Yeah well like I said even in the Modules people who had modern AFVs their were some cases that all that worked were the MGs... It was pointed out that with the limited AT weapons found at 2000 that many units that weren't supplied with them, didn't stay around to find out if the main gun would fire or not...

Interesting that this subject came up, Ive been piecing together some ideas for US 6th Army, and had some ideas for activating some new units and rebuilding some old ones as well.
Of course I add to canon by adding more Soviet or Soviet backed forces as well.

Now lets see if this works or if Im going to need help;

http://joest2k.wetpaint.com/photo/11...a2+cav+vehicle

...was hoping for an image but the link will do just fine.
This "M2A3" is a simple to build vehicle that can be used as a light Cavalry vehicle or APC. The image and the following links to others are all modifications of images made by the contributors over at Junior General.

http://www.juniorgeneral.org/load.php?Period=0

I agree about the 37mm ammunition as well, so I had another couple of thoughts.

http://joest2k.wetpaint.com/photo/11...+25mm+and+mk19
A M8 armored car with a 25mm cannon.

http://joest2k.wetpaint.com/photo/11...le+w+106mm+rcl
A M20 rigged with a .50cal and a 106mm rcl.

http://joest2k.wetpaint.com/photo/11514941/-
A larger APC based on the M3/M9 series of half-tracks but using wheels instead of tracks for easier maintenance.

http://joest2k.wetpaint.com/photo/11509388/m22a6+w+40mm
Someone else had the idea for using 40mm guns for ammunition availability...I had thought the same thing. This is a light tank based on the M22 Locust except with a 40mm gun.

The idea behind these rigs is the ability to improvise them from other types of vehicles, most being chassis for semi-trucks. Facilities for power generation, a foundry, and the mechanical equipment to build the armor, turrets, mounts and additional equipment. Using older armored vehicle plans and patterns ensures easier access to plans and technical drawings that would likely be unavailable for more modern vehicles. Another consideration is not using vehicles that are too large or too heavy to ensure that it wont take a ridiculous amount of time to build and/or convert each vehicle.

I wonder if you could replace the 37mm ATG with a 40mm Mk 19?

For the record, the tracks on American halftracks were quite unlike those on tanks; they were roughly one long rubber band, basically, and lasted far longer with less maintenance than tank tracks.

If its worth doing...then its worth over doing! ;)

Besides, there is no such thing as too little when dealing with explosives!!!

Don't forget that the early M-3s used riveted armor, the bolt heads had a nasty habit of shearing when hit!

That's true with the rubber tracks, but if you were building APCs like that out of other vehicles, it would probably be much easier to find surplus wheels and tires as opposed to finding or making the rubber tracks. I know lots of snocats and off-road tracked dump trucks use rubber tracks, but those aren't very common.
I had thought about using the Mk19 for main armament but I bet the 19s are more useful for ring mounts and technicals.
But on that note, I was thinking about the 60mm Brandt breech loading mortar that the French developed. I was wondering if it would be easier to build some kind of single shot breech loading 60mm gun/mortar as opposed to milling an entire new gun barrel for a demilled gun or starting from scratch. What does everyone think? (That's with several small motorshops, at least one small steel mill, and a large mechanical shop, all Gen. Pain's stats)

Sorry, I was thinking of working vehicles, not going A-Team at a junkyard.

The gunner is better protected in a turret ;)

True, but I'm an easier target behind a tripod-mounted MG than a rivet is on a tank ;)

In the early 1990’s, the US Army was out of surplus 75mm and 105mm Recoilless Rifle HE ordnance (HE rounds are the best avalanche control rounds). As a result, the Forest Service replace many of the existing 75mm and 105mm Recoilless Rifle systems with 106mm Recoilless Rifles (basically an updated, lighter version of the 105mm Recoilless Rifle, was used during the Korean and Viet Nam Wars). In December 2002, after several tragic in-bore explosions, the US Forest Service replaced all 106mm Recoilless Rifle with the 105 Howitzers.

Also each year the Washington Department of Transportation positions two M60A3 tanks just west of Stevens Pass for avalanche control.

Let's not talk about your eating habits, shall we!;)

Of course I'm in shape...round is a shape!

