Oddly enough, I use metric all the time because I measure chemicals.
I'm not familiar at all with normal artillery, and because this guy used an image I normally see with mockery, I was wondering if it was woefully underpowered for it's size, which would be very odd for slavs to do.
But no, turns out it really does just throw around big fucking bombs.
There is no point. You misconstrued something I said, told me I was wrong, then went on a tangent.
It's true guided electronics are cheaper the lower the acceleration, there's a reason most guided shit is fired on soft launch rockets. Nothing to do with what I was saying though…
It's basically an aircraft bomb which has some fins welded on it and is fired out of a mortar tube. I bet it can do everything an air launched bomb can.
Their anti ship missile has as much as ten times more explosives as ours and is two to three times faster
You should read this:
defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com
Italians tried to create such an anti-everything vehicle:
military-today.com
But they completely fucked it up, because they mounted an actual naval cannon on the chassis of a ground vehicle, so the whole thing is too big and heavy to carry a sufficient amount of shells, not to mention infantry. But there is hope:
tanks-encyclopedia.com
The Rooikat uses a much lighter cannon that fires the same ammunition (expect that it has a different primer for some reason, but I doubt that you can't solve that problem) and even has the same barrel length. Make it a mount like vid related, but with a much bigger magazine (and modern electronics), and turn the whole package into an unmanned turret that fits into the turret ring of a BMP-3. An infantry squad with that vehicle now has an integral 76mm autocannon that can give them both direct and indirect fire support, along with some anti-air firepower. On the battalion level you should support them with a battery of MRLSs that have guided rockets that are individually about as destructive as a 120mm mortar shell. Now you have a mechanized infantry battalion with more firepower than the average infantry division of the second world war. But don't just stop there: every division should have an artillery regiment with ~203mm I prefer 210mm, but that's just my autism CLGGs, modernized V-2 flying bombs, and reconnaissance drones. The cannons are there for heavy duty artillery work, and the flying bombs are for more concentrated desctruction (essentially replacing air strikes). You could also launch (sc)ramjets from the cannons to take out enemy aircraft.
Also, did we go through some kind of a Barenstein-change with 76.2mm cannons? I remember that all artillery weapons of this calibre were referred to as 76.2mm weapons, yet now it's 76mm everywhere.
To summarize your post, you're talking about equipping each squad in a mechanized infantry batallion with a multi-role tank, perhaps built similarly to a Merkava, or in your example, converted from a BMP-3, armed with a 76mm autocannon, to serve as the multi-role I desire, while also having a battalion-level battery of rocket launchers, mounted, say, on trucks or other multi-roles, like the Calliope, with powerful rockets each equivalent to the RAIADO shells (I'm assuming). Then each mechanized division has an artillery regiment with 203/210mm light gas guns, modern flying bombs, and recon drones, plus scramjet SAMs for anti-air purposes.
I gotta say, I really like your ideas, Magyarbro. I think that's the best rough sketch of my ideal multi-role tank, or at least a light version thereof, and a good place to start masturbating my corpus autismus kommandus.
Ah my apologies again burger.
Shall I assume this because the Reich was running out of paint or was it just Hitler’s personal tankfu?
I wonder the kind of material an anti-tank shell would need to be made of in order to withstand enough velocity to go right through a heavily armored MBT, exit, and still have enough velocity to penetrate an APC.
I'd say it was Rumia's personal tonk, considering her extremely important role in the Reich. I mean, she and Hitler were very close after all.
In that case here are some more.
That turret should have both of those. The AGL should be something like the AGS-30 or AGS-40, and for the missile think of the Missile Moyenne Portée. With the AGL the IFV can suppress a greater area or engage enemy behind cover without using the ammunition the main gun, and with the ATGM it has a fighting chance against enemy MBTs. Of course both of those are infantry weapons, so non-mechanized infantry would have access to some of that same firepower. The AGL would replace mortars and machine guns on tripods, and the ATGM would be quite obviously their AT and bunkerbuster weapon.
The equivalent of a truck should be a tracked and slightly armoured vehicle with a crane like pic related. Of course it should share as many components with the IFV as humanly possible. Then you just need a continerized rocket launcher. With that they can drop off an empty one and pick up a loaded one rather quickly, then the empty one can be refilled in an ammo depot. You could also use this vehicle to haul supplies, drone launchers, and maybe even the flying bombs.
thinkdefence.co.uk
By the way, that site has lots of great container-related articles if you are into that.
