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It's often said that the CVR/T tank family of the British was required to be narrow enough to fit between the rubber trees on Malaysian plantations due to the British experiences in the late 40's conflict there.
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| (c)Irish Defence Forces |
I don't care whether it's an myth or true - it inspired me to think of what we should require regarding vehicle maximum sizes in Europe. I do explicitly exclude heavy logistics and support vehicles as well as tanks here; just thinking of common battlefield used by forces in or close to a battle such as cars and APCs.
The war in Ukraine has shown the importance of being able to hide troops, vehicles and supplies once again. It also had and has a substantial share of combat inside woodland, even including tank actions.
Garage doors aren't standardised even in Germany, but they are very commonly sized to fit at most a medium-sized SUV.
Doors aren't fully standardised either, but there's a certain common size that could inform requirements regarding UGVs and all kinds of manually-moved containers on wheels belonging to headquarters, field kitchens and the like.
One thing is for sure: We should NOT permit battlefield vehicles to be needlessly too tall for concealment. Vehicles so tall that to disguise them as a building is the only promising approach should not exist. 
"Boxer" - some geniuses want to add a turret on top
S O
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Also, I heard the US Marines had to leave their Humvees back as they couldn't fit down the streets in Fallujah.
ReplyDeleteYou may have mentioned this before, but again myth or true, highlights the need for ready set of vehicles that can be called upon at short notice.
If you need an example you can use the Dragón spanish APC also called "the bus" by the troops due to it's big size in excess of 3,5 meters high.
ReplyDeletehttps://tess-defence.es/en/programa-vcr-8x8-dragon-2/
Seems a bit dishonest to show a boxer with the raised roof ambulance module and write "some geniuses want to add a turret on top" . No one wants to add a turret to the raised roof module.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but the raise is small and I used my own photo from ILA.
Deletehttps://x.com/nicholadrummond/status/1270382199783804928?t=BsMSBbZN8FEFfUf81uM6eg&s=19
Well, at least in War Thunder small and fast vehicles are very useful. They are known as rats in the game. Armed with autocannons, ATGMs and RCLs. Shoot and scoot in every nook and cranny. Some notable ones: Wiesel 1A2, Fox, XM800T, R3 T106 FA.
ReplyDeleteIt's as tall as a block of flats, that's why we call it 'the mothership'. Is the future Luchs2 not also ridiculously tall?
ReplyDeleteThe new generation of 'cavalry fighting vehicles' (eg Ajax and Luchs2) seem to be for the wrong/last war ... again. The experience of Ukrainian comrades points to stealthy recce patrols, with targets addressed by HE (arty and drones).
An army's competence at selecting and the taste for military equipment appears to suffer badly from not having been involved in war for a long time.
DeleteThey create wishlists that add up to a big vehicle. They could require a more practical size regarding ability to hide, but then they would have to make more difficult compromises in other regards, and that's where organisation, culture and individual self-discipline get in the way.
I was checking the dimensions of different IMVs (eg Bushmaster and Dingo), as well as APCs (eg Fuchs and CAVS) earlier. Nothing seems to have a truly low silhouette any longer. The Artec website tells me the Boxer APC roof height is lower than Bushmaster, CAVs and Dingo.
DeleteThere's a conflict between too cramped/too weak protection
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAF_YP-408
and too big/heavy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_(armoured_fighting_vehicle)
It cannot be solved to everyone's satisfaction, but you can settle at a better compromise than either extreme.
IMO battlefield vehicles should have continuous composite bandtracks, which permits much lower roof heights and gives much better soft soil mobility than 8x8.
Non-battlefield vehicles (logistics and such) of field forces (army corps) should be mostly efficient 8x8 vehicles with non-pneumatic tyres (high capacity vehicles to drive down personnel needs, required qty of expensive C-UAS RCWS and convoy lengths/convoy quantities in dispersed movements).
So I'm not against huge vehicles, but I'm against huge vehicles meant to linger or even fight in a battlezone. That's 9...40 km depth nowadays.
Well to quote War Thunder again Object 775 missile tank was 174cm tall. Anything shorter is a tankette.
DeleteBeing shorter makes you more vulnerable to landmines. Remember why MRAPs exist? You have to make a choice.
Ah yes, but 8x8 is 'less expensive' and 'lighter' (hello Mr GTK), 'quieter' and can 'self-deploy' ... so I am 'reliably' informed. Oh, I forgot the bit about them being shiny and all the cool kids having them.
ReplyDeleteI saw a short video of one of these a few years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitterskyddad_EnhetsPlattform
Extremely quiet.
No true offroad vehicle can handle an anti-tank mine well without substantial demining kit.
DeleteA medium tank could follow the all crew in turret approach, which solves the issue with turret armour overhanging the driver's hatch and is super simple with today's camera and display tech. No driver in hull makes it easy to build a bandtrack vehicle that handles AT mines better than any existing true offroad combat vehicle.
DeleteMeanwhile ... on wikipedia, there's this -- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittlere_Kr%C3%A4fte, which says the 'fighting style' of the medium brigades is to be what we'd call in english 'recce-strike'. Again, this poses the question, why does the taxi has to be so bloody huge?
Recce-Strike means they lack the vehicles to go into a fight, so they hope to smash with the almost non-existing artillery, the non-functional and not survivable attack helicopters which have almost no munitions and hypothetical close air support.
DeleteVehicle height is no longer an important factor when both warring parties have FPV drones. It's only important for un-scouted LOS combat.
ReplyDeleteA size which can fit into common buildings to hide OTOH may be useful.
There are plenty misses on moving vehicles by drones moving quickly. A bigger target is an easier target.
DeleteFurthermore, you can hide it with much greater difficulty if at all, same with deception. Digging to give it a shelter is much more laborious. Fuel consumption correlates with weight. Depressions & walls will provide less ground LOS cover. Size correlates with costs. Bigger vehicles are visible from greater distance. Heavier & bigger means more difficult recovery. Higher means leads to higher centre of gravity.
Even 8x8 HX2 can deal with 40% side slope, Boxer only with 30%.