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 OldMate wrote:
Going to add some more to the roster.
A movie tank, technically it was armed with 3x functioning 6pdrs, and constructed to handle some pretty rough ground, so it actually had to be made like a tank to hold tegether, and not just be shaken apart in the Spanish desert. Its probably the spiritual father of the leman russ too. I mean look at its gun toting beastliness. You'd never want to go into battle in it, but they did a good job of making it look impressive!

Honestly, it does look exactly like what some middle eastern dictator would do if he got a handful of old MKV tanks and fiddled around with them. Not bad for a fictional tank.

 OldMate wrote:
The first ever serious wheeled IFV, the South African Ratel

Wouldn't that be WW2 era Sd Kfz 234 Puma, actually?

The puma is a large armoured car with no infantry capacity. The Ratel was intended as a transport. I am surprised it was the first in the early 1970s. I would of thought the Russian BRDM would have been first, but I see they were also an armoured recon vehicle.

Edited for research… was never an Alf.

Russian BTR-70 series was around in the early 70s. Its predecessor, the BTR-60 series was around in the late 50s. I think that is a little earlier than the Ratel.

 Irbis wrote:

 OldMate wrote:
The first ever serious wheeled IFV, the South African Ratel

Wouldn't that be WW2 era Sd Kfz 234 Puma, actually?

Thank you for giving me the oppotunity to put this up

So the 8x8 Rooikat(Afrikaans for Red cat or Cascarvel(the red furred African equivalent of a Lynx) if I am not mistaken) is actually quite comparable to the puma, although doctrinally different, as well as performing recon(and basically being a wheeled tank)its quite well mine protected and a very long range vehicle that in the case that another state tried to invade South Africa, the idea was that it'd raid and threaten convoys that were limited to only a few highways across the vastness of the svelt, the first model was armed with a fast firing 76mm cannon, that would essentially annhilate anything you expect in a supply convoy pretty quick and sharp, and you could carry much more ammo than a much larger and more redudant cannon, "and what if they use MBTs for convoy protection?" Well that is ideal, you are limiting the enemy tank pressence on the front lines AND slowing their suppl lines down to a crawl, two victories in one and all the Rooikat crews have to do is put a brew on and wait till the enemy drop the stupid MBT escort idea. BRDM is a recon vehicle, I'd say more comparable to a Rooikat than a Ratel, the Ratel makes up the rosters of the South African military's mechanised infantry corp in the same way the BMP does in the Soviet/Russian mechanised infantry corp.

The BTR series like all other similar vehicles were designed as APCs rather than IFVs. Armoured personnel carrier vs infantry fighting vehicle.
Here we tread the interesting, thin and fuzzy line between an IFV and an APC. History affords context which is vital to understanding the difference, so what is accredited as the worlds first IFV was the BMP1(although it must be said the A7V could fall into this definition, literally carrying a section of storm troopers, with their own flamethrower(sounds like a fun idea inside an AFV!), in its boxyness (in case you were wondering what business any land vehicle has with a crew of 18, yeah half of them were able to be dismounts) and doctrinally at least the German halftracks of ww2 as of a memo from around early 1942 states infantry should remain in the halftracks and fire out of the back of them, so clearly the idea was evolving during the world wars but the halftrack was still relatively lightly armoured and armed), the BMP was revolutionary and changed how mechanised warfare was to be fought. Instead of your vehicle being a glorified battle taxi that was proof against shell fragments, was designed to afford mobility and protection for the infantry from being flayed alive by shrapnel from artillery bombardment when moving to the front line and armed generally with a machinegun or 2 for suppressing the enemy whilst infantry disembarked(at least in theory, of course they were pressed into fire support roles when tanks were not avaliable, or as gun trucks when the enemy lacked the firepower to tackle an armoured vehicle), now every specialised mechanised infantry section(generally considered more elite and heavier infantry than those kitted with APCs (at least in the Red army)) would have a form of light tank that they could fight from mounted (utilising top hatches over the infantry compartmemt, and/or firing ports along the side of the infantry compartment(although this idea has waned in favor in recent years in favor of putting more protection on the sides of the vehicle) or dismounted from with the vehicle being able to back them up should they encounter a strong point or such and the vehicle generally enjoying better protection than the APCs that were contemporary(at least on the frontal arc). That is the 1st generation anyway, the line is quite blurry nowdays, or even back then when the west started slapping light tank turrets onto APCs in response to the BMP, although they were never designed as actual IFVs and were an interm measure till their own purpose desinged IFVs could be produced.

