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Yes, we want you to take a motorcycle up against a tank. It's cheaper, you're expendable, and we will win with the budget we have. You joined the Legion to die

Yes, we want you to take a motorcycle up against a tank. It's cheaper, you're expendable, and we will win with the budget we have. You joined the Legion to die, and we are sending you where you can do that. No, we do not cover you with life insurance.

morkalork 3y ago
Comrade, here is top of line RKG-3 anti-tank grenade. Pop out of fox hole and throw over tank! Who needs fancy top-attack Javalin when you have grenade with parachute eh? I'd take the Vespa option any day of the week.
trhway 3y ago
>Yes, we want you to take a motorcycle up against a tank. Fast forward to today. In a video from Gaza a Hamas fighter runs toward Merkava and manually puts a blast-fragmentation warhead onto its armor (not for the lack of weapons as he shoots a tandem warhead from an RPG half a minute later). I have a hypothesis what is going on in that video - the Trophy active defense system would shoot down an incoming warhead, yet it wouldn't react to a person running toward it (like in Dune and similar where cold blade weapons is used because defense systems deal with the fast incoming threats), and the tanks don't have infantry right by the tank because system like Trophy damages the accompanying infantry, and the Trophy really performs a lot of tank defensive tasks that the accompanying infantry would otherwise be tasked with. So, the first warhead - the one manually placed on armor (and that warhead wasn't shaped charge) - explodes and takes out the Trophy, and after that the Hamas guy shoots the tandem warhead which would penetrate the reactive armor and the main armor.
dragontamer 3y ago
No one assembles hunter-killer squads to specifically take out enemy tanks with such a crappy weapon. Instead, you provide them because its "better than nothing" if you happen to run up against an enemy tank. Furthermore: there are lesser vehicles, such as Humvees and IFVs that have thinner armor where these anti-tank guns would work better against. ----------- Actual anti-tank hunter-killer groups used guided missiles even as early as the 1960s (with Nazi designs from the 1940s!!!), and today use automated fire-and-forget homing missiles. Guided missiles have far more range and reliability. Early guided weapons were just a radio (or even a wire attached to the rocket in the earliest designs).
sio8ohPi 3y ago
The scooter is just a light, air-droppable vehicle for schlepping the gun around the battlefield to a location where it can be set up and ideally dug in. It's no different than moving a light artillery-piece with a jeep, a truck, a tractor, or a mule (except that a mule is going to object rather vehemently to being booted out of a plane).
golergka 3y ago
> a tank Imprecise terminology often causes bad thinking. A “tank” could be a MBT, or it could be an armored personel carrier with very limited offensive capabilities.
- mcv 3y ago
  Even the lightest APC will have enough firepower to take out a Vespa. I don't think 120mm APDS is going to make a big difference.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    And the lightest Panzerfaust tandem charge antitank rocket can kill the heaviest tank. You can also equip like 30 people with that weapon and scatter then around forests, taking advantage of the tanks relatively poor visibility. (Tanks have cameras, periscopes and other optics, but usually are pretty bad at overall awareness unless the commander sticks their head out the top to look around)
    - mcv 3y ago
      Exactly. Nothing is invulnerable. And tanks in forests without infantry support are generally a bad idea. The kind of armored vehicle you've got mostly matters in duels with other armored vehicles.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        Well, a tank does consistently fire from 3km ranges. As a support vehicle, its essential in the long-range combat of today. At 3km+ out, no Panzerfaust or AT4 can hit the tank. Only a guided Javelin, but those are heavy (heavy for an infantry to carry at least) and expensive. But yes, the whole plan of today's combat is combined arms. Tanks doing what tanks do best: long range sniping and sometimes taking advantage of armor to say... get rid of anti-personel land-mines and other lesser explosives.
- sillywalk 3y ago
Someone 3y ago
You can’t put everybody in tanks, as tanks are fairly helpless without infantry support. Even if they wouldn’t be, tanks need support personnel nearby on the ground for refueling, maintenance, and repairs. So, an army needs infantry. Infantry will, at times, encounter enemy tanks without sufficient friendly tank support. When that happens, things like these can be very helpful to bring antitank weapons to where they’re needed. The existence of such weapons also can act as a deterrence. The Panzerfaust served a similar role and was effective at it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust#Germany: “However, the threat from the Panzerfaust forced Allied tank forces to wait for infantry support before advancing. The portion of British tanks taken out of action by Panzerfäuste later rose to 34%, a rise probably explained by the lack of German anti-tank guns late in the war and the increased numbers of Panzerfäuste that were available to defending German troops”
RecycledEle 3y ago
There are too many replies for me to answer them all one at a time, so I will answer them here. I was trying to be funny. Of course infantry anti-armor weapons have their place. Of course motorcycles can be effective means of transport. I just found the mental image of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) a teenage kid would experience when he is given a motorcycle with an anti-tank weapon on it...I foud that funny.

