Why doesn't America have a dedicated vehicle for rough terrain? It seems like a major weakness that there isn't any vehicle designed to handle mountains, forests, swamps, stuff like that. Infantry need armor support.
Why doesn't America have a dedicated vehicle for rough terrain?
We just use our airforce.
But what if the enemy has good AA systems? We've never gone against an enemy with good AA before, what happens when we have to do so?
If it's such rough terrain that we can't use any of our vehicles, the enemy can't use theirs either. We also would just bomb any static fortifications.
We can just run SEAD/DEAD. We did it against the Iraqis and they had at the time, one of the most extensive air defense networks in the world.
We have. You just throw more planes/bombs at the problem
There are no enemies with good enough AA to stop the American Air Force.
New, from Dahir Insaat!
Anon that thing you think is a cool idea, how many tons is it? It effectively has same contact area as a Humvee. If it weighs more than a Humvee then it is less mobile than a Humvee.
It's just the one thing that I constantly see people say mechs are good for is going through rough terrain, cause their legs can climb up an incline unlike a tank which can't go up anything higher than a 60 degree incline, and they can shimmy between trees unlike a tank which is too wide to do so. I think it sounds kind of retarded but I don't know how to argue against it so I was hoping PrepHole would tell me why these aren't viable for mountains and forests.
Mechs and these 4 wheeled things suffer from ground pressure issues. If you don't have mechs with pyramid feet (think tennis racket snow shoes for the contact area) to match their weight then they sink in terrain that isn't firm enough. That doesn't just mean mud, it means the same mechanism that creates potholes where underneath the soil the ground begins to give. At that point that kind of give either means their leg sinks or the ground begins to slide. If their leg sinks they either sink like cartoonish quicksand for critical overload of the terrain or they start to become encumbered like a horse struggling through mud (have to use a lot of force to move around slowly and "slog" through terrain)
You really should think of this at the micro and macro level. At the micro level humans have very high ground pressure, easily 10x of a tracked vehicle. At the macro level a human being doesn't weigh tons, humans weigh max 200-300lbs (approx halve if you need it in kg) with gear and a weapon. Vehicles beyond bicycles and ATVs all immediately weigh thousand(s) of lbs at a minimum. Wheeled vehicles are even worse when it comes to ground pressure, easily 4x just for your average road going sedan at the micro level. At the macro level the average modern sedan weighs over 3,000lbs meaning each wheel is in excess of 750lbs or more than two fully equipped and overburdened soldiers in mass.
If you look at the micro and macro aspects this is why humans and pack animals can go up mountains. The localized weight isn't that high. However if you try to do that with anything weighing in the tons range then you risk the terrain failing because it simply cannot support that much of a load at a "local" level. It might be able to barely just support it at one point where one of the wheels or mecha feet make contact but that's it, the other ones and some movement is enough to cause it to give way.
Also tracked vehicles you really need to watch out for when people try to claim they're god tier or obsolete because nobody in those types of tracked vs wheeled vs leg conversations about ground pressure with them as always along with overall mass.
A MT-LB or M113 has radically different ground pressure in comparison to any MBT and even then there's little small details when it comes to the design of the track that makes or breaks a design. The T-64 for example has slightly lower ground pressure than a T-72 (11.9 vs 12.8psi) which is almost insignificant of a difference when you compare it to a MT-LB (6.5psi normal tracks, 3.9 with the wide ones) but the tracks have an open structure that kind of acts like those open racket type snow shoes and it also helps push the mud out from the road wheels instead of allowing it to accumulate. For reference a M1A2 Abrams has 15.4psi of ground pressure while the M1A1 is at 13.8psi.
