Armored Vehicles in the Shadows, A runners guide to the heavy stuff... Options

[psychophipps]

I just figured that rather than thread-jacking the "Used Tanks?" thread anymore, I figured that we could just move this discussion to it's own thread.

Now we all agree, I'm sure, that urban warfare is the future of warfare. The main reason for this, contrary to what many believe, is the simple fact that with all the crazy sensors, spy drones, and precision guided munitions out there anymore a unit out in the open is a dead frickin' unit. You need to either be moving pretty fast to cover, or under cover of some sort (and buildings are mighty handy for this), or you're gonna get a JDAM or other similarly nasty PGM shoved up your ass.
Armored vehicles, especially the heavy monsters of MBTs and the like, thrive where? Out in the open. This is where their cross-country mobility, heavy firepower, and even heavier armor give them the edge. Needless to say, if MBTs were designed to be hiding amongst rubble and other cover of urabn centers on a regular basis they wouldn't need chobham, multi-layered, laminate, super-fly, double-dong armor sloped at 60-degrees and weighing in at over 15 tons. They also wouldn't run the constant risk of falling straight through older or third-world city streets.
So what does this leave us? We obviously can't have huge, heavy, hideously expensive, and easy to see via all of the aforementioned sensors, tanks running around just itching for a much cheaper PGM to take them out, right?
If the future is urban, how can we take these behemoth machines and make them cost/benefit efficient, strategically and tactically sound, and consistently mobile enough to bother with them?

[WearzManySkins]

Our current day vehicle designers have forgotten the lesson of the Sherman vs Panther/Tigers of WWII. The Germans had better overall tanks but we just had more than they could cope with, also air superiority also cut down alot of German tanks.

Trying to specialize a vehicle for urban warfare is guarantee that it will have to perform alot of rural warfare. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

WMS

[kzt]

Actually, have you read much on fallujah? Everything I've seen says the M1s were essential to winning fallujah 2. The ability to just make strongpoints just go away is awesome. And M1A2s with the TUSK upgrade are pretty hot.

The Brads were damn effective too, but 120mm HE rounds are total fight enders.

[kanislatrans]

M1 ABRAMS ARMAMENT

The main armament is the 120mm M256 smoothbore gun, developed by Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH of Germany. The 120mm gun fires the following ammunition: the M865 TPCSDS-T and M831 TP-T training rounds, the M8300 HEAT-MP-T and the M829 APFSDS-T which includes a depleted uranium penetrator. Textron Systems provides the Cadillac Gage gun turret drive stabilisation system.

The commander has a 12.7mm Browning M2 machine gun and the loader has a 7.62mm M240 machine gun. A 7.62mm M240 machine gun is also mounted coaxially on the right hand side of the main armament.

source: Army technology.com


The Dogs of War own two Abrams M1A2 tanks. although both have been reconfigured a bit. The main gun has been replaced with duel Panther cannons mounted over a flame projector, the secondary weapons upgraded to fire-linked White knights. Both vehicles are set up for rigger controls.

These are defensive vehicles and are used to defend GBM-1. In the initial field test against the" Thors hammers" a Humanis supported go-go gang that once held turf adjacent to D>O>W turf the old work horses performed admirably.
The Hammers quickly learned that just as it is not smart to take a knife to a gunfight, it is equally foolhardy to take a Predator V to a Tank fight . (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[hyzmarca]

They also wouldn't run the constant risk of falling straight through older or third-world city streets.

Actually, MBTs exert less pressure on the ground than cars do. This is the big advantage of tracks. A humvee is more likely to fall through a third world road than a tank is.

[Cthulhudreams]

@WearzManySkins

That was a true in a world before extremely effective ATGMs for infantry. Different question no

@Thread

I still think the Way Forward is UAVs with sniper rifles and standing orders to blow away anyone with a gun and without a friendly IFF beacon.

Would make many things much harder.

[Sir_Psycho]

By future warfare, are we talking future warfare or are we talking future Shadowrun warfare?

[Carny]

Definitely an interesting topic. I suspect that the technology exists in Shadowrun to make an MBT even sicker then a M1A2.

Something with say a 150mm binary propellant gun, for instance, or even smarter, more efficient armor. Not to mention the sensor suites. Missile defense setups, directed energy weapons, even wards to keep those pesky spirit from materializing in the crew compartment and mulching the crew.

Lots of neat possibilities.

