Hello, I'm the new department member, and I look forward to working with you.
Despite some people's misgivings, I think our POACs are precisely what's needed to wage war on out beloved nations' terrain ... as long as we can increase their flotation, making light mechanized amphibious infantry operations viable even between our islands. This seems an easy proposition, given the POACs' towing lashing eyes and lift points.
Two lateral mesh-lined rubberized canvas bags attachable to the POACs' towing lashing eyes and lift points increase their natural freeboard and stability.
Can be folded to fit in a canvas bag, and are inflatable by footpump or compressed air cylinders.
EDIT: include an attachable engine ventilation periscope to prevent the engine from going out on bigger waves.
Unfortunately this would also reduce their speed on water due to the drag, but we can tow at more than a couple of them behind CDVs or Shockwaves.
A complementary project would be to fit seats on the POAC Cs' cargo bed. The L\H variants can already take a few men, but the turretless C's larger free space and reduced weight could let us use it as a (amphibious) common truck and
pack some sixteen sardines in each can carry up to sixteen men.
Just long wooden seats attachable to each other, each sitting four men (with no elbow room whatsoever, and very little knee room).
Given the Shockwaves' draught of just 1.5m (that's beach-wading depth), it'd also be interesting to see how many of these can be fitted in them...
By the way: there's a reason my fellow squids tried to make a life vest when asked for a splinter vest: in the navy,
the ship's armor is your splinter vest, and if that ever fails you don't want to be dressed as an anchor...
That also goes for the marines, it'd be tragic to have your POAC sunk, fall overboard or to drown in waste-high water just because you got shot and can't get your head above the water.
What it says on the tin. Must keep up to 120Kg worth of immersed soldier and equipment afloat, preferably face up.
Absolutely no doughnut-shaped buoys to be worn around the waste; infantrymen tend to be top-heavy.
I see from the latest intelligence report that the parrots don't actually have any tanks - only those little italian tankettes our POAC jockeys love so much, and the even older Renault FT, which is roughly comparable to our T-18s. This makes me think that although still important, the medium tank project isn't really urgent at this point. What we need right now instead would be a
ramped landing craft to carry the towable guns and all the rest that can't be taken by POAC on the initial assault.
Displacement: 35 tonnes
Length : 13.6 m
Width : 4.27 m
Draught : 1.22 m
Machinery : 200 HP from four SDE M1933 engines
Speed : 7 knots
Crew : total 9
4 sailors
2 machine gunners
3 mortar crew
Armament : two MM1934 machine guns, one EAM M1932 automatic mortar
Armor:
20mm bulkheads and sides
6mm elsewhere.
Capacity: one medium tank, or 26.8 tons of cargo or 60 troops
From elsewhere, I got the information that the parrots can easily descend into bloody-mindedness; for instance, when they invaded Paraguay back in the 1860s, they wiped out 95% of the adult male population, to the point the Pope had to decree an absolution for fornication due to the demographic crisis...
Oh, and they like to play with knifes. It sure is a pity our own man have no knives of their own, or any training against psichos with knives. Let's just hope our dakka is up to the job, or it might get ugly out there.