Obviously it should be a SPG. It should have a "continerized magazine". That is, a container that has the shells and the gas(es), so that it can be reloaded the same way as the MRLS. Of course it would be a rather big vehicle, and it would need an autoloader that features a crane system and a robotic hand. But then I think it would have at least a good 200km effective range, therefore you could leave it in the second line.
I think I hold quite old-fashioned ideas here. A battalion should have 3-4 companies with 10 IFVs each, a logistics company, a MRLS battery, and the HQ, so just the good ol' model here. You don't even need dedicated AA when you can have up to 30-40 AA cannons at the same time. Then 3-4 of those should form a regiment or a brigade. The only difference is that the later has all those often forgotten yet essential support units (medical, reconnaissance, engineering, etc, etc). Then a division is 3-4 of those regiments, an artillery regiment, and a combat support regiment that has most of those support units pulled together. In peace time (or during low intensity conflicts) you'd have brigades and independent artillery regiments (mostly on AA duty with their tube-launched SAMs), but there would be regular exercises to switch to the division-model in a timely manner. Then if it turns into a total war scenario you can form ad-hoc divisions with the brigades and artillery regiments, and then gradually start building proper divisions by raising new units and distributing the already existing support units.
I actually thought of having 40mm AGLs on these tanks, but I didn't account for tank-mounted ATGMs, since my train of thought concluded they would be best used by the infantry, and the IFV has the 76mm gun anyways.
I disagree with this statement, if only because I believe both mortars and machine guns on tripods are still useful, especially if a unit's vehicles get disabled, or if they run out of fuel. If nothing else, the AGL should be easily man-portable, for the aforementioned events.
This sounds like a modern version of the sWS half-track to me, and that would be pretty cool to work with.
Well, I've been thinking about the requirements for standardized MBT and heavy tank chassis, to account for big guns 4u, and I figure the heavy tank chassis, which would be the equivalent to an M1 Abrams in weight, at least 70 tons, with Chobham armor, would be the best fit for any light gas gun.
I agree with you with many of your 'old-fashioned ideas', if only because I've played a little too much Darkest Hour than is healthy for me. My ideals for unit size are a bit different; I believe in slightly larger unit sizes. In my view, a battalion should be 3-6 companies, with each holding 8-12 IFVs. Each regiment should be 3-5 battalions, plus a supporting MBT battalion, with 5-10 tanks per company, while brigades should have 4-7 battalions, plus two MBT battalions. 3-6 regiments, or 2-4 brigades, form a division. Other than size differences, I agree with your system.
Watch this glorious video of nineties. Although the AGS-40 is heavier, but it's also much more effective.
The problem with tripods is that a machine gun with one of them needs to be set up properly with pre-determined firing zones, otherwise it doesn't have that many upsides compared to a machine gun with just a bipod. It's actually worse, because it's much heavier. Meanwhile for the same weight you could bring along an AGS-30 for the attack, and that is a more destructive and versitale weapon. Mortars also need to be set up properly, expect if you go with handheld 60mm mortars that are far less effective than their bigger cousins. And an AGL should bring about as much firepower as a 81mm mortar. The only real downside is their limited range, but that's not that much of a problem inside a city, where most of the infantry combat should happen in the future.
Forgot to mention, but I have to wonder if you could make it amphibious. Although with its size and weight it would resemble a Landwasserschlepper II.
Modern tanks are built with the idea of fighting other tanks in mind, which isn't that realistic to begin with. But for this reason they need a really big gun, that requires a big turret, and you need a big vehicle to carry that weight. But ATGMs can be just as effective against a tank than a cannon, if not even more so. And that questions the whole point of the big gun, and thus the very concept of the MBT. You also have to consider the future development of active protection systems and related technologies. In theory the new Russian radar-triggered ERA can intercept even APFSDS projectiles, and if that is true then you'll need volume-of-fire to overcome it. Which would work with this IFV, because you could shoot a burst of 76mm shells to trigger the APS, and then follow up with a salvo of ATGMs immediately behind them. Of course you could program the system so that the whole firing sequence happens automatically on the press of a button. The other two factors of a tank are protection and mobility, but there is no reason you can't make a heavy IFV. Although I prefer amphibious vehicles, and that somehow limits the weight, and that has an impact on protection.