M1 Abrams MBT Replacement

[Elan Vital]

Is there a better picture of that slide? I'm having a hell of a time making out the shape of the E3 turret.


They've been trying to get ELOS munitions for 30+ years, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

All I can do is a rough outline for now:

I will call it Proryvbrams (after the outline of the Proryv-3 turret on T-90M), but seems to me that the turret narrows down a bit towards the bustle, but might be traditional low profile unmanned turret.

 

[Elan Vital]

Edited view of Proryvbrams. Hopefully the shape of the turret is more visible.

 

[Firefinder]

They've been trying to get ELOS munitions for 30+ years, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

And that somehow still better then the Navy attempts to get a guided projectile for its gun.

As for the PolyAbrams over there...


Looks closer to the Abrams Lightweight Variant Tank turret to me. Which was a two man turrrt with the crew below the ring much like the Stryker MGS turret.

I doubt it unmanned or autoloading since the Army just spent a budget and a half on the M10 Brooker with the expectation that it can trade crews between it and the M1 with squad level retraining. Making the Turret unmanned or autoloading is a fast way to screw that up.

But the Image is so freaking blurry that it could be any number of designs.

So I suggest we wait til that slide pop up in the usual places for a proper look.

 

[TomS]

So I suggest we wait til that slide pop up in the usual places for a proper look.

So, the Warthunder forums, then?

 

[Bruno Anthony]

Is there a better picture of that slide? I'm having a hell of a time making out the shape of the E3 turret.


They've been trying to get ELOS munitions for 30+ years, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

They’ve been trying to get a lot of things that should have been got for 30+ yrs

 

[jsport]

Weight, survivability and logistics: Army lays out priorities for M1E3 Abrams design - Breaking Defense

“My instinct is that this tank needs to be able to survive close combat with adversaries at 100 meters,” said Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, director of the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team.

breakingdefense.com

 

[Scott Kenny]

Weight, survivability and logistics: Army lays out priorities for M1E3 Abrams design - Breaking Defense

“My instinct is that this tank needs to be able to survive close combat with adversaries at 100 meters,” said Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, director of the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team.

breakingdefense.com

Hybrid drive is on the list!

I think the best way to reduce overall tank weight is to go to the small, remote turret of the TTB. As a bonus, the TTB turret also holds 44 rounds inside the ready rack. Gives you time to spam out 10-12 mid range rounds without having to reload.

 

[Moose]

I doubt it unmanned or autoloading since the Army just spent a budget and a half on the M10 Brooker with the expectation that it can trade crews between it and the M1 with squad level retraining. Making the Turret unmanned or autoloading is a fast way to screw that up.

The M10-M1 commonality will be most useful while standing up the M10s. Once the Booker has a critical mass of crews, low-friction trading personnel between the two fleets will be nice to have but not critical. Insisting on maintaining commonality past the introductory period also risks hobbling both vehicles' ability to evolve. By the time M1E3/A3 overtakes the M1A2 family, who knows what changes the M10s will have gone through.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The M10-M1 commonality will be most useful while standing up the M10s. Once the Booker has a critical mass of crews, low-friction trading personnel between the two fleets will be nice to have but not critical. Insisting on maintaining commonality past the introductory period also risks hobbling both vehicles' ability to evolve. By the time M1E3/A3 overtakes the M1A2 family, who knows what changes the M10s will have gone through.

About the only change I hope for on the side of the M10 is more/better APS.

 

[scrubhead]

Saw this on Tanknet from Renegade334 who credits Clan_Ghost_Bear on SturgeonsHouse.
Original thread:

Next Generation Abrams

www.tanknet.org

He also speculates LCAS might be related to M1E3 and has asked The Chieftain on his thoughts on that, something to check up on in a few days.

Far right - M10 Booker w/ ERA

Far Left - OMFV / MMFV ( Minimally Manned Fighting Vehicle, the more recent 'official name' according to recent Chieftain videos IIRC ) concepts.

Back Middle - Various next Gen Tank concepts for OMT/ DLP or maybe M1E3. Sadly we can't see the one on the middle right. I like those two concepts on the left.

Front Middle - Lame UGCV's. Idk what they are.

Original Linkedin Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dan-...69081272320-E0zW?trk=public_profile_like_view.

