Re: Tanks

On  2-Feb-00 at 16:03, Popeyesays@aol.com (Popeyesays@aol.com) wrote:
 
> If you go to tiny tank crews, the platoon can no longer tend to their
own 
> maintenance, security and scouting and you will have to permanently
assign
> an  IFV and squad to the tank platoon. This means it is no longer an
armor
>  platoon at all and while task-forcing the company level is an asset,
I am
> not  in any way sure that it is a good concept for the platoon. The
grunts
> will	also get stuck with helpin maintenance on the other three
vehicles in
> the  platoon besides their own - whil volunteering to do such with one
a
> nother is  a good thing - it is still a dirty job to be assigned
routinely.
> They would  also get stuck with security and scouting routinely which
would
> not promote  the idea of cooperation in the platoon very much at all.
> There's is simply  too much for a tank crew to do in	24 hours in the
field
> and still insist on  reducing the size of that crew.

This makes absolutely no sense.  Stick in an autoloader, it should be
fast and as reliable.  Then you are left with fewer potential
casualties.
So you need to have someone help with maintenance, he is in the jeep 
further back.  You have tank maintenance crews just like you have 
aircraft maintenance crews.  Even better, the tank maintenance 
crew (5 guys with special equipment) can take care of the tanks 
better by leveraging training, experience and equipment.

If you want to argue extra eyes I will keep my mouth shut.  If you
want to tell me the tank cdr gets lonely and needs someone to
talk to I'll pretend short range SS doesn't already exist.  You 
want to tell me we need someone in the tank hefting big pieces
of metal, come on, strength based manual labor has gone the way
of the dinosaur everywhere else, you only put humans where 
intelligence is necessary.

Roger