[Drogos]

On a tagental note, I just played a little Frontline: Fuel of War. It is Shadowrun warfare. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Ryu]

I think anyone not familiar with it should check out the Leopard 2.

The really ugly thing about Desert Wars is that it will have equal high-tech militaries clash. EW drones in combination with artillery are not exactly good news for an MBT. Speed and Stealth become a better choice than being ultra-hard.

I think SOTA urban warfare will belong to Cybersoldiers. What kind of Anti-Personell-Zone can keep out a Streetsam? Give them APCs with good sensors. Any downtrodden population will learn not to annoy the soldiers inside, which will survive most attacks due to mil-spec personal armor. Such a development would also work for the setting, as it justifies large numbers of people with augmentation.

[Fuchs]

Masamune Shirow predicts the use of small, agile tanks in urban combat in his notes to the "Tank Police" comic. I am not so sure - I think that role is more likely to be taken over by drones like the steel lynx.

For the MBT, it depends on how good the protection gets. If a MBT can shrug off most hits and detect threats quickly, then it has a role. If man-portable weapons can kill it reliably, then MBTs won't see much action in urban settings - or not if they can help it.

For Shadowrun, that's a matter of what kind of armor rating a MBT would have. If it can shrug off most "heavy" weapon hits, then MBTs will be used often. If not, then MBTs will have become obsolete.

[Crusher Bob]

The thing that is really needed in urban warfare is a weapon big enough for effective demolition. An auto cannon is just not that great against targets in heavy cover. In the idea case, you want a CEV with a demolition mortar. If you can't get one of those, a tank firing HE will work almost as well. The main problem is that the US really doesn't have anything lighter than a tank that can do the urban demolition bit. Massed javelin fire can kind do the job, but you are paying 80K a pop, and are going to need several hits.

This is one of the reasons that the BMP-2 and 3 both have low velocity canon, so that hey can fire HE against infantry strong points. Unfortunately, low velocity canons are basically useless in the open field warfare that the US army was developed for. These days, a love child of a Striker and an Ontos would probably come in very handy.

[Fuchs]

Or artillery fire. I remember watching a video from Iraq where a building was first shot at from an armored vehicle, to not much effect, then a 155mm shell destroyed it.

[Ryu]

Light tank with Mortar

I assume buildings don´t like fire from an 120mm-mortar, and you won´t need an MBT for that.

[Fuchs]

Light tank with Mortar

I assume buildings don´t like fire from an 120mm-mortar, and you won´t need an MBT for that.

Well, I served in a M113-mounted 120 mm mortar company. It's the same principle, but the range is much less than a 155mm howitzer (we topped out at 6,5 km operative range at close to max charge) and the payload is about 3,3 kg TNT in a 14.4 kg grenade.

[Crusher Bob]

Erm, that's a mortar for indirect fire, it have a min range of or 200-300 meters. I'm talking about something like this

[Fuchs]

Erm, that's a mortar for indirect fire, it have a min range of or 200-300 meters. I'm talking about something like this

So? The goal is to deliver a payload on a building. You do not need to be close to that. A single infantry soldier with a radio and a target designator is sufficient to have the building demolished. Less risk for more people.

[Carny]

Alright, so basically for a vehicle to be of maximum use in sprawl warfare, it needs to be able to deliver massive firepower on a point target, reliably survive hits by heavy weapons, detect and react to threats quickly and effectively. It also needs at least some measure of protection against magical and matrix threats, in a Shadowrun environment.

Fire support vehicles on wheeled chassis can do some of those things. But they tend to be no more surviveable then APCs, since most of them are based on APC designs. Even with maximum mission oriented armor, nobody expects a Stryker to reliably survive a 120mm hit, or a Javelin strike. (Before the Stryker people get frustrated, nobody expects a Bradley or M113 to do so, either.)

MBTs are surviveable, mobile, with heavy firepower. They are very expensive, though, so even having to expend 10-12 high cost munitions to kill one is still a large net gain, in terms of value.

Any ground vehicle is going to have a certain vulnerability to airpower and artillery. It just isn't possible to armor up all faces of a vehicle equally, at least in the case of heavy armor.

So where do you go?

Do you work on a super-MBT, an Abrams for the new generation, that pretty much dominates any battlefield it appears on, but that costs through the roof?

Do you go with mobile gun systems on lighter chassis, relying on firepower and sensors, and the ability to field greater numbers of platforms, to overwhelm?

