Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
And I will take an old tank with a 75mm gun on it any day over an armored car with a few machine guns or a gun truck.
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Sure, a tank is better than an armored car.
However, take one of each at the start line of an offensive operation in the summer of 2000 in the Twilight War logistics situation and I bet the tank is deadlined and inoperable within 30 days due to lack of spares, available spares themselves being 50 years old, no one knowing how to keep the thing running, and vehicles from that era not being made, automotively, to last as long as more modern equipment.
And that obviously doesn't even touch on the ammo (or lack thereof) issue. Having some experience shooting WW2 vintage (1943, Des Moines Ordnance Plant) .50 cal API-T ammo . . . I'd be excited to watch (from a distance and definitely
not in the tank) someone put some vintage 75mm ammo through an M24.
Meanwhile, the light armored vehicle built on a modified 5 ton chassis is trucking along (burning less fuel in the process), using chassis and automotive components that are so well supported in the logistical system that even in Y2K it may be possible to get spares, able to draw on a big enough body of trained maintenance personnel that even in Y2K experienced and familiar mechanics can likely be found (and if not civilian commercial diesel truck mechanics can cross over pretty easily) and reliant on types of ammunition that are, again, common enough that they can probably be kept in the fight on most any T2K battlefield.
At the big picture level, it's logistics that will win (or lose) the fight for either of the rival US governments circa 2000. Systems so old that "legacy" doesn't even begin to describe them aren't going to be worth the effort to get into the fight or keep in the fight -- if it is even possible at all.