The Earth is covered in human beings living on it, making more and more buildings each day, cluttering it.

OPEN terrain areas are SHRINKING.

CLOSED TERRAIN IS GROWING.

When war and natural disasters strike, these structures turn into rubble and debris. Severe weather brings flooding and mud.

THERE IS MORE CLOSED TERRAIN ON PLANET EARTH THAN THERE IS OPEN TERRAIN.

The places where wheeled trucks, medium and heavy tanks can go are shrinking from the deficit situation they are in now which I define as 70% closed/30% open. Look down from the airplane next time you fly and think about what you see below.

So light tanks have WIDE RANGING UBIQUITOUS ROLES.

Do you want armored mobility and firepower in 70% of the earth's situation yes or no?

When we do have open terrain for medium to heavy tanks and when we are on roads (which are man-made open terrain in strips) we need a light tracked tank cavalry to precede the main body so if the enemy is encountered they can go off-road and flank the enemy by cross-country maneuver to "hold them by the nose" for the main body to contribute to the fight and not stumble into an ambush along the roads. This is how Patton's 3rd Army fought in WW2 FYI.

Before we go any further, we need to get this clear with you. If you disagree with us, fine.

Then you pony up and tell us what you think the ratio of open to closed terrain is on planet earth.

Then we can proceed to go find the geographical facts to establish what's true or not true. Let's close-the-loop here and get conclusive results about THE BATTLE AGAINST THE EARTH. No more pulling a "terrain rabbit out of a hat" to back up a pet point when its convenient.

What is a road? A ROAD IS ARTIFICIAL OPEN TERRAIN.

From 1939 to 1942, German light tanks were triumphant all over the world over various terrain types.

Then came the German MEDIUM T34 tank that had extra wide tanks and a bigger main gun, so the race was on for tank vs. tank supremacy!

The T34 could even break brush and small tree saplings for the walking infantry following behind them...

However, German tanks went from light to medium to heavy as WW2 progressed to try to make up for their numerical diadvantage by qualitative advantage in armor and firepower, but in the battle against the earth, mobility was lost and these vehicles became road-bound where they were easy targets for Allied fighter-bombers attacking their thinly armored roofs.

Why would we want to be in a thinly or non-armored wheeled truck that is permanently wed to roads/trails offering not even armor or firepower advantages?

The wise military commander does not want wheeled trucks even on roads because without any cover from enemy fires you need every ounce of protection you can get. NOT ROAD SPEED which has been proven not nearly fast enough to evade a roadside bomb explosion with fragments flying at 30,000 feet per second. In open terrain you cannot afford to squander 28% of your armor potential by using rubber tire wheels. So for roads which are actually OPEN TERRAIN you need the heaviest tracked tanks with the heaviest/best armor protection possible that with steel tracks with rubber pads or rubber band tracks can travel up/down without tearing the pavement up. As said before, a light tracked cavalry should proceed this main body to make first contact with the enemy and to hold them by the nose or at the least report back and find a cross-country route via trial/error the heavier main body vehicles can take to hit the enemy in the flanks. Up-engined M113A3 Gavins are far more mobile than 33-ton Bradleys and even under-powered A2 Gavins are more mobile in closed terrains than Bradleys to be light mechanized cavalry.

This is what the M113 Gavin-based 197^th Infantry Brigade did for the 24^th ID in Desert Storm so well. If this is not possible, the medium to heavy tracked tanks can go up the middle and hit the enemy frontally with the best armor and firepower possible to hopefully breakthrough.

Light Tanks Lead the Way in Desert Storm: M113 Gavin Light Mechanized Infantry & Cavalry

www.tim-thompson.com/desert-storm.jpg

The 197^th Brigade in M113 Gavins because of their lower ground pressure LEAD the entire force through the marshy areas that BRADLEYS COULDN'T TRAVERSE as indicated in the history narratives below which 197th IN BDE veteran NCOs told us.

Lucky War: Third Army in Desert Storm
By Richard M. Swain, 1999

http://books.google.com/books?id=mZty9wdfHRkC&pg=RA1-PA243&lpg=RA1-PA243&dq=197th+infantry+brigade+desert+storm&source=web&ots=EhTuMUNRDz&sig=FvanJMXSm7oMD3LS48gLkCR7S6E&hl=en

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Gulf War
By Charles Jaco, 2002

http://books.google.com/books?id=EcCv1wwcdjAC&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&dq=infantry+brigade+m113+197th&source=web&ots=nkGjCktn_9&sig=qecyCsUGmQHgb2rA_9xxlRJ28EQ&hl=en

M113 Gavin cavalry units also scouted ahead for the 1^st Armored Division.

Planet earth doesn't directly relate how firepower and armor works against humans. That's something that is going on in our little heads.

How heavy and how a vehicle is propelled across the earth does directly relate to MOBILITY. Only light tracks can go cross-country, at will through closed terrain or be flown en masse by aircraft over it. Bloated Stryker trucks can't do this.

YES!

NO!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGCTSg0bqBg

The Stryker is a medium truck at 20 tons.
The Gavin is a light track at 11 tons (10.5 to be exact).

Does that mean the Stryker is better protected because its heavier?

No.

The stupid humans are only thinly armoring a LARGER BOX OF AIR with lots of electronic gadgets in the Stryker and the result is a medium weight vehicle. They use steel so its also only 1/2" thin and can only stop 7.62mm BALL bullets (copper coated soft lead) and not 7.62mm ARMOR PIERCING bullets (steel or tungsten core covered in copper) that the 1.5 inch think aluminum alloy Gavin has. By being a track, the Gavin has a 28% greater weight/space efficiency so this 28% can go to ARMOR LAYERING that the Stryker and any other wheeled truck squaunders from the get-go.