A great example of definitely not an IFV but something possibly lost in translation is the BMPT terminator. Often mistranslated(IMHO anyway) as a heavy IFV. It does not fight with the infantry and it does not carry them therefore its not an IFV, it is a tank that was designed to fight alongside conventional MBTs to combat hostile infantry and light targets. Like a MK1 female in WW1. The BMPT also has 4 ATGMs because if you have what is essentially the investment of an MBT, you don't just want it defenselessly being picked apart by enemy MBTS.
Back to the Ratel

Clearly can be seen here the intention of the vehicle to be fought from both in a mounted and dismounted manner by the mechanised infantry and the design features for such(hatches along the top open in a manner to provide cover against incoming small arms fire to those frining from behind them, and you can see the cluster of firing ports just above the gentleman in the centre's helmet). The IFV concept is essentially the midway between a light tank and an APC, sometimes with a bit of gun truck mixed in.

The Ratel is in design and purpose comparable to its counterparts the BMP series, Bradley, Marder, Warrior etc. It carries troops and uses its cannon to give them fire support. Its just wheeled and has better mine protection. Because it is expected to drive very long distances, and there is mines everywhere in Africa apparently.

Well by those definitions of the redcat the Merkava is also an IFV that is a tank.

I might have been a bit hard to follow.
The ratel, honey badger is the ifv
The rooikat, red cat is the 8x8 armoured car.

But yeah an MBT that can carry infantry is a bit weird, but in the context of the 1982 war, makes a heap of sense, as the Iseralis were effectively using their tanks to medievac injured(and rather grisily, their dead, they had no intention of letting hostile militias mutilate their fallen)from active battle zones.

 OldMate wrote:
...and there is mines everywhere in Africa apparently.

Yeah, in a way.

There have been a lot of brushfire wars, insurgencies, rebellions, and revolutions in Africa. And land mines are VERY cheap area denial weapons that last a long, long time once emplaced. Worse, they're easy to lose track of. You send a platoon of engineers out to lay some mines, those engineers get ambushed and wiped out... where did the mines wind up? The only people who know are now dead. Makes it difficult to go back and retrieve them once the conflict is over.

And even if you're trying to be good and clean up after yourself, it's easy to miss a couple in the process of clearing an area. Even modern mines designed to be remote detonated by radio as an easy means of clearing your own minefields, the radio can fail and leave the mine intact.

Of course, most of the forces involved in those aformentioned conflicts either lack the capability or the desire to clean up stray minefields. If they know mines are in an area, they might post signs to warn civilians. Or they might just note it on the map and move on.

So... yeah. There are mines pretty much all over Africa. It's a real problem not just for the military, but for civilians as well.

I'm very greatful that the mines that were placed at the inner German border in the cold war had a kind of "time defuse" and disarmed themselves after some years.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I'm very greatful that the mines that were placed at the inner German border in the cold war had a kind of "time defuse" and disarmed themselves after some years.

The same thing happened with the land mines that were deployed by the Australian Army during the Vietnam war, the fields were designed to stop the Viet Cong's proliferation of weapons and supplies from the North into the province under Australian responsibility, unfortunately a massive minefield is a terrible idea and having badly motivated South Vietnamese troops looking over the minefield meant for the rest of the war it was a great source of explosives for the Viet Cong, anti-lift devices were installed under the mines(hand grenade booby traps) but this just meant the Viet Cong could get more explosives each time they dug a mine out once they got the knack, although these mines had a trigger mechanism made from cast iron, that in the tropical ground lasted around 7 months. Unfortuantley 'improved' versions of this particular model of mine were later employed in Cambodia (both by the Khemer Rouge and the Vietnamese army) where the cast iron trigger mechanism was replaced with plastic, making them seemingly dangerous till this day.

 OldMate wrote:
...and there is mines everywhere in Africa apparently.

