GIThruster wrote:I really don't want to continue with this argument. The decision to cancel the Crusader was made by Rumsfeld and if you acquaint yourself with his statements at the time, that shoulder fired anti-tank weapons had made that system obsolete, and if you acquaint yourself with what the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" is all about, you'll then be able to speak knowledgeably on the subject. The Crusader was cool because it had a robotic loading system but beyond that it was very expensive and totally unnecessary. As I said, we don't even use the Paladins we have.
M1s will be around probably until 2050. Gen three is on the books now.
The move to fast light deployables started in the 80's. Look at eh history of 25th Infantry in HI, also the concept of Rapid Deployable Forces.
Rumsfield's speaches were very heavily political in nature by design. He was working to break the aqusitions paradigm. He did not fully succeed.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
choff wrote:All my knowledge of modern warfare comes from playing Panzer General against a computer. Any scenario I was stuck with SP artillery was a loser. They were either out of ammo, or out of fuel, or too darn slow to arrive and be of use. Towed artillery alway made more sense, you had more of it, and the problem was getting ahead of the tanks, not being stuck back in the rear.
One other thing I found from the game, SP antitank guns made more sense that tanks, weapons like the StuIIIG or Hetzer, even the PanzerJagr IB. Cheaper means more vehicles, turrets are over rated, look at the Swedish S tank. It employed a protection system not seen since the German Mark IVJ, which also saved weight.
LOL
Do you still play PG?
I play the windows 7 downloadable version, PG Forever. though now I'm playing Allied General against the PC.
By 2050 there will be a reason to replace field pieces and armor of all sorts. Regenerative Liquid Propellant Guns would be a huge step forward for towed and especially self propelled guns and tanks because it hugely reduces the volume of the propellant as well as the loading time. If your loading time is short enough, you need fewer guns. The Crusader was actually able to get 8 shots into the air on different trajectories to the target so they all land at about the same time, within a couple seconds. When you can do that you can use 2 guns instead of 6 and you have a whole new set of trades.
Of course autoloading and liquid propellant can be used with towed guns too, but the volume savings is especially nice for self propelled. Crusader had a tender--a second vehicle built on the same frame that did nothing but transport ammo--so the system was always twice the size people envisioned it.
Tanks may go straight to railguns but artillery really does want the nice ballistic arc so liquid propellant makes sense. IMHO, the ultimate use for liquid propellant is the rifle. Liquid propellant rifles based on designed like the G11 could easily have a couple hundred shots loaded at a time, and that is real breakthrough design. That is, unless we end up with EVO guns first.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
I think all that depends on how the battlefields of the future develop. If we remain stuck with insurgent type enemies and conflicts like in Iraq or Afghanistan and Gaza, then there is very little need for better artillery other than maybe smarter projectiles to limit collateral damage to "human shields".
I think that conflicts like these will actual mean more emphasis on infantry and increasing the strike capability as well as the survivability of infantry soldiers as well as surgical strikes from UAVs. Like UAVs, I think that exoskeletons will probably be a major part of that, together with better body armor, smarter infantry weapons and even more net centric warfare.
One of the benefits of battery developments in recent years is that exoskeletons can become more and more powerful. It does not take a lot of fantasy to imagine a one man battle tank (in exoskeleton that allows extremely fast sprints and high jumps) the way Heinlein imagined it in Starship troopers. Of course that would require a lot more power than we have today. But we still have 38 years until 2050...
"Take that for putting my father in a pie, you four-eyed Scottish bastard!" exalted Peter and gave a little rabbity hop for joy.
Too funny!
"Now Benjamin's father, had no opinion whatsoever of cats, but Benjamin was shit scared of them, and would have surely voided himself in his attire, had not the cat been one huge ball of flame, and surely demising.
"demising"?
Just too funny.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