Do you largely forget the idea of a 'tank' and go with a model of simply supporting very durable and well-armed infantry forces?

None of the above?

All of the above, depending on situation?

[Fuchs]

Artillery can do a lot of the indirect fire support. Mobile units like T-Birds and helicopters can do some direct fire support.

If a tank works is largely rule-dependent, mainly: Is it possible to armor it sufficiently to work within the rule?

[kzt]

This is one of the reasons that the BMP-2 and 3 both have low velocity canon, so that hey can fire HE against infantry strong points. Unfortunately, low velocity canons are basically useless in the open field warfare that the US army was developed for. These days, a love child of a Striker and an Ontos would probably come in very handy.

A Brads 25mm chain guns are pretty effective in sawing through walls, though not as effective a a large caliber gun in ending fights right now. The TOW will work reasonably well, at least sometimes. The BMP-1 had a low velocity gun, BMP-2 has a 30mm autocannon, BMP-3 has a 100mm gun and a 30mm cannon.

[psychophipps]

Actually, have you read much on fallujah? Everything I've seen says the M1s were essential to winning fallujah 2. The ability to just make strongpoints just go away is awesome. And M1A2s with the TUSK upgrade are pretty hot.

The Brads were damn effective too, but 120mm HE rounds are total fight enders.

The real secret to winning Fallujah 2 was not being forced to quit just before finishing the frickin' job by the diplo-dinks back home. They had Fallujah 1 all but done and finished when international opinion pushed our leadership to fold like a bitch and they told the Marines to withdraw despite the commanders telling the civilian leadership that the fighting was all but over and that we had won. This, in turn, gave the insurgency a huge morale and political (See?!? We can whip those running dogs of infidel imperialism! Down with the Great Satan!) boost.

The problem with this is the fact that those tank cannon shots didn't do anything that the new anti-armor/anti-strongpoint rockets can't. They have new rounds for them that will punch right through about 2 feet of concrete and then blow everyone inside into paste. Pretty dang nasty and effective from the demo I saw on TV. 60 or so years from now, this new-fangled option would probably be a pre-set for each and every man-portable AT/AS weapon in any corporate ordinance catalog.
Just call up 1-886-KILL-DEM and a polite, professional Ares representative will be more than happy to take your order. For a small premium we can guarantee next-day service to any global hotspot regardless of your political or religious faction. And If you call in the next 15 minutes, any order of 10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) or more will come with a free case of smoke grenades. Please call now!

[psychophipps]

By future warfare, are we talking future warfare or are we talking future Shadowrun warfare?

Probably a bit of both as the GM should have at least an inkling that a lot of the SR4 base book is outdated already.
No really.
A different rocket for each type? With the newly developed multi-stage fusing, we can create a rocket or missile weapon that will go off as a HEAT, a frag, or a self-forging penetrator depending on a selection from a menu before firing or sensors in the ordinance itself selecting the right setting based upon the target type.

[psychophipps]

The thing that is really needed in urban warfare is a weapon big enough for effective demolition. An auto cannon is just not that great against targets in heavy cover. In the idea case, you want a CEV with a demolition mortar. If you can't get one of those, a tank firing HE will work almost as well. The main problem is that the US really doesn't have anything lighter than a tank that can do the urban demolition bit. Massed javelin fire can kind do the job, but you are paying 80K a pop, and are going to need several hits.

This is one of the reasons that the BMP-2 and 3 both have low velocity canon, so that hey can fire HE against infantry strong points. Unfortunately, low velocity canons are basically useless in the open field warfare that the US army was developed for. These days, a love child of a Striker and an Ontos would probably come in very handy.

I agree. One thing to keep in mind is the new coilgun mortars that are being tested now. You could easily get these weapons, provided you can depress the barrels enough, to lob rounds at much closer ranges than current mortars. Design a nice little APC/Striker turret with full range of motion from horizontal to vertical and computer controlled output on the coils? It weights less, fires a 120mm round just as heavy, has exponentially less recoil than a tank gun and is silent.

MWAHAHAHA! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Daier Mune]

what about a lighter-than-air drone with a mortar cannon? gives you the firepower you need, travels with the squad, and with a few upgrades can be very hard to hit.

[Fuchs]

Seeing as I once saw a 10 ton M-133 get driven back (well, forward, since the gun shoots out back) by the recoil of the mortar mounted in it and demolish a barn as a result of not having the brakes engaged to fire, I'd be a bit wary about mouting a mortar in a LTA.