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Is This a Tank?
- woleium 4y ago
- cableshaft 4y agoReminds me of the time the narrator quizzed me on my understanding of what is an isn't a bucket a few days ago (clip from The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe game): https://youtu.be/8HGJSKKpn6g https://youtu.be/8HGJSKKpn6g
- ineedasername 4y agoI clicked the link. I really don't know what I just watched, but I think I want to play The Stanley Parable now.
- remram 4y agoIt has a free demo on Steam you can try out. It is completely unrelated to the game. If you like a challenge, there's also Void Bastards with the same narrator and a similar vibe, but it's a first-person rogue-lite in space.
- selestify 4y agoUnfortunately, I could not get the game to work on a modern PC
- r2_pilot 4y agoFortunately, The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe edition just recently released on Steam, with new content to boot.
- mjevans 4y agoIt is helpful to think if it more like an interactive comedy / satire than what many would think of as a game. Though in a meta sense there is a puzzle aspect if the player is a completionist.
- wingerlang 4y agoThis is accurate and good to know before getting into it. It's definitely more of an experience than a game. I almost shut it off at the 1,5 hour mark but I pushed through and found enough content to entertain myself for 4,5 hours. I don't think I'll play it again, but based on googling I probably could have explored for a couple of hours more.
- natch 4y agoFascinating, but the author missed a couple of the most interesting aspects of the chariot. Number one, wheels. The ancient war chariot is a prime early example of how the adage that you should not reinvent the wheel is poor advice. Chariot builders had to reinvent (so to speak) and hone and advance the wheel greatly for use in chariots, because the wheels needed to be robust and light to an extent that wheels had never been before. And why did the wheels need to be so light? That brings us to the second interesting thing that the author didn’t mention, which is the fact that horses of the time were smaller, not having yet been bred up to the size needed for rideability in battle. Therefore, instead, horses were used to pull chariots. And the chariots had to be light to make them nimble, and because the horses (and mules in some cases, sure, but that is neither here nor there) were not the huge steeds that we have today.
- gidorah 4y agoIn a later post he addresses chariots. They were not tanks.
- Nition 4y agoThanks, I was actually wondering about that second point (why did chariots need to exist at all if, as the article states, cavalry later superseded them?) while reading the article, so it's nice to see an explanation right away in the comments!
- gota 4y agoIn age-of-empires-like terms, They were not far along enough in the tech tree to develop Husbandry and Selective Breeding
- DeathArrow 4y agoEvery army component has it's scope, cavalry, infantry, chariots, ballista, catapults, war elephants. And I suppose that chariots and cavalry have coexisted for some time, so one is not to replace the other. But I wonder if chariots are superior in some way to cavalry, i.e. if it was worth to invest more in chariots than in cavalry as an army leader.
- rocqua 4y agoWorth it for effectiveness in battle, or worth it to cement your leadership position? It definitely seems to have been the latter, but that doesn't rule out the former.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y agoAs the author noted in the article, chariots are basically double the cost for the same (or slightly inferior) result. Based on their use too in Western Europe (especially the Celts), they seem more like a prestige item for the battlefield - akin to handing over an F-22 to some aristocrat and having them paint it bright colours and fly it around. Thankfully the latter are generally given out based on merit and capabilities these days, and not solely based on your aristocratic pedigree.
- mr_toad 4y ago> not solely based on your aristocratic pedigree These days they just name a warship or similar after you, you aren’t expected to ride around in it.
- trashtester 4y agoStill, chariots did probably retain some advantage over contemporary cavalry, which would have been useful against undiciplined infantry formations. Here is a quote from Ceasar from his invasion of Britain : "Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry; ...." (Taken from the wiki artikle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot#:~:text=A%20chariot%20is%20a%20type,%2C%20Russia%2C%20dated%20to%20c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot#:~:text=A%20chariot%20....) "the firmness of infantry" part meant that the chariots would have an advantage over contemporary infantry in a shock role, to break up enemy formations, even from the front, similar to how cataphracts and medieval knights would do later (and even modern armor, when used as armored spearheads). But I suppose the Romans were disciplined enough to remain cohesion even when attacked by chariots, meaning that chariots could not be the force multiplier against them that they may have been against other celtic tribes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- izacus 4y agoHmm, this link goes to the follow-up of the "Is this a tank?" post, perhaps worth updating the title?
- hooby 4y agoI don't think that a chariot is a tank, for the simple reason that "tank" is typically defined as *ARMOURED* combat vehicle. The chariot as described in that article is more along the lines of mobile artillery.
