Originally Posted by ArmySGT.
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"You can take on tanks in any environment. Forest preferably, urban is second best. "
Spoken like a true 'light fighter'. While you 'can' take on any tank in any environment and you name the two best environments to do so, most of what you write is based on old tactics and the fact that you have an inexperienced crew.
An 'experienced' crew is one that has trained together for no less than six months. Once you get an experienced crew, most of what you point out is null in void.
"Turrets can only engage targets to their relative front. When the turret is facing away from you sprint for the tank. The -10 depression of the gun applies to the coaxial too. In close and a tank has to rely on infantry or another tank to protect it from sappers."
Wow...this assumes that the tank will sit still and let the 'sapper' to close with the tank. No tanker worth his salt will fight closed hatch. I never did so. I have watched units in NTC (Ft. Irwin) get slaughtered trying to fight open protected when I was an O/C. In Iraq we never fought closed hatch and we were in a 'Urban' environment. Don't get me wrong, a tank can get killed, especially when you don't have support, but to say all you need is a set of brass balls and some C4, is stupid and short sighted.
"Tankers opening the roof hatches to engage infantry with the TC or loaders machineguns? Let them. Their dead very fast from massed small arms fire and then the hatches are open. Yes, please do that. That TC hatch or loader hatch coming open is exactly what the infantry want. The massed fired on all the periscopes and gunner sights is to blind them and force them to open up."
Lots of assumptions there buddy...and spoken like a true light fighter.....once the snaps of hornets (incoming fire) starts I drop down and tell the gunner to hose the area with coax and light the grunts up with fifty, all while the driver is moving. Why do you think we have TUSK kits and SCWS or 'Pope' glass. It is snipers, not massed infantry or smalls arms fire. SNipers killed one of our lieutenants during our last few months in Habbaniyah, Iraq, when the insurgents got smart and started having trained snipers shoot at us. When just mounted the windscreen glass in ad-hoc side shields. That allowed us to operate open hatch and not get shot, but it still could happen.
Let your tank sit out in the open…… That just calls down artillery or mortar fire. Roof hit and it is toast. Smoke mission and it cannot engage targets.
Yeah, yeah heard this allot too. You know it tanks over 54 rounds from 8 155mm howitzers to concentrate the rounds to knock out a tank (mostly mobility kills mind you). Look at the studies from Sill on this, 432 rounds and one tank kill out of four tanks to show for it and those tanks were STATIONARY.
Granted in the Ad-Hoc stateside Museum quality tanks you could rain death and get a few more, but be serious.
Bundle of C4 and WP grenades on a pole….. Slip that under the tank from up close…. If you don’t blast through the belly armor the WP is going to heat it up quick.
Dang boy, use an IED, it is much better. That old Nam trick doesn't work any more. The WP grenade does nothing to the tank but piss the crew off. I think you meant M8 Thermite grenade.
Also take a look at the amount of explosive in anti-tank mines to get an idea of the amount of power you need. Hand Grenades don't do it.
I agree that modern ATGMs would be scarce……. Unguided rockets like the RPG… No.
I think there would be a lot more RPGs then most people think. In the states however I would agree, that they would be scarce. Now homemade rockets, ok but they would not have ready made EFP warheads, unless you have a machine shop and a ready supply of copper.
RPGS most of all, then systems that need a more sophisticated launcher like LAWS or AT4. Recoilless rifles are going to have a huge resurgence…. If you can make mortar and artillery fuzes you can make these.
By fuzes I take you mean simple fuzes (point detonating) right? Because many modern (even WW2) fuses use very sophisticated arming systems to get them to explode at the right height. above the ground.
You can even mount a TVS-5 on an M40A1 recoilless and give it passive night fighting capability to 1000 meters.
Wow that is an OVER statement of the TVS-5. I have never seen one that good, Even with the rebuilt depot ones with the new image tubes. The TVS-5 sucks donkey urine (and I am being nice).
No you have some poor bastard stuck with a fuel hungry and labor intensive beast without a trained crew, without compatible ammunition, no compatible radios except single channel and in the clear, no maintenance personnel to speak of , and a non existent supply chain relegated to one shop with hundreds of other thing to do making one off parts only when ordered that takes day or weeks to produce if all all.
I think we are explaining the what ifs, but the same could be said about the IED makers in Iraq and A-stand (or even the IRA or Columbia). The person supporting and keeping the beast running is a very special person and is part of the battlefield equation that a Commander in T2K will have to weigh on keeping a tank around.
Any smart commander would refuse this tank as the waste of resources it is.
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