Re: Tanks

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Roger Books wrote:

> 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 

You've already got a large tail as it is with a mechanized force. 
Currently 2x M88 (the Armoured Recovery Vehicle) help the tank company 
with recovery and repair of damaged and disabled vehicles. 

When a tank needs a power pack repair in the field, the tank crew is 
repsonsible for getting most of the prep work done before the M88 
arrives with a 2.5ton and a spare pack. The M88 crew change the pack out

and then the tank crew finishes the job. Since a tank crew has been 
inside the engine compartment and knows what things do, they take better

care of their tank (thier lives depend on it) and the tank crew
functions 
better as a team. 

Knowing how your systems work and being able to troubleshoot problems is

so much better than dumb users who don't care about their system and 
could give a rats ass if it breaks because someone else will come and
fix 
it for them. 

> further back.  You have tank maintenance crews just like you have 
> aircraft maintenance crews.  Even better, the tank maintenance 

This will result in less combat time. And less up time. 
Go read US Army FM 17-15 to get an idea of what a Tank Platoon needs to 
do to keep fighting. 
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/17-15/cont.htm

Pay particular attention to chap 7 with regards to logistics and 
maintanance operations.

> 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.

Its far more complex than the way you paint it. 

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- Ryan Montieth Gill	  NRA / DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
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