Shek

Actually, after thinking a little bit more, I'd say that the slat is actually about 24". Anyways, in terms of your support hinge, you'd maybe be able to cut the size around half, but not more than that, so you're still looking at needing about 20-30" in ground clearance. Additionally, you'd probably add about another hour or two the installation time.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Anon

If we had a pen and cocktail napkins we'd be able to design something better than the current setup in about 2 hours i betcha.

Shek

Probably not. You've got the thickness of the slats themselves, you've got the thickness of your tubular steel support bars, you've got your blast shield RHD along with the support bars for them. Also, in all cases, you got brackets that are your attachment points to the blast shield/hull whose size will be one of your biggest space offenders.

The way that the slat was designed was made to be efficient in terms of packaging on a 463L (and of course, efficient in terms of defeating or minimizing the effects of RPGs).

Anon

I really would love to get my hands on a stryker/slat package first hand. Short of that i guess i'll have to take your word for it.

Even if 1/2 of the slat package can be stowed underneath the vehicle you're still making use of a lot of room that is otherwise completely wasted.

Gun Grape

There was a good article a few years back by LTC Michael K. Robel concerning the logistics of a 113 based Bde and a Stryker based one. And Strykers need alot less birds that a shoebox did. IHO the Stryker had better killing ability also. Then in his conclusion he recommended the 113 because its tracked and that outweighed all the Stryker advantages.

How did Gen Grange hook up with the likes of Mike Sparks?

The same applies to either the M8 or the 120mm Thunderbolt demonstrator. Neither one a light tank, but an Armored gun.

All these weights from either the global security site UDLP/BAE or Sparks own combatreform.

With level 1 protection (arty splinters) the M8 weighed 38,900 for airborne ops. Combat loaded with level 1 protection it came in at 39,800.

To bring it up to 7.62 standard brought the weight up to 44 thous.

And combat loaded with RPG level protection took it up to 52 thous.

It had a problem with the ammunition compartment feature that failed to contain the reaction of the ammunition when struck by realistic threat weapons.

All this for the low cost of 5.5 mil each

The 120 version starts off in the 20 ton range. So all this talk of AirMechSparks
just doesn't get off the ground. No wonder none of the Army airborne generals fought for this thing.

Anon

LOL, takes a lotta gumption to toss arrows at a 5.5 million dollar light tank when you support an 80 million a pop tilt-rotor with a 20+ year development cycle.


"With level 1 protection (arty splinters) the M8 weighed 38,900 for airborne ops. Combat loaded with level 1 protection it came in at 39,800.
To bring it up to 7.62 standard brought the weight up to 44 thous."


Yet you think that all mission critical areas of the Osprey are protected vs 14.5mm? So Osprey has what, 5 tons of Armor then?

Interesting.

Your statistics are HIGHLY suspect IMO.

I own 2 Vests with Class IV trauma plates(ie, hardly cutting edge technology), which offer complete protection vs full power .30-06AP. Each trauma plate weighs about a pound.

To claim it would take 4200lbs of applique' armor on top of base to protect a Stingray vs 7.62AP seems to me to be EXTREMELY unlikely to say the least.

The A10 cockpit is armored to stop 23mm API, and the entire titanium tub enclosure(about the size of a compact car) only weighs 1100lbs.

Officer of Engineers

Globalsecurity has this

__________________
Chimo

Anon

Thank you sir.

A much different tale of the tape than G.Grape suggests.

Frontal protection against light cannon(assuming this is the typical 23mm API specification) fire certainly explains the 4500lb weight gain.

Gunny, don't be a dinosaur, the 80s are over. Put down the Quiet Riot cassete and embrace the AirMech concept.

PS: I sure hope you're not comparing me to Sparks or Meyers, as i ended my affiliation with both of them quite a long time ago.

Why?

Because both of them are knuckleheads that hate EVERYTHING the US military is doing and refuse to ever admit they're wrong. They also both have a penchant for taking a good concept and morphing it into a ludicris personal fantasy.

I am not like them because i have admitted i've been wrong on this and other forums many times(and many times allowed for the possibility in my posts as a debate raged), and i certainly dont hate all that the US military is doing with it's funds and doctrine, just some of it.

If you could see the times i argued with Meyers(as i used to be a contributing editor to g2mil and even wrote an article or two many years back) AT LENGTH over systems that he bashed you'd realize that not only do i not drink the Sparks/Meyers KooLAiD, but that i pissed in their punchbowl before i departed their company.

I've likewise debated at great length with T.Yablonski wrt the battleships when i thought a particular argument of his was stupid or misleading(which quite frankly was fairly often). He even offered me what most would consider to be a very interesting position with USNFSA which i declined to accept.

I posted my breakup with Milt Sparks here realtime when Shek first arrived, search the archive. Mike did not handle it well, lol.

-{SpoonmaN}-

Yeah I guess they would have been heroes if so many of them weren't merciless killers.

Ray

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Gun Grape

Much Different? DId you read both our post? Can you divide by 2?

Weights in Colonels post/ weights in GGs post

Level 1 19.5 tons /38.9 thous ( 19.45 tons)

Level 2 23 tons /44 thous (22 tons)

Level 3 25.5 ton/52 thous (26 tons)

yea I was way off Short a ton on level 2 and over half a ton on level 3.

