Re: MBT's
 

http://www.janes.com/article/59701/u...itionary-force

Let us hope UK votes to leave the anti-democratic EU in the June referendum, and then such excersises will not be the slippery slope to a Euro Army for a Euro Super State.

Re: MBT's
 

Political rants are completely off-topic for these forums.

There are other websites where you can express any such opinions.

Re: MBT's
 

I am sorry you think this is a mere political rant, but actually it is something a lot of British soldiers could actually end up fighting against, if it continues in something close to the way it has been going, the EU needs to, vastly, scale down its ambitions or it may well face something more than just political opposition.

Re: MBT's
 

Well this will require a look to see if the next is still in service within the game. Done... they have the ASU-57 but my search for the ASU-85 reveals that it'll need to be an ADD. The article sourced from JANE's, indicates they received them in 1970 (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI data.) but, also by the title that at some point they must have been taken out and reactivated back into service again-not unusual-but needs to be verified. The 15km speed increase will allow it to get to the front earlier if required to do so, due to their roughly 2,000yr. history of friendship with China, OK not true. They were subjugated to the Chinese for centuries. Anyway background on both...
http://www.armyrecognition.com/april..._12404161.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallel...na-not-the-u-s

For the uninitiated NPR is well respected in this country. Learned much from FRONTLINE whether you want to or not. It's good to have my "head out of the sand" and sand just seems to get everywhere on you especially with your head in it. Absolute PITA to get it out of your ears!?! :D

Before I forget, yes, this is a "One World One OOB (OWOO-Somehow I like that-you can even say it three times fast!!!)" post.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: MBT's
 

Anyone have any info if they replaced those with something else ?

No the Janes article says

Re: MBT's
 

About the ASU-85 for Vietnam JANE's had a "little" clearer picture and analysis.
http://www.janes.com/article/59688/d...et-era-asu-85s

Well history has it's place here on sites where that makes a difference. It was thought these tanks showed up after the 1979 war with China. Well the flaw in in looking for the deal between Russia and Vietnam would be technically unfeasible. Russia wasn't 'Russia' in 1979 but...come on now...the Soviet Union. It would turn out Vietnam got the ASU-85 in 1960. Remember this site relies heavily on UN mandatory arms transfers reports by member nations. This from SIPRI...

Recipient/ Year Year(s) No.
supplier (S) No. Weapon Weapon of order/ of delivered/
or licenser (L) ordered designation description licence deliveries produced Comments


Viet Nam
S: Soviet Union (300) T-34/85 Tank (1954) 1955-1960 (300) Second-hand
(50) SU-85 Self-propelled gun (1960) 1960-1961 (50) Probably Second-hand

Sorry system wouldn't transfer word saved rft. file onto here.

I was going to post more but it's family dinner day. I'll post a tank issue later tonight that touches on the topic of what us "equipment" folks out here like to consider when submitting our submissions to Don.

Gotta Go!!

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: MBT's
 

Alright, REGARD the JANE's ref. at the top of my last post.
DISREGARD the rest, the data is good, however, there's a difference (Name.) between a SU-85 they received as noted above and the ASU-85 of which SIPRI has no record of. I searched against all the WARSAW PACT countries and their post Cold War country names and to cover my xxx I limited my to Viet-Min *France/Vietnam (Yes it gets that detailed.) as Recipient country/Left Supplier country blank/Searched for Armoured Vehicles and the database pulled up all the transactions that might've occurred from ALL countries in the database. No ASU-85 is shown. ASU-57 is as second hand with deliveries between 1970-71 as we have it in the game and recent refs have indicated. This leaves only two viable options because the numbers match perfectly to the SU-85 shipment from 1960.

1. Did SIPRI not get the numbers? And as JANE's indicates that they were shipped when Vietnam received their T-62/T-55/T-54 tanks. Why hide those tanks when you reported the other shipments? JANE's quote from below ref.
"The Soviet ASU-85s were part of larger shipments of T-62/55/54 tanks, BMP-1 armored personnel carriers and artillery that allowed the VPA to convert its 304th, 308th and 320th Infantry Divisions into Mechanized Infantry Divisions, or Motorized Rifle Divisions in Soviet terminology."
http://www.janes.com/article/59688/d...et-era-asu-85s

or...

2. Did the SU-85 get modernized at some point. I bring this up as SIPRI and the UN don't require such reporting. Do note though that SIPRI does/will report any upgrades to equipment that the seller makes or the buyer requests, Turkey is an example of this with their LEOPARD tanks they got from Germany.

The below is the last recorded armor deal the Vietnamese made.

Israel
R: Viet Nam (150) RAM APV (2006) 2006-2009 (150) For police; RAM-2000 version

So if we look at the SIPRI data on Armored Vehicle transfers based on the JANE's information we would get the following...