 

[MadRat]

You can save a lot of space building vehicles for a target operator size. What is the point for designing seats for the operator targeted at 6'5" (195 cm) people when 50% of the population is 5'7" (170cm) or less. Males on average are about 5'9" (175cm), but women on average are much shorter. Could probably push towards 5'5" operators and have plenty of candidates.

 

[Scott Kenny]

You can save a lot of space building vehicles for a target operator size. What is the point for designing seats for the operator targeted at 6'5" (195 cm) people when 50% of the population is 5'7" (170cm) or less. Males on average are about 5'9" (175cm), but women on average are much shorter. Could probably push towards 5'5" operators and have plenty of candidates.

Because the military average is bigger. Fully 1/3 of my boot camp division was over 6'/183cm, and we weren't notably taller than any other division in that cycle.

And because not being crunched and folded into thirds makes a troop a lot more effective immediately after debussing the transport in the case of IFVs.

 

[GTX]

The Army’s New M-1E3 Abrams Tank Modernization Program

 

[MadRat]

Because the military average is bigger. Fully 1/3 of my boot camp division was over 6'/183cm, and we weren't notably taller than any other division in that cycle.

And because not being crunched and folded into thirds makes a troop a lot more effective immediately after debussing the transport in the case of IFVs.

If the operators use less space then the taller soldiers can have more room.

 

[Scott Kenny]

If the operators use less space then the taller soldiers can have more room.

Still means you need a vehicle tall enough to comfortably hold a 6'3" to 6'5", 250lb trooper without folding in thirds. Which means that it adds no additional costs to the design to make the operators seats the same size.

 

[MadRat]

Still means you need a vehicle tall enough to comfortably hold a 6'3" to 6'5", 250lb trooper without folding in thirds. Which means that it adds no additional costs to the design to make the operators seats the same size.

I think you misread my point. If your operator sits in his own compartment it does impact space for your guys carrying gear. Every inch of vehicle length adds considerable weight and volume. These two factors limit your strategic mobility. Logistics is very important in the overall consideration.

 

[TomS]

The Army’s New M-1E3 Abrams Tank Modernization Program

Once again, it looks like CRS is literally working from the same press releases and speculation that the rest of us are. It's a decent summary, but it's no new information per se.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I think you misread my point. If your operator sits in his own compartment it does impact space for your guys carrying gear. Every inch of vehicle length adds considerable weight and volume. These two factors limit your strategic mobility. Logistics is very important in the overall consideration.

Only adds ~5 inches in vehicle length to design for the 6'5" operator versus the 5'7" operator.

 

[Kat Tsun]

You can save a lot of space building vehicles for a target operator size. What is the point for designing seats for the operator targeted at 6'5" (195 cm) people when 50% of the population is 5'7" (170cm) or less. Males on average are about 5'9" (175cm), but women on average are much shorter. Could probably push towards 5'5" operators and have plenty of candidates.

The U.S.'s average height is 5' 9" for males. After two standard deviations of height loss, you start getting into actual intellectually disabled ranges though, so no one is going to rush out to make a vehicle acceptable to 5' 4" people with double digit IQs. No one builds vehicles for 6' 5" people either, that's like four SD above average height, unless they're Dutch I guess. Most American vehicles are 95th percentile, which is around 6' 1" to 6' 2". Even accounting for reduced 50th percentile preference for Soviet crewmen, the T-80 tank is not appreciably shorter than the M1 tank.

That said, I'm not sure why you think tanks aren't designed for "target operator" given anthropometrics has been an important concern in armored vehicle design for nearly a century now. You might have "plenty of candidates" if you looked at 5' 5" female operators, unfortunately none of them would be any good.

If the operators use less space then the taller soldiers can have more room.

You're walking back that statement now? Or do you genuinely think that by making fighting compartments smaller you can get more room for big soldiers? SPz Puma is designed for like 68th percentile heights or something, in order to reduce height relative to the SPz Marder II, and it's by all accounts a miserable experience.

The BMP-1/2, designed with "post-Great Patriotic War famine survivor stick man" anthropometrics in mind. It got improved with the BMP-3 for soldiers over 6', as the Soviet average height increased from like 5' 7" to 5' 9" in about a decade, of course.