Weight is weight.

If you want to create a broad brush light, medium and heavy categorization for ARMOR and FIREPOWER you need to not link it to MOBILITY (weight + propulsion means). It may look like this kind of broad brush:

Light Armor = Protects up to 7.62mm medium machine gun bullets
Medium Armor = Protects up to 30mm autocannon and RPGs
Heavy Armor = Protects up to direct hit of 120mm main gun and can keep fighting

In this case, the Stryker is a medium weight truck that's only lightly armored. Those fools that like these fatally road-bound trucks do some because their selfish narcissistic egos don't want to be seen in tracks because for years they have been bad mouthing the heavy force Soldiers (who use light-medium-heavy tracks) to prop up their own egos. Is it worth dying and being maimed for life just so you can say you were not a "mech pussy"?

Gavins are light tracks with light armor with outstanding, war-winning cross-country, avoid roads/trails mobility that can avoid enemy ambushes and hit them where they are least expecting it. However, add armor applique and its STILL a LIGHT TRACK WITH MEDIUM ARMOR. Why would any light infantryman wanting to WIN and kick the enemy's ass not want this? Fuck image, go with what works. Want narcissism? Start with what works and then narcissify-it if you insist. Get the job done America needs you to do and you will then deserve all the adulation and women throwing themselves at you that a "stud" could ever hope for. If you are DEAD you aint "getting any".

That's the whole point and amazing opportunity being missed here today in the U.S. Army/marines.

******We can have LIGHT tanks with "medium" armor and heavy firepower.*****

Using a small compact, light tracked tank we can get the same medium weight armor protection that larger vehicles have because WE HAVE LESS AREA TO PROTECT and we can mount the same heavy weaponry that the heavy tanks use.

However, we don't like broad-brushing armor and firepower because design creativity/innovation demand specific discussions. The T34 with its excellent sloping is an example that deserves specific discussion not broad brushing into a category like "medium" where it shares location with the slab-sided M4 Sherman.

There is also nuances like whether you can survive a hit and the vehicle is destroyed and whether it can be hit and keep fighting. Its possible today for medium weight vehicles to be armored all-around so they can take a 120mm main gun hit and be destroyed not shrug it off and keep fighting other than CHOBHAM and depleted uranium in selected areas like skirts. The FCS program lacks the honesty here to admit to this limitation with today's technology by presenting this lie that a 25-35 ton ton FCS will be just as protected as a 70-ton (40-ton chassis, 30-ton turret) M1 Abrams heavy tank that can take a main gun hit and keep fighting. Remove the M1's turret and you get a MEDIUM weight tank for mobility and have HEAVY take-a-main-gun-hit-and-keep-fighting armor protection for 2D maneuver forces. Yet another lost opportunity on the other end of the weight/mobility spectrum. We don't need one medium sized platform that is too heavy to fly or move in closed terrain but too light to survive and fight in open terrain regardless how many mental RMA gadget icings we slap on top.

New Army Urban War Manual Doesn't Get it Right

FM 3-06 is yet another BS laundry list that starts without a framework of what war is, the realities of battle and terrain in general, the types of human conflict but instead starts rambling about urban this or urban that particulars and doesn't stop. Offers no solutions just slogans and platitudes. No concept of constant air surveillance, Morice type lines, picketing the MSRs, SCMs, or you could be an unwanted occupying presence; its a laundry list to do-whatever-the-hell-you-want, excusing the current FUBAR in Iraq.

Skip everything and look at 3-17 and 4-23.

This is the bottom line.

The asshole or assholes who wrote this see bad guy infantry in urban (closed) terrain as PGM doomsday and "no-go" terrain for armored vehicular maneuver so they must fight their mirror images on foot and out macho-them, John Poole style, cowering from building-to-building one grid square-at-a-time. They want 1914-1917 WWI. Again, this is factually incorrect; only the BUILDINGS are no-go terrain for vehicles; the streets that surround and inter-connect them are MAN-MADE STRIPS OF OPEN TERRAIN, which the light infantry narcissists on foot and in wheeled "up-armored trucks" to fit their fictional BS lest their NO-GO TERRAIN FOR VEHICLE lies be given away if they were in armored tracks--will be creamed by all sorts of fires long before they even get to the main body of the enemy in ATTRITION WARFARE the manual SAYS to avoid later on when describing the IDF seige of Beirut. Typical talk-out-of-both-sides-of-your-mouth U.S. military manual crap.

Whoever wrote this POS manual conveniently ignored the "thunder runs" of the 3rd ID to take Baghdad and sets the stage for more fucked up glass-jaw infantry high casualty events like our presence patrol BS we've been doing in Iraq because "its a SASO" and some previuous asshole declared ex cathedra that "in SASOs we don't use tracked armored tanks because its not nation-state war". (Real motive is he's a light infantry egomaniac or a lazy tanker) Planet Earth reality is if you are on open terrain YOU ARE GOING TO GET CREAMED whether you are in a nation-state war or a sub-national conflict, ooops "SASO". Again, the Battle against the Earth (TBATE) is not understood and ignored even when the narcissists have their eyes focused on the terrain because THEY SEE EVERYTHING THROUGH THE MUDDY GOGGLES OF THEIR OWN NARCISSISM.

www.geocities.com/militaryincompetence/militarismsucks.htm

This manual will be used by light infantry narcissists to foist their BS wannabe WW1 shit just like its done at JRTC constantly and when its exported to Iraq and it results in heavy casualties they gloss it over by saying it was just a "tough fight" and everyone was ah so heroic.

What we need in urban closed terrain combat is MORE TRACKED TANKS WITH SEIGE ENGINE DEVICES, more Odysseus and less Achilles narcissism.