morkalork 3y ago

Comrade, here is top of line RKG-3 anti-tank grenade. Pop out of fox hole and throw over tank! Who needs fancy top-attack Javalin when you have grenade with parachute eh? I'd take the Vespa option any day of the week.

trhway 3y ago

>Yes, we want you to take a motorcycle up against a tank. Fast forward to today. In a video from Gaza a Hamas fighter runs toward Merkava and manually puts a blast-fragmentation warhead onto its armor (not for the lack of weapons as he shoots a tandem warhead from an RPG half a minute later). I have a hypothesis what is going on in that video - the Trophy active defense system would shoot down an incoming warhead, yet it wouldn't react to a person running toward it (like in Dune and similar where cold blade weapons is used because defense systems deal with the fast incoming threats), and the tanks don't have infantry right by the tank because system like Trophy damages the accompanying infantry, and the Trophy really performs a lot of tank defensive tasks that the accompanying infantry would otherwise be tasked with. So, the first warhead - the one manually placed on armor (and that warhead wasn't shaped charge) - explodes and takes out the Trophy, and after that the Hamas guy shoots the tandem warhead which would penetrate the reactive armor and the main armor.

dragontamer 3y ago

No one assembles hunter-killer squads to specifically take out enemy tanks with such a crappy weapon. Instead, you provide them because its "better than nothing" if you happen to run up against an enemy tank. Furthermore: there are lesser vehicles, such as Humvees and IFVs that have thinner armor where these anti-tank guns would work better against. ----------- Actual anti-tank hunter-killer groups used guided missiles even as early as the 1960s (with Nazi designs from the 1940s!!!), and today use automated fire-and-forget homing missiles. Guided missiles have far more range and reliability. Early guided weapons were just a radio (or even a wire attached to the rocket in the earliest designs).

sio8ohPi 3y ago

The scooter is just a light, air-droppable vehicle for schlepping the gun around the battlefield to a location where it can be set up and ideally dug in. It's no different than moving a light artillery-piece with a jeep, a truck, a tractor, or a mule (except that a mule is going to object rather vehemently to being booted out of a plane).

golergka 3y ago

> a tank Imprecise terminology often causes bad thinking. A “tank” could be a MBT, or it could be an armored personel carrier with very limited offensive capabilities.

mcv 3y ago
Even the lightest APC will have enough firepower to take out a Vespa. I don't think 120mm APDS is going to make a big difference.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  And the lightest Panzerfaust tandem charge antitank rocket can kill the heaviest tank. You can also equip like 30 people with that weapon and scatter then around forests, taking advantage of the tanks relatively poor visibility. (Tanks have cameras, periscopes and other optics, but usually are pretty bad at overall awareness unless the commander sticks their head out the top to look around)
  - mcv 3y ago
    Exactly. Nothing is invulnerable. And tanks in forests without infantry support are generally a bad idea. The kind of armored vehicle you've got mostly matters in duels with other armored vehicles.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Well, a tank does consistently fire from 3km ranges. As a support vehicle, its essential in the long-range combat of today. At 3km+ out, no Panzerfaust or AT4 can hit the tank. Only a guided Javelin, but those are heavy (heavy for an infantry to carry at least) and expensive. But yes, the whole plan of today's combat is combined arms. Tanks doing what tanks do best: long range sniping and sometimes taking advantage of armor to say... get rid of anti-personel land-mines and other lesser explosives.
sillywalk 3y ago

Someone 3y ago

You can’t put everybody in tanks, as tanks are fairly helpless without infantry support. Even if they wouldn’t be, tanks need support personnel nearby on the ground for refueling, maintenance, and repairs. So, an army needs infantry. Infantry will, at times, encounter enemy tanks without sufficient friendly tank support. When that happens, things like these can be very helpful to bring antitank weapons to where they’re needed. The existence of such weapons also can act as a deterrence. The Panzerfaust served a similar role and was effective at it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust#Germany: “However, the threat from the Panzerfaust forced Allied tank forces to wait for infantry support before advancing. The portion of British tanks taken out of action by Panzerfäuste later rose to 34%, a rise probably explained by the lack of German anti-tank guns late in the war and the increased numbers of Panzerfäuste that were available to defending German troops”

RecycledEle 3y ago

There are too many replies for me to answer them all one at a time, so I will answer them here. I was trying to be funny. Of course infantry anti-armor weapons have their place. Of course motorcycles can be effective means of transport. I just found the mental image of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) a teenage kid would experience when he is given a motorcycle with an anti-tank weapon on it...I foud that funny.