There are a couple of photos of various pre-WWII tanks that were sprayed with machineguns (both .50 and .30-cal)...now the
.50-cal would just punch through the paper-thin armor...but it was the effect of the .30-cal that caught my bloodshot eye....fired from 500 yards, the API bullets still had enough force to crack the rivet heads, sending the bolts flying about the interior....nasty!

I suspect it would be easier to modify a WW2 era turret set up for 37mm than a conversion to 25mm (at least 25mm M242), since it would be easier to sort out ammunition stowage, feed, and such, as well as not having to adjust the wiring to power the gun. A Mk19 is comparatively compact and uncomplicated, and in an open topped turret wouldn't be too hard to set up to employ the existing sights on the gun.

Anyone have thoughts on breech loading mortars that could be used in direct fire?

I suppose the crews inside weren't too happy about them either...

Sure, the French used just such a mortar on the AML 60-20 that was in use in the 50-70s. It was intended for support roles, but the 60mm mortar could be fired directly, whole thing was breech-loaded. And before anybody chips in about its antiarmor capabilities, it didn't have any, not enough muzzle velocity for the mortar. Direct fire range was about 500m.

The pics are of Aberdeen PG tests on new armor and new methods of securing army. But when the rivited Stuarts saw action in North Africa, there are a lot of horror stories about the injuries caused.

Surplus Armor
 

The easiest solution for the 37mm armed US tanks/afv's would be to just fabricate some adapters to place a M2HB in it's place. I bet you could fabricate the adapters with the tools and materials found in a basic machine shop.

The 50-cal would have plenty of range and hitting power for what you'd see coming at you anyway.

There are some light autocannons, such as the 20mm Oerlikon KAB, which can be mounted and used as easily as an M-2HB, except for the longer barrel length.

ASP 30. 'Nuff said.

Both would be nice, but keep in mind WW2 era turrets were tight for WW2 era people (though I suppose by 2000 most folks would be making Depression era manual laborers look husky and corn fed), and the problem isn't just the gun it's the ammo, the feed chutes to get it from storage to the gun, and such. Shoe horning all that into a space formerly occupied by a manually loaded single shot gun is going to be a pretty major engineering undertaking.

Realistically, if a government/cantonment/whatever had access to a lot of manufacturing and machining capability, they'd probably be better served dropping in a whole new turret into vintage light AFVs rather than trying to jury rig a less optimal solution. (Tanks could be a different story, since I don't think anyone circa 2000 -- with the possible exception of the French and maybe Japanese -- has the capability to fabricate new MBT turrets).

I think you'd be better off just using the co-ax MG, and/or pointing the 37mm at your enemy. After all, they don't KNOW you don't have any shells or canister for it....

You know, as intresting as it is to think about getting your hands on an old tank or armored car, there really are not that many available that are in good enough condition to rebuild. I took the time this afternoon to look over a tank on display at Camp Shelby with a buddy of mine and we can confirm that not only was the barrel demilled and the breech missing, there was not even an engine pack in the vehicle, the fire control equipment had been removed and there wasn't an intact gauge in the tank. This one would certainly require the services of Anniston Depot to get it into any kind of order.

I've been rereading O'Jerusalem and there is a section on how the Israelis rebuilt trucks into ad-hoc armored cars. The would sandwich boiler plate on the hood, cab, and body, stuffing the space in between with rubber, cement, gravel and a variety of other fillings. It was crude, it couldn't stop antitank rounds, but it did stop fragments and .30 caliber rounds. Just a random thought, but would it not be possible that this sort of home-built be a lot more common?

Here's another thought - say you do get your hands on a few 50+ year old armoured vehicles and do manage to get them running again.

Where is the average township/tin pot dictator/etc going to get the heavy weaponry to put in it? At best they're likely to have little mroe than a few assault rifles to stiffen the hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols arming much of their force.

How many police departments have a .50 call machinegun, 20mm autocanon or even 60mm mortar in their armoury? How many survivalist groups would have gotten away with acquiring anything heavy, or if they did, sufficient ammunition to train with, let alone conduct any sort of operation?

