Army without 'vital vehicles'

[paul g]

C-T

Greece uses lots of soviet bloc equipmenmt which it got second hand from the Germans after 1989. however, their army is designed to go to war with turkey, same with Cyprus. Finland is moving towards western defence equipment, replacing its T-72 with leopard 2

As for the T-90, the automatic loader on the T-72/T-80 reputedly had the nasty habit of mistaking the gunners arm for a shell, and putting it into the breech. Its also cramped for the crew, not a good buy.

[andy]

14 scorpions

[Thorpe]

Its not just armoured vechicles we are short. We also need more DROPS lorries, field amblances, recovery vechicles etc. Extra armour in the shape of new MBT`s would be nice but not necessary if you have the right anti armour weapons and only armour we would need then would be light or heavy armour in the form of second hand challenger I`s or leopards or new light armour to give infantry a large fire base. What would also come in handy would be extra Mowag APC`s and from talking to the Squadron Sgt of a PDF Cav sqd they have come down in favour of the Eagle also. at the end of the day its all down to underfunding. interesting that while on camp this year in bere island the 1cav paid a visit and they gave a lecture on intergration and overseas duties and the cav`s new role. interesting to heard that the officer stated that funding to re-equip the DF was coming from Europe

[California Tanker]

Greece uses lots of soviet bloc equipmenmt which it got second hand from the Germans after 1989. however, their army is designed to go to war with turkey, same with Cyprus.

The Greeks have been buying some stuff straight from the FSU as well, particularly missile systems. I can only assume that they've had some positive experiences with some aspects of the equipment they bought in the DDR Army Closing Down Sale. They'll buy anything from anyone if it suits their needs. They just selected Leopard 2 as their tank, for example, but SA-15 as their front-line SAM. The Cypriots didn't get their stuff from Germany at all.
At any rate, modern equipment can't be that horrible. Otherwise, how would you explain sales like BMP-3 to UAE, T-80 to Pakistan and ROK, and T-90 to India?

Finland is moving towards western defence equipment, replacing its T-72 with leopard 2

On the other hand, they absolutely love their MTLBs.

As for the T-90, the automatic loader on the T-72/T-80 reputedly had the nasty habit of mistaking the gunners arm for a shell, and putting it into the breech. Its also cramped for the crew, not a good buy.

Urban legend for the first one. The 'grab the arm' thing apparently was an issue on early BMP and T-64 models, and was quite quickly dealt with. The two major complaints against the autoloader system were vulnerability in case of penetration and (for T-72s) rate of fire. As for crew comfort.. I'm 6'5. I fit quite comfortably in the T-72's gunner's and commander's seats. Frankly, I think I fit better in the T-72's gunner's seat than that of the 'roomy' M1A1. I didn't try the driver's seat though, I hear it's a little smaller. Then again, I don't fit well in the Abrams' driver's hole either.

Certainly the T-55 is an ergonomic nightmare, but not having been in a T-80 or T-90, I can't state as to their roominess inside.

NTM

[Film Guy]

As far as I heard its against official policy to purchase tracked vehicles, as they don't fit into our wholesome peace keeping image

[Johnny2Stripes]

Film Guy - what about the Scorpians? They'r tracked...

[Film Guy]

Yeah I know but they were the last tracked vehicles we will be getting from what I hear

[Come-quickly]

I find it difficult to believe that in this era our policy could be that stupid, that'd be the stupidest policy since the thing with British and American fighters during the emergency

[Aidan]

Doubt if we have any formal policy on purchasing AFVs. Its not like its something the country does very often. After the Scorpions, what was the next major AFV purchase? As far as I can figure, there were the two Sisus and then the Mowags. Not exactly a precedent.

Still, it is highly likely that theres a 'wheels only' bias on the grounds of cost and commonality. Any deployed force is probably going to be wheeled, and since the army is in the game of purchasing gear for deployment, thats the way things are going to go. Specially since the US is moving that way with the IBCT and the Stryker and other EU countries also have similar forces. The difference being, of course, that they have 'heavy' elements they can bring to bear. We don't.

The CVRTs were purchased in the 70s, supposedly at least in part as training vehicles for MBTs. And they were supposed to be augmented with Alvis Stormers, according to the 'bible'. Totally different context to what the army is looking at now. Doesn't necessarily mean they can't/won't be deployed if they get that upgrade though.

[California Tanker]

In fairness, the US is not 'moving towards wheeled vehicles'

It's just filling in a gap in capability. The Army retains the policy that the absolute best equipment is tracked, just not necessarily as mobile. The USAR can afford to buy wheeled to fill in a speciality role because they have plenty of tracked available for when they need it.

NTM

[Aidan]

"In fairness, the US is not 'moving towards wheeled vehicles' "

So they've bought over a thousand Stykers for the laugh?



Perhaps I should have been more clear. The US Army is moving towards wheeled vehicles for rapid deployment for certain operations. Just like a large number of other nations. So the operational context, internationally, is towards a certain type of vehicle for these type of missions. Our purchase of the Mowags merely reflects this, rather then any inherant bias against tracks.

[Bud Fox]

Not everbody in the US is happy about the Stykers

From http://www.combatreform.com/lavdanger.htm



The issue is NOT whether Senator Stevens should have a new Army Brigade Combat Team or not, its that the BCT must be on TRACKS in order to be cross-country mobile over the snows of Alaska, Korea and the hot, humid regions of the Pacific--the overweight 19-21 ton lav3stryker wheeled armored car the Army has selected to waste several billions of tax dollars will be restricted to roads and trails and be useless to the Army's 172nd Brigade.

The same kind of situation exists today with the current Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki refusing to field a mechanized M113A3 Gavin-based brigade combat team with parachute forced-entry and cross-country fire & maneuver capabilities instead stubbornly insisting road-bound rubber-tired lav3 stryker armored cars that CAN'T FIGHT and CAN'T FLY by C-130 be used.

This is despite the fact that the M113A3 Gavins out-performed the lav3strykers at the recent Fort Lewis Congressionally-mandated comparison evaluation tests. The absurdity of such a heavy lav3 stryker armored car which makes the C-130 sacrifice so much fuel that you can drive it farther than you can fly it--has not been lost on Rumsfled's DoD. The DOD are trying to work around" the flimsy lav3stryker brigades by surrounding them with mechanized (tracked) M113A3/M2/M1 forces and forward deploying them so the heavy wheeled armored cars will not have to be flown by any USAF aircraft. You could surround a brigade's worth of 300 x ice cream trucks with tracked AFVs and call the force "full operational capability"; the tracks will be used to do the heavy fighting and off-road dirty tasks while the wheels frolic along paved roads and trails as far back in the rear as possible.

[FMolloy]

That guy has an obsessive hatred for the LAV & wheeled vehicles in general, I don't think we can rely on him for objective assessment.

He hates the USMC with a passion too.

[yellowjacket]

Seemingly any article where the M113 is called the "Gavin" stems from this fella, as that name is not used by the US military, officially or unofficially.

[California Tanker]

That Sparky again?

An astute piece of marketing, mind.. Calling the thing after an airborne general in an attempt to garner support for the vehicle amongst the airmobile community.

I'm starting to see it referred to as 'Gavin' on occasion on some other boards by paratroopers, but it's a long way from being an accepted name.

NTM