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[Knirisk]

I'm still just a lurker but I love hearing from Strife. It's somehow really awesome to know a person, even if not at all personally, who's going off into combat.

[Heron TSG]

Aqizzar, it'd be cool if in your next letter you'd tell him I still won't be able to mail for a bit - I have to wait a few days to get a book of stamps. He's probably wondering if I've even received his mail. 

[hemmingjay]

Strife seems like a good kid. Let's hope he is one of the lucky ones who gets a year or two before being sent to combat. Luckily his MOS isn't one that's in demand in Afghanistan and combat troops have been pulled from Iraq so he looks like he'll be safe for the time being. Sometimes they will take tankers and force them into jobs as infantry but not too often as they are resistant to being "legs".

[Aqizzar]

How many different positions could a "Armor" recruit wind up in anyway?  What all counts as Armor in the end?  I have to think it's a lot more than just Abramses, otherwise they'd have loads of them sitting around with nothing to do, because why would you sign up for anything else.

[Acanthus117]

I always thought Armor was anything wheeled, with plating and a big gun.

I'm no military dude, so don't look at me bro.

[Heron TSG]

How many different positions could a "Armor" recruit wind up in anyway?  What all counts as Armor in the end?  I have to think it's a lot more than just Abramses, otherwise they'd have loads of them sitting around with nothing to do, because why would you sign up for anything else.

Armor are heavy vehicles. For example, a Stryker, but not a Humvee. For more specifics, I bet you have the address of someone who knows more.

[Aqizzar]

That's why I was basically asking hemmingjay, not people who I know don't know any more than me.  I suppose I could look up a US Army unit composition.

The US Army has exactly one active armor division (the 1st), and within that division is exactly one regiment that's actually called "Armored".  That could be few thousand guys, but anything immediately locatable on the web is, understandably, very vague about the exact force composition of what is almost certainly an active duty unit.  Still no clue what that actually entails in types of vehicles.

[hemmingjay]

Well, during the 80's the army wanted more tanks so they made a push for a lot of armor. During the 90's the army liked the idea of becoming more mobile so they created more mechanized units(combination of infantry, light wheeled vehicles and a little armor). During the recent conflict the army introduced the Stryker Brigades which are primarily infantry carrying vehicles with the exception of a couple separate variants.

A typical battallion would have one section of 4 heavy weapons strykers, either the 105mm cannon or the much more likely tow missle variant. There are mortar models as well. Tankers are sometimes on these gun trucks, but they are most commonly operated by a specially trained infantryman. To be honest, tankers are slowly being decreased in today's army since the idea of open combat on large battlefileds has become somewhat outdated. With most combat in urban enviroments in the last 30 years it looks like it will continue in this manner for a while.

Tanks still have a role in combat operations but it is a bit of a patch job at the moment. For example they are often parked in roadblock situations or used as mobile artillery while not well suited to either.


for more info on a standard layout of a modern unit see http://orbat.com/site/toe/issues/4/usarmy_SBCT_infco.pdf

[Heron TSG]

I'm finally sending my first letter today.

[Aqizzar]

That's ironic.  I haven't gotten a letter in more than a week.  Not that I expect Strife to have a whole lot to say, but he was sending letters about every three days for a while there.

[Heron TSG]

That's ironic.  I haven't gotten a letter in more than a week.  Not that I expect Strife to have a whole lot to say, but he was sending letters about every three days for a while there.

Weird, same here. I hope that pneumonia didn't get him. (Or did he get over that? I got three letters at a time once and wasn't sure what order they were in.)

[SirHoneyBadger]

I haven't heard from Bromor Neckbeard in forever, either...

Ofcourse, I'm not around as much as I'd like, for that matter. 


Modern "Armor":

Obviously, anything with bullet and/or shrapnel-proofing slapped on to it could be called "modern armour" (note spelling), but the term "Armor", in terms of it's use in the modern military, usually denotes a semi-specific tactical and strategic function of a given armor unit, or AFV. Infantry is used for tasks which are suitable to it, as is calvalry (which tends to mean helicopters, nowadays (aka "air assault"), but can also mean armoured cars), artillery, air support, etc., and the same can be said for Armor, as a term.

Armor can broadly mean any AFV ("armoured fighting vehicles", including an armoured Hum-Vee), but more specifically, "Armor" is just plain tanks. The "main battle tank", or medium tank (there are also light and heavy tanks, but it's called the main battle tank for a reason--it's what's mainly used, nowadays) is the most obvious and straightforward use of the term "armor", in the modern sense.

Tanks are designed for direct frontal (field) assault, and are good for gaining territory/destroying fieldworks, fortified front lines, and field fortifications directly (air support is less direct, and isn't useful for holding territory, in terms of campaign strategy), as well as combating enemy tanks and other AFVs (although this can often be better accomplished with anti-tank weaponry, such as the GAU-8), and holding territory, in combination with infantry.

You could make a case for heavily armed/armoured gunships, especially attack helicopters (specifically, the heavily armoured AH-64 Apaches and Mil Mi-24 Hinds), also being/functioning as "armor", but such units tend to function as close, airborne, ground support, which is what they were designed to do.

Tanks have defensive tactical capabilities, ofcourse, but aren't suitable for broad-spectrum defense, due to their maneuvaring limitations, and vulnerabilities. Offense, in the form of frontal, mobile, ground assault, is their main tactical purpose, with a grand strategic purpose of defeating the development of defensive front lines. 

Armor is not artillery, although obviously any big gun can have artillery applications. Artillery is used for support, and may or may not be armoured. Artillery is also well suited to defensive strategies, where Armor may not always be (in urban settings, in terrain hazardous or impassable for tanks, etc.).

Armor is also not support, although many AFVs are used in a support role. Armor gets supported, just like infantry, and infact, infantry can support armor. Armor isn't intended to support infantry, as such, due to the presence of enemy armor, and also due to the mainly armor-combatting nature of a typical tank's main weapon. Furthermore, unsupported armor can be vulnerable to modern infantry, especially in close (urban) quarters.   

[Jackrabbit]

Really? I thought that, for example, the M1 Abrams had a crapload of features to prevent them from being damaged in close quarters.

[Aqizzar]

Really? I thought that, for example, the M1 Abrams had a crapload of features to prevent them from being damaged in close quarters.

Aside from being really hard and made of molten-copper penetrator resistant materials, not really.  They're just armor.  There's usually talk of equipping them with those micro-second reactant rocket-interceptor guns, but the Pentagon refuses to buy the ones Israel wants to sell us, in favor of throwing money at Raytheon to maybe start building them in 2012.  There's also reactive armor, but the Army doesn't like that stuff because it might save the tank but anybody near it is toast.

Also, finally got a new letter from Strife today.  I'll transcribe it soon enough.  He's apparently at a phase of his training where mail is hard to deliver or send.  But he's shootan lots of guns.

[Acanthus117]

DAKKA IS GOOD

YESSS