Southeast Asia and the Middle East would have a word. American deployed a gakload of mines in those places, too.

 Vulcan wrote:

 OldMate wrote:
...and there is mines everywhere in Africa apparently.

Yeah, in a way.

There have been a lot of brushfire wars, insurgencies, rebellions, and revolutions in Africa. And land mines are VERY cheap area denial weapons that last a long, long time once emplaced. Worse, they're easy to lose track of. You send a platoon of engineers out to lay some mines, those engineers get ambushed and wiped out... where did the mines wind up? The only people who know are now dead. Makes it difficult to go back and retrieve them once the conflict is over.

And even if you're trying to be good and clean up after yourself, it's easy to miss a couple in the process of clearing an area. Even modern mines designed to be remote detonated by radio as an easy means of clearing your own minefields, the radio can fail and leave the mine intact.

Of course, most of the forces involved in those aformentioned conflicts either lack the capability or the desire to clean up stray minefields. If they know mines are in an area, they might post signs to warn civilians. Or they might just note it on the map and move on.

So... yeah. There are mines pretty much all over Africa. It's a real problem not just for the military, but for civilians as well.

Another great danger with land mines is that the ground moves, so after a decade any minefield charts can be basically useless. Mines can slowly migrate into areas once thought safe.

yhea, minefield migration is a big problem. the falkland islands were heavily mined by the Argentinians during the 1982 war for them (mainly along beaches to deny them as landing sites), and it was only VERY recently (November 2021, to be exact), a full 40 years after the end of the war and after serious mine clearing efforts since 2009, that they have been confident enough to declare the place "mine free".

for most of the intervening time, a great number of beaches were off limits to humans, which ironically made them great wildlife preserves as people (and peoples dogs) couldn't go on them to disrupt the animals (who were mostly light enough to not set off vehicle mines. I say mostly because it would still happen on occasion, with results grisly enough i will not elaborate).


On the wheeled APC front, there were several designs in service in the NATO powers, notably the Uk's Saxon and Saracen wheeled APCs and the french VAB. the Saracen actually dates form the 50's, and 280 were exported to the south africans, who used a modified one for the Rooikat trails/development.

The Saxon is an early 80s design, and was intended for rapid "second wave" reinforcement units that would be rushed from the UK to Germany in case of war (just in time to replace the corpses of the BAOR, if things went well), since wheeled APCs are generally faster than tracked ones over good ground. The Saxon and Saracen were extensively used in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and apprantly the Ukrainians bought a load back in the early 2010s (god knows what they made of them).

Artillery coordination support according to Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Ukrainian_Ground_Forces

With Putin recognizing Donbass independence and deploying peacekeepers, it looks like we could be seeing that stuff in action sooner rather than later.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 OldMate wrote:
...and there is mines everywhere in Africa apparently.

Southeast Asia and the Middle East would have a word. American deployed a gakload of mines in those places, too.

Good point.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
With Putin recognizing Donbass independence and deploying peacekeepers, it looks like we could be seeing that stuff in action sooner rather than later.

They may yet get me to try to come out of retirement...

off topic for here, but i don't think NATO will start ww3 over Ukraine. it will go with economic sanctions again to pressure Putin's backers to reign in their empire building, but stop short of actual fighting. at least as long as the russians stay in the "separatist" areas.

if they were willing to risk open war, they would have put troops into Ukraine directly, but they recognise that would be casus belli form Putin's point of view, and would directly provoke the war they dont want to fight, so its harsh words and economic sanctions for now.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
off topic for here, but i don't think NATO will start ww3 over Ukraine. it will go with economic sanctions again to pressure Putin's backers to reign in their empire building, but stop short of actual fighting. at least as long as the russians stay in the "separatist" areas.

if they were willing to risk open war, they would have put troops into Ukraine directly, but they recognise that would be casus belli form Putin's point of view, and would directly provoke the war they dont want to fight, so its harsh words and economic sanctions for now.

Well sure! There wasn't a war when he invaded the Crimea in 2014. As long as Putin gets the territory he's after, he won't go to war. And the west won't do it to stop him.

On topic wheeled vehicles seem to make much more sense as the world becomes more developed.

