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700 km in one full 45-litre tank for the 2020 Proton X50 1.5 TGDI
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2020 Proton X70 CKD fuel consumption test, 7.6L/100km possible?
Then the Proton X70’s 60-litre fuel tank was brimmed.Driving behaviour was as per a normal driver
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The fuel tank was filled up using the ‘three-click’ method, using RON 95 petrol.Driving behaviour
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Review Post hq fuel tank
The fuel tank used for storage diesel, gasoline, kerosene, etc. Dimensions as Standard ISO Container, 20ft, 40ft HQ. Tank’s capacity from 1000 to 10000Liters https://t.co/P3Z07CmNcj
With inspections & grade requirements teachers can feel pressure to achieve just as much as students. At this time of year the fuel tank can feel empty. Staff rated Meee sessions 9.6/10 for usefulness. How can we help you? #Meee #MIAM #bemoreyouwithMeee https://t.co/ZboRojNLaf https://t.co/bHmAwALoZo
There's an old 45,000-litre fuel tank under Wpg police HQ...and the city wants it gone https://t.co/66G4fBJOkW https://t.co/CsYiOwIn9n
#huntdowndude everyday everywhere until you say yes @Hunted_HQ @ShineTVCasting @endemolshineuk new fuel tank for the ambulance service..😎 @PeterBleksley @BenOwen42 @CashmorePaul @Steviecottam @HuntedCallum @Just_Luce_ @DavecobblerLee @hunted_fans @scotty_mc87 @thebish30 #Hunted https://t.co/mBSbOZIu74
State-of-the-art #tech can be found everywhere at EP HQ… We recently used the latest in 3D scanning technology to scan a fuel tank for our good friends at Fortis Motorsport Solutions… Anyone guess what bike the tank is from though? #TuesdayTrivia #TechTuesday #TuesdayPoll https://t.co/JO6mGhwAmq
Nothing normal at OEM HQ. Underseat fuel tank, side pannier lecky box and a bazillion wires.. #cutthegreenorthered? http://t.co/rYuvj5LSkB
New fuel tank in production here at Lee Hardy Racing HQ, @DixonJake @JordanWeaving34 @OfficialBSB @motherhubbarduk https://t.co/e4tEZ4vSYC
SFD on scene Dover St for a Level 1 Haz-Mat, 35+ gallons of diesel fuel from a ruptured fuel tank. https://t.co/oZ0LuRk9Ja
Update on our RS-200 restoration series: Turns out there is no nipple on the exhaust and fuel tank for the return to tank hose. The return hose just pushes into these two holes. Which means, we're almost ready for a test run 😊 Just another surprise from this awesome little car. https://t.co/CnaVkH2pnB
#Guildford Old Portsmouth Road by Police HQ, car transporter has split fuel tank. Diesel on road makes very slippery. http://t.co/47Eqp2Wjum
Review Q&A hq fuel tank
I know the runabouts on DS9 were, but were the shuttlecraft on Starfleet vessels warp capable?
