Domobran7

So I remembered this photo: of Croatian crews training on Panzer IV. But the only info I managed to find is this: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/croatia and it doesn't state if Panzer IVs were ever delivered to Croatia and actually used by Croatian formations. Are there any sources on that?

For discussion of Rafale in Croatian Air Force. For start I will link to several articles in rough chronological order, including few of my own as composed from Croatian sources: https://n1info.hr/english/news/croatia-signs-e999-purchase-deal-to-buy-12-rafale-fighter-jets-from-france/ https://warviews.wordpress.com/2023/10/02/croatia-received-its-first-rafale/ https://warviews.wordpress.com/2023/11/12/croatian-rafale-number-101-to-number-170/ https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/group/press/press-kits/the-rafale-enters-service-in-the-croatian-air-force/ https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/2024/04/26/rafale-fighter-jets-delivered-to-croatia/ https://warviews.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/dassault-rafale-in-croatia/ And some videos:

Drachinifel on SMS Nassau

I'd say main benefit of unmanned turrets will be in terms of survivability, not weight savings. Basically, unmanned turret as an expendable / ablative armor against top-attack weapons.

There are two major problems with the idea of stand behind Vistula. First, majority of Polish industry was in the western part of the country... specifically, areas formerly occupied by the German Empire. This means that regardless of what Hitler wanted or did not want, abandoning west of the country was not an option if Poland was to have any chance of defending itself in a protracted war. Second, Soviet Union was there, and it was friendly to Germany. In fact, Germany and USSR had been negotiating on how to conquer and divide Poland since 1919... if anything Hitler, with his anti-Communist rhetoric, put a temporary stop on these negotiations. And Poles were aware of this. So stuck between the Scylla and the Charybdis, they had only two options. 1) To make a stand at the border or 2) to create a fortified zone in the southeast of the country - towards Slovakia and Romania - and make a stand there. They opted to combine the two very bad options into one option possibly worse than either.

"Theoretical considerations of what Soros could do" are hardly theoretical. He did it in Croatia, and elsewhere. Now, it wasn't just an issue of Soros, but consider that the moment Tudjman died, hardline Communists came back to power in Croatia. And that was done with help of Soros, who helped finance the Feral Tribune - which was immediately shut down as soon as it had served its purpose. Compared to that "democracy", Austro-Hungarian monarchy was far superior choice.

Eh, everybody today sits in the ivory tower, to an extent. But people such as academic professors, sociologists etc. tend to think in terms of "models" and "theories"... they are basically writing fiction, and then going on to pretend their fiction applies to the real world.

As much as I would have liked them to have done so, Austria-Hungary never in fact built a prototype Dalek battle tank. Their development was based, from what I could find out, mostly on various types of armored cars, as well as some sort of an armored truck? Is there any good literature on that?

Yeah, it does seem that Challie 3 will have modular armor. Thanks!

Battleships went extinct because their role went extinct. Unless we find something that will replace tank in its role of heavy maneuver element and direct fire support for infantry, I don't think it will go extinct. It will definitely change, though.

What I meant is external modules that can be relatively easily removed and replaced in the field in order to facilitate repairs, and that these actually are the primary armor of the tank instead of being merely uparmoring of the existing armored structure akin to Challenger 2 Megatron. Thanks!

Are there any tanks which use modular armor as their standard armor? As in, instead of composite armor being inbuilt into tank, it is instead applied in form of removable modules - similar to ERA. I imagine that might be technically difficult to pull off, but on the flip side it would be possible to adjust configuration and thickness of armor for different environments (e.g. more forward-heavy armor for open fields, lighter armor when mobility is required, heavy all-around armor for urban combat), and it would make it easier to upgrade tank's armor as new composites and armor setups are developed. Only tank that I can remember which uses such an approach is French Leclerc (it appears that Merkava Mk.III and Mk.IV also use such modular armor). Why? Is it due to concerns of modules falling off if hit?

Looks like Ukraine wants to join the bric(k)s... by the way, is it only ERA as I suspect or they are using NERA packages as well?

Ah, the claymore and longbow guy...

I have this idea that the guy may have been one of the best generals of World War 2. I honestly cannot remember any commander that might rival him... von Rundstedt and Model, maybe?

Problem is, if everything in your army is protected like an MBT, then everything in your army drinks fuel like an MBT. And armored divisions are majority non-MBT, which means that if you replace current IFVs and APCs with MBT variants, then overall divisional fuel consumption goes up considerably... perhaps several times (I don't know how much exactly, didn't do calculations). And that fuel has to come to you in very thin-skinned vehicles which have to be protected along the way... and if you armor the fuel transports, then they need even more fuel. So while heavily armored pseudo-MBT APC certainly makes sense for urban warfare and counterinsurgency, it is questionable if it makes sense for more conventional war. On the flip side, if ATGMs and drones mean that warfare has indeed become more static again, then it might make sense to sacrifice mobility for protection.

Thanks!

But doesn't HEAT warhead have an optimal standoff distance from the hull for maximum penetration? IIRC it is between 6 and 8 diameters; so if you manage to cause early activation, penetration is reduced. That was the theory behind spaced armor in the first place. Of course, it might be that the difference with modern missiles is simply too small to actually matter - +-10 mm won't do much when penetration is >500 mm RHA...

So basically there is nothing inherent in modern day tank design that would prevent such large-scale production? Thanks!

I know that due to their complexity, modern tanks are being built, instead of M4 Sherman-like World War 2 production line. Would it be possible at all for modern tanks to be produced instead of built, and what it would require?

I believe Oikinawa was taken to serve as a base for B-29 bombers?

Looks like track came off the wheels: Btw, what is done when track gets dislodged like that?

Historically, I think three Sd.Kfz.9 halftracks were required to tow a single Tiger. Of course, allowance had to be made for uneven ground etc.

Nick Morain discusses it here, but do we know why specifically Soviets went for the rear drive (T-34, IS-1, IS-2, etc.), Germany and US opted almost exclusively for the frontal drive, and British seem to have had a combination of two? Because from what Nick says, having frontal drive actually simplified maintenance with the engines of the time. Could it have had with the terrain they expected to fight in?

I am aware. On the flip side however, even if a tank is superior in combat, that does not mean you will get more value out of it if you cannot get it to combat because it is mechanically unreliable / difficult to transport / cannot cross bridges and so on. Do we know how bad Tiger's and Panther's reliability issues really were, and how much of that was due to their design as opposed to lack of spare parts due to Allied bombing (and was it bombing or just incorrect prioritization?)? I suspect interleaved wheels did them no favor, especially in Russia...