Hmm wheeled APC/IFVs are very much in trend nowadays. I remember in the 1980s and 90s nearly all APC/IFVs were tracked (most of them US-made M110s), with wheeled ones very few.

I'd prefer a tracked APC/IFV over a wheeled one, they are more versatile in all terrains. Limitations of wheeled APC/IFVs have been shown in Afghanistan, where US Strykers had a hard time operating in the bad roads in the country. If a country has a decent road network they should be fine, but not all countries have that.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Feb 11 2016, 03:04 PM

One problem with ejector seats is they can't be tested without essentially rendering them useless for later use. You can't go and test them and reinstall them later for further use. Once you use the seats, whether in actual ejection or in tests, you're rendering it useless. You can't replace the explosive/thruster parts of an ejector seat. The seat basically a disposable item in the plane. Also as you can't actually test the seats yourself, you're basically taking the manufacturer's word that their seats work.

That's why ejector seats have a relatively short usage life, you can't safely keep using it for long periods of time as there may be damage in the explosive/thruster parts that you can't even test for. I heard somewhere that a service life of an ejector seat is somewhere like the region of 10 years. After that you have to get rid of them.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Feb 12 2016, 08:29 AM

Flip side is tyres are worn down much more rapidly than steel tracks, especially on rough terrain. Run-flat tyres do help if a tyre does burst, but these are for emergencies only to help the vehicle maintain balance and doesn't totally replace a burst tyre.

Also why is no-one thinking of developing some sort of armor to at least partially shield the (VERY EXPOSED) tyres from bullets and shrapnel? I find it absurd that even battle tanks have skirt armor to shield their steel tracks while nearly all wheeled APC/IFVs have tyres naked and exposed for the enemy to shoot at? If I was trying to destroy/disable an armored wheeled vehicle my first instinct is to try and take out the tyres.

I do get one of the reasons is for ease of replacing damaged tyres, but can they at least make sure the tyres are somewhat protected from damage in the first place?

Haha you're a Navy man, and you ask us landlubbers about a naval ship?

I would not recommend you doing this in areas infested with insurgent fighters, though.

If it comes to this, I'd probably rather risk making my way back to base on foot than on a noisy, crippled bullet magnet.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Feb 12 2016, 01:24 PM

Hard enough for cross country running maybe but not as hard as any bullet or shrapnel though. I still don't think wheeled armored vehicles belong in the front lines. They are way too vulnerable for hard combat and certainly not as APC or IFV that operate on the front edge of combat together with more heavily armored vehicles like MBT or tracked AC/IFVs.

If you look at the side profile of any wheeled APC, they are literally 50% consisting of exposed wheels just begging to be shot. For me that's way too much soft target to be freely displayed to your enemies. A single MG or rifle burst could potentially take out every wheel on one side of the vehicle.




While I think wheeled armored vehicles do still have a military role, I think they are more suited to non-direct combat ones as light recon platforms or internal-security vehicles. For combat, give me a tracked M113 anyday.

This is why i love this forum.

I one day absent only have so many exciting things happen already.

You just pointed out the symptom of this affair: IEDs are more numerous and effective these days because western forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are too bound to the sparse road network. The fact that they need roads for their heavy wheeled armored vehicles like the MRAPs & Strykers and only some few good roads that are available in these countries literally funnel the vehicles into easily mined and ambushed territory.

Insurgents could safely guess which road a patrol will go through due to the lack of good roads able to take the weight of a heavy wheeled vehicle. Just bury an IED on a road near a significant village or town and you're bound to get some military patrol coming through there eventually.

To avoid the IEDs being detonated by regular traffic, insurgents have learned the absurdly simple method of burying the detonator system at a certain depth where the only the heavier weight of an armored vehicle will detonate it and not lighter everyday vehicles.

Well, the majority of global air forces use probe-and-drogue C-130 or Il-76 for midair refueling so I think it is the best current solution.

If you are proposing an actual dedicated tanker like a KC-135 Stratotanker or KC-10 Extender, I don't think we can afford something like that anytime soon.