Most of the shuttles we saw were capable of low warp factors (warp 3–5), but not all were. Figuring out which ones could go to warp and which ones can't is fairly easy, as is determining how fast they can go: all one needs to do is look for the nacelles! To start, here's an easy one: the Class F shuttle from TOS: Big warp nacelles that are almost as long as the shuttle itself show that this boxy little classic is not only warp capable, but also something of a hot rod. These things could match the cruising speed of a Constitution class starship in a pinch - at least for a little while. They apparently built these babies with fuel tanks roughly the size of a party balloon. A ,deflated ,party balloon. So now that we've covered that one, time to look at something a little bit newer: We never actually got a name to the successor to the class F, but we did see them being loaded into the refit Enterprise's shuttlebay (and they even kept the names ,Galileo, and ,Copernicus,.) What's interesting to note is that they're quite clearly not warp capable on their own, but can attach to a warp sled with nacelles (and a fuel tank) even larger than the shuttle itself. Clearly someone took the criticisms regarding the previous model's fuel tank to heart, but wasn't quite ready to give up the fifth row of bucket seats to put the fuel inside the cabin. Next up, the Type 15 shuttle pod from TNG: This sub-compact is… NOT warp capable. While those two XXXXL sized crayons may look like warp nacelles at first glance, they're not. There is no bussard collector at the front, and no signs of any sort of cooling system for a set of internal warp coils. Apparently they're just detachable fuel tanks for the ship's impulse thruster that happen to look like nacelles. Okay, admittedly that one was a bit of a trick question. So let's do one more: the VIP transport shuttle that's always buzzing around Starfleet HQ: This orbital stretch limo clearly ,is ,warp capable. “Okay,” you may be saying to yourself, “this shuttle-obsessed son of a bitch is just fucking with me now. There are clearly no warp nacelles in that picture.” Which is correct. There are no warp nacelles in that picture. That's because they're in this one, which shows what the underside looks like: This does raise a few questions. Questions like “why are the bussard collectors pointed towards the back of the ship,” “why is there not any kind of landing gear,” and “does this thing's ridiculously well hidden warp nacelles confirm my fan theory about Starfleet Command secretly funding the production of souped up sleeper shuttles so the admiralty can win some extra cash competing in illegal no-holds-barred shuttle races around the seedier moons of Saturn?” The answers to which are “no idea, not a clue, and definitely yes.” So, in summary, looking for the nacelles may actually be harder than I first realized. But it still usually works!
What made the de Havilland DH98 Mosquito such a versatile aircraft during World War 2?
Simple. It was very fast, had a long range, was a true multi-role aircraft and had a unique manufacturing process, which led Beech Aircraft in the US to incorrectly say: “It appears as though this airplane has sacrificed serviceability, structural strength, ease of construction and flying characteristics in an attempt to use construction material which is not suitable for the manufacture of efficient airplanes." How wrong they were - poor Beech must be embarrassed by this for ever. It also had a relatively low radar cross section except for the engines, could take a remarkable amount of damage, and was easy to repair. DeHavilland had perfected wood manufacturing techniques due to a shortage of aluminium and people to shape it. Wood was the first composite, and joiners and carpenters were 2 a penny. My grandad made fake planes out of wood to fool German bombers. This gave the Mosquito a very high power to weight ratio, and it had a light control system, though it was not an easy plane to fly. It was described as riding a skittish thoroughbred horse. However it was this design that set out future bomber design - fast unarmed bombers with few crew verses the lumbering Lancasters and Fotresses which were the current vogue. How did it perform; a top speed of 415mph, a service ceiling of 37000ft and a range of 1500 miles - all without external fuel tanks, and carrying a full bomb load. It could easily reach Berlin and back and as a night escort fighter, fullfilled that role as the P51 did in the daytime. Where did it excel; as a light bomber, a precision bomber, a reconnaissance plane, an anti shipping and anti submarine platform, a pathfinder for the large bomber formations as well as an escort fighter. It also could carry a 4000lb “cookie cutter” bomb on long range missions - almost as much as a B-17 - and excelled as a night fighter, shooting down almost 280 German fighters for a loss of 70 planes. German pilots got 2 ‘kills’ for taking down a Mosquito. It also had a role as a night intruder fighter; these planes would circle german night fighter bases to let the opposition know the mossies were around, and if no planes were launched, they would often strafe and bomb the airfields before going home. In the fighter role it packed 4x20mm cannon in the nose, and even in a light bomber role was still deadly. In one anti shipping strike sinking an armed trawler and 2 merchantmen, the 12 Mosquitoes were attacked by 30 x FW190. Although 5 were lost - 2 to flak, and 3 to the fighters, 5 x FW190 were shot down in return. Its speed at low level and precision capability - a modern bombers template - led it to perform Operation Jericho, taking out the walls and guards quarters at Amiens prison, allow many resistance fighters to escape. Mosquitos also attacked a dutch art museum destroying central registry records on dutch civilians, whilst Operation Cathage destroyed the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen. Mosquitoes also attacked Berlin’s main broadcast tower just when Herman Goering was making a speech; this was personally embarrassing for him and the Luftwaffe. It was a groundbreaking plane in many ways - performance, composite manufacture, multi role and operational characteristics that are still being followed today.
