*Post*-TDM armor production.

[HorseSoldier]

I've often wondered why no one tried fitting the 20mm commanders cupola from the M114 armored recce vehicle on an M113 ACAV in the Vietnam era, but I'm not aware of anyone trying it. Might be because that particular 20mm gun had reliability issues, or might have been tried and I just haven't heard about it.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

I've often wondered why no one tried fitting the 20mm commanders cupola from the M114 armored recce vehicle on an M113 ACAV in the Vietnam era, but I'm not aware of anyone trying it. Might be because that particular 20mm gun had reliability issues, or might have been tried and I just haven't heard about it.

There were prototypes with that cupola fitted to the M113 or various 20mm autocannons fitted to several different cupolas and turrets, but none of them got into production. Some never made it past the mock-up phase. Eventually, they skipped the whole idea and went on to develop what became the Bradley.

[Legbreaker]

Personally I prefer the Saladin and Scimitar turrets as fitted to some M113s here in Australia. How can you go wrong with a 76mm cannon on an APC?

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Personally I prefer the Saladin and Scimitar turrets as fitted to some M113s here in Australia. How can you go wrong with a 76mm cannon on an APC?

One of my Favorite versions of the M113

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

One other Possibility is that former truck or automotive plants and facility's could/ would be turned into some sort of production. Granted they may not be the latest and greatest of vehicles, but light afvs are better then no afvs.

Some food for though. Think about how little time it took for the US to tool up for WW2. Say with the disruption of the Nukes, even if it would double or triple. Eventually say like early 2001 its possible that there may be something like Improved Sherman's, Half-tracks, trucks and Prop-driven aircraft being produced.

We were really not much of an Industrial power house at the start of WW2. Get the steel plants and the railroads running again. Dedicate the smaller and older refineries to the wartime production (the ones that were not nuked- yes there are some that people are generally unaware of, one is/was near Casper Wyoming). Jobs would be had. Food could be shipped from the farms to the population centers by trains.

[Legbreaker]

The US had 2-3 years of supplying the British before they became embroiled in the war themselves. Plenty of time to ramp up production of the comparatively primitive designs of the time. Even compared against the contemporary German designs, the Sherman for example was barely adequate and basic.

It would be interesting to see how they may have faired if they'd had a cold start and were trying to produce complex machines such as the Tiger or Panther. Probably better than Germany did, but definitely not as well as IRL.

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Personally I prefer the Saladin and Scimitar turrets as fitted to some M113s here in Australia. How can you go wrong with a 76mm cannon on an APC?

We did the same thing with the FV432 back in the day, slapped a 30mm cannon turret on top.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

We did the same thing with the FV432 back in the day, slapped a 30mm cannon turret on top.

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

These were issued to the British part of the Berlin Brigade. In real life they have now been sold off and are used for vehicle paintball - there is an article somewhere on the BBC News site.

[dragoon500ly]

You know, for an excellent source of home built armored vehicles that worked, you may want to reference the 1948 Israeli-Arab War.

Faced with an inability to acquire modern armor (although the Israelis did steal a Comet tank and several Daimler armored cars), most of what they used were standard trucks fitted with sandwich armor. Faced with a shortage of decent armor plate, the Israelis used boiler plate welded to the frame of the vehicle, then then welded another set of boiler plate 2-3 inches out and filled the space with a wide variety of material, everything from gravel to rubber to concrete to wood to tile. It was crude, anything larger than small arms would penetrate, but since most of the Arabs had few, if any, antitank weapons, it worked.

As the war progressed, it would be very likely that the various commanders would horde their remaining stocks of ATGMs for real emergencies. So I can see the possibility of ad hoc sandwich armored vehicles returning.....