With the big gaps in ground pressure difference that's still "micro" comparisons. Look at the big "macro" picture when it comes to vehicle weighs for the above:
T-64: 43 tons
T-72: 49 tons
M1A1: 63 tons
M1A2: 69 tons
MT-LB: 12 tons
The MT-LB has roughly a "similar" footprint when it comes to tracks as the MBTs but it weighs around 1/4 to nearly 1/6th of those MBTs. With sufficiently solid ground (and not just the topsoil either) it might be okay holding MBTs. Then you get into the shit in Ukraine where the topsoil is over a yard/meter deep, sometimes two, and it starts to rain. The ground is nearly quicksand like in consistency and miserable at that point. Even if the MBTs have low enough ground pressure to "float" on the top layer, the lower layers are practically quicksand and the MBT sinks anyways. Meanwhile wheeled vehicles would outright sink and a mech that exerts ground pressure at 4-10x of any of the above, even if it weighed 10 tons or so, would just sink like it was quicksand because it has too much ground pressure.
that looks absolutely fucking miserable to navigate
There's also a weird middle ground between wheeled and half tracks (hey there's something we forgotten about and has excellent ground pressure). Rarely seen are snow treads.
These things readily weigh rough 500lbs each so adding all 4 to the Humvee means you add a ton onto the Humvee (which is approx 2.5 tons or 5000lbs). From my quick napkin calcs a wheeled Humvee has around maybe 415in2 of contact area but the spec sheet of some snow treads gives me numbers between a 700-1,000in2 EACH. Even with the lowest end of contact that reduces ground pressure to 2.5psi and on the high end 1.8psi. So that's where you can get meme levels of ground pressure (285lbs human male = 16psi across both feet average).
Of course these things are 4 sets of tracks (even if they're disposable rubber tracks) which is at least twice the maintenance items you have to deal with on a normal tracked vehicle. At roughly half the weight of a MT-LB and with also roughly half the ground pressure that's pretty low. You don't see these things being commonplace outside of extreme offroading because they don't really have anything outside of their niche realm. They're readily too cost, maintenance intensive in comparison to the normal wheels. They'll have massive rolling resistance by comparison to wheels, have far lower speed limits, can detrack, etc.
These things have 1.9psi of ground pressure and weigh 5 tons for a reference to the MT-LB and hypothetical Humvee with snow treads. The articulation is for allowing them to crest stuff like berms and shills because the moment a tracked vehicle crests and the suspension bottoms out (full extension) then the contact area decreases by the section up in the air which can make 2/3rds loss. By adding the articulation (which in itself is more mechanical complexity including the mechanical power linkage = maintenance but obviously the trade off here is for good reasons) they can crest shit like those hills easier and deal with "rolling" terrain without the suspension locally having a lot of pressure on a few road wheels because only 2 corners of a tracked vehicle are taking most of the weight. This is obviously a case where they're trying to min-max for both the "micro" (stupid low ground pressure) and "macro" (complexities of terrain not being flat/simple slopes) of ground pressure.
That's because it is. The BV206 in this example is made for miserable terrain like that, much like the MT-LB's stupid low ground pressure when fitted with wide tracks and grousers is made for the same miserable terrain.
Another 1.9psi boi for reference.
>It went ashore on Normandy, it was with the U.S. Army during the breakthrough at St. Lo., the Battle of the Bulge and in the mud of the Roer and the Rhine. M29 was a Cargo Carrier but was also used as a command center, radio, ambulance and signal line layer.[4] US soldiers soon realized the Weasel could be used as an ambulance, as it could get to places not even Jeeps could. Another use was for crossing minefields, as its ground pressure was often too low to set off anti-tank mines.
kinda kawaii NGL
>Arguing against mechs
So with all the information if you wanted a mech that can navigate mud it'd have to have as nearly low ground pressure (can be a little higher when on one foot but not by much) like the MT-LB with wide tracks and it'd still be just slowly treading through it to avoid sinking a foot. It also has to be in the same weight class as all the aforementioned things that don't sink into mud which means it has a weight budget below 15 tons. The feet would either look like snow skis or they'd be half to a third the length but wide as fuck.