A1) (200) T-62 Tank (1978) 1978-1979 (200) Probably from Czechoslovakian production line or Second-hand

A2) (150) BMP-1 IFV (1979) 1979-1981 (150) My note: From the Soviet Union.

To allow for the Post China Conflict A2 would be the better fit.

The below reflect the rest of the transactions as noted above from JANE's from newest back. All will be from the Soviet Union.

B1) (600) T-55 Tank (1973) 1973-1975 (600) Aid

B2) (25) ASU-57 Self-propelled gun (1970) 1970 (25) Probably second-hand
My Note: Added for context.

B3) (500) T-54 Tank (1969) 1970-1972 (500) Aid (incl for use in war in South Vietnam)

B4) (50) SU-85 Self-propelled gun (1960) 1960-1961 (50) Probably Second-hand

These simply represent the earliest possible transfer dates, unless again you allow for modernization of the SU-85. The issue would have to be to determine any obvious difference in size and weight of the regular Army SU-85 against the Airborne version ASU-85. And from there guns and road wheels (Though as we saw from North Korea a few years back these can be modified and hulls lengthened. Look in the North Korean thread that MARCELLO has done such great work in a very tough OOB to manage and maintain.)

I'll look into the modernization issue to see if it's possible you would have to initially assume that an airborne tank is lighter then it's Army counter part, but, I did say assume. This I hope will not be the French 105mm artillery issue all over again. Since it's not in the OOB yet I'd rather cover all the bases and get it right.

One issue that seems to be consistent concerning the ASU-85 is they probably did see limited use and where put into storage as noted. The pictures in the refs. are consistent with the ASU-85 so I don't really that, they don't have them.

Why all this effort for one unit, first you all expect it, it'll (HOPEFULLY!) avoid issues down the road and finally as my closest "friends" (Even the MARINE one. :p) know - It's how I roll. ;)

The other stuff can wait until I can find out more.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: MBT's
 

There are advantages to being an anal retentive nit picker if one works in intelligence.

Re: MBT's
 

Alright remember me talking about the weight issue? The WWII SU-85 tank Vietnam received in 1960 weighs in at 29.8 tons vs. the SU-85/ASU-85 weighing in at 15.4+ tons. There's more of course but the following points can be cleared up.

1) Not the to be confused with the WWII SU-85 SPA (Yes the Russians designated them BOTH SU-85 if you didn't note that above.) though from the below ref. you can see it looks very much like the SU-85M produced in 1945 as shown near bottom right. So this rules out modernization again back to weight etc.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww...viet_SU-85.php

2) So I can't find anything to suggest they fought in the Chinese Conflict of 1979, however, there's plenty to suggest they were bought to secure their borders after the conflict. At this point I wouldn't have any problem allowing for training that JUNE 1980 to be a reasonable time for these tanks to have been fielded. I've used this site (1st. one.) before and I believe it might be Russian. Last used when I submitted the BTR-82A.
http://weaponsystems.net/weapon.php?...2%20-%20ASU-85
https://www.onwar.com/weapons/afv/data/rusothasu85.htm

3) The issue will be when were they taken out of service and stored? When did they reenter service?

A) The first would be more difficult but could possibly be aligned when the Russians took them out of service+ so something around 1995 if we "cobble" everything together. Not unprecedented in the game, if you look at the South African OOB I was able to convince Don to do this with the ROOKIVALK AH for a variety of reasons you'll find in the HELO Thread. The below ref. does support it being out of service with the first post shown from this Russian site (Yes I know it's a "Blog" some are however better than others and are a last resort for me but, information is "light" concerning Vietnam with these tanks.) and near the bottom you'll see it discussed in SEPTEMBER 2015.
http://www.russiadefence.net/t3581-v...-ground-forces

A1) In service date earliest I suspect would be JUNE 2014 however, JANUARY 2015 would be better and would cover that 6 month "SWAG" we have used many times in the past for equipment items of this nature and challenges.

B) Leave it alone once entered, also not unprecedented in the game where we know equipment has been warehoused/stored. The STRIX issue falls into this category. There were other issues in the "decision tree" but a key one was the "argument" that with your potential enemy is armor heavy, are you going to let one of your best anti-tank weapons sit in a warehouse if they attack? There's enough military types out here that I think would agree that you get them into the field ASAP. Given Vietnam's limited resources (And some of those other posts are correct on the economics involved.) that the ASU-85 could be considered for "exception" as well.

So that's it for me.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: MBT's
 

https://tankandafvnews.com/wo-194-13...ton-chieftain/

This is a study on adding BURLINGTON (aka Chobham) Armor to the Chieftain dated May 1969, and gives you a crude idea of what to expect from 1970s composite armors, and an idea of what Generation I Abrams and Challenger I armor may have been like (give or take about 15 more years of development).

Link to photo showing maximum protection retrofit for Chieftain

Basically, it looks like Panzer IVH rides again.