- folbec 4y agoThe original link poster may have wanted to link to this : https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not-a-tank/ https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...
- brazzy 4y agoThe article mainly discusses the (IMO much more interesting) question whether chariots had a similar function on the battlefield to what tanks do today - and comes to the conclusion that no, they did not.
- retSava 4y agoExactly, the doctrine (function/use) vs design/structure (look/physicals) tension found in the memes in the linked article. edit: meant this other article by the same author: https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not-a-tank/ https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...
- ekianjo 4y ago> had a similar function on the battlefield to what tanks do today nonsensical question to start with if you have ever read any story of roman battles involving chariots. A tank has an asymmetry on the battlefield: it's very powerful and very well protected. None of this is true for chariots.
- cestith 4y agoA chariot was more similar to a technical or an FAV. It allows one to advance quickly on fairly regular terrain, carry a slightly bigger weapon, and stock yourself with more ammunition. It's not well protected and the weapon is not as devastating. The mobile ballista was more like a primitive field gun or crew-served mortar. Add black powder and a strong metal barrel and it served the same role through the 19th century. An actual tank cannot exist without a powerful engine. They were literally designed as the battleships or destroyer of the land. They used big engines and small naval-inspired guns. The most successful have always mounted those guns on turrets just like a naval ship. The reason no primitive tank can be found is that nothing did serve quite the same role.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fragmede 4y agoGiven the armoring implied by calling something a tank, a Testudo formation, should be considered as well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- trashtester 4y agoI suppose the Testudo played a role similar to WW1 tanks. Not so much to WW2 and later armor, though, since armor depends more on mobility than actually being armored (despite the name), and Testudo formations are slow.
- KineticLensman 4y agoI think a lot of people have a problem identifying what a tank is today, using the term to mean tracked armoured vehicle with a gun on top. The author does address this in a previous post, but for what it's worth, I tend to distinguish between * tanks - vehicles that have a direct fire role on the battlefield (the crew designate their own targets) * self-propelled guns - they may look like tanks, but provide indirect fire (they fire, like artillery, at coordinates they are given by someone else) * armoured personnel carriers - essentially busses which delivery infantry (the dismounts) to the battlefield. Using UK examples, tanks include Challenger 2 (a classic Main Battle Tank), Ajax and Scimitar (a light tank that conducts close reconnaissance). Self propelled guns include the AS90 and APCs include Warrior.
- chrisseaton 4y agoBut Warrior also has a direct fire role. The differentiator there is you wouldn’t expect to engage another MBT. That’s the same thing that makes recce cars not tanks, even though they have a direct fire weapon system.
- throw1234651234 4y agoA tank, today, can be defined by the combination of: 1. The heaviest armored vehicle on land in any given army. 2. Fires APFSDS munitions. ----- I think we will run into a lot of semantics here. You can no longer say that "an IFV is not expected to engage a tank", as Bradleys have killed tanks with TOWs, likewise BMP-3s can fire Kornet ATGMs. These are viable tank killers and bring the MBT role into question. The argument I was going to go with is "MBTs don't carry troops, other than crew", which also has technical problems such as "well, the Merkava does". Furthermore, there is talk of moving tanks to 152mm guns, at which point there is talk of giving them enough elevation to serve as indirect fire pieces. At this point, I would argue that the separator for tanks is the ability to fire APFSDS munitions, which provide the ability to reliably penetrate another MBT without relying on a guided munition, (aka TOW, Kornet). Why is this important? Because it's fast (ability to evade return fire, less chance for enemy to evade), counter-measures don't exist (ERA is insufficient against fin-stabilized kinetic sabots, APS is too slow), etc. Note that APFSDS can only be fired from a gun that is too heavy to carry on anything OTHER than an MBT. Bradleys, Strykers, BTRs, BMPs, etc just can't take the weight/recoil. The second argument is "the heaviest armored vehicle" possible - and this is universally true for MBTs today. P.S. This is a pretty technical rant, if you have questions, I will answer them, but it would take too long to caveat everything I just said in this post, so I didn't even try.
- curiousllama 4y agoSidenote, given the title: It was a fun week on Twitter when everyone all the sudden became fascinated with "Is this an APC, a Tank, or something else" as images of Russian losses piled up. "This is CLEARLY self-propelled artillery" ... "No, this is CLEARLY a light tank" ... [retired 2-star chimes in] "Guys, that's a truck"