@ wheeled vehicles: I think it depends a bit where the army in question expects to fight. If you think there will be lots of roads or you will have relatively "easy" terrain but range/fuel will be an issue wheeled vehicles seem to have some good arguments. I assume that is one reason why south africa developed a lot of them and why they also had some success in europe.

As mentioned during cold war the German army seemed to have placed quite some value into amphibious capability (Fuchs, Luchs) deep wading, tank snorkels (Leopard 1 and 2), bridgelayers, driving pontons/ferries... But since the 90s this seems to have gone "out of style", maybe because it is expected that these vehicles will mostly be deployed in regions where rivers are less of an issue

Lot's of countries I think have found it easier and more reliable to deploy bridge layers than to try and cross rivers in armored vehicles.

It is very easy to lose a tank while river crossing, even in peacetime with very careful preparation. Not worth risking

I meant it more in the direction: during cold war the west german army had really LOTS of bridgelayers, and driving ferries to get their tanks over rivers but ADDITIONALLY they kept an eye on making their tanks/AFVs capable to cross rivers even if the bridges are destroyed and no bridgelayer is in range. Of course it's risky to drive your tank through a river, but it gives quite a lot tactical flexibility on some battlefields if you can pull it off.

I mean they had 114 M2 Alligators (Ferry/Pontonbrigde on wheels), 102 Bridglayer M48 (out of commission nowadays), 105 Bridgelayer Biber and since 2018 32 Leguans.

the emphasis on rover crossing was partly a response to the expereinces of both the russains and the germans on the eastern front, i believe. A significant number of defence lines were based mainly on rivers and thus river crossings were a very common form of "set piece" battle that needed planning and prep for, and being able to attempt a "snap" crossing with zero prep or delays waiting for bridging units to catch up was seen as extremely valuable.

with the germans, i worked with a members of the Bundeswehr of them over the years, and the way they discribed the draw-down form cold war levels was not so much a change in doctrine per se, but mostly immidate need driven.

basically, they government was looking at what was being used in "serious" operations (like peacekeeping in the former yugoslavia, etc) and what was only getting used on exercise, and started trimming the latter capabilities as "unneeded". I know the germans air defence capability (ie SAMs/SPAAGs) was basically disbanded because of this, as they were operating under allied air supremacy and that wasnt going to change anytime soon, and its not unreasonable to suggest that bridging/river crossing capabilities tuned to fighting the Russians in the north German plain, were likewise downsized over decades of low intensity warfare with mostly intact infrastructure.


Wheeled APCS have had something of a renaissance in recent years with the MRAP and other protected mobility systems, but i will go into that when i have more time.

Speaking of minefields, these things have always been one of my favorites. Mine clearers in general just look evil, whether they are the plow or flail versions.

Two other odd ones from Germany (now I'll dive into experimental types that never saw the light of day, but are cool to mention):
VT1(Versuchsträger-1)

pretty crazy concept. Basically the idea was that german tanks would have to face a clear numerical superiority and that a tank would be very hard to adequatly hit if it does "tactical Wedelfahrt" => I don't know the translation, it comes down to driving at high speed and performing continuous erratic direction changes.
So they came up with a turretless tank with two (!) stabilized guns, heavy armor and lots of engine power. With autoloaders and computerized targeting. So while driving the gunner would lock in on a target and keep the firing button pressed. As soon as one of the two guns would be in the right direction (following another direction change) it would automatically fire (and hopefully hit).
As far as Wikipedia goes it was deemed that the concept could technically have been realized, but that the cons outweighted the pros. The main issue being that it was too unflexible, only really useful when engaging a numerical superiority of tanks outside of urban or forest terrain.



Another prototype tank that was developed by the arms producers without a certain order and never found buyers: the Begleitpanzer 57 (~Supporttank 57):

Basically take a marder IFV hull (relatively cheap, relatively easy to produce) and combine it with a turret with a Bofors 57-mm/L70-Mk.1 naval gun with autoloader (200 shots/minute at least in the naval version) + a TOW launcher. Here as far as I read the idea was, that this thing could engage all the soviet vehicles that were below MBT level (BMTs, BTRs, BRDMs etc.) so that the Leopards can deal with the heavier stuff. Also an interesting thought if a high rate of fire 57mm gun could have found it's use in overwhelming a MBT with active protection systems before killing it with a TOW. Who knows... might have worked.