What's the complexity of the first stage assembly that SpaceX reuses for future launches?
Each stage that SpaceX uses is generally more complicated than expendable rockets, but it does try to maintain some simplicity for safety reasons. The bulk of the complexity comes from the landing system, it has many subsystems that make sure the rocket is recovered in one piece and is landed properly on the drone ship. Landing systems contain specialized electronics to guide the rocket to a landing on the drone ship, and also more specialized communication electronics to send telemetry back to SpaceX HQ in California. Each rocket is made of the engine, fuel tank, and landing subsystems, each one is complex in their own way, lets take a look: Engines: 9 Merlin engines and their related engine controllers Each engine is mounted on moving gimbals so they have control over where the rocket is pointed Each engine has a turbopump that feeds fuel to the motors, each turbopump is comprised of a preburner and moving propellers Fuel tanks: Helium tanks to pressurize the fuel tanks LOX tank or the liquid oxygen (LOX) oxidizer RP-1 tank for the rocket fuel called rocket propellant-1 Starter tanks that contain hypergolic fluid that starts the merlin engines Each tank has the required piping to get its corresponding fluid to to either the engines or other tanks in the rocket Landing subsystems: Specialized landing computers Grid fins that deploy and slow down and steer the rocket by rotating Landing legs that deploy and carry the weight of the rocket once it touches down Liquid nitrogen cold gas thrusters that maneuver the rocket stage once it is in space and also help on the landing
How was Air Force One built?
While the airframe of the aircraft that are intended to be the primary Air Force One aircraft are built on the same Boeing assembly line as all others, there are differences. PICKING THE ALUMINUM SHEETS In the case of 28000 and 29000 the differences began with Air Force personnel hand-picking the sheets of aluminum that would be used on the polished, unpainted areas of the finished airframe. NOTE:, My understanding is that the next two will be built from 747–8s that were built for someone else and have been stored because that customer didn’t take them—which gave the Air Force a good deal on them. So, unless that changes, they’ll get whatever aluminum has already been used. But hand-picking the exposed aluminum is not really a big deal. I had a friend who became a test pilot and delivery pilot for American Airlines. Their livery is nearly all exposed aluminum. My friend would pick out the skin fuselage for the American jets that he would eventually end up signing off on at delivery time. So, it’s no surprise that the Air Force was allowed that courtesy. SOME E-4 MODIFICATIONS The in-flight refueling receptacle was built by Boeing because they had developed that for the ,Boeing E-4, series. And there was some internal differences in the fuel tanks compared to a normal 747. The E-4s were based at Andrews when I was based there and remained on standby there from 1975 until President Clinton moved them to Offutt AFB in Omaha. While at stationed Andrews, the E-4s were used as an emergency backup plan. In case of war, the President would leave Washington in an E-4 instead of the designated Air Force One aircraft. So, the two designated Air Force One airframes got some of the E-4 mods. NORDAM IN WICHITA After Boeing finished 28000 and 29000, they rolled off the assembly line in lovely ,factory green, zinc chromate or zinc phosphate primer, ,which is a preservative to protect that perfect, hand-picked aluminum. They were flown ,green, to Nordam’s hangar in Wichita, Kansas. Nordam built the interior, all of the safety and defensive additions, and painted their exteriors. Much of the work they performed is secret. “SMALL WORLD” DEPARTMENT In a weird coincidence, I was a pilot in the Presidential Wing at Andrews and the president of Nordam was Charlie Ryan, with whom I went to junior high and high school in Tulsa. Nordam’s HQ was in Tulsa. I talked to Charlie at our 20-year high school reunion while 28000 and 29000 were under construction by his company. It was hard to believe that the world can be that small. (A SAD NOTE: Charlie died a few years later when he was a passenger in an Alaska bush plane on floats that had a very hard landing. The landing broke off one float pod and the plane turned turtle almost instantly. Charlie was sitting in the back row of seats and was the only one who didn’t get out.)
What cities were the atomic bomb dropped on in Japan?