If you're talking about mountainous terrain it'd need something like spikes in the feet to stab into loose soil and crap. They'd probably need to be adjustable to some degree or be sprung/on some suspension to cope with different "looseness." They'd also have to weigh jack shit and you stop having mecha at that point and something closer to a power suit or power loader because even humans struggle in truly mountainous terrain. Weight budget here is outright under 3-5 tons because that's the realm of true offroad 4x4s and they barely are any better than a human in miserable terrain besides being mechanized (humans not acting as pack animals).
In either case you'd also have the associated weight budget fucking both designs over. You can think of mecha as taking conventional vehicles and standing them up vertically but then adding the complexity of the legged propulsion (unless you used tracked feet but that's still complexity) components which always will weigh more than simple suspension for wheels (roadwheels of tracked vehicles included). So the "armor" level on those two are "lower than equivalent" to their wheeled and tracked counterparts if you keep the armament the same. No more of the room inside of the vehicle either since that went to the legged propulsion.
Have my shitty 5 minute illustration to explain the thing about pyramid feet.
Mecha like humans also exert a lot of dynamic force depending on movement. The forces applied to one foot when the other is lifted up is more than double the ground pressure because of the force of needing to overcome the inertia of the lifted foot. So even if one foot is roughly equivalent for the ground pressure of a tracked vehicle when standing, it briefly turns to over double when moving. When the other foot comes down, depending on how fast it comes down and how heavy the mechanics are inside it will exert a good deal of dynamic forces. For similar reasons this is why mountain bikes wreck someone trying to run through moderately difficult terrain (as long as the tires don't sink) because the runner is exerting a lot of dynamic force with each step. The ground in contact experiences 2.5x the forces of someone that would otherwise be standing if you're looking at a runner or jogger.
If you went hexapod or octopod mecha which are uncommon enough already to try to min-max for ground pressure (at the cost of increased weight or otherwise dump statting your locomotion/internal volume since they're just the equivalent of a normal "horizontal" vehicle but legs attached for non spider configurations) I've included this new shitty 5 minute addition as a visual. Treaded feet included to, but those can be imagined as solid or semi-articulated feet. Treaded (or wheeled) feet could add dash speed but there's more mechanical complexity and they'll always suffer trade-offs in comparison to a wheeled or tracked vehicle. They do add suspension in a way that articulated feet (as in humans have) do versus "solid" feet.
Also since you want to argue against mecha but don't know how: Here's another illustration about kneeling/crouching with them from a frontal perspective. With all the cases if you consider a hit to the propulsion (tracks, legs) as a mobility kill then mecha are at a distinct disadvantage. Remember the weight budget for armor: Equivalent or worse than equivalent weight fraction due to the mechanical complexity for legged propulsion. If you're comparing IFV class armor, mecha cannot have more than IFV class armor frontally even if the backs are sheet metal (which would have awful center of gravity anyways) so they'd be both at best autocannon resistant frontally. Realistically mecha legs are going to be degrees of worse depending on the design due to the inefficiency of putting armor on them (no benefits of angles). For this reason you can count hits to the tracks and legs as having near equal efficacy but legs are big, tall targets. This is to say nothing about the arms hanging out, which add even more frontal cross section and would also share the same armor budget (if not worsening it because they're additional structural and movement mechanics mass).
And since this was used as a low 1.8psi example with those super low 1.9psi tracked vehicles, here's a 1.4psi Wrangler with tracks struggling up a very steep hill. The jeep weighs jack shit and isn't carrying weapons. For a mountainous mecha to even try to attempt to navigate that kind of terrain it'd need to have spikes that drive into the ground and even then the soil can just give way and let it fall. Best case it slips and drops onto the "knees." Realistically more likely to flip backwards if it loses grip with the ground and pulls out and possibly then tumble down a hill. If the mecha has the same weight budget it'd be around 2-3 tons or close to the Humvee example. It'd also have no armor beyond structural steel.
