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My old buddy Dwight (retired Navy and fellow Lexican) tipped me off to this new armored fighting vehicle currently in work. A few things about it raised a few warning flags in this old engineer's brain, so I went looking for The Chieftain's thoughts on the project. I feel a whole lot better now and I think that this "new" vehicle will be a war winner if, God forbid, we need to ever deploy tanks on a future battlefield. (From what I understand, many of the lessons learned in Ukraine will be considered. Just in case you were worried about that.)
Okay, this is a long video, but well worth your time. Nicholas Moran knows his business, he's an armor officer, and puts a lot of thought into the subject matter. He is truly a Subject Matter Expert when it comes to armored fighting vehicles and mobile warfare, both the history and the practice thereof.
Before jumping into the video, there were a couple of things I noted as a former engineer who saw the many ways people could find to kill a viable weapon systems concept.
The Chieftain asked (around the 25:50 mark of the video) why this wasn't a new tank but still an M1 variant. Colonel Howell's answer was that this wasn't really a new tank, because ...
"They did the requirements right back then ..."
Something Zumwalt (my big project as a worker bee) never really got right and never really finished. Requirements churn was a HUGE problem in the early days. If you can't nail those down, why the heck are you spending money on building the damned thing?
This machine is being built with the users in mind, the folks who will actually be manning the thing. (I mean it will even have cupholders! You'd be surprised how nice those are to have! Go to 27:30 in the video for a good talk about crew amenities.)
Anyhoo, here's the video, if you have any interest in how your tax money is spent on new military hardware, you should watch the whole thing.
The only thing which makes me nervous is the software for this beast. Believe me when I say, I know how easy it is to make a mess of that. You don't want your gunner to have to stop and say, "Sorry Skipper, you'll have to wait, the computer is rebooting ..."
Been there, done that and it does not impress the customer.
Enjoy.
A video! A Armor video! A Nicholas Moran Armor video! This perks up a Tuesday morning Sarge, thanks! Aaaand that's enough exclamation points for today.......:)
ReplyDeleteSeems I heard something a lot like that about the new Dreadnaught..... Something about the aircraft's light weapons couldn't seriously challenge the armor and antiaircraft defenses of a "Modern Warship...
ReplyDeleteWe're always fighting the last war. Economics matter, weight matters. When the current M1 cannot cross almost half the bridges in Europe, let alone poorer countries and bog down in the muck of Grafenwöhr Germany's training grounds let alone Ukraine's fields...
When a M1 with NATO trained crews costs the cost of a new M1 Abrams tank ranges from approximately $6.5 million to over $10 million per unit, depending on the variant and configuration. WITHOUT supporting equipment and such FAILS against a half dozen swarm of several thousand dollar drone well....
But like the Polish Winged Hussars they LOOK COOL.