T-62 armor beats anything we have, I know because I left the Rangers for armor

[Razgovory]

The iraqis, not many.
Arabs hate LFX (live fire exercises) because it is shameful for them to miss the target.
When they train, they only do dry fires, and blanks when doing complex excercises.

There is nothing wrong with dry firing. We dry fire near 50% of our weapons training. Dry firing is how you drill the fundamentals of marksmanship on your soldiers, how you iron out any mistakes in applying the fundamentals. During our LFXs, we always do our stick lanes (infantry battledrills 1 through 8) with Dry fire first, then Blanks, and finally with live ammo. The same for sniper drills.

More importantly, it's expensive.  I imagine tank training is more expensive (especially before simulators), then infantry training.  Tanks break down a lot, and go through a lot of spare parts.  They also require fuel and expensive ammo.  Infantry can practice maneuvers on foot with out using a lot of resources.  Tanks, not so much.

[Siege]

Can someone enlighten me about what's wrong with leaving the rangers for armour? 

i'm not sure of a perfect analogy within the Great Hive, but it might be the difference between leaving the cog for the gear. it is simply not done

The Great Hive.
No better analogy for China I have ever heard.

Great name for the Enemy.
Make no mistake, China is the Enemy.

[Siege]

Fighting the Bees just got a new name.

[Siege]

I meant, a new meaning.

too many Miller Lites

[Mr.Penguin]

As an aside, I discovered that the US 90mm gun used the same mantlet and mounting as the 76mm gun on the M-10 and M4 (76).  There was nothing whatever keeping the US from field-modding the M4/76 (particularly the Easy 8 version with the improved turret rotation capability) to an M4/90, other than the competition between the armor and tank destroyer bureaucracies in DC that caused the tank boys to turn their noses up at whatever the TD boys developed.  The M4/90 could have been fielded for D-Day.  Some were, in fact, produced as the M36B1 (but without the turret tops, as the TD boys couldn't abide turret tops).

That's fucking awful

The project with fielding a vehicle based 90mm atcually started in late 42, a project that lead to the M36 GMC. However it was an uphill struggle to get it in the field, as the bean counters and the top brass was against the idea of having to deal with yet another tank round in the logistic chain. Basically the same reasons as why the M4 Sherman wasn't equipped with the 76mm before the spring 1944, the M36 GMC with it's 90mm gun wasn't approved for field use until right after the D-day landings...

All a result of a doctrine where Tanks deal with the infantry support and TD's deal with enemy armor, no reason mix thing up...   

[Razgovory]

I can sympathize with not wanting more logistic headaches, but the TD doctrine was a stupid result of Army turf wars.  Similar to the Tank-combat car fight that happened earlier.  More damning for McNair was his training regimen that left soldiers (especially infantry) insufficiently trained.  The result was that American Infantry had poor morale through out most of the ETO.  The replacement system was also a major problem, but that wasn't really his fault.  That was more of a political decision based on the perceived need to keep men working in factories.

[Siege]

Fuck man, you have no idea how much an officer's training influence on his decisions when he makes it up the ranks.
My current battalion commander was never a Recon Platoon Leader, so he doesn't know what to do with a Recon platoon, the most flexible force avalible to a Battalion Commander.
He was a Line Infantry Platoon Leader, an Infantry Company XO, an Infantry Company Commander, an Infantry Battalion XO, an now an Infantry Battalion Commander, without a clue of what to do with a Recon Platoon.

What can I say?
Big Army should never promote somebody to Battalion Commander without being a Recon Platoon Leader.

[grumbler]

The project with fielding a vehicle based 90mm atcually started in late 42, a project that lead to the M36 GMC. However it was an uphill struggle to get it in the field, as the bean counters and the top brass was against the idea of having to deal with yet another tank round in the logistic chain. Basically the same reasons as why the M4 Sherman wasn't equipped with the 76mm before the spring 1944, the M36 GMC with it's 90mm gun wasn't approved for field use until right after the D-day landings...

The ironic thing is that the main reason the 76mm gun took so long to field in the Sherman was the inadequacy of the 76mm HE round; an excellent 90mm HE round was already in hand, though.  There was no reason to field the 76mm Sherman.  You could have taken those same tanks, plunked in the 90mm gun, and added nothing to the logistics train, because there would have been no 76mm version.  The 90mm M3 gun was actually available long before the M36 was available to carry it, and could have been produced instead of the very mediocre 76mm M6.

[Mr.Penguin]

The project with fielding a vehicle based 90mm atcually started in late 42, a project that lead to the M36 GMC. However it was an uphill struggle to get it in the field, as the bean counters and the top brass was against the idea of having to deal with yet another tank round in the logistic chain. Basically the same reasons as why the M4 Sherman wasn't equipped with the 76mm before the spring 1944, the M36 GMC with it's 90mm gun wasn't approved for field use until right after the D-day landings...

The ironic thing is that the main reason the 76mm gun took so long to field in the Sherman was the inadequacy of the 76mm HE round; an excellent 90mm HE round was already in hand, though.  There was no reason to field the 76mm Sherman.  You could have taken those same tanks, plunked in the 90mm gun, and added nothing to the logistics train, because there would have been no 76mm version.  The 90mm M3 gun was actually available long before the M36 was available to carry it, and could have been produced instead of the very mediocre 76mm M6.