At 36.5 thous lbs being the max normal allowable payload and 42 thousand being the max allowable payload of a C-130H/J I dont see too many level 2 AGSs being delivered by C-130s. Info from the USAF fact sheet.

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=92



I was into Stevie Ray Vaughn back in them days. And as long as I have functioning brain cells I refuse to embrace AM stuff.

And BTW You say that Air Mech units can be supplied by air. That is one of the tenents.

Please explain how they can do it with a mech force but you think that the OMFTS concept (light inf force) cannot be logistically sustained using the same method?
Especially when the MC will have 30 days worth of Class 1-5 in theater?

Anon

"Please explain how they can do it with a mech force but you think that the OMFTS concept (light inf force) cannot be logistically sustained using the same method?
Especially when the MC will have 30 days worth of Class 1-5 in theater?"

It's already been done.

In combat.

The difference between OMFTS and AM is A) one of scale(OMFTS is a MUCH more grandiose concept that envisions a much larger element than i do for AM), and B) An AM force by default(if used as i propose) will always have a major logistical hub ALREADY BUILT IN- ie the captured enemy airbase.

IMO we PROVED beyond a shadow of a doubt at Khe Sahn that the US can keep a major garrison force supplied under even when totally surrounded and cut off from all land routes. Compared to an AM force, the garrison at Khe Sahn was many times larger and harder to keep resupplied.

And what you misrepresented was the level of protection offered by Lvl II. 23mm frontal/7.62 all around is a hell of a lot different than 'To bring it up to 7.62 standard brought the weight up to 44 thous.'.

44 thous is the weight with 'light cannon frontal protection'.

Here are some more AGS mobility stats from GloSec:

"In its base armor configuration, it can be low-velocity airdropped from a C-130 aircraft. The AGS was the Army's only armored vehicle specifically designed for delivery by air. As such, it is considerably lighter than traditional main battle tanks and, though well armed, it is not intended to fight other tanks alone. The AGS is capable of Low Velocity Air Drop (LVAD Parachute) or more conventional roll-on/roll-off delivery by airlift aircraft. A C-130 can carry one AGS, while the larger C-141, C-17, and C-5A can carry two, three, and five AGSs respectively."

And let me paint you a picture: 15 C130s touch down on a recently captured enemy airbase.

14 of them drop their ramps and out roll level 1 M8s ready for combat. The 15th drops it's ramp and offloads the modular armor packages, an extra basic load for each M8, and the support personnel.

The "It wont fit with the extra armor" argument has never really swayed me, not even when it was used against stryker.

And AM has a DEFENISIVE role that no one ever seems to think about. If i drop a mech force deep into your rear in one of your airbases in conjunction with Rangers or Paras it is MUCH better defended than with just light inf forces alone. That makes it much less likely the enemy can wrest it back, or that he'll even try.

Those M8s dont have to roll so far as 1 mile from the FOB you just captured to be an effective blocking/ denial force.

I would also point out that the typical airbase(such as is likely to be the target for a major AM insertion) has massive tankage of AvGas and JP5 on hand. The m8s multi-fuel diesel can run on both.

Officer of Engineers

Sir,

Forgive me for not elaborating but I, like you, wish to avoid a pissing contest that does nothing but alot of chest beating and frankly, chest beating hurts. I will just say that I have a very, very narrow definition of victory in the NATO-India scenario and will leave it at that. The definition is simply a measure of capability, not of resolve, to which we all agree would be a much more serious and also unmesureable factor.

However, this being said, your post did raise a very, very interesting point within the confines of this thread. What will NOT panic you, Sir, if an American force suddenly appear where you're not expected?

You are the only one amongst us who has experience and expertise at the division level.

Obviously, an Indian Army infantry division have no fear of a single Ranger company trying to hold an airport. Even the Taliban forced a Ranger retreat when they took Khandahar airport for the 1st time.

What kind of force would "panic" you?

Anon

"What kind of force would "panic" you?"

If i may offer my decidedly less experienced opinion, IMHO probably the single biggest problem with fighting the US is that a good chunk of the time you are denied the information even required for you to formulate the opinion that you should be panicking to begin with.

The second biggest is the US's nearly prohibitive night time fighting advantadge.

Another interesting -and perhaps even critical- problem i feel that is presented when facing the US in battle is the American peoples aversion to large scale casualties.
Because of the inherent reluctance of senior US military commanders to put themselves in a position to suffer heavy casualties it is very difficult to even get the US to engage you at all on terms that allow the fight to be decisive for your side.

If the US does engage your forces in a decisive battle you can bet your bottom dollar it's because they are 99% confident they've got you set up to be anhillated in detail.

India is probably about as good a force that exists outside the US today when you factor in size, tech level, motivation, and training, but they just dont have the budget to be able to compete across the entire spectrum. No one does. The US just takes the fight to an enemy from too many different angles and at too many levels- and oft times from too far away- for anyone to compete in open warfare/battle.

Guerilla type campaigns are of course another story entirely.

Anoop C

Thinking back to Op. Desert Shield/Storm, in the context of the lengthy mobilization, why didn't Iraq try to disrupt that build-up? Didn't they have the capability via Scuds? Surely they couldn't have believed that an attack was not forthcoming, given the build-up!