Yes but the skub potential.

You’re talking to somebody who thinks the M72 or the MK153 is the problem solver needed when a dumbfire 40mm doesn’t work. Personally I am also biased against 25mm smart launchers.

Oh honey.

The OICW was split into two projects, a rifle and a grenade launcher. The grenade launcher half evolved into the XM25 which kept the smart feature but enlarged from 20mm to 25mm.

The downside was that it was a rifle sized weapon. Therefore it entirely replaced the rifle of whoever carried it.

The M320 fires the larger conventional 40mm HEDP rounds, but it is able to in theory fire larger smart munitions like the Pike missile. I speculate that the increased versatility, the simplistic design of the base weapon, the fact that it doesn’t entirely replace a rifle, and the ability to fire the larger dumb munitions made it more attractive.

Even more anecdotally, if a 40mm doesn’t do the job, a 66mm disposable dumb fire M72 LAW is the perfect way to deal with the kind of moderate cover that an XM25 is supposed to deal with.

My argument was observed while everyone in the room was wearing sneakers/low cut boots and half of them were wearing non spec pants. Literally nobody involved could actually blouse boots to regulation. It was one of those arguments borne entirely out of somebody wanting to start an argument.

I think I was wearing Czech combat pants at the time.

XM25 actually saw combat trials. The reported results were mixed, with reportedly conventional units appreciating it and Army Rangers looking at it as a burden. I’m personally skeptical to treat any of these public releases as entirely truthful, but it shows the XM25s were certainly issued in select numbers.

It was canceled for some arguably inane safety reasons, and speculatively because of a combat draw down and because the M320 opened up possibles of smart munitions which further tightened the XM25’s niche.

It could be worse. You could be trapped in a room with people vigorously debating how many eyelets should be visible on a bloused boot and then asked to pick a side.

Guns?

GUNS?!

I didn’t know this was a piece of artillery. This is a rifle!

t.some sergeant who got promoted because he could run fast good.

MR-C or bust.

Nonshitpost comment: A video I like to recommend on tank production illustrates the differences in mindset for industrial production.

Summary is that the US had mastered assembly line production and the use of subassembly parts to minimize production time. The US military had a centralized body to evaluate and approve different variants, which meant production stayed smooth.

The Soviets lacked experience with this kind of mass production by they quickly caught on and adapted in a logical way. They used assembly line production, but didn’t use subassemblies from different factories, as that would clog up their rail lines and spread out the factories needed to be defended. Instead they centralized so that trains brought raw materials to factories and left with finished tanks.

The Germans built tanks with a team of people who would continually work on one tank, crafting it. This was much slower. There was also too much of a direct line between many different military commanders and the tank production, allowing commanders to constantly put in their own personal special requests, further slowing down production as so many tanks had to have special modifications (that weren’t important to the big picture).

09/12_20/30_2024/inf

Sacrifice nothing.

Doorgunning in Rising Storm 2 while the pilot blasted CCR through their mic was peak gaming.

I don’t see what could go wrong with Germans building Panther tanks.

NCD has been long time A-10 haters.

Economy of scale almost always does. Part of something to dig into is if a projected lifetime program cost accurately bakes that in. It seems intuitive that people against the program will do everything they can to minimize the effect in order to pump up the projected cost, while supporters will do the opposite and give unrealistically optimistic costs.

I don’t know specifically if that has happened with F-35 discussion, but I always suspect such manipulation as a baseline.

I was referring to the M1E3. My point was that it has so many goals to hit that it seems likely not going to be able to be refurbishments of existing M1s, but completely new builds. Therefore existing M1s like those going to Ukraine were destined for retirement anyway. This is something to bring up for people who have been decrying the “waste” of equipment being sent there. Much of it is nearing the end of the life cycle anyway.

(And the Army assures me that the M10 is not a tank! )

I’m team anti-A-10 for sure. The only reason that thing is still around is because the big gun is so thought terminatingly cool that it short circuits peoples’ ability to be rational. There’s an embarrassing Congressional hearing about retiring A-10s and a Senator (McCain I think) was arguing against the data with “But if big gun plane go away, where will big gun be?”

I suspected, vaguely, that a lot of F35 costs would trend down now that the R&D was done, and there is production ramping up.

I suppose the question is really if the dollars are being spent in the most efficient way to get the result. I don’t know, because that’s complicated and probably needs more digging than I can do for an NCD comment. I do know that much of the discussion is muddled by the three models of F35 all essentially being their own subprograms. Which makes it hard to follow certain news articles or critiques when they jump from model to model to make their points.

The US is planning for a new tank roundabout 2030. While right now it notionally is going to be an Abrams derivative, it is almost certainly going to be a completely overhauled new design and not a retrofit of existing tanks like what has been happening to Abrams.

Just something to point out to people who complain about the U.S. gifting stocks of vehicles to Ukraine. The U.S. was planning to get rid of them anyway.

The F-35 is an expensive program, and has undeniably had cost overruns, but from some of the poking around it seems the issues have also been exaggerated or different issues have been conflated, so without doing a deep dive, it is hard to say if the program is worth the bang or not.