 

[Moose]

Once again, it looks like CRS is literally working from the same press releases and speculation that the rest of us are. It's a decent summary, but it's no new information per se.

These unclassified briefs are designed to put a concise summary of the information available into the hands of Legislators (often their staff) who aren't hanging on the same defense blogs and Twitter accounts many of us frequent. I find them useful if not often particularly revealing.

 

[Desertfox]

The U.S.'s average height is 5' 9" for males. After two standard deviations of height loss, you start getting into actual intellectually disabled ranges though, so no one is going to rush out to make a vehicle acceptable to 5' 4" people with double digit IQs. No one builds vehicles for 6' 5" people either, that's like four SD above average height, unless they're Dutch I guess. Most American vehicles are 95th percentile, which is around 6' 1" to 6' 2". Even accounting for reduced 50th percentile preference for Soviet crewmen, the T-80 tank is not appreciably shorter than the M1 tank.

That said, I'm not sure why you think tanks aren't designed for "target operator" given anthropometrics has been an important concern in armored vehicle design for nearly a century now. You might have "plenty of candidates" if you looked at 5' 5" female operators, unfortunately none of them would be any good.

Why wouldn't 5'5" females be any good?

 

[Scott Kenny]

The U.S.'s average height is 5' 9" for males. After two standard deviations of height loss, you start getting into actual intellectually disabled ranges though, so no one is going to rush out to make a vehicle acceptable to 5' 4" people with double digit IQs. No one builds vehicles for 6' 5" people either, that's like four SD above average height, unless they're Dutch I guess. Most American vehicles are 95th percentile, which is around 6' 1" to 6' 2". Even accounting for reduced 50th percentile preference for Soviet crewmen, the T-80 tank is not appreciably shorter than the M1 tank.

I don't think the US average is 5'9". Again, fully 1/3 of my training division in boot camp was over 6', and we were not appreciably larger or smaller than the other 11 training divisions in our cycle.

Why wouldn't 5'5" females be any good?

Strength. Tank parts like tracks are (expletives deleted) heavy, and tank crews are expected to be able to deal with the equivalent of changing tires (breaking/replacing track) on their own.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Why wouldn't 5'5" females be any good?

For the obvious reasons: women have almost no upper body strength compared to men lol.

The IDF tried mixed sex units in the 1980's, and they failed so bad they made Caracal and the other battalion into glorified police officers on the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, where no fighting has occurred for about 50 years, explicitly so they can claim to have female soldiers in the IDF and to avoid having to deal with them in combat zones.

Having a female tanker around in a unit was worse than having nobody around because they could actively get themselves hurt trying to do basic maintenance tasks. Of course that's leaving aside these aren't like actually tiny women, the soldiers in Caracal are usually like 5' 7" or so, if not taller.

I don't think the US average is 5'9".

It literally is, at least for males. The overall average including females is 5' 7".

Again, fully 1/3 of my training division in boot camp was over 6', and we were not appreciably larger or smaller than the other 11 training divisions in our cycle.

Somehow I doubt the American military, which represents between 6% and 7% of the U.S. population including all living veterans, is a representative sample. Not only is it mostly men, it's mostly large and athletic men, in an era of broadly sedentary work.

US tanks tend to be designed for 95th percentile heights of males, so 6' 1" is the design target for M1 tank and other vehicles. US male height hasn't gone up since the 1980's or late 1970's, and it's actually decreased very very slightly, so it's not like a new tank would be any smaller, unless you start restricting the heights of mechanized infantrymen and armor crewmen to like 5' 9" or 5' 11" or something.

 

[Firefinder]

The U.S.'s average height is 5' 9" for males. After two standard deviations of height loss, you start getting into actual intellectually disabled ranges though, so no one is going to rush out to make a vehicle acceptable to 5' 4" people with double digit IQs. No one builds vehicles for 6' 5" people either, that's like four SD above average height, unless they're Dutch I guess. Most American vehicles are 95th percentile, which is around 6' 1" to 6' 2". Even accounting for reduced 50th percentile preference for Soviet crewmen, the T-80 tank is not appreciably shorter than the M1 tank.

Needs to point out that while the Average population hieght for the USA as a Whole is 5'9 ish.

The average hieght for an US Army Soldier generally runs at 5'11 to 6'1.