Hiroshima was the first. It was the primary target of the first atomic bombing mission, and the operation went exactly as planned, hitting the aim point which was a bridge at one corner of the HQ of the Japanese Third Army ( a major military base in the middle of the city). Nagasaki was the second. The primary target for the second mission was actually Kokura Arsenal, probably the largest purely military complex in Japan. A combination of clouds (obscuring the target) and fighter opposition led to abandonment of the arsenal, and with fuel low (there was a problem with one fuel tank) it had only one option left, the tertiary target of Nagasaki. The drop point used was not a planned one, but simply a "drop point" of opportunity - a gap in the cloud deck. So Nagasaki was not in fact the intended target of the mission, but only a back-up.
In various war movies, many aircraft release their drop tanks when getting ready to intercept other aircraft. Is this really the case and if so, do they just fall to the ground or do they blow up (if there is still some fuel left)?
I think I can give you some god insight here. (Not to counter any of the good answers here, but, there were some basic rules,) A drop tank carried extra fuel to extend the range of a fighter. The fuel in the drop tank was to be consumed FIRST! If no combat ensued, the bird was to return with the tank. In case of imminent combat, the tank was to be dropped in order to both improve flight performance and combat efficiency. If the drop tank failed to detach, the bird was ordered to return to base as it was extremely vulnerable. Now for the fun part. This guy, ,James Jabara - Wikipedia,, went into a combat situation, hit the “pickle” to drop the tank. It didn’t drop. So, what did he do? On 20 May, two flights of F-86 Sabres encountered multiple MiG-15s in MiG Alley, and through radio communications, two additional flights of F-86 Sabres joined the battle, including Jabara. In preparation for the oncoming battle, Jabara and the other F-86 Sabre pilots were ordered to jettison their auxiliary fuel tanks to improve their maneuverability. Jabara's fuel tank failed to separate from his wing, and protocol required he return to base as the aircraft would be impeded by the extra weight and imbalance, and limit his potential to match off with a MiG. However, Jabara decided to continue to the air battle, where he was able to still handle his aircraft well enough to be credited with shooting down two MiG-15s with .50 caliber machine gun fire. The first was in a group of three MiGs and the other was the last in a six-plane group. Jabara was able to see the first aircraft explode from his gunfire, but he only saw his second victory go into a tailspin as he was avoiding being targeted by another MiG. His fifth and sixth victories made Jabara the first American in history to use jet aircraft to become an ace. The Americans said the 20-minute air battle had included 36 F-86 Sabres against nearly 50 MiG-15s (Russian data shows 30 MiGs), and the American pilots recorded Jabara's two victories and another pilot's "probable". While returning to base, Jabara's F-86 Sabre was so low on fuel, he turned off the engine and glided towards the base before turning it on prior to landing. Data-matching with Soviet records made available since the end of the Cold War has since shown that only one MiG was lost in the combat, and that Jabara's jet-versus-jet tally was four at best. Nevertheless, American military forces claimed that Jabara was the first jet-versus-jet ace. Jabara later stated in an interview, "That was my bag for the day, and it made me feel pretty good to know that I was the first jet ace in the history of aerial warfare." The mission was his 63rd Korean mission of an eventual 163; he was awarded a ,Distinguished Service Cross,, the nation's second-highest decoration. His commander LtC Daugherty went on to become CINC SAC in the early ‘70s. Daugherty had to admonish Jabara for breaking protocol while at the same time congratulating him. //DISCLAIMER: ,Russell E. Dougherty, ended up as a 4* general in charge of SAC many years later. One fine evening, while rushing into SAC HQ to fix a critical computer failure, I managed to full body tackle him. … (And, get away with it!)
During World War II, did American tankers use captured German tanks?
Panther of the British Sixth Guards Tank Brigade, Cuckoo, as named by there craw, renown for its accuracy in the assault on Geijsteren. Not British, but whatever. A stug of the 57th Anti Tank Platoon, HQ company, 3 Battalion, 104th Infantry Divison. Often German halftracks were captured and used, with .50 and .30 cals, and in southern Netherlands a trio of 88mm guns were used by the Americans. The Canadian Seaforth Highlanders captured a Panther, and gave it to the 145th Armoured Corps. Cuckoo in November 1944. It unfortunately broke a fuel pump and had to be abandoned, but it still did better then most Churchills. An American captured halftrack preparing to fire captured German gun Yes they did.
