The IDF has a long and hilarious history of taking captured Russian armor and turning them into superheavy personnel carriers -- pic related used to be a T-54, and is seeing service right now. This worked well enough that they recently started turning the Markava into the Namer. But they never fought the Arabs after the T-72 became available, so the poor old T-72 never got its chance to shine.
Let's suppose your state guard or local sheriff spends $50K on a T-72 and has it shipped in, on the grounds that the MRAP sucks ass, has too high a surface pressure, and cost $300K+. He puts you in charge of converting it into a personnel carrier of some sort. How would you do it?
First of all no autoloader. Learned that the hard way
The hulls of the soviet tanks are unironically good, the problem is the turret and its problematic "I self identify as a rocket"
They're pretty cramped for an APC though
They lifted the roof but top hatches aren't safe.
What's unsafe about them?
It makes it so there’s no side of the vehicle where you can get out while being covered by the vehicle. Therefore there’s no way of getting out safely while under fire
Drive through a building and hope it stays on top. It then doubles as camouflage.
turret is fine
>but it blows up if you shoot a hole through it
no shit! tank rounds explode, who knew
And if you store them under the crew compartment, this is bad.
>You're being launched just because a retard made a midget turret with a carousel below the crew. But don't worry comrade!, the turret is fine
I drive it through the department until the building is rubble so those power and control hungry bastards will know fear.
>bear autism
>MRAP
>cost
Anon they get those for free.
>inb4 militarized police
Tell me when they get artillery and air support.
>of some sort
Do it Ram Kangaroo style and just replace the turret and carousel with a circular bench seat, embezzle the rest the money
My mind cannot comprehend how the hell you cram 10 people into a T-55. I want to see the interior because it has to make some kind of L shape to go around the engine.
The box will be comfortable enough so you can stand up in it when you walk over the engine deck. There will be a bathroom onboard and a mini bar for refreshments. And so the enemy doesn't get confused, I made sure to label it as not a tank.
They did the same with their old centurion hulls too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagmachon
looks like a vehicle from metal slug
Fuck that, Soviet tanks are tiny little fiends, there's no room in the T-72 for enough people to make it a viable personnel carrier. PCs are dead anyway, and there's equally little chance of making this bitch an IFV when it already lacks on space. We'd also need it to have a slightly more agile reverse gear and neutral steer if it's going to do the job. At that point, there's vanishingly little of a T-72 left. Not a job for the budget, and the juice will never be worth the squeeze.
they don't turn merkava hulls into namers
it was just the prototype
the namer is based on an entirely new hull that is derived from the mk4 hull design
they turn mk3s into ofek APCs but they're just command and wreckers
merkava was never turned into namer , the first prototype of namer was based on a merkava chassis but actual namers have their own chassis.
there is a merkava based apc but its not a namer its called pereg and its from merkava 3
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/נגמ"שים_כבדים_בצה"ל#/media/קובץ%3AMerkava_Mk_III%2C_July_2021._I.jpg
>Let's suppose your state guard or local sheriff spends $50K on a T-72 and has it shipped in, on the grounds that the MRAP sucks ass, has too high a surface pressure, and cost $300K+. He puts you in charge of converting it into a personnel carrier of some sort. How would you do it?
There is solution for police armored vehicles. Something better than MRAP. The reason why some police departments have MRAPs is simple, they got them from military surplus for free or very cheaply. The problem with MRAPs are high center of gravity, height of disembarking points, high operating costs, high maintenance costs and the fact that some of MRAPs are too heavy for roads. The solution is purpose built police armored vehicle that is based on SUV or truck chassis. Police doesn't need mine protection.