Re: [GZG] What are the pitfalls of standardised forces?

Michael Blair wrote:

>Interestingly I have seen the point made several times by
>people who should know what they are talking about (Jane's Armour 2000
I 
>think) that
>it would be a very good idea for an army to standardise its tracked 
>vehicles on
>their standard tank chassis and running gear for the MBT, SPGs, APC and
so on.

Um, well... APCs and MBTs can use the same chassis, at least if you
don't 
have any limits to your transport capacity (which the Israelis don't -
or, 
rather, the distances over which they have to transport their heavy 
vehicles are so short that they can live with the heavy weight), but
having 
the same tank chassis for MBTs and SPGs means that one of them will be 
horribly sub-optimal for its role - the SPG won't benefit much from the
MBT 
armour (since MBT armour is mostly designed to withstand heavy 
*direct*-fire weapons, whereas the main threats to SPGs are other 
*in*direct-fire weapons and aircraft both of which attack from above
rather 
than horisontally) but still has to pay all the costs, and an MBT with 
SPG-style armour... well, that's a light tank, not an MBT :-/

There are certainly a bunch of vehicles that can profitably share
chassis, 
but IMO you need at least three chassis types: one with heavy armour,
one 
with light armour, and probably a small jeepish vehicle for liaison work

and similar. The lightly-armoured chassis could be used for light 
APCs/IFVs, command post vehicles, tactical cargo carriers, artillery, 
resupply vehicles, ambulances, communications, radar carriers, AA
vehicles, 
light tanks/"heavy scout vehicles" etc., while the heavily-armoured one 
would be used for MBTs, HIFVs and those specialist engineering vehicles 
that are likely to be used close enough to the enemy to risk getting
shot at.

Regards,

Oerjan
orjan.ariander1@comhem.se

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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