Manic Moran

I don't seem to recall that being one of mine, honestly.

He's on a Discord server I frequent (not a tank-related one, I should add). We have generally agreed to disagree on a few things, though he also observes he might have been a bit harsh on the concept of 'doctrine'. I also wonder if the direct attack (particularly FPV) drone problem is overstated. Training an FPV drone pilot actually takes quite a few months, there aren't many of them, and though they do make excellent and compelling video footage, I wonder if it isn't being disproportionately shown. The concern about drones used for observation is valid, though even at that, the Army's not entirely sitting around on its arse not trying to address the threat. If there is an excess threat caused by drones, I expect it'll be a short-term issue.

RCV-H is gone. Maybe not officially, but in practice. The only RCV program remaining is officially RCV-S, but it's been enlarged to incorporate some RCV-M technologies and roles.

Drones are subject to weather and bandwidth limitations, and aren't great at counter-recon. They have their place, but in the immortal words of General Robert Braden when told "You don't need scouts. You have radar, air recon, satellites..." : "You always need a scout".

Officially, many years ago. In practice... this photo was taken of a line of M1A2 Sep V2s about two years ago.

It is, I get it, unlikely. On the other hand, such things are also not unheard of. A gunner shifts his weight to help circulation, loses his balance on a root, and accidentally hits the trigger sort of thing. The thing about Fury is that almost everything in the movie happened in the war and Ayer had references up on the walls of his office, from tankers wearing top hats to an Audie Murphy stand. What didn't happen was everything happening to one crew, a concession to movie making as audiences aren't going to be interested in a War and Peace cast of hundreds.

I gave a presentation at Army Futures Command the other day. Timestamped to about 55 minutes in, but the whole thing is interesting: Note the speaker before me is Chief of Armor, probably worth a listen. The slides in the bottom left don't always update. Here (with possible formatting issues courtesy of Google Drive), is the deck. The link will only be valid for a few weeks before I delete it. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yPslK40_cQrdiVJ1xFG1lg2ZSXXqauyE/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117795378986577713857&rtpof=true&sd=true

It's in... not ideal shape, but good enough to film.

Also hidden bonus.

Apparently there is a long history of this.

I suspect the EPA or Health has much to do with it as well, and not only in Germany. Environmental regulations on training sites tend to mean "no destroying trees, no driving in these locations. You want to dig a fighting position?! You must be joking. Only on that designated digging range over there, and I don't care that it has no relationship to the mock battle you're about to fight. No, you can't have a slit trench latrine, you have to use the porta-potties"... And so on.

You're looking for something like the Faller Car System (Mainly European vehicles, though), Viessman CarMotion, or maybe Magnorail. There may be other options.

OK, I saw that one over a year ago when I was at Warren to film the M10. At the time, it was still a 'don't talk about it' design, I guess that's no longer the case. Thing's made of fiberglass. It is literally a conceptual model. Note the hatches in the bottom photo. It is an unmanned-turret concept, similar to TTB or Armata. There's no reason it can't become an 'optionally manned' vehicle in the future, but note how in the Ronkainen twitter photo the 'front part' between the tracks and forward of the turret is missing. Looks like they just pulled that part of the module away. Not sure why they did that, they may as well add armor or whatever. Otherwise those front side plates holding the wheels together are going to have to be very thick.

So I had a gander at the original slide last night. The title on the quad is “M1E3-NG MBT” At the very bottom of the slide is an asterisk, which says “Digital designs not representative of prototype vehicles”. In effect, it’s a cool image for the sake of putting something on the screen instead of an empty space.

Yes and no. They do have a particular design concept in mind. I may have been a little less forthcoming in my video than I was allowed to be, but erred on the side of caution, especially since I know more than I'm allowed put out and decided to make it a "these are considerations/possibilities" video. However, my understanding, and I'll watch the brief in a few days when it is made available online, is that the exact implementation of the design hasn't been nailed down yet. Thus I believe (esp from the wording of the Breaking Defense article), that what is shown on the screen is more of a 'placeholder' drawing for the sake of not leaving the powerpoint empty than an actual representation of what is envisioned. I'll be able to watch the briefing in a few days.