NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Purpelia]

It's random question time. Take this one seriously.

Being inside all day got me thinking, it has to suck to be inside an armored vehicle all day. Like really suck. So I figured something has to be done about it. Now shag carpets just won't work in the field due to mud and stuff. I get that. But I've been thinking of including a lava lamp in each cabin. Also fuzzy dice and stuff like that. Like, I already allow customization like that lore vise. But now I am thinking standard issue.

Opinions? And yes, in Purpelia disco still lives for some reason.

[Gallia-]

Read a book.

[Purpelia]

Read a book.

FM-1968-75 Proper procedure for dance competitions inside armored vehicles.

[Crookfur]

Read a book.

FM-1968-75 Proper procedure for dance competitions inside armored vehicles.

The doctrinal uses of hand jiving.

[Gallia-]

Read a book.

FM-1968-75 Proper procedure for dance competitions inside armored vehicles.

(...) Medical opinion swings so fast and violently these days that it is hard enough to keep pace with it as an individual, let alone to use it as a basis for policies in this difficult psychosomatic gray zone. At the time of writing alcoholism is a serious and mounting problem in most Western countries (2), specially among women and the young, who turned to alcohol and away from drugs in the seventies (and now look like starting to turn back again). Against this, alcohol at the "moderate social drinking" level is medically regarded as markedly less harmful than any other sensual pleasure including eating (3) -- but excluding of course sex, recommended by many doctors as a panacea, but unfortunately hard to both arrange and to execute in armored vehicles! (...)

Gallan IFVs are big enough to arrange a man train with the three or four girly softbois in the squad.

[Purpelia]

Purpelia unironically uses mixed units in its army since forever.

[New Vihenia]

need bigger tenks...

prob Armata with bustle autoloader + non penetrating turret. Then we can have room for bunks.

[Gallia-]

walkways to leave the vehicle

or maybe just a cuddlehovel crawlspace

[Amidia-]

revive the radio operator position but make the space a cool hang out with a mini-fridge and TV.

[Crookfur]

revive the radio operator position but make the space a cool hang out with a mini-fridge and TV.

Netflix and kill

[Gallia-]

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

This is gæ. Why does it have "Neuroi heat beam" projectors in the turret ring?

[Gallia-]

theyre drozd-esque 107mm launchers ):

e: surely the real question shoudl be why is astolfo-kun saddled with the grg

[Doppio Giudici]

So I keep reading that body armor needs to be a mixture of 'hard armor' and 'soft armor', but I am having trouble figuring out if UHMWPE and other materials are suitable for what I am trying to do.

Would a ballistic vest or plate carrier be better off as a kevlar or comparable material, or made from UHMWPE?

If there was a material harder and/or stronger then UHMWPE, would that be suitable for helmets, or would it be too strong/hard?

A lot of 'trauma pads are made from foam padding/nylon or comparable materials, would it be a bad idea to replace them with stronger materials like kevlar?

If the hard armor was harder and thinner, would anything good come from cramming 'soft armor' between the plate and the trauma pad? Would a matrix or composite/blended material that absorbs more energy then kevlar before failure, be a good thing to put before the trauma pad?

[Spirit of Hope]

So I keep reading that body armor needs to be a mixture of 'hard armor' and 'soft armor', but I am having trouble figuring out if UHMWPE and other materials are suitable for what I am trying to do.

Would a ballistic vest or plate carrier be better off as a kevlar or comparable material, or made from UHMWPE?

If there was a material harder and/or stronger then UHMWPE, would that be suitable for helmets, or would it be too strong/hard?

A lot of 'trauma pads are made from foam padding/nylon or comparable materials, would it be a bad idea to replace them with stronger materials like kevlar?

If the hard armor was harder and thinner, would anything good come from cramming 'soft armor' between the plate and the trauma pad? Would a matrix or composite/blended material that absorbs more energy then kevlar before failure, be a good thing to put before the trauma pad?

I'm not entirely sure what your asking, but I'm going to try to answer as best as possible.

UHMWPE is currently used to make the plates used in body armor to defeat rifle caliber threats. The reason you want soft armor with the hard plate is to contain any spalling that would be created by the impact of a round against the plate.

I don't know enough about the various types of plates that exist to say definitely what advantages UHMWPE would have against other plates. Best guess is it would be lighter, but probably more expensive for similar performance.

If you can make a plate out of it to stop rifle threats you can make it into a helmet, the issue generally isn't the helmet being to strong but rather it weighing to much for someone to wear for extended periods of time.