And that in 2022, back when I joined the average was closer to 5'8 to 6 flat.

Throw in the old KIT issue.

Aka you are gaining a foot in all directions from all the shit you need to wear.

The Armor, and Helmets for example.


Its getting to the poing were you shoukd start looking at 6.5 or there bouts so that you can fit all the shit you want people to have.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Somehow I doubt the American military, which represents between 6% and 7% of the U.S. population including all living veterans, is a representative sample. Not only is it mostly men, it's mostly large and athletic men, in an era of broadly sedentary work.

US tanks tend to be designed for 95th percentile heights of males, so 6' 1" is the design target for M1 tank and other vehicles. US male height hasn't gone up since the 1980's or late 1970's, and it's actually decreased very very slightly, so it's not like a new tank would be any smaller, unless you start restricting the heights of mechanized infantrymen and armor crewmen to like 5' 9" or 5' 11" or something.

When the other 93% of the population could never meet military acceptance standards, you kinda have to design your vehicles around the people who can meet the acceptance standards...

 

[Kat Tsun]

When the other 93% of the population could never meet military acceptance standards, you kinda have to design your vehicles around the people who can meet the acceptance standards...

You say that like the military absorbs all eligible applicants, or even that military candidates represent the best America has to offer. Far from it: there's a reason there's a recruiting challenge and it's not because Americans are dumber or shorter or whatever. The smartest and tallest and strongest Americans are all competing for jobs in the tech or finance sector, corporate management, and professional sports from the get-go.

The U.S. military gets hand-me-downs whose parents were in, kids who have no real decisions yet about their futures and are hedging entry into a minimum wage job, and people who want free college money, usually. Which is why you don't see it composed entirely of NFL linebackers or IQ 140 quant finance guys, who all already have their futures planned out, but rather people who have little better prospects or come from such poor backgrounds they need the socially mobile legging up that DOD provides through the GI Bill.

There are plenty of people DOD wants but it can never get because they're too smart to stay in the military and too rich to need the GI Bill. They work at places like SpaceX or Northrop or Lockheed as engineers or managers, or are just DOD civilians working at Benet or Picatinny or Aberdeen, who have no experience in the armed forces but form part of the military-civilian team that makes the US work.

If the U.S. brought back conscription next month, and conscripted everyone that met the passing grade, it would see that "eligibility"/veteran percentile rise from 7% to probably closer to 20-30% over the next decade. If it just conscripted everyone it needed, plus a wish list, it might be closer to half that which is not too far off from the ~12% of the population that served in the armed forces in WW2. It's a rather silly statement to claim that 88% of the population in 1943 was "ineligible" to serve, much like it's silly to claim that 93% today are "ineligible" to serve. Especially when DOD has to scrape the barrel by lowering education standards to a mere GED and starts running news articles about 34 year old men completing basic training.

It's a peacetime army in a peacetime America so of course no one is running off to the recruiter's office. It's been that way since Korea.

Needs to point out that while the Average population hieght for the USA as a Whole is 5'9 ish.

The average hieght for an US Army Soldier generally runs at 5'11 to 6'1.

And that in 2022, back when I joined the average was closer to 5'8 to 6 flat.

Throw in the old KIT issue.

Aka you are gaining a foot in all directions from all the shit you need to wear.

The Armor, and Helmets for example.


Its getting to the poing were you shoukd start looking at 6.5 or there bouts so that you can fit all the shit you want people to have.

The actual solution is to have smaller AFV crewmen. US could easily just restrict AFV crewmen from 95th percentile to 68th or even 50th and tell the taller guys to deal with it. Maybe armor crewmen will end up with backs merely half as bad as the airborne then.

 

[Scott Kenny]

5' 9" is average height, and is the design target, since the US doesn't have a unisex military, so 2 SDs over is 6' 1". Which is the design maximum of the M1 and M2. The average height hasn't changed in 40 years so they aren't going to needing to change the anthropometrics beyond wider hatches and maybe lower to ground level hatches because Americans are getting heavier.

Also you say that like the military absorbs all eligible applicants. Far from it: there's a reason there's a recruiting challenge and it's not because Americans are dumber or whatever.

