968 replies to this topic

[Stuart Galbraith]

Nice video of C2 on the ranges with the Queens Royal Hussars.

https://twitter.com/...4924936193?s=20

Edited by Stuart Galbraith, 24 July 2019 - 0826 AM.

[Stuart Galbraith]

RTR Challenger 2 on the Castlemartin ranges.

https://twitter.com/...266390486822913

[Mighty_Zuk]

Or would you really rather see at least 3 entirely different simultaneously developed pieces of hardware fulfilling the exact same roles in every service?

 
Like cars, trucks, commercial airplanes?

Consummerism does not apply to armies. Consider an army as a single entity.

An individual person can look at the whole car market and decide which vehicle is best suited for him from a consideration of a wide array of factors such as capacity, fuel economy, range, comfort, aesthetics, suitability to terrain, etc etc.
But when he buys a car, he keeps that car until he decides he needs an upgrade, and usually will hold only one car unless that person has a family with complex transportation needs.

Same with an army. You don't go around buying every single tank in existence. You choose one most suitable based on your considerations.

You just don't see many people holding 3 different cars just for themselves.

And companies that use trucks or commercial airplanes try just as much to unify their fleets when looking for vehicles to match certain types of missions. Especially those who have their own maintenance centers and crews.

[Mighty_Zuk]

To replace a tank every 40 years and maintain a minimum production capacity of 30 per year (considered a bare minimum in the industry), one would have to maintain up to 1200 tanks in service (including reserves).
It's possible to go lower to 900 vehicles if a tank is to remain in service for 30 years.

Go lower and you're retiring them prematurely. Go higher and you need to ramp up production.

Either way, it's not worth keeping a tank-making industry unless you're going above a ~900 tank fleet.

 
Hello Mighty_Zuk,
 
There are probably other factors that exists which could effect the standard that you state. Perhaps commonality of parts with other AFVs or kind of production scheme could be factors. Consider the production rate of the Type 10 tank.
 
2010...13
2011...13
2012...13
2013...14
2014...13
2015...10
2016...6
2017...6
2018...5
2019...6
 
Production of Type 10 tanks will continue to at least FY2023. In the current midterm defense plan (2019-2023), 30 Type 10 tanks are planned to be procured. So that would mean 6 more tanks for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 each.
 
There are 341 Type 90s in service. 873 Type 74s were produced but they have been retiring at a fairly high rate as units exchange the Type 74s and adopt to new defense guidelines and equipment for those guidelines such as the Type 16 Maneuver Combat Vehicle (MCV) or AAV7s. In 2016, about 400 Type 74s were in service from what I can find. So by now, I wouldn't be surprised if there were currently less than 200 Type 74s in service. So if we take about 100 Type 10s, 341 Type 90s, and 200 Type 74s, it comes up to 641 tanks. If we add in the Type 16 MCV, 109 have been produced so far. Adding them on still results in an amount fairly below the 900 level of about 750. The current midterm defense plan calls for the production of 134 Type 16 MCVs (22 of which made in 2019, so still another 112 more to go). However, as these come in, the remaining Type 74s will probably be gone.

A mixture of various types of AFVs is also possible to circumvent the issue of having to lay off people, but I'm not sure how it works with vehicles so different from one another.

[Nobu]

You just don't see many people holding 3 different cars just for themselves.

 

Not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but ownership of at least 3 different cars is not uncommon in California: daily driver, weekend driver, car restoration project

[EvanDP]

You just don't see many people holding 3 different cars just for themselves.
 
Not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but ownership of at least 3 different cars is not uncommon in California: daily driver, weekend driver, car restoration project

Raises hand. 😉

[Chris Werb]

 

To replace a tank every 40 years and maintain a minimum production capacity of 30 per year (considered a bare minimum in the industry), one would have to maintain up to 1200 tanks in service (including reserves).
It's possible to go lower to 900 vehicles if a tank is to remain in service for 30 years.

Go lower and you're retiring them prematurely. Go higher and you need to ramp up production.

Either way, it's not worth keeping a tank-making industry unless you're going above a ~900 tank fleet.

 

Hello Mighty_Zuk,

 

There are probably other factors that exists which could effect the standard that you state. Perhaps commonality of parts with other AFVs or kind of production scheme could be factors. Consider the production rate of the Type 10 tank.

 

2010...13

2011...13

2012...13

2013...14

2014...13

2015...10

2016...6

2017...6

2018...5

2019...6

 

Production of Type 10 tanks will continue to at least FY2023. In the current midterm defense plan (2019-2023), 30 Type 10 tanks are planned to be procured. So that would mean 6 more tanks for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 each.

 

There are 341 Type 90s in service. 873 Type 74s were produced but they have been retiring at a fairly high rate as units exchange the Type 74s and adopt to new defense guidelines and equipment for those guidelines such as the Type 16 Maneuver Combat Vehicle (MCV) or AAV7s. In 2016, about 400 Type 74s were in service from what I can find. So by now, I wouldn't be surprised if there were currently less than 200 Type 74s in service. So if we take about 100 Type 10s, 341 Type 90s, and 200 Type 74s, it comes up to 641 tanks. If we add in the Type 16 MCV, 109 have been produced so far. Adding them on still results in an amount fairly below the 900 level of about 750. The current midterm defense plan calls for the production of 134 Type 16 MCVs (22 of which made in 2019, so still another 112 more to go). However, as these come in, the remaining Type 74s will probably be gone.

 

 

Can we please have a Type 74 for Bovington?

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, Mothra ate them all.

[JasonJ]

Bovington would make a good home for one