Had the Sixth Army not been encircled and trapped at Stalingrad, would the Germans have eventually won the battle?
According to my dad, who was a Transportation Command officer with a battalion of trucks in Stalingrad, no. He said November of 1942 was really the end of the war. He had seen the secret reports by the Army and Navy that Germany was out of fuel, and that the Romanian fields could not keep up. Neither could synthetic fuel; he was for a time an engineer working on that, not the well-known Fischer-Tropsch process, but the Bergius process from coal (he was occasionally attached to the Organization Todt for construction projects). He said there was no time to build factories for that, and they were incredibly vulnerable in spite of the “fire walls” that had been built around the synfuel plants. In meantime, by the end of 1942 the tanks were worn down—they had simply traveled too many miles; the Army did not have tank transporters other than rail. His trucks (pictured) had started out as sterling in the drive through France, when he was under Rommel, but were beaten up and lacking spares by 1942. He had to cannibalize parts, so that many tanks left alone gradually had most of their parts missing (pictured). Many of his mechanics and drivers by then were Ukrainians, resulting in language problems (not for him, he spoke Russian). Spare parts and fuel, which he was supposed to transport, were pitifully low, and the cold was so bad that motor oil was freezing. He even had to scrounge for fuel for his command vehicle (pictured) and the two T34s (pictured) he “owned” to pull his trucks out of the winter snow and endless autumn mud (pictured) . Food in Stalingrad (pictured) was in such short supply (even for officers) that he started smoking cigarettes to kill the hunger pangs. Medicine was non-existent, and the wounded were often just left on stretchers in the cold to die. Artillery pieces were limited to 10 shots a day, essentially nothing; in contrast, the artillery fire from the Soviet side was nonstop, especially the Katyushas (pictured). And morale was not good—German soldiers were looking at the Soviet people around them and wondering what the hell they were doing there. Watching the long lines of refugees (pictured) was heartbreaking, as were the long lines of hastily dug roadside graves (pictured) . Even worse, they had little sleep or rest, and were walking around like zombies, according to him. The whole aim of Operation Edelweiss, a radical right turn away from Moscow and drive south toward the Caucasus, was a desperation move to get fuel. The incredibly long distances involved could not be sustained by either men or machines, and they had outpaced their supply lines. The idiot(s) at HQ were clueless about logistics, he said. Even the units he supported were inflated—he had a hard time figuring out what Tables of Equipment he was supposed to supply, as many divisions were closer to battalions, and Corps had the same number of tanks as a division at the beginning of the war. So he was moving empty trucks to support paper divisions. He barely got out of Stalingrad alive, on 20 November, the last day before the Soviets closed in. He got out (highly against Hitler’s directive) because my mom was assistant to his boss’s boss, a 3-star general, who agreed to send a telex to get him moving. He called my mom (pictured on her car, next to a Ukrainian farmhouse—note the blacked-out headlights and the pockets in the car doors) to ask her to get the general to place a personal phone call to his Colonel. With much grumbling, the general did so. The phone call arrived at 08:00 (he was waiting for it to arrive), dad left at around 10:00, and crossed the bridge over the Don that afternoon; the Soviets seized that bridge later that night and closed the encirclement by the next morning. Two days later, at 10:00, the telex arrived at his former Colonel’s HQ. He told me to never forget the lesson: do NOT trust one-way communications. His calculations showed that German losses could not be replaced, and the other Axis forces in the area were not much help. The Italian and Romanian units above and below Stalingrad had brave fighters but lousy equipment, and also had little fuel and were on near-starvation rations, exacerbated by the shortage of transport vehicles to carry supplies. He had tremendous respect for the Soviets, BTW, including Ukrainians on both sides of the fence, and the incredibly tough soldiers from the far Eastern provinces. He said they could keep fighting day after day with only pockets full of sunflower seeds to sustain them. Same for the equipment— much as he loved his MP40 as a graduate mechanical engineer, he also had a PPsh41, because the one was accurate as hell but would jam in dusty situations, whereas the other would keep working forever. After the war was over he took a Volga River trip through the area and talked and drank with and apologized to many former enemies, often with a lot of tear-shedding. In any case, he had wide experience of the situations across the front, since he was not organic transport of one unit but was attached to various units from Leningrad all the way below Stalingrad. By the end of November, 1942, he said (and filled in with a lot of detail on his original classified maps), the war was over, all but the shouting, and it was an unimaginable tragedy to continue it.
