Take the DT-30 vityaz. Transports up to 30 tons through pretty much any terrain imaginable. Seems like a useful type of logistics vehicle, but they're not widespread at all. The Russian army has just a few, and the equivalents in other countries carry a fraction of the weight. What gives?
>Seems like a useful type of logistics vehicle
This, this was the sentence that doesn't fit with the rest of the sentences.
There is no type of warfare that requires it at the moment.
they are incredibly niche
tracks dont do long-distance travel very well
and if you are trying to move a tracked vehicle a short distance, just drive it
if you want it moved a long distance, put it on a wheeled transport and move it over a road
its only really useful if the terrain is so bad that you cant move anything at all other than tracked flatbeds
>tracks dont do long-distance travel very well
why
they ... they just don't okay!
stop asking questions!!!
tracks have high friction=high fuel cost and low speed
There are tons of moving parts in tracks. Each of the track shoes has a hinge pin connecting it to the next link in the track. Each pin has multiple metal-on-metal wear spots. Multiply that by the many pins on each set of track. That is all extremely difficult to keep lubricated and simultaneously keep dust and dirt out. As a result tracks wear out quickly. A rubber tire has no metal-on-metal wear spots, and only a single hole where the axle is located and that is easy to keep sealed.
And it's not just the tracks, the various other parts of the suspension wear heavily: the drive sprockets, tensioner mechansim, wheels and the return rollers also see a lot of heavy metal-on-metal wear. None of that with rubber tires.
it very clearly uses monolithic rubber tracks
the suspension part is still true and the world doesn't have enough shit that's worth fighting over/supplying that's also far enough away from a road or in terrain that simply cannot have a road built on it though
>It
I wasn't aware you were asking about a specific vehicle, the question seemed rather open-ended.
Rubber tracks are a thing, they are more comfortable for the crew because the rubber provides at least a little bit of cushioning that the steel tracks don't. However rubber tracks have their own problems. Bending the rubber generates heat via hysteresis, run rubber tracks at high speeds and they catch on fire. Vehicles like snow cats have sort of hybrid tracks with a thin rubber belt that has metal cleats attached to it. Those do fine in snow and sand but they quickly get fucked by rocky ground as they don't have anywhere near the durability of metal tracks or the standard rubber-molded-over-steel tracks like you see on some construction equipment.
Because logistics isn't its own branch of the military
RU only has these because it's 80% siberian wilderness. A springtime mud-choked bog larger than most countries was the reason for this truck.
shitty terrain isn't a uniquely russian problem though. Ukraine and Belarus had the infamous tank-swallowing marshes and bogs. Roads in parts of Africa and Central/South America are more mud than road, and even military trucks struggle to get through. As a result, tracked carriers seem important for logistics
Nah all of those locations do better by just relying on existing infrastructure like road and rail. Introducing tracked vehicles wouldn't make anybody suddenly win a war and that's not accounting for the fact that tracked vehicles are trash for fuel economy.
>existing infrastructure
>africa
Oh no no no
No country that can afford the development and production of a heavy tracked logistics vehicle is likely to engage in war in Africa (or the similarly hostile parts of S/C America) on the scale that necessitates such a vehicle. What conflict does occur in such areas can have logistics handled by chopper.
>As a result, tracked carriers seem important for logistics
why you fucking retard?
>Ukraine and Belarus had the infamous tank-swallowing marshes and bogs.
there is nothing to support if their tanks can't attack
On the scale that would require these tracked carriers it is.
Tracks are less efficient, more maintenance intensive, and slower than wheels, in return you get much better performance over bad terrain.
In any situation where you can't build roads or use trucks, you also can't really use a thinly-armored and unarmed transporter either; in any situation where you don't need a repurposed APC or individual runners to carry cargo, you can just build corduroy roads or similar to use normal trucks.
Even then tracks are only better on some kinds of rough terrain. They're pretty miserable on rocky terrain, and while they are able to cross softer ground than highway trucks, dedicated off-road wheeled vehicles with flotation tires are better in conditions where the ground is extremely soft.
Construction machinery is a good comparison. When a tracked vehicle has to operate in muddy conditions they either have to drive on wooden mats put down on the ground first or they have absurdly wide specialty tracks. When the conditions are too nasty for that they use bigass tires.
Wouldn't heavy cargo choppers work?
You wouldn’t believe the amount of gas those monsters guzzle.
>expensive
>heavy
>slow
>not needed in most situations
let's say it can go through heavy mud. why does it matter? your tanks and ifvs can't.
Because it's easier to spin tires than to turn hundreds of pounds of track tred.
At a certain point, it's more economical to get a tracked roadlayer and have it pave a new road for trucks to use the way the Americans gussied up Alaska for WWII. This vehicle looks like it's passed that threshold, but Russians are notoriously lazy when it comes to updating and maintaining infrastructure.
MAKE WAY FOR THE KING OF LOGISTICS VEHICLES
I BET YOU LIMPWRISTED MAN-FUCKING FRUITS WISH YOU HAD AN INTEGRATED MACHINE SHOP
MAYBE STOP WEARING FRILLY SOCKS AND YOU COULD HANDLE HAVING A MOBILE BASE WITH AMPLE CARGO, SHOP SPACE, AND RESOURCE EXTRACTION
We have the non retarded version already.
Only manlets can actually get inside it, so that rules me out, little guy
anon...
You call that a "super heavy" transporter?
It is a super heavy transporter IN MY HEART
>my feet hurt
>the engine is loud
>the ride is bumpy
>I want to go home
It's so teeny
Extremely limited application.
>The Russian army has just a few
-4
Cool vehicles because of their capabilities. But armies since Mesopotamia have always tried to use roads for logistics as their primary means of moving supplies. Going off road with so much supplies is asking for trouble.