Artillery, loitering munitions/cruise missiles and drones. With all that's been said about ground pressure and weight along with how difficult terrain sucks ass just sitting and plinking away at lightly or otherwise unarmored vehicles along with their crew and accompanying infantry is more or less going to always be an option forever. If there's stuff like radar SAMs somehow brought up into that kind of difficult terrain you're more likely to see the emergence of ground launched SEAD combined with artillery before air power is used to inflict misery from high enough to avoid (man portable) IR SAMs in that hypothetical non-American air power scenario.
Also regarding soil and mountainous terrain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_repose
60 degrees is just plain weird outside of stupidly rocky areas where the incline angle is formed by weathering away rock. The realistic maximum that can ever be encountered is 45 degrees because it'd otherwise begin to slide on its own. In practice it'd be far lower at 25-30 degrees. Most MBTs can deal with climbing up slopes around 31 degrees or less and roll angles around 20 degrees. The weight of the vehicle and the "macro" problem hits well before those become the limiting factor.
The only place I can see mecha really excelling against conventional vehicles is short, steep vertical surfaces and even there tracked vehicles are no slouch. The trade off here is that the legs need to have enough articulation and length to lift over (while balancing against whatever slope is present) the obstacle and then successfully step (and possibly anchor) onto the next elevation. Short of some particularly rocky terrain that isn't going to be much of an advantage. At 2-5 tons that also limits most urban terrain as well since most buildings can't handle point loads like that on their roofs let alone floors.
And if they're not viable, what's the best alternative if the enemy has good AA in that mountain, given the value of armor support for infantry.
> what's the best alternative if the enemy has good AA in that mountain
SEAD/DEAD
But also, if the enemy can get air defenses in place, you can get tanks in place, because clearly the terrain isn’t that bad.
Well the argument was that the enemy airlifted the Air Defenses there beforehand, but you can't airlift a tank there because the AA will shoot them down.
SEAD then.
Actually, it would be even easier than on flat land because the SAM sites cannot be easily or quickly moved, so they’ll be even more vulnerable.
>wheeled vehicles
>Rough terrain
what?
Look at how the legs can move, it basically combines the advantages of both legged vehicles and wheeled vehicles.
These graphs and the idea of what to do with them are Dahir Insaat tier nonsense.
It's better than every other mech idea out there, and the only other alternative is to not have a vehicle at all.
>We can just run SEAD/DEAD
What about 1st world militaries that can defend against SEAD? Or a nation like China?
>What about 1st world militaries that can defend against SEAD? Or a nation like China?
SEAD is very difficult, there's a reason only the USA can do it, and we've only done it against 3rd world nations.
Idk, iraq was a tough nut to crack in 91, and now we have more stealth aircraft available and better stand off weaponry
No. It's WORSE than EVERY mech idea out there because they don't look cool.
> What about 1st world militaries that can defend against SEAD?
They get SEAD’d even harder.
>wheels
>rough terrain
it's still wheels gay
Its wheel-legs. The only other alternative is tracks, and we already know tanks don't handle jungles and mountains well.
Groundpressure, bitch. Gimmicks are gimmicks, wheels suck in rough terrain no matter what you do.
We don't? Marines have dedicated riverine squadrons within NECC for dealing with swamps, they get armored boats and can get attached LAVs. Existing armor can handle forests. I don't think anybody has armor specifically for mountains, unless you count the oldass light tanks some South American countries have in that role.
You mean the death traps?
>No problems during ww2
>yet 80 years later there are problems
...
fuck ww2 started over 80 years ago...
retards shouldve went with the toybota
>highly complex articulating legs filled with sensors and gyros
Your $500,000 per leg is going to have a hard time against my $5 At mines, $20 bomblets or $1 bullets.
Some of these are retarded
>Extra battery & Decoy.
Just use plywood and a heat source for a decoy
>Recon
We have an airforce + satelites + glowies
>AT
Just use a javelin
>Artillery
That thing can not fucking handle the pain of firing 155's for weeks, not on those legs
>Mobile guard tower
Do we even use actual guard towers?
