says "If anyone builds a tank in the Middle East, we'll nuke a village," or something. That sort of thing.

Only one of them is actually practical, too, and that's spending money on defense. Since the UN doesn't care enough to actually enforce world peace.

Although I guess you could figure out how to put a motor engine on Israel and sail it out into the middle of the Atlantic. Then it could be some sort of Jewish version of Iceland. But that's just silly. It would be the ultimate pacifist solution, though.

Anyway the point is that if Israel stops it might wake up one day to find an Arab boot on its throat, much like how NATO stopped and now might wake up one day to find a Russian boot in its crotch. Not quite as dramatic because NATO is a lot bigger than Israel, relative to its foe, but a similar situation. Israel's is more dire because it might actually be genocided if it loses a war in the future. Which could happen, and only increases in risk if it becomes lazy and somnolent. ATM Israel is probably closer to South Korea in the sense that it could roll over its enemies, but unlike South Korea it doesn't seem like there's going to ever be an end in sight unless Israel's enemies simply cease to exist utterly and adopt a new religion, like secularism. The Israel-Arab War will continue more or less for eternity until Islam decides to embrace some flavor of modernism, if ever.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Belgium is a democracy floating in a sea of democracies. It has no reason to have an endless row of tanks. It did 20 years ago, when it was on the frontlines of the war against despotism. Now it is Poland, Finland, and the Baltics who are on the frontlines. And Scandinavia hasn't moved an inch. Russia still exists, too, and Russia is still an enemy of the West and that has never changed once in the past 25 years.

Good fake analogy. You're good at making bad arguments. Israel has been surrounded by literal foes and enemies for the past 50 years, though.

Jordan and Egypt are not meaningfully enemies of Israel and have been at peace with it for over a generation now.

Syria has destroyed itself militarily in the throes of civil war. Even should it completely suppress all resistance tomorrow, it would take years and years for it to rebuild itself militarily.

If by "peace" you mean supporting suicide bombers and terror groups in their fight against Israel and leading the charge to BDS Israel then, yeah. The Middle East is very peaceful with Israel.

[Allanea]

Jordan and Egypt are not meaningfully enemies of Israel and have been at peace with it for over a generation now.

Syria has destroyed itself militarily in the throes of civil war. Even should it completely suppress all resistance tomorrow, it would take years and years for it to rebuild itself militarily.

If by "peace" you mean supporting suicide bombers and terror groups in their fight against Israel and leading the charge to BDS Israel then, yeah. The Middle East is very peaceful with Israel.

If by supporting you mean 'killing them with chemical weapons', yes?

There's no such thing as 'the Middle East', there is an array of entirely diverse countries, governments, etc.

[Xia-]

The snuggliest of buses.

[Corindia]

some sort of heavy truck that I'm not super happy with tbh

[Weimarer Reich]

Looks like a HEMTT.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Possibly a dumb question, but this has been bothering me for a while.

What do open-topped military vehicles (e.g., mortar carriers, some SPGs, some SPAAGs) do in rainy weather? And I don't mean "central European drizzle" rain, I mean peak monsoon season where you might get 200mm of precipitation in 24 hours. Is there some kind of bilge pump or draining hole(s)? Do crews just bail water out with their helmets? Certainly, some of these vehicles could pull tarps over the roof, but mortar carriers need to remain open in order to fire.

[Austrasien]

Possibly a dumb question, but this has been bothering me for a while.

What do open-topped military vehicles (e.g., mortar carriers, some SPGs, some SPAAGs) do in rainy weather? And I don't mean "central European drizzle" rain, I mean peak monsoon season where you might get 200mm of precipitation in 24 hours. Is there some kind of bilge pump or draining hole(s)? Do crews just bail water out with their helmets? Certainly, some of these vehicles could pull tarps over the roof, but mortar carriers need to remain open in order to fire.

Hate.

They do generally have drain holes though.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Possibly a dumb question, but this has been bothering me for a while.

