Re: Nailing Dirtside/Stargrunt Chamber Pots (was Re: [GZG] More re: [OFFICIAL] Salute releases....!)

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxxx>]

John Atkinson wrote:

> > Some further examples:
> >
> > Italy, Japan and South Korea all build their own unique tank designs and
> > have equipped their armies with them, though AFAIK none of them have
> > exported any.
>
> Near as I call tell, from a 6mm or 15mm gamer's perspective, the K1 is
> visually indistinct from an M-1.  :)

K1 tank: <http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rok/k1-pics.htm>

Different hull shape (the glacis in particular looks more like a Leo1 than 
an Abrams), different number of road wheels, different turret shape (the K1 
turret looks kinda like a cross between an Abrams and an early Merkava)... 
if you can't tell this tank from an Abrams at 15mm scale, your eyesight 
must be WAY worse than mine :-)

(FWIW Korea has also recently revealed a K2 tank, which looks a bit like a 
cross between a Leclerc and a CV90 but has very few visual similarities to 
the Abrams.)

> But that's also with over a hundred armies to equip.  In a universe 
> dominated by a tiny number of major superpowers, with the thousands of 
> AFVs that each of them would
> be building, would it make economic sense for the smaller nations to 
> maintain their own tank industry rather than buying or license-building 
> minor variations on the big 4's stuff?

Right now we have a single planet dominated by *one single* superpower, 
with *no* major wars going on between MBT-using armies, and we *still* have 
at least a dozen different countries building their own MBTs.

In the GZGverse we have *multiple* superpowers plus a wide variety of 
lesser powers, both on and off Earth, who for the past half-century or more 
have almost continuously been fighting one another in shifting coalitions. 
In a situation like that, I am utterly convinced that every nation with the 
industrial capability to do so would build their own combat vehicles - 
while this might not make complete *economic* sense for a minor power, it 
would most certainly make very good *strategic* sense not to make yourself 
dependent of the superpowers for your supply of combat vehicles and spare 
parts to same.

> On the other hand, for the basic "troop carrier, wheeled" and 'troop
> carrier, tracked' only a dedicated and passionate armor nut can tell
> the difference between most of the basic, inexpensive, utilitarian designs.
> There doesn't appear to be much flexibility in efficient design choices.

Most of these are similar, yes... but even there you get a variety of 
visually distinct vehicles like MT-LB, M113, YPR-765/AIFV (which is a 
development of the M113, but with a distinctly different rear hull), BvS10 
and so on. I mostly agree about the *wheeled* troop carriers though <g>

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxxx

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

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