Mislovrit

Kursk was a combined arms fight, most people completely forgot everything else in the battle except the tanks.

Yet half of the "tank" entries in this thread aren't tanks in function or form.

The Leo 2 is a MBT not a medium like the Leo 1. News from a few weeks ago Copied from first post of this thread Army Considering "M1A3"?, Army looks to update Abrams line

That have been relieve somewhat with better engines and an APU unit with when the tank is idle. And any commander were worth his salt knows the enemy will attempt to repeatedly attack his resupply/logistical chain, and plan accordingly to protect. MAC II is a self-propel artillery unit not a tank though it have been use as an assault gun in the series.

Tanks can and are being rebuilt to like new condition. Keeping them maintained at depot level is where lurch is.

The holdup is the Army will have to create a new designed turret created to go with the AL. Two, they won't get rid of the loader as he is too valuable for the extra sets of hands and eyeballs in and out of combat. They're getting the gun but also having to designed a new turret and redesigning the hull in the switch from two piece ammo to one piece ammo requiring a different stowage scheme. Abrams, Chally 2s, and Merkevas, have proven their worth in the field of combat. Leo 2 Without the latest DU ammo the gun is equal to the older model the Abrams use with the new ammunition. The longer length of the barrel is to increase muzzle velocity not range.

They're really more of the self-propelled artillery ilk, not a mbt.

Iirc retraining the ground crews, and replacing all of their equipment have made changing over to new engines uneconomical.

The day will come pretty soon as just about everything else the USN and USAF have done CAS missions one time or another. Iirc the single biggest reason the USAF can still use the B-52s today and the immediate future is because of the near total air superiority covering them. Soon as the air superiority become seriously contested DoD and Congress will start making useless noises on fielding a new bomber.

The Cold War never really ended it just the Russians didn't had the money until now to continue the flights.

No question the clean up needs to happened in the military side of the house, the CSAR is one of the few programs that haven't (yet) got utterly mutilated like so many other past and present.

The next year will be really interesting. Because it could potentially break the bank for Boeing if they screw things up operationally. Far worse than Airbus's A380 debacle Nope Airbus and their worker unions had screwed up so bad in the past, Boening would be hard pressed to think of doing anything to top those mistakes short of intentional self-sabotage.

If you're refering to Iraq, Eastern Europe already offloaded most or all of their old Warsaw Pact era armor to Irag some time ago. About the only U.S. armor they got is whatever the Iraqi engineers salvage from their pre-Iran-Iraq War stock.

As a global power they're small fry in a big lake, as a regional power they're a big fish in a tiny pond.

Any information on the Boeing design?

B-24 have a lot of advantages over the B-17, but durability was never one of them as far as the ETO was concerned.

More UAV news Rift over UAV control reaches new altitude A blurb from the link

Thank you for stating the obvious, and you're the one brought up nuking first. U.S. policy is to never nuke first but to respond in kind. That and I assume you mean China lobbing them off first. The nuclear option is still in the cards depending on what develops in the next 18 months With most of the city still there it wasn't even a attempt to level it. Bush lost his nerve and ordered Army and Marines to back off from there. Had the they been left alone, Al Sadr would have been killed or captured removing the principal Shiite agitator in Iraq. Najaf and Falluja are Shiite cities. And the people were alienated because we stopping killing the insurgants everytime Bush got weakknees. I propose using a looser ROE not the both hands and legs behind our back ROE currently use now. It work damn well for the Russians against at least against the East German, and Polish partisans after WWII. Even then those methods wouldn't be use by the U.S. Armed Forces. Not any less needed like the airlift transports the Air Force been unwilling to buy more of to haul the Army's lighter stuff around or the Navy unwillingless to buy more transports to move the Army's heavier stuff around. U.S. got heavy conventional artillery in spade abeit short range as nobody bothered to upgrade the Pallys with a longer barrel, in addition to the N-LOS arty system nearing completion. Nope that's would be the USAF's answer if they ever look at dirt side. I can't seem to get the quoting right.

Nuke us and the favor will be return several fold. Something that should have been done to it and/or Falluja back in 2003/4. Wrong bell Crusader, is artillary not armor which runs along side of and in front of infantry.

Replenishment had already started but with armor and logistic fleets being huge as they are, the Military is looking at the process taking decades to complete with the current (broken) procurement system in place. The Abrams won't be leaving service until sometime in the 2040ies or 2060ies depending on technological development from now until then.

Only reason China is even a threat in a possible war is the U.S. Govt. would be too timid around the idea of the opposing side (combatants) suffering too massive loss of life, ie the Highway of Death during ODS. Answer Gen. Petraeus Army never stop investing in armor to reinvest. Since it's inception the Army is the infantry and it supporting arms. Special operations will never replace the infantry, as the gene and talent pool only haves so many people capable of performing it's missions. It's all about ROE. Give the U.S. Forces of today the ROE of their WWII counterparts, and the terrorist threat would be greatly reduced. Army never got rid of Air Cav. or it's concept.

I could have swore there's a few who've live only to die after achieving their their goals.

Actually I was more interested if production of the Legacy Hornets would continue or would it be a dead bug once all of the serving Hornets run out of hours. Same question for the single seat F-15s as well.

What is the status on the Legacy Hornets, it there any future of upgrades or are they at a deadend?

Between the Typhoon, Gripen, and Rafale, imho the Typhoon is the ugliest of the three.