One thing about the stock M113 that gets me... is that it's armor is so damn light that a .50cal heavy machinegun punches throught it, but other nations have been doing variants of the M113 that are better armored and more flexible. I've thought about what happens with the M113 in my extended version of the 1st Edition timeline of Twilight 2000.
Namely being used by the Police, the State Guards and the border patrol (ie, United States Territorial Guard that in my setting was created by the US Congress in the years before the Twilight War). Jobs that were originally seen as needing lightly armored vehicles that would protect against small arms, and most would have felt wouldn't ever run up against heavy weapons.
I looked at what the Isrealis have done the many variants of the M113 and saw an extremely wide-range of specialty vehicles that would work in the kinds of roles that a paramilitary force like the US Territorial Guard (a land based version of the Coast Guard that focused on Boarder Defense and the security of National Forests and airports, basically they are the Border Patrol and less intrusive TSA in my setting).
I just can't decide if ALL those surplus M113's would be more valuable like that, or being used for scrap metal. Because after the nuclear exchanges i can see those M113's being federalized and brought back into the use by the military... because a lightly armored APC is better than none.
So I'm asking everyone here what they think. Would the M113 be better used by the US Army passing them on to Police, State Guards and the Territorial Guard? OR just sending them to be Scrapped?
Sending them to be Scrapped would result in money going back to the US Army... i just don't know how much.
But passing them on to Police Departments, State Guards and the US Territorial Guard would 'save money' by those agencies would not have to spend said funds on purpose built lightly armored vehicles (like we are seeing happen today).
So what do you think?
(sorry for hijacking the thread... but it 'sparked' this thought process, and bringing the thread into a discussion about T2k just seemed like a good idea)
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Fuck being a hero. Do you know what you get for being a hero? Nothing! You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah blah blah, attaboy! You get divorced... Your wife can't remember your last name, your kids don't want to talk to you... You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me kid, nobody wants to be that guy. I do this because there is nobody else to do it right now. Believe me if there was somebody else to do it, I would let them do it. There's not, so I'm doing it.
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