To my mind, APCs whether ex military or jerrybuilt will be far more useful than an old tank.

While I agree that a tank has limited utility for a community compared to an armoured truck or a proper APC and getting ammo for them would be pretty much impossible, there are some places in the US where heavier weapons are allowed to be owned by civilians.
For example although I don't know what state it is, you can own 40mm grenade launchers and also recoiless rifles but you cannot get explosive ammo for them (only smoke, if I remember the article correctly).
In Texas they have a collector's club for flamethrowers... should give the Mexican invasion something to think about, dozens of angry Texans wielding flamethrowers :D

+1 on both points. My department has some select fire small arms in service with the SWAT team, but nothing heavier than 5.56mm, and caliber footprint maxes out at a .50 cal sniper rifle or two and some 37mm less lethal launchers (again, all belonging to SWAT -- patrol officers are authorized shotguns and semi-only AR-15s and similar). And while we do have a decent stockpile of ammunition, it's not adequate for any sort of sustained operations. I don't think any larger departments would be able to trot out much more military weaponry -- liability issues completely preclude anyone deploying a machine gun or mortar for law enforcement purposes.

Survivalists -- meh, though if the Cold War had kept going into the mid 90s and there was a tensing run up to world war when the Sino-Soviet war kicked off, I could see that school of thought having broader appeal and more adherents than it did in the real world (the New America storyline implies survivalism was a lot more popular in th the T2K US than in the real world). Heavy weapons for most of those people would be right out, though I did have an Ops NCO who swore that in the late 80s when his ODA was going some training in Idaho they were in ear shot of the sort of place usually referred to by the press as a "compound" and heard what was unmistakably someone putting rounds through an M60 machine gun.

:schuss:

Now why would dozens of Texans wielding flamethrowers be scary? It's the tens of thousands of Texans armed with hunting rifles in every caliber known to man that would scare me!!

40mm launchers aren't too exotic (though certainly a kind of fringe portion of the US firearms market) and you can actually even legally possess HE ammo for them. The catch is that each individual round is a controlled item and subject to a federal $200 tax stamp and BATFE approval. Submitting paperwork for a pallet of 40mm HEDP ammo (if anyone was willing to sell that quantity to a private citizen in the first place) would definitely put someone on the radar in a big way with federal authorities.

In otherwords, technically possible, but exceptionally unlikely anyone would just happen to have any laying about....

I want to say there might be a way around the one round one license thing, but I am not sure. Only reason I say that is back when I lived in Colorado I knew two -not one, two- guys with legal Mk19's, and they never appeared to lack for ammo.

They had them for hunting squirrels right?

No, you rear-mount them and use them to hunt tailgaters.

I thought that's what flamethrowers, mine layers and spike droppers are for?
Yes, I'm channelling Car Wars at the moment. :p

Far out. The US of A never ceases to amaze me.

There's a place up in Tennessee that has a annual full-auto shoot-off. The name of the town escapes me at the moment as I have not yet had my morning caffine fix, but its three days of just about every automatic weapon that has ever been produced...and all are Class Three legal! And seeing some 200 weapons on the firing line at the same time is damnded impressive!

IIRC, Knob Creek. They had a Bofors L/60 there last year.

Yeah, its Knob Creek;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob_Creek_Gun_Range

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vm3-BQRJU

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/877252...xplosions_mus/

I'd love to get a trip there sometime, looks lke great craic. Unfortunately I live in a country where its nigh on impossible to get a firearms license of any sort :(

not to mention the 5.56mm/7.62mm and .50-caliber versions of the Minigun...

hmmmmmmm .50-caliber minigun.....just picture how much damage you could do at rush hour with one of those in the bed of your pickup!

You know it was one of the things that the guys at GDW did get right, in that they stated that many of the old gun ADA was now being used effectively against ground target since there was very little need of it to be used to attempt to shoot down the various misc. aircraft that menace the air before.

Tell me about it!

In Vietnam, the ADA battalions had a .50-caliber battery attached to them, the TO&E provide for 25 M-60 mgs and 24 Quad .50-calibers, picture a human-wave assault going into something like that!!!!

As long as I am not a member of the human-wave assault, it wouldn't be pretty.