>Cargo trailer
Just fucking tow a regular trailer
Not mentioned is the fact that 1 leg is the height of an actual human meaning this thing is fucking oversized and will be drone fodder once a $5 grenade on a $50 chinese drone blows it's wheels/legs to shit
>We have an airforce
Anti-air
Anti-anti-air
If the enemies hiding in the mountains just get rid of the mountains
We can get rid of the mountains.
B-52's are bait for long-ram SAMs
Yeah, that's why we send F-35s with HARMS ahead of them
The best part is that it lists directing the blast into the legs as a feature, though all it really does is make me wonder why a mine would detonate under the body instead of the legs
ESL fuck needs to learn to speak proper English before he spends any more time making pictures of silly vehicles.
No, but if you type like the guy who made these images then you are. It's intelligible enough but clearly written by someone who isn't a native English speaker.
Sorry, thought you meant op's text
The future of warfare is always airforce and airpower.
Soon warfare will just be like Ace Combat with flying carriers, flying bases, flying drones, flying EVERYTHING.
thats fucking retarded stay in your basement
Not until the spooks relinquish the captured anti-gravity technology
lmao, you seriously think that the aiforce can just SEAD through everything?
If they’re competent, yeah basically.
Is SEAD really that powerful? If the United States split its army in half, and gave the air force to one side, and all of its ground air-defenses to the other side, would the side with the air force be able to SEAD the other side?
every branch of the us military has its own airforce
Yes and yes. A) because the USAF is really that good at SEAD, but also because US relies on it’s Air Force for air cover, so it doesn’t really do much in the way of land-based SAM and AAA. It’s basically PATRIOT and Stinger.
But like, in the vein of what
is asking, is SEAD the equivalent of giving a battleship in WW2 a lot of AA guns, in the sense that, sure you can fend off some aircraft, but ultimately so long as the enemy has a sizable air force it's not really a counter?
It's difficult to judge because the US military is so far ahead of everyone else, so the question comes down to, is SEAD truly a "counter" to air defense...or does it only work because the USA is so fucking far ahead of every other military that they can brute force a solution that shouldn't work otherwise?
if you think about it, it's definitely harder to hit a flying target than it is to hit a ground target.
for SEAD, does the attacker have the advantage, or the defender, or is it a coin flip?
Javelins and infantry are just ground sead
>Why doesn't America have a dedicated vehicle for rough terrain?
Helicopters.
Yes it's boring, but best transport for rough terrain, instantly counters everything.
>But what if the enemy has good AA systems?
Kill them. Aslo enemy would have big problems to deploy AA over rough terrain in the first place.
>Helicopters.
Brought down by Stingers and Iglas.
They have max 5 km range. Just land outside this range, or out of sight (there is plenty sight blocking terrain in the mountains). And in many places (like mountains tops) you have no cover and is sitting duck for fighter bombers and drones with their high res FLIRs.
Mountains are bad for Air Defense. Very limited routes to move and places to place SAMs and terrain limits sight lines hard. Enemy can easily approach from the side of the mountain and toss JDAM at you head and nothing you can do about it.
What other nation even has the budget to fight the US on a conventional mean, let alone having the funds to invest in vehicles to fight on all terrain?
Fuck. Outside of a handful of countries with actual domestic output, most buy war machines from big MIC companies that the US has their fingers in already.
I think the argument goes that, since not all nations can afford the USA's air force, many of them would be better with a universal vehicle that can fight in all terrains.
And these universal terrain vehicles are immune from the US’ air capabilities?
Not trying to put a downer on interesting concepts, but at the end of the day, it’s all easily answered by what’s the most practical and cost effective, and if it’s niche or specialty, if it’s worth it enough to invest into it.
>Why doesn't America have a dedicated vehicle for rough terrain?
163 BvS 10s are on order for the US Army, they work just fine in swamps, mountains etc in other countries so the should do just fine.
I like the mobile guard tower
Sounds comfy
Because you are describing a helicopter but worse in every way.