The FReeper Foxhole's TreadHead Tuesday - M2/M3 Bradley - Aug. 31st, 2004

www.globalsecurity.org ^

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo

I betrayed this country as a young man and my defeat in November will be proof of a benevolent God, and relegate me to one of five couches in the mansions of the Queen of Diamonds.

AMEN!

Thanks for the links to the BushMaster. Only the GAU-8 Avenger impresses me more.

[snippy_about_it]

Yoonited Nations, LOL.

I betrayed this country as a young man and my defeat in November will be proof of a benevolent God, and relegate me to one of five couches in the mansions of the Queen of Diamonds.

Oh please be true!

[snippy_about_it]

We are partners after all. :-)

[Iris7]

In the early days of the Bradley I did some numerical analysis on the armor. In those days they used to publish unloaded and loaded weight. I did some measurements off of the photos, worked up an estimated armor weight (I used 60% of empty weight as I recall) and figured the armor mass per square foot, using 1 for the top, 2 for the back and sides, and 4 for the frontal arc, 6 for the glacis and turret front. Takes a couple hours. Answer came out bad, a death trap. A .50 SLAP round at 500 yards penetrated most places. No better than an M113.

There was some spaced armor, but not much. Looked like the glacis and outboard of the front track return. Those areas looked vulnerable to Russian 14.5 mm APBC maybe, 23 mm Shilka fire certainly. More Federal insanity, I figured.

What I am saying provides no "aid and comfort" because even bin Laden wannabes can do the arithmetic. More importantly, the A3 has interesting modern armor, can't really see into it much, just a bit. And now I won't talk, and if forced I would point out that the alien spacecraft kept in Area 51 has provided many insights, and some are now in production.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Iris7]

Nice looking rig. Be a gas to shoot. Maybe some armor, though. The deck apes must be half insane with the sand bags!

[GATOR NAVY]

Interesting that in your link, it says the 25mm was a replacement for the WWII 20mm Oerlikon, which it says was difficult to maintain. Then if you follow the link to the 20mm page, it says the gun was a favorite due to its ease of maintinance.

[GATOR NAVY]

Yeah, I never thought about the sandbags. We never had them, I think it depends on how close to the waterline the mounts are. Ours were pretty high.

[Iris7]

I watched Solidarity since before Walesa climbed the shipyard wall. I could see that the gangsters running the USSR would have to crush this business or be destroyed themselves. I gave you Poles not one chance in hell.

Well, God moves in mysterious ways, his will to perform.

In hindsight I could piece it all together. I had not realized how tired of mass murder the nomenclatura had become. Also, Jarulzelski had a pivotal role in making it work. He kept the Russians from sending in the tanks for real. Gierik would have begged the Russians to do it. Further, the Czech - especially Prague - suppression caused serious damage to Red Army morale, it seems, and the Politburo was having problems with the Army on a number of levels and feared that making the Army do a real job on Poland would make it worse. The international media attention had some effect, probably not much. Of course the fellow in the West who deserves the most credit is His Holiness John Paul II, followed by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Very serious sanctions were promised if Poland were crushed, beginning with deporting all Eastern Bloc personnel. There were carrots too. (A lot of this stuff is not public knowledge.)

[SAMWolf]

Sometimes I think "Lightweight armor" is a real oxymoron.

[SAMWolf]

The one thing taht struck me the first time I heard of Zbigniew Brzezinski was "Here's a public figure that has the same first name as my dad" I had never seen "Zbigniew" on TV and 99% of the broadcasters mispronounded it. :-)

[PhilDragoo]

55,000 guns in service beginning in 1939. Perhaps the ease of maintenance is pro rata.