What is the most outrageous experience you have ever had while on an overnight trip for work?
A quick trip from Hell, courtesy of the Soviets, perhaps. Never mind why I was there. I won’t say where I was. It was a long time ago. I was maybe 20, too young to vote. Plenty old enough to drink. And I had a pressing need to send a top secret FLASH message. I was on duty in the required clothing: flip flops, swim trunks and a tee shirt with an obscene cartoon captioned by filthy words. And I had some intel on a sudden Soviet ship movement that needed to be sent to HQ faster than immediately—but only by secret means. So I walked barefoot on white sand from the hot and humid beach through the lush green trees into a freezing van full of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. We had a big radar screen in there, sweeping slowly round and round, like you see in the movies. But this radar didn’t put out a radar beam. Yet we could see what the Soviets could see on their screen. And they saw too much. A Soviet warship, converted so it looked like a big fishing trawler, had seen a Boomer and had turned to follow it. I had to report this before they could put a Boomer-Killer on the tail of our Boomer. (A boomer is a giant submarine with enough nukes to wipe out a country.) So I verified the time in London, grabbed the appropriate code book and encoded my message. AABR TYI OIYYU JEIT was all it needed to say. Each group of letters was an entire sentence of plain speak. I picked up the phone. The POTS line was pretty simple, but it worked. Every day for months, we had used this phone with no problems. Now I needed it for an important message. (POTS is, I think, the newly official name of the old Plain Old Telephone System.) Dead. No sound. No dial tone. No buzz. Just dead—as though someone cut the line at just the right moment to give their anti-submarine ship a head start. So I grabbed the keys to the Forest Service truck sitting out of sight,, put my message in an envelope marked Secret, put that envelope into another marked Official Business and slipped that into a locked briefcase that said US Navy. I was making good time down the highway until it ran out of gas. So I parked it on the side of the road, and this beach bum (me) carried my briefcase a mile back to a gas station, bought a can and a gallon, and walked back to my truck with my briefcase and metal gas can. My tee shirt and swim trunks were soaked in sweat, and my feet were raw from the cheap plastic flip flops. When I opened the little gas filler door, I saw the can’s discharge pipe was bigger than the truck’s filler pipe. Huh? Then I noticed some printing on the truck that said “UNLEADED ONLY.” What the hell was unleaded? Is there lead in gas? This was a new concept. To get the tank to stay open, I shoved a pencil in the spring-loaded pipe door, and ended up splashing leaded gasoline all over the side of the truck and my foot, getting some into the tank. When I touched the pencil to retrieve it, it fell inside the fuel tank of the truck. I got back to the squadron OK, walking past the sailors in my soaking beach clothes and briefcase as they furled eyebrows at my casual dress. I identified myself to the intel officer, handed him the briefcase, and several officers seemed a bit concerned that the Soviet trawler had a three-hour head start. It would take a couple of days for a C-130 to find that ship—it’s a really big ocean. That pencil is probably still in the fuel tank of that Forest Service truck. In that little way, I know I’ve left my mark on the world. Thanks to David Wilkerson for requesting my answer to: Q: What is the most outrageous experience you have ever had while on an overnight trip for work?
Why is the U.S. Marine Corps trying to get rid of its tanks?