Adding more soft armor behind, or in front of, the plate isn't going to dramatically increase the performance of the armor system, if something punches through the plate it is going to go through the soft armor behind, or in front of, the plate. Finding ways to increase plate strength would probably be the way to go, with one obvious answer being to make the plate itself thicker if possible.

If you can make the plate thinner while retaining protection levels then you have the choice of keeping the same level of protection for less weight/bulk or retaining the same weight/bulk and getting better protection overall. Which way you go depends on what you want armor to do.

[Crookfur]

Actually most top level plates are boron carbide with a UHMWPE or aramid backing. How thick the backing is depends on if the ballistic plate is designed to be stand alone (ie goes in a true plate carrier) or is designed to be worn with a soft armour vest. There are plates made solely out of hardened UHMWPE but they tend to be secondary plates limited to roughly NIJ level 3.

Your BC plates use thier fibre backing to limit cracking and provide thier multi hit capabilities.

The thickness of BC plates is gradually dropping as folks get closer and closer to developing a production method that meets the theoretical maximum density but IIRC nobody is there yet.

BC helmet / fibre composite helmets have existed as prototypes but they have tended to be heavy a bulky. The production mechanism for BC also doesn't particularly lend itself to making complex shapes like helmets.

DG: you seem to be missing the fact that UHMWPE and aramid fibres such as kevlar are broadly comparable and are used in more or less the same ways. Both are fibres that can be woven or felted/layered to make "soft" body armour or combined with resins to make solid composites.
Theoretically UHMWPE is "stronger" than kevlar and does offer better pure ballistic performance but that's not the whole story.

[Gallia-]

galla being a highly Woke society can make M5 industrially but still only issues soft armor and has some nylon sleeves with straps aka ISAPO "overvests" that can use standalone plates

otoh paratroopers and High Speed Dudes (aka the paratroopers' pet tank division) get RBA or IOTV i guess

it still hasnt figured out how to make JPCs or whatever high speed thing the US Army is using to replace IOTV with

[Barfleur]

It's random question time. Take this one seriously.

Being inside all day got me thinking, it has to suck to be inside an armored vehicle all day. Like really suck. So I figured something has to be done about it. Now shag carpets just won't work in the field due to mud and stuff. I get that. But I've been thinking of including a lava lamp in each cabin. Also fuzzy dice and stuff like that. Like, I already allow customization like that lore vise. But now I am thinking standard issue.

Opinions? And yes, in Purpelia disco still lives for some reason.

Make sure to include tea, coffee, and hot cocaine cocoa machines. Those really make a difference, and it may encourage enemies to surrender if they know they can dull their pain have some tea.

[Doppio Giudici]

Snip

So currently, what I've been hearing about is rounds being stopped by the ESAPI plates, but there is considerable bruising and possible damage to the ribs. People are told they don't have to wear a trauma pad behind the plates, but people do it anyways, and as far as they can tell, it helps.

I'm considering two possibilities very heavily. You mentioned Boron Carbide plates that have a UHMWPE backing.

1. I use the replacement for Boron Carbide, which is thinner and stronger, and use the weight/space savings to thicken the UHMWPE backing.

2. I use the weight/space savings to put a kevlar/*classifed* composite behind the UHMWPE packing. Said composite appears to bad at stopping bullets, but better then other materials at absorbing energy. (I need to check if it's better then UHMWPE, I just know it's better then kevlar by a good margin)

You might say something like "As far as I know, the trama pad won't do anything" and so I would propose.... What if the material I was replacing the Boron Carbide with, could stop a larger and faster bullet the M2 30-06, and thus there is more energy vibrating through the plate itself? Just be mindful that this is a factor I am considering, when I'm being perhaps overly redundant in trying to protect the body from "spalling" (Yes I know it's not the same thing, but it's about stopping the bullet, and the joules or ft/lbs it delivers)

[Crookfur]

Snip

So currently, what I've been hearing about is rounds being stopped by the ESAPI plates, but there is considerable bruising and possible damage to the ribs. People are told they don't have to wear a trauma pad behind the plates, but people do it anyways, and as far as they can tell, it helps.

I'm considering two possibilities very heavily. You mentioned Boron Carbide plates that have a UHMWPE backing.

1. I use the replacement for Boron Carbide, which is thinner and stronger, and use the weight/space savings to thicken the UHMWPE backing.