You couldn't take a standard M4 Sherman and fit the 90mm gun in it. They already had problems fitting the 76mm gun, due to the balance of the turret and ended up using a cut down version of the 76mm gun...

They did however make a prototype turret with the 90mm gun, that could be fitted to a standard M4 Sherman hull as it used the same turret ring...



It was ready for testing in April 1944, but it was canceled by the ordnance department as they feared it's testing and production would interfere with the fielding of the M26 Pershing Tank... 

[grumbler]

You couldn't take a standard M4 Sherman and fit the 90mm gun in it. They already had problems fitting the 76mm gun, due to the balance of the turret and ended up using a cut down version of the 76mm gun...

There is no such thing as a standard M4 Sherman.  There were many M4 Shermans.  The M4 with the T23 turret could take (and did take) the 90mm M3 gun as a direct and field-replaceable replacement for the 76mm M6.  It was fielded as the M36B1 (though the turret was completed as an open-topped turret to conform with TD doctrine).  I would imagine they would have had to add a bustle on the back of the turret to balance the increased weight of the gun, as they had had to do for the 105mm.

They did however make a prototype turret with the 90mm gun, that could be fitted to a standard M4 Sherman hull as it used the same turret ring...

It was ready for testing in April 1944, but it was canceled by the ordnance department as they feared it's testing and production would interfere with the fielding of the M26 Pershing Tank... 

They tested the T26 turret on the M4 hull, as shown in the pictures.  This was a completely different concept and never saw action.

[Mr.Penguin]

There is no such thing as a standard M4 Sherman.  There were many M4 Shermans.  The M4 with the T23 turret could take (and did take) the 90mm M3 gun as a direct and field-replaceable replacement for the 76mm M6.  It was fielded as the M36B1 (though the turret was completed as an open-topped turret to conform with TD doctrine).  I would imagine they would have had to add a bustle on the back of the turret to balance the increased weight of the gun, as they had had to do for the 105mm.

When I say standard M4 turret do I mean the early turrets used for the Shermans with the 75mm gun, generally known as the one cupolas turrets. The T-23 turret came from the T-23 medium Tank project and was designed with a 76mm gun from the start, so it was used to solve the problem with early one cupola turrets and the 76mm. The production of Sherman's with the T23 turret didn't start before May 1944 and didn't arrive at the front before late 1944...

[Habbaku]

There is no such thing as a standard M4 Sherman.  There were many M4 Shermans.  The M4 with the T23 turret could take (and did take) the 90mm M3 gun as a direct and field-replaceable replacement for the 76mm M6.  It was fielded as the M36B1 (though the turret was completed as an open-topped turret to conform with TD doctrine).  I would imagine they would have had to add a bustle on the back of the turret to balance the increased weight of the gun, as they had had to do for the 105mm.

When I say standard M4 turret do I mean the early turrets used for the Shermans with the 75mm gun, generally known as the one cupolas turrets. The T-23 turret came from the T-23 medium Tank project and was designed with a 76mm gun from the start, so it was used to solve the problem with early one cupola turrets and the 76mm. The production of Sherman's with the T23 turret didn't start before May 1944 and didn't arrive at the front before late 1944...

[Siege]

There is no such thing as a standard M4 Sherman.  There were many M4 Shermans.  The M4 with the T23 turret could take (and did take) the 90mm M3 gun as a direct and field-replaceable replacement for the 76mm M6.  It was fielded as the M36B1 (though the turret was completed as an open-topped turret to conform with TD doctrine).  I would imagine they would have had to add a bustle on the back of the turret to balance the increased weight of the gun, as they had had to do for the 105mm.

When I say standard M4 turret do I mean the early turrets used for the Shermans with the 75mm gun, generally known as the one cupolas turrets. The T-23 turret came from the T-23 medium Tank project and was designed with a 76mm gun from the start, so it was used to solve the problem with early one cupola turrets and the 76mm. The production of Sherman's with the T23 turret didn't start before May 1944 and didn't arrive at the front before late 1944...

[grumbler]

There is no such thing as a standard M4 Sherman.  There were many M4 Shermans.  The M4 with the T23 turret could take (and did take) the 90mm M3 gun as a direct and field-replaceable replacement for the 76mm M6.  It was fielded as the M36B1 (though the turret was completed as an open-topped turret to conform with TD doctrine).  I would imagine they would have had to add a bustle on the back of the turret to balance the increased weight of the gun, as they had had to do for the 105mm.

When I say standard M4 turret do I mean the early turrets used for the Shermans with the 75mm gun, generally known as the one cupolas turrets. The T-23 turret came from the T-23 medium Tank project and was designed with a 76mm gun from the start, so it was used to solve the problem with early one cupola turrets and the 76mm. The production of Sherman's with the T23 turret didn't start before May 1944 and didn't arrive at the front before late 1944...

[Mr.Penguin]

Yeah, I have seen it, a failed attempt at reducing the number of quotes, my bad...

But once again here is reply: When I say standard M4 turret do I mean the early turrets used for the Shermans with the 75mm gun, generally known as the one cupolas turrets. The T-23 turret came from the T-23 medium Tank project and was designed with a 76mm gun from the start, so it was used to solve the problem with early one cupola turrets and the 76mm. The production of Sherman's with the T23 turret didn't start before May 1944 and didn't arrive at the front before late 1944...