I think it’s a statement; “we are not grunts.” If you have a tough nut to crack generals call on Marines. That’s fine. Marines are trained nutcrackers. But Marines are saying “don’t grind us in a war of attrition.” They are not the police for local civilians, they are not sentries or guards. They are specialized attackers. As attackers, they can definitely use tanks. What good is taking a beach if you can’t get out of it? Tanks are perfect tools to break out. And US has a lot of them. The world’s most threatened nation (South Korea) has about 3,000 tanks (that’s about 1 tank every 100 yards of their border with North Korea). For political reasons, US made about 10,000 tanks, most of them are unused. (Tank factories are big businesses for the state where it’s located.) So there is no lack of tanks. US also has one of the largest stock piles of strategic oil reserve. We don’t lack of fuel either. But, having tanks make it easy for generals to use Marine tanks like a regular tank battalion. Yet another thing Marines are not. Removing weapons to fit the purpose had happened before. During WWII, Germans gave 5cm guns to 8 wheeled vehicles. These are recon vehicles. But having a “tank-gun” made it easy for recon troops to engage soft skinned vehicles. While they are having fun destroying enemy trucks, enemy tanks or AT guns would sneak around and destroy them. A recon unit’s mission is to come back and report. Fighting and not coming back defeats the purpose. And HQ might not want to alert the enemy either. They kept telling them not to engage. But later, they found that vehicles mounting 2cm guns come back when 5cm guns don’t. (2cm had enough sting to dissuade enemies from giving chase. But it does not have enough punch to pick a fight.) Right tool for the right job. Even if it means downgrading. US Marines are not small recon units (I don’t mean Force Recon companies). US Marines have 4 divisions. Once they take the beach itself, how could it break out of it without armor? If you are pinned down on a beach, few tanks would be worth their weight in gold. But, that’s the old doctrine. There is no “Fortress Europe” anymore. Aside from North Korea, there is no fortified beaches to assault. So, I guess Marines are thinking, it’s a good time to go back to the root. Assault the beaches, break out enough to take the foothold, and leave the rest to the army. (Marines are not going to do everything! If Marines do all the fighting, then the Army would be a police unit. That’s not fair to either of them.) So, Marines will focus and reorganize into more of an assault force than occupying force. Develop more amphibious vehicles (none succeeded). SuperAV seems like a temporary solution. (2–3 ton pressing down on each wheel? On sand? That doesn’t sound ideal.) But even if there is no Fortress Europe, that does not mean that the enemy doesn’t have tanks. Even if you have 300 of these, you can’t hope to defeat a dozen T-14 tanks within a mile of the beach. So, I think Marines will use tanks again in a decade or two. But for now? My guess is that they are making a statement; “we are not army divisions.” [Edit: I think it’s a mistake for Marines to become a high-tech air force. Marine Aviation has 820 fighter jets in its inventory (F18, F35, and Harriers). Israel has about 350 fighters, Japan, ,has little over 200, South Korea has about 200 also. This means ,the Marines have a bigger air force than the above 3 nations combined., Yet no tanks? And cut amphibious forces and helicopters? Marines plan to have rocket batteries inside of Chinese sphere of influence. But the Philippines don’t want it, Okinawa doesn’t want it, and having it in Taiwan will start a war with China. So the rockets the Marine Corps want to buy (after giving up tanks), can’t go anywhere. I’m reminded of Reagan’s Star Wars program. Some people joked about disbanding the entire armed forces. No need to have soldiers, marines, and sailors. If the space lasers can kill intercontinental missiles, why not kill enemy soldiers, tanks, ships, and airplanes with it too? THAT NEVER HAPPENED. 30 Billion dollars wasted. Even 40 years later, we still need boots on the ground. Marines as rocket battery operators? Where are they going to shoot it from? From the decks of carriers? The navy already has missile boats. The Army has rocket batteries. Instead of the Marines being an amphibious assault force, it’s turning into an Air Force and island Navy. I think the Marine Corp is overthinking the future, just like designers of Reagan’s Star Wars program did… I’m afraid for our Marines if they got this wrong. Do they really have to completely abandon tanks? Why not keep just 60 tanks at the cost of 30 jets? Even after that, the Corp will still have 790 fighters, about equal to 3 nations’ air forces.]
Beranda