I meant it more in the direction: during cold war the west german army had really LOTS of bridgelayers, and driving ferries to get their tanks over rivers but ADDITIONALLY they kept

With regards to the eastern front (western for us), then there was continuous combat action on a long front and there was little choice - if you didn’t ferry the tank, then good luck fighting without a tank with just a rifles. Maybe the military after the war was optimistic that after tactical nuclear strikes they would force the Oder and then the English Channel, in practice, I have not heard that river forcing was used somewhere in the 70 years after the war. Although if you look at Soviet BMP/BTR, it is ALL amphibious. I don’t know how well its swims with the army, but civilian MTLBs and BMPs just drown in bigger water. This is not a real boat, there are many holes with rubber bands that shrink and of course no one will look after condition. they pass well swamps and snow though

Most of the upgrades that went into later model shermans were literally put forwards in 1942 and 1943, when the sherman was by all rights an excellent medium tank. If they implented better suspension and wet ammo storage, and better armour on the sides at this point it could have stayed a decent medium tank, if the US decided to go to 76mm on some of their fleet(or all later production vehicles) before Dday, it would again stayed as a decent medium tank till the end of the war. Any other nation would have swiftly implemented these upgrades to all following production vehicles, and started to upgrade their current fleets. I would, when comparing Britain's war time mentality with that of the US take it back to WW1, through doing stupid stuff the British(also Germans, and Commonwealth) were shocked to lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and decided to minimise losses where they could in the future. The Soviets learnt this at the outset of operation Barbarossa very proactively developed their armoured vehicles and implemented upgeades really quite swiftly look no further than the E and S model KV1(E had a heap of extra armour bolted on, S had armour stripped off to make it faster(or in other words to reinvent the T34, it was not very sucsessful but they were trying something based on information coming from the field), the Red army was in a pretty intense furnace of armour evolution, quite the opposite situation to the US army. The Americans, coming late to the party in WW1 and seemingly never were forced into this insight, what is more they really did not take well to other nations trying to impart such lessons upon them.
Even in WW2 being accused of being an anglophile in America was a big insult. And actually listening to the hard won advice of the British army from its campaign in NAfrica and implementing changes was seemingly seen as politcally dangerously Anglophilic(which makes a bit of sense, the British did invade them the previous century(the war of 1812 and DID favour the Confedercy in the civil war). So inferior models stayed in production and that cost lives.

Going to have to disagree with this.

Not seeing where the Americans kept "inferior" vehicles.
* They continuously experimented with other vehicles. Those other vehicles didn't work or didn't meet the needs of the US in WW2.
* Batch upgrades to the M4 were made throughout the war. In comparison the Soviets didn't do anything until they absolutely had to with the T34 and KV1, both of which were inferior designs in terms of crew visibility and laying a weapon on a target in real time. Plus they were utter crap that broke down immediately.
* They had 76mms far earlier than were pushed out in ETO. They were not desired as the 75 had higher explosive fill and the 75 was good against most vehicles it came across in real life. Like the Soviet choice of the 122 for the IS instead of a 100mm, their primary opponents needed a thorough application of HE, and the gun was good enough against anything else. Even before that they had M10s with 3in guns.
*What they didn't do was constantly push out new crap because no one controlled the engineers or arms companies. While cool, there's no use for a Jagd panther, Jagd tiger, Tiger II, Elefant etc. etc. Thats just juicy contracts for companies.

You have some nerve calling the T34 inferior when it is the most revolutionary tank of WW2, maybe history. And the most successful. The one that truly wrote in stone what it is to be a tank, a perfect equilibrium of speed, protection, offensive and production. But the others points are totally valid, the US army didn't stop improving its tanks a single minute, with plenty of different ones (they started the war later and still managed to have a very different armored component at the end) and plenty of different patterns for the Sherman

Veldrain wrote:
Speaking of minefields, these things have always been one of my favorites. Mine clearers in general just look evil, whether they are the plow or flail versions.

I've got an 'interesting' story about my wingman's plow tank and free range cattle on FT Hood.