The smartest and tallest and strongest Americans are all competing for jobs in the tech or finance sector, corporate management, and professional sports from the get-go. The U.S. military gets hand-me-downs whose parents were in, kids who have no real decisions yet about their futures and are hedging entry into a minimum wage job, and people who want free college money, usually. Which is why you don't see it composed entirely of NFL linebackers or IQ 140 quant finance guys, who all already have their futures planned out.

If the U.S. brought back conscription next month, and conscripted everyone that met the passing grade, it would see that "eligibility"/veteran percentile rise from 7% to probably closer to 20-30% over the next decade. Which would not be far off from WW2 or Civil War numbers.

Nope. https://www.strongnation.org/articl...ican-youth-can-t-qualify-for-military-service and it's getting worse.

Nationwide, 77 percent of youth between the ages of 17 and 24 cannot qualify for military service, an increase from 2017’s already-troubling ineligibility rate of 71 percent.

In 5 years, the percentage went from 71% to 77%, an increase of 6% of the gross population. In just one year, the obese % went from 19% to 22% (August 2019-August 2020).

Those NFL linebackers are too heavy to enter. Yes, it's all muscle, but they're still way over the acceptance weights for their heights. Which requires a waiver, and waivers are in limited supply. It's why the service academies get demolished by schools that don't have to abide by military height/weight standards, the other school's athletes are 20-50lbs heavier.

The IQ 140 finance guys? Not athletic enough to make it through boot camp, their knees will give out. They didn't spend enough time running outside of PE classes in school, and PE classes in school don't do enough to strengthen the soft tissues around joints anymore. They'll blow ACL/MCLs in boot camp and get medically discharged.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Nope. https://www.strongnation.org/articl...ican-youth-can-t-qualify-for-military-service and it's getting worse.

The US conscripted 16 million people during WW2. If this is true for all military ages then it will be able to conscript about as many between 17-35, plus or minus a couple million, and that's without doing the Iraq War thing and raising the eligible age into the low 40's, or other lowered standards. Find me a war in the future that will need more than 16 million bodies and you can say it's a problem.

There aren't even enough M16s in DOD inventory to arm them all unless you issue one gun for every three or four men. Maybe.

The actual recruiting problem DOD faces is less a physical one and more that it's not an appealing job for anyone to do, and DOD does little to alleviate this. If kids want to make $100,000 out the gate working at Goldman-Sachs, that seems far more American than making $25,000 a year, salary paid twice a month, working 80 hour weeks at both jobs.

If DOD got rid of all its benefits for veterans, who are not useful to it anymore, and simply paid a flat out $1 million to newly enlisted over the course of four years it would probably be able to attract a lot more talent to its recruiting pools. Have kids sign 20 year contracts for less pay but more benefits, or 4 year contracts for more pay and less benefits, and you will see physical education become popular again because it's an easy way to make money.

The actual warfighting problem DOD faces is it simply lacks staying power and deep magazines of munitions, materiel, and manpower. That will only become a problem if it faces an opponent that can fight it mano-a-mano, like the second coming of the Red Army, or the People's Volunteer Army, or something similar. In which case it will just lose the next major war it fights? Just like it did in Korea. Just like it did in Vietnam. It's not that big of a deal.

 

[Firefinder]

The actual solution is to have smaller AFV crewmen. US could easily just restrict AFV crewmen from 95th percentile to 68th or even 50th and tell the taller guys to deal with it. Maybe armor crewmen will end up with backs merely half as bad as the airborne then.

And that will not help.

Cause again most of the people joining are the vertically challenge sobs who look like trees when camo up.


There is not enough short people in the military to be that picky. Again the average for the Army is basically 5'9 with both genders, by male only its basically 6 foot. Meaning there more people in that hieght bracket then theres not joining.

Unless you do a complete redo on everything recruiting and personal organizations wise the army does not have enough short people cut out to be tankers when you factor in the kit.

And the tanker crew is not the only one feeling the size squeeze. My old job of 13R still using gear from the literally 60s spec for when the average was like 5'7 without kit. And the primary electronic shelter we used was downgrade from a 3 man to a 2 man despite all the electronics shrinkage right when I came in in 2012. That was because of both the larger people and the more kit we have to wear.

People are getting bigger as a whole and the vehicle designs have to be made to deal with that in a voluntary force.

