Hi I just thought of an idea for a weapon in this modern era of warfare, its cheap and economical for the use case but it is not a super weapon and in fact its actually a very old weapon that we can bring up back to relevancy.
It is the mantlet. it is a tracked vehicle that is essentially a metal box with decent top armor. The engine is on the front and people get refuge underneath the metal box, with a flap on the back too. The engine is in the front. It rolls into a position until the engine in the front gets taken out, and then it becomes the front point in the line. It becomes a place where conscripts can safely dig a hole and if you have to spend even more expensive munitions to try to dislodge low cost infantry. Its meant to be shot at. If the other side shoots through it from the front you only make view ports for the conscript. It can be remote controlled with simple controller. as it has no firepower or sensors and will be dirt cheap to manufacture. Its a defense counter to artillery, drone, anti-tank, grenade. It versatile in manufacturing potential, i.e. 2 ton variant vs 20 ton variant.
Or we could just continue using APCs which you wouldn't need to ditch after each firefight.
BasicallyAShittyTank/10
Sounds interesting. Where would the engine go?
engine go brrrrrrrrrrrrr
In the front. You would have an armor plate before and after it but its expected to be disabled. You wouldn't want it to get in the way of the conscripts getting in and out of it. you would cheap out on the engine and transmission. they will also add more frontal armor between the frontline and the conscript.
you can't dig a hole in an APC and you also don't want your APC to get shot at. You also can't gather underneath it in the same way. A mantlet doesn't function as a transport / personnel carrier, it functions as mobile entrenchment. Something HAS to be the point of contact and it will be shot at, that thing might as well be designed to be the point of contact and to be shot at.
Tanks have mobility, firepower, and armor. This has only armor. You preferably are never getting your tanks hit. If a mantlet is getting hit with fire, then that makes it an effective mantlet. There's no sensors to fry, no turret to jam, no ammo rack to explode. The only thing the mantlet is doing is providing cover from grenades, drones, artillery, and other various munitions so that he can dig a hole and prepare a space for more conscripts to fill and for the accumulation of force
The only purpose of this object is to support the conscript. There has to be a man that gets shot at. There are places in the battlefield that are under constant artillery bombardment and drone surveillance. Those places have life expectancies in hours. The point is to increase those life expectancies to days/weeks and also increase the material cost to try to dislodge them.
Why not just extend your trench towards the enemy? Why bother with a complex motorized device at all?
It'd be nice to have a giant metal slab above your head. Whats the best way to get a giant metal slab to a frontline position? you drive it there.
>Obviously we'll have to compromise a bit on the armor, have it only stop small arms or shrapnel and maybe some stuff that is just a bit heavier
why compromise though. This isn't an APC, its not meant to transport personnel.
When the APC is taken out, its functionally useless. When a mantlet is taken out, it means its exactly where its supposed to be and its purpose is fulfilled.
useful for what? Utility is defined by different metrics for different things. All the tanks are staying far off the frontline until there's actual targets to hit. There's plenty of videos of conscripts dying on top of each other and getting droned, there's obviously an argument to be made for having mobile cover and entrenchment. The fights around bakhmut have been men going to the same holes and dying in them over and over again. Those men would be thankful for a pair of tracks to bring a metal slab to them for cover.
>useful for what?
fighting a war
>muh ukraine
Oh, yeah a lumbering unarmed hunk of shit is a great idea. Lets you blow up even more infantry in one strike.
ISR is essential for fighting a war yet they don't fire any munitions. Its possible for an object in war to have great utility without having firepower.
You wouldn't necessarily need to have people walking in it while its advancing, you could just remote control it until it started getting fired on, then have conscripts sneak into it.
A metal slab above someones head = more survivability, I don't see how you could argue against that really.
>muh conscripts
The only countries who would find this concept useful can't afford to make it and fuel it when they could instead be rolling out tanks that are actually useful.
Other countries that are actually capable of fighting a war don't have mass infantry engagements, so again, useless.
> Its possible for an object in war to have great utility without having firepower.
Yes.
But this isn’t one of them.
>why compromise though
Because moving the big metal coffin around is going to be very difficult. You are going to put it on a truck, have the truck drive into a dangerous area, unload the massive metal monstrosity, then have the mantlet slowly creep forwards with the hope that it doesn't get stuck or attacked way sooner than would be useful. Modern war isn't just two trenches in the ground that can be clearly demarcated. The enemy can and will disable your meme coffin before it is in a useful area. You just made a really, really, really shitty version of an IFV and assumed that because it is really, really shitty that also means that it is cost effective.
If it can be disabled then that means that's where it's supposed to be. Not only does it being disabled give you a clear marker on where the enemy can shoot from but now its also a spot to accumulate forces at.