Use the Bunga Mas auxiliary ships model, or straightaway RMN buy a few used MISC container ships and use them as supply vessels.

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Feb 15 2016, 11:32 AM

I get that tracked vehicles also use roads, problem is sometimes 15-20 ton heavy wheeled vehicles cannot even move to the side of the road to bypass a suspected stretch of road, especially after bad weather. Everyone have to either wait in full view of insurgents for either engineers to find and disable any IEDs or wait for anti-IED vehicles.

LoL, suddenly got Malaysia?

Sounds like Saudis syok sendiri.

Haha damn straight it's not that meaningful. All the military strength taken into account are the numbers only and not of type, so here a country that has 50 Pilatus trainers will rank higher than a country that has 'only' 5 F-16s.

What kind of ranking is that? Ridiculous.

Pinoy got any actual battle tanks meh? This makes me think the list includes their old armored cars also as 'tanks'.


In that case we should be higher on the list la, coz we still have hundreds of Condor and Sibmas armored cars.

Strategic Weapons Review: 9K52 Luna-M (NATO: FROG-7)



The 9K52 Luna-M (Russian: Луна; English: moon) is a Soviet short-range artillery rocket system. The 9M21 rockets are unguided and spin-stabilized. Its GRAU designation is 9K52, and its NATO reporting name is FROG-7. "FROG" is an acronym for "Free Rocket Over Ground".

The 9M21 rockets are mounted on a wheeled 9P113 transporter erector launcher (TEL) based on the ZIL-135 8x8 army truck. The TEL features a large hydraulic crane used for reloading rockets from 9T29 transporters (also ZIL-135 based). The 9M21 has a range up to 70 km and a CEP (circular error probable) between 500 m and 700 m. The rocket has different designations for each type of warhead installed: 9M21B (5-20kt nuclear warhead), 9M21G (VX chemical warhead) and 9M21F (450 kg HE warhead or cluster bomb dispenser).

The Luna was later extensively deployed throughout Soviet satellite states. The rocket has been widely exported and is now in the possession of a large number of countries. The Luna-M missile and its variants has shown to have incredible longevity and are still in service, with the rocket itself being easily maintained and has a long shelf life, especially among military forces in the middle east such as Egypt and Iran.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in the Battle of the Karbala Gap, the Headquarters of the 2nd Brigade, US 3rd Infantry Division, Tactical Operations Center (TOC) of U.S Col. David Perkins, was targeted and struck by either an Iraqi FROG-7 rocket or an Ababil-100 SSM missile, killing three soldiers and two embedded journalists. Another 14 soldiers were injured, and 22 vehicles destroyed or seriously damaged, most of them Humvees. Luna-M rockets also saw use in the Yugoslav civil wars, with Serbia using them to target major Bosnian and Croatian cities.

SS-21 Scarab missile usually armed with cluster bomblet dispenser instead of HE warhead, that why most pics will often have a strangely intact missile even after a missile strike.



If HE warhead the entire missile would have been destroyed in the explosion. Here after finished scattering cluster bomblet, the missile will just crash after the fuel burnt out, thus leaving a relatively intact missile.


Eastern Ukraine


Georgia


P.S: Epic fail, where got SS-21 Scarab missile launch by ship?

This post has been edited by MilitaryMadness: Feb 17 2016, 07:40 AM

MMEA set to receive new Patrol vessels by 2018
This is serious money right there, around $180 million USD for 2 coast guard ships. I wonder what he is talking about?

OPVs of some sort. Dunno the specifics, though.

Probably OPVs made for Naval duties are ok for that price range, but for coast guard duties?

I'm more partial for vehicle-borne .50 M2HB in terms of destructive power, but hey, whatever.

Not a big fan. Sure Gatlings can spew hot lead like nobody's business, but it eats ammunition like hell and needs an external power source to operate. Hope those AV4s have tons of extra ammo unless you want to shoot those Gatlings for a grand total of 5 seconds.