What do open-topped military vehicles (e.g., mortar carriers, some SPGs, some SPAAGs) do in rainy weather? And I don't mean "central European drizzle" rain, I mean peak monsoon season where you might get 200mm of precipitation in 24 hours. Is there some kind of bilge pump or draining hole(s)? Do crews just bail water out with their helmets? Certainly, some of these vehicles could pull tarps over the roof, but mortar carriers need to remain open in order to fire.

Hate.

They do generally have drain holes though.

Do the drain holes generally come with plugs/covers or something, or are they just literal holes drilled in the floor?

I guess if it's open-topped it's not NBC-sealed anyway...

e: but if they can't be closed that would make amphibious operations a pain

[Xia-]

The real question you should be asking is how do tanks with open hatches deal with the problem...

The collected viscera, slime, and filth of the encrusted turret basket bottom of ten generations will protect from mines.

[Reorganized Soviet Union]

Hate.

They do generally have drain holes though.

Do the drain holes generally come with plugs/covers or something, or are they just literal holes drilled in the floor?

I guess if it's open-topped it's not NBC-sealed anyway...

e: but if they can't be closed that would make amphibious operations a pain

Well the LAV-M and MTLB mortar version are both amphibious but I haven't checked what they do in water.

[Taihei Tengoku]

If I replaced the very deck-penetrating turret of a K21 with a non-penetrating turret like Lance or the Kongsberg one, would I be able to cram thirteen dismounts on the extra bench space, or give the existing nine shock-absorbing seats?

[The Manticoran Empire]

Would the turret from the Stryker Dragoon be effective when mounted on the Bradley?

[The Akasha Colony]

Would the turret from the Stryker Dragoon be effective when mounted on the Bradley?

It is physically possible, but would be a step backwards in terms of awareness and fighting performance because the Dragoon turret is unmanned, while the Bradley turret is manned and thus allows the commander a better vantage point (and the gunner can assist him heads-up to improve awareness further). With the Dragoon, turret, both the gunner and commander would be limited to using the optics built into the turret.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Would the turret from the Stryker Dragoon be effective when mounted on the Bradley?

It is physically possible, but would be a step backwards in terms of awareness and fighting performance because the Dragoon turret is unmanned, while the Bradley turret is manned and thus allows the commander a better vantage point (and the gunner can assist him heads-up to improve awareness further). With the Dragoon, turret, both the gunner and commander would be limited to using the optics built into the turret.

Could the XM813 be mounted in the existing Bradley turret?

[The Akasha Colony]

It is physically possible, but would be a step backwards in terms of awareness and fighting performance because the Dragoon turret is unmanned, while the Bradley turret is manned and thus allows the commander a better vantage point (and the gunner can assist him heads-up to improve awareness further). With the Dragoon, turret, both the gunner and commander would be limited to using the optics built into the turret.

Could the XM813 be mounted in the existing Bradley turret?

I don't know about XM813, but a whole bunch of alternate turrets and armaments were tested on the Bradley chassis in the past.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Would the turret from the Stryker Dragoon be effective when mounted on the Bradley?

It would work as well as the Kongsberg turret on any other vehicle would. Probably pretty good, but a step down in SA compared to a proper manned turret. Stryker was already starting from a RWS armament so trading the .50 for a 30mm Bush II was a step up.

It is physically possible, but would be a step backwards in terms of awareness and fighting performance because the Dragoon turret is unmanned, while the Bradley turret is manned and thus allows the commander a better vantage point (and the gunner can assist him heads-up to improve awareness further). With the Dragoon, turret, both the gunner and commander would be limited to using the optics built into the turret.

Could the XM813 be mounted in the existing Bradley turret?

They fit CVAST and COMVAT and Bush III, Bush II is no problem. The problem is that Bush I works just fine.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Would the turret from the Stryker Dragoon be effective when mounted on the Bradley?

It would work as well as the Kongsberg turret on any other vehicle would. Probably pretty good, but a step down in SA compared to a proper manned turret. Stryker was already starting from a RWS armament so trading the .50 for a 30mm Bush II was a step up.

Could the XM813 be mounted in the existing Bradley turret?

They fit CVAST and COMVAT and Bush III, Bush II is no problem. The problem is that Bush I works just fine.

It does work fine. I'm just wondering if the increase to a 30mm round would be worth re-engineering the turret.