2. I use the weight/space savings to put a kevlar/*classifed* composite behind the UHMWPE packing. Said composite appears to bad at stopping bullets, but better then other materials at absorbing energy. (I need to check if it's better then UHMWPE, I just know it's better then kevlar by a good margin)

You might say something like "As far as I know, the trama pad won't do anything" and so I would propose.... What if the material I was replacing the Boron Carbide with, could stop a larger and faster bullet the M2 30-06, and thus there is more energy vibrating through the plate itself? Just be mindful that this is a factor I am considering, when I'm being perhaps overly redundant in trying to protect the body from "spalling" (Yes I know it's not the same thing, but it's about stopping the bullet, and the joules or ft/lbs it delivers)

The UHMWPE backing on a ESAPI plate is in the form of a solid composite, it doesn't really do anything to absorb the blunt force trauma. So if you want to stop more/suffer less trauma then it would need additional padding.

I'm skeptical of any wonder material suddenly being better than BC but i suppose it's a possibility. Of course BC plates capable of stopping .50bmg have been around since the 80s so you might want think about rephrasing some things to indicate offering more protection in a similar weight or lighter.

[Doppio Giudici]

So would the padding need to be the exact materials that trauma pads are made of, or could it be materials like kevlar or kevlar/classified composite?

The approach with the hard armor is to reduce weight and/or increase protection. The carrier or vest is expected to stop handgun rounds and/or fragments, but better then most currently available products, same or less weight. Same for the helmet.

The padding/trauma-pad is one of the tricky parts.

[Purpelia]

need bigger tenks...

prob Armata with bustle autoloader + non penetrating turret. Then we can have room for bunks.

Just do what I did with my latest tank (writeup pending).

The crew of the vehicle is seated in a shared crew pod located in the front portion of the hull. The controls consist of a set of programmable monitors (some touch capable), a set of foot pedals for each crewmen and a large hardened joypad attached to the front console with a wire. This layout means that there is no designated spot for the three main roles (driver, gunner, commander) but that each crewman can perform either role at will. A capability that is especially useful during night actions, road marches or just generally periods where the crew has to operate in the field for a long time as it allows crewmen to take turns on a critical position whilst another is resting. It also helps in case a crewman gets wounded or otherwise removed from service as the positions come with presets configured to allow a single man to perform his job and that of another, or even the whole crew on his own, a be it with greatly diminished efficiency. Also, because there are no controls such as gear sticks or levers located in between the seats nor periscopes, guns or other things sticking out into peoples faces the crew has much more room adding to crew comfort,communication and evacuation. And the elbow rests are configured to fold down which turns the three seats into a single big bed for them to rest or potentially fornicate on. Also, the crews are predominantly female. Although recruitment efforts are being made to establish at least one male per vehicle.

[Mutiar]

Are there publicly available studies, or is anyone knowledgeable about how beneficial having a Weapon Systems Operator (WSO) on a fighter is, for air-to-air and strike missions?

Skill is supremely important for pilots but what about for WSOs? Are air forces less selective with WSOs than pilots?

Do you think two-seater fighters (apart from trainers) are worth having for a small state, given the increased personnel requirements? Israel, Singapore, and Qatar seem to think so, having purchased two-seater F-15s. Finland and Kuwait don't, operating only single-seater F-18s (again apart from trainers).

[Taihei Tengoku]

WSOs were necessary for air-to-air radars through the third generation of jet fighter aircraft. In the fourth generation they became less necessary for air-to-air combat but still useful for managing targeting pods and the like on strikes. In the fifth generation their job is done with sensor fusion. As for training, air forces recruit pilots and WSOs off their potential in initial flight training first and then select the top tier of both into advanced fighter training. Most pilots don't fly fighters and most WSOs don't sit behind fighter pilots.

Small countries, like big countries, buy fighters based on what they think they need to do with them. Israel, Singapore and Qatar have two-seat F-15s because they need to bomb key targets inside their enemies' territory (Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia) in addition to defending their airspace. Finland and Kuwait don't see the same need so they have the much more economical Hornet instead.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Currently writing a thing and due to contradictory and absent information online, I would like to ask: how does the ZTZ-99A tank, since it is now being produced in substantial numbers by the Chinese, compare to modernized Russian tanks like the T-72B3M, and its most likely opponents (K1, K2, M60A3) in terms of protection, fire control capabilities, and, most importantly, unit cost? Thanks in advance. I'm not asking about firepower because I'm pretty familiar with the issues of the 125mm gun with the carousel autoloader vis-a-vis the 120mm found on the k1a1 and k2. I think I have a fairly good idea about protection and FCS, but I can't find shit about unit cost.