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Originally Posted by jester
And alot of your points are why I have said what they said.
A vehicle like that will only have the organic troops carried inside and would most likely out distance other troops in other vehicles. So, in the end they would have five men to guard the vehicle, or clear buildings or roads or what ever the task maybe, and if the vehicle is dealing with urban terrain 5 men is not enough.
As for the firing ports, as I said in my view they are a good means to keep infantry from getting atop the vehicle or near enough to toss handgrenades either on the vehicle or inside. Another negative aspect of working in urban areas <which the vehicle is allegedly supposed to be made for> or fog, woods and other areas with low visibility.
As for firing from the ports as a rule, for suppressive fire purposes sure it could work, since supressive fire is not intended be on target or accurate, it is just to keep the enemys heads down. And we must remember, the Russians don't have a long history of well aimed accurate fire by their troops, mostly especialy with the adoptation of he Kalashnikov design its been mostly full auto bursts, so, saturation of the target area with volumes of lead and hope the law of probability works.
And yes firing from an open turret can be decently accurate.
Which I will need to seee the pictures again, I do not recall top hatches those vehicles. Which would prove useful in hot open climates, or mine infested areas.
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Nope, the US and the British practice and taught their men to aim and pick their targets. The Germans in WWI commented when the Americans came on the scene, "We haven't faced such fire since the old contemptables." which was a reference to the prewar BEF who were well trained and proffessional.
US forces or at least back in the day, did not generaly set their weapons on the full auto/burst mode, leaving that role to the automatic weapon or SAW of the squad/team.
You are refering to B-52s and such, I am refering to the infantryman, you are comparing Stratiegic to Tactical to different realms.
Further, old style and most certainly RUSSIAN was the massed artillery barages where the guns would be wheel to wheel and saturate and area. American style, a few guns, a few Forward Observers and picking and firing on pinpoint targets rather than saturating the area.
It has been said, that the massive Barrage on the Somme was one of the things that detracted from its success because the torn up ground made it an obstacle and slowed down the advance.
But also, a problem with a massed shelling of an area is:
Destroys ground you need to advance over, as mentioned.
Destroys targets, if you shell the hell out of an area and the bridge is your target to cross a river, well you just destroyed your mission.
LOGISTICS: moving guns and enough shells into the area takes time and ties up roads, takes alot of transportation assets to build up the stockpiles.
Time: takes time to set up guns, and displace them.
Telegraphs to the enemy the location of the attack. A Massive build up of artillery and supplies in the area is not hard to detect, and tells the enemy something is up.
RISK: putting large amounts of artillery at risk in the advent of an enemy counter attack. It takes time to load up a gun get it on the road and they are no the fastest things on the road, so, they can also tie up your transportation network delaying a withdraw, resupply or reinforcement.
Those are just some of the problems with massed artillery off the top of my head, then we also have comand and control of such assets as well.