Tank Survivability c. 2000 and Tank Transporter Question

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Point well taken. For the record, I was referring to "active" threats but I agree with your assertion. Broken down tanks in enemy controlled or disputed territory would probably be destroyed in place, if a heavy recovery vehicle wasn't on hand to tow it out of harm's way. On the other hand, in friendly territory, broken down tanks that couldn't be fixed would probably be cannibalized for spares for other tanks and not destroyed outright.

THANKS guys, I knew I came to the right place for TT info!

Apparently, the M746/747 could haul an M1 but not without hurting itself in the process.

Well for the most part any anti-tank weapon regardless the if it the old LAW or RPG to newer weapons would have to be considered as a lethal threat to any tank. This is mainly due, to the fact that any tank still operational would have already had taken a beaten, so there are more points that could be more expose than they had before the war.

[fightingflamingo]

Replacement vehicles (at least for the US, UK, and Canada) would be shipped into Holland or Denmark, and then offloaded from their ships, and loaded onto rail flatcarsand from there they would be moved to theatre logistical units. Then they would be cascaded down to Army, Corps, Divisional direct support units on tank transporters and flatbeds to the recieving units. All recovered friendly battle damaged vehicles would be moved in reverse with the intention of repairing them and returning them to service at each level, and only passing the vehicles back if they could not be repaired at a given level. Vehicles deemed to be a total loss at each stage of evacuation would be pulled out of the evacuation chain and stipped at that level for any salvage parts (I have IRL pulled road wheels of off M113 target vehicles to replace road wheels on my NG M113 damaged during annual training).

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by fightingflamingo

Replacement vehicles (at least for the US, UK, and Canada) would be shipped into Holland or Denmark, and then offloaded from their ships, and loaded onto rail flatcarsand from there they would be moved to theatre logistical units. Then they would be cascaded down to Army, Corps, Divisional direct support units on tank transporters and flatbeds to the recieving units. All recovered friendly battle damaged vehicles would be moved in reverse with the intention of repairing them and returning them to service at each level, and only passing the vehicles back if they could not be repaired at a given level. Vehicles deemed to be a total loss at each stage of evacuation would be pulled out of the evacuation chain and stipped at that level for any salvage parts (I have IRL pulled road wheels of off M113 target vehicles to replace road wheels on my NG M113 damaged during annual training).

This is helpful. I was wondering at what levels salvage and repair would be handled. Great macro explanation and micro example.

I would imagine that more and more salvage and repair would be handled at the divisional level as the war wore on (especially once the cantonment system became established).

[fightingflamingo]

pretty much any battle damaged vehicle will have something which can be salvaged off of it. The US maintained a small depot level maintenance site in the FRG, but during wartime some of the Ro-Ro's would be taking vehicles back to the US for Depot level maintenance (reconstruction) at Anniston Army Depot. By doing so you lengthen the amount of time you have to ramp up your new production capacity to wartime levels, by drawing on recovered vehicles in addition to war reserves...

[Abbott Shaull]

After the start of 1998 the ability to send vehicle back to be repair would be limited, many Commanders at all levels would want to keep what they had no matter the start of it ill-repair.

[fightingflamingo]

yes... the krakow module addresses this in that the city has several tanks in static positions around the city with their powerpacks, radio's, etc removed, with communications being conducted with field telephones. turrets can be traversed manually (it might be slow but it can be done), and this allows more spares (or parts which can be rebuilt if you have a machine shop & skilled labor) to keep other vehicles in full operating capacity longer than would otherwise be possible. In Krakow, athough not explicity stated (IMHO possible), there could be two engines for each operation AFV, one in the vehicle, the other in some stage of a rebuild using locally fabricated parts from machine shops where available, or reconditioned where less extensive facilites are available...

[Legbreaker]

Regarding the static tanks in Krakow, I wonder if it would be feasible to replace the original powered traverse with a locally produced system. With much of the other internal equipment stripped out, the installation of an electric motor, a few belts, etc might make for a better option than cranking by hand. Smaller, fine adjustment would still be done manually though.

Since they're static, you could even run them on steam generated from the stove in the unit's HQ bunker a dozen metres away... In winter you're killing two birds with one stone - keeping the troops warm and powering the turret.