RE: Way Way Way OT )Stealth and Countermeasures..For Ray

This is some of the point I was trying to make in my post about colonies
and 
force/weapons structures.

Michael Brown

-----Original Message-----
From:	Alan E and Carmel J Brain
Sent:	Wednesday, December 08, 1999 6:50 PM
To:	gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject:	Re: Way Way Way OT )Stealth and Countermeasures..For Ray

Geoffery R wrote:

> "Eventually we ran out of
> ammunition before they ran out off tanks."
>
> And that in a nut shell is Quanty Vs Quality.

"Quantity has a Quality of its own"
- Josef Vissarionich Dzugashvili aka Stalin

There's another matter, logistics.

I had a good talk to a senior officer of the Thai armed forces on this
one, re the benefits of getting 120 odd crappy Chinese T-59s vs half a
dozen Leopard IIs.
The T-59s might have about 50 operational at any one moment, whereas the
Superior German Technology would have 5 (with the right maintenance).
But a T-59 can be fixed in an auto shop. And although 1 Leopard-II would
easily deal with 100+ T-59s under most circumstances (if supplied with
enough ammunition), after a march through bad terrain, you'd be lucky to
have one left that didn't need repair. Same with the T-59s, but they
didn't need the extensive infrastructure, and could be repaired to an
adequate standard "in situ". And they get plenty of practice!
He was surprised when I agreed with him that the Thai approach made
sense _for them_. For Germany or the US, where tank crews are more
valuable and costly than tanks, Hi-Tech is the way to go, the higher the
better.
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