US Army AAA in T2K

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by madmikechoi

Even if there's nothing worth blotting out the sun for... guns are fun. And AAA is dakka, period. Whether it's digging in platoons of M19 GMC and waiting for the Chinese to start assembling on contact to M42 Dusters laying discontent on anybody trying to take shots at a convoy on a Vietnamese highway and the US government had just paved, your forces are sure to establish fire superiority quickly and definitively against non armored/mechanized forces.

The ROK Army for example are in no real hurry to retire any of their SP Vulcans until recently- and retiring the 20mm K263A1 VADS in favor of twin 30s is more about streamlining logistics in favor of a more effective caliber albeit w/ a lesser RoF.

During the Falklands Islands War, the British found out the danger of overreliance on SAMS for ground-based air defense. Apparently, though, this lesson did not influence NATO ADA doctrine. It's somewhat mind-boggling.

The other thing that AAA has going for it, is that AAA can be used against ground targets. For example, M3-mounted quad .50s saved the day again and again in Korea and Vietnam. You can't engage ground targets with most SAM systems (the only ones that come to mind that can are the Bofors RBS 70 MANPADS and ADATS the latter which, AFAIK, was only adopted by the Canadian military).

I have a feeling that US Army AAA fell victim to the belief that newer, higher-tech = better.

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[CDAT]

This stood out to me reading the article. “There’s really no comparison to anything I’ve operated in my career,” Army Sergeant Andrew Veres, a member of 5-4th Air Defense Artillery said in an official interview. "Everything in these systems is an improvement – the survivability, mobility, dependability, off road ability – it gives us the ability to stay in the fight longer."

This shows just how low the bar has been set over the years. The Striker's survivability sucks, in my time as EOD in Iraq I never saw or heard of one surviving any serious hit, the armor did not even need to be penetrated, they caught fire like they were made out of TP, now this is not saying that none of them ever did survive, but just that I have no knowledge of it happening if they were hit. The striker mobility is fine for a wheeled vehicle, but any tracked vehicle is going to be much better off road (where I think you would be spending most of your time in full out combat, not anti-insurgent warfare) so on road sure, off nope. Dependability, very likely is going to be much better than a track, they do need more maintenance. And then back to mobility, this time specificley off road, what is he comparing it to, saying it is an improvement?