Something has to be the point of contact and that point of contact WILL be fired upon, therefore the point of contact should be designed to be fired upon.
bunkers are useful, there's no reason why a mobile bunker entrance would not be useful.
>If it can be disabled then that means that's where it's supposed to be
>shitbox 9000 gets stuck in the mud
>shitbox 9000 gets disabled by a probing force that is only going to stay in the area for a few hours at most
>shitbox 9000 gets merc'd by artillery
>shitbox 9000 gets disabled at point of contact, conscripts can't sneak into it yet, enemy takes the spot and uses the shitbox 9000 against you
I could go on. It is an exceptionally shitty idea, and it's clear that you just want to force the concept without regards to it's effectiveness or any potential alternative methods.
>shitbox 9000 gets stuck in the mud
so can tanks so I guess tanks are useless too
>shitbox 9000 gets disabled by a probing force that is only going to stay in the area for a few hours at most
okay same can happen to tanks, I rather a ATGM hit a shitbox than my tank with firepower
>shitbox 9000 gets merc'd by artillery
great now its a bunker and I rather my shitbox gets hit than my tank or SPG
>shitbox 9000 gets disabled at point of contact, conscripts can't sneak into it yet, enemy takes the spot and uses the shitbox 9000 against you
enemies can always take positions, atleast the shitbox is facing towards the enemy rather than you, that means they have to walk around rather than in through the back.
bunkers and entrenchment remain useful for soldiers. Helmets remain one of the highest utility item in war because of their cost effectiveness. Its a piece of metal above their heads. putting a larger piece of metal above their heads = more survivability.
> This has only armor
Like I said. A shitty tank
>Something HAS to be the point of contact and it will be shot at, that thing might as well be designed to be the point of contact and to be shot at.
That's called a tank.
Interesting idea, but I think it can be improved. For one, how about instead of firing ports, we put a big gun on top. That way, not only can it roll forwards towards the enemy, it can actually effectively dislodge the enemy as well. Unfortunately, there is still a glaring flaw. How do we get this thing to the front? Like yes, it can move, but it doesn't seem so easy to move it into position for its grinding advance. Stick it on the back of a truck, unload it in a dangerous area, and have it roll slowly but surely into a porous front line with an everpresent risk of being flanked or disabled too early? Eh... how about instead we make it into a sort of car? And while we are at it, might as well save the infantry some effort and have the damn thing move them too. Obviously we'll have to compromise a bit on the armor, have it only stop small arms or shrapnel and maybe some stuff that is just a bit heavier, but it were to ever run into an enemy MBT, chances are it would be fricked anyway and would need its own MBT to support it. And the plus side is now the damn thing can move much, much faster while also being less vulnerable to getting flanked. Sure you can't dig a hole directly inside of it, but the gun should be able to scare off anything nearby while the infantry digs in. So in short, we give it a single powerful gun in place of viewports, sacrifice some of the armor so that it can move like a vehicle and carry infantry, and have it essentially be used as a quick armored element meant to support the infantry. I think I saw some concept art for what I was thinking of, pic related, overall pretty good idea.
what if they are not getting attacked head on. Its basically a frontal assault vehicle with heavy frontal armor.
An age of Empires Siege Ram would unironically be a decent vehicle today. They can take dozens of hits from huge bombard cannons anywhere, even on the roof.
exactly , and then it could be where infantry deploy their drones. They would be best fire control because they understand their surroundings best , they know who is trying to hit their shitbox
damn dude that's really cool what if we gave it a gun too so it's actually useful?
you dont understand his genious its meant to break down 5 meters from there trench and have the crew dig back towards there OWN trench,
I'm still having a bit of a hard time understanding this. How does this metal box move around? Does it have wheels or something? Are the soldiers just supposed to pick it up and carry it?
>captcha manwhy
Its tracked like a tank. It has front side and top armor. It makes more sense to just have it remote controlled. You should be able to be on your knees and begin digging a hole with a shovel while underneath it. It should be easy to get in and out of from the back. Its primary use case is to head towards points of high contention. instead of sending men to die in holes and having to refill the hole every 6 hours you send a metal box and hopefully extend the lifespan of the men in the hole to days/weeks. Even if the men die or the box gets split open it should still be better cover than just having a hole.
ITT: anon is an interwar weapons designer.
people were expecting mobile warfare to continue being true but modern warfare looks closer to WW1 than WW2 right now. Its appropriate to look towards antiquity for solutions to our problems
I was also thinking combat forklift configuration, where it comes in with a massive concrete domed turret and dropped off quick before going back to supply to pick up another.
Bro invents gavin in 2023.
The English had a similar idea postwar, they wanted to build concrete tanks for the entire infantry. When disabled they would be good pillboxes. No prototypes were built and it was abandoned in favor of further tank development