Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadoWarrior
But if it was me having to decide how to spend a small country's very limited defense funds, and the choice was a few TDs or a bunch of missile jeeps, I know which I'd choose. Both will probably all be toast, but the jeeps are more likely (IMO) to inflict more losses on the enemy before they get nailed.
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I don't disagree with you. Your points are well taken, but the U.S. is not a "small country". I'm not sure you could classify West Germany or even the U.K. as "small" countries (geographically speaking, perhaps, but not economically or, at least in Germany's case, population-wise. During the Cold War, they all could have afforded to convert/develop a light AFV chasis into an armored TD with good mobility, multi-shot capability, and better survivability. Such a vehicle would certainly be cheaper to produce than MBTs, so if one was willing to sacrifice a few of the latter for more of the former, they could have padded their armored AT capability.
No one went that route, so there must be more cons than pros. I'm just sayin', is all.
Back in the mid-to-late '80s, there was a lot of hype/hope about a rail-gun armed vehicle that could rapidly destroy even the most heavily armored MBTs with relatively small projectiles. I'm not clear on why that never panned out. I assume it's because the technology could not be perfected in a cost-efficient manner and, with the end of the Cold War, development was scrapped.