 

[jsport]

Ukraine war inspires weapons that crack battle tanks at weakest point

Arms manufacturers are tuning their lineups to the immediate experience of the brutal, close-range fighting in Ukraine.

www.c4isrnet.com

 

[Bruno Anthony]

About the only change I hope for on the side of the M10 is more/better APS.

An early retirement. And a burial of air delivered mass armor,

 

[MadRat]

The take I get out of the rejection argument towards shorter operators is some myth that short people are generally stupid, mistake prone, and weak. (Sounds like a Dunning–Kruger statement perhaps.) Height is no indicator of intelligence. As one of those guys that skipped the military and went linebacker, I have zero faith in your assertions that there is a shortage of short people or that short people are inherently mistake prone, weak, or stupid. That assertion is not the reality and honestly even if you are 6 foot you are still a little teapot to some of us. Averages are not modals, so you get 5'9" averages from having lots of people in the short end of the spectrum overshadowed by people in the extreme height categories. Stupid people come in every category and are not over-represented in short people. And I played around DBs in the 5'7" range that could throw up 400 pound bench presses. I assure you none of them were dumb or stupid.

 

[Scott Kenny]

An early retirement. And a burial of air delivered mass armor,

Not the M10's job.

The M10 is a freaking StuG. A direct fire 105mm on tracks for the infantry brigades.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The take I get out of the rejection argument towards shorter operators is some myth that short people are generally stupid, mistake prone, and weak. (Sounds like a Dunning–Kruger statement perhaps.) Height is no indicator of intelligence. As one of those guys that skipped the military and went linebacker, I have zero faith in your assertions that there is a shortage of short people or that short people are inherently mistake prone, weak, or stupid. That assertion is not the reality and honestly even if you are 6 foot you are still a little teapot to some of us. Averages are not modals, so you get 5'9" averages from having lots of people in the short end of the spectrum overshadowed by people in the extreme height categories. Stupid people come in every category and are not over-represented in short people. And I played around DBs in the 5'7" range that could throw up 400 pound bench presses. I assure you none of them were dumb or stupid.

Neither are most troops in service. Frankly, most troops are nerds, not jocks!

I am stating that fully 1/3 of the guys I went to boot camp with were 6' or over. Across my entire intake cycle of some 1200.

Given western diets these days, anyone who isn't at least 5'8" was severely malnourished as a kid, and that does have implications on strength and intelligence.

When I went to Japan for a study abroad year after the Navy, I could tell how the Japanese college students ate at home just based on how tall they were. If they were barely 5'6" they ate traditionally, if they were 6' they ate like Americans. Edit: and there was basically nobody in between those two heights!

 

[Foo Fighter]

In short, the folk in the demograpic of interest for recruitment is getting bigger physically, either allow for this in vehicle design or hope you can build a smaller robot. As has been said, even Russian vehicles are getting bigger, something of a pattern.

 

[Kat Tsun]

And that will not help.

It will. If the US restricts tankers to a height of 5' 9" it can eliminate a few inches off the top of the M1, and more than a few off the top of M10, which is designed for 6' 1" tankers. You don't need to start digging into actually intellectually challenged 5' 5" wimps, when there are plenty of actually average people to be tankers.

Cause again most of the people joining are the vertically challenge sobs who look like trees when camo up.

Stop relying on people to join, duh. "Recruiting challenges" vanish in the face of conscription.

People are getting bigger as a whole and the vehicle designs have to be made to deal with that in a voluntary force.

We're currently at the point where vehicle sizes are essentially peaked, because various ethnic groups have hit their genetic maximums in height, and for some reason the Dutch are very tall. The only way to decrease vehicle sizes now, besides playing component Tetris, is reducing crewman sizes. But you don't need to go so low as 5' 5", which is the point I was making.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It will. If the US restricts tankers to a height of 5' 9" it can eliminate a few inches off the top of the M1, and more than a few off the top of M10, which is designed for 6' 1" tankers. You don't need to start digging into actually intellectually challenged 5' 5" wimps, when there are plenty of actually average people to be tankers.

There aren't a lot of 5'9" that volunteer. There are some, the shortest guy in my training division was 5'6", but <5'9" was less than a quarter of us. Might have been less than 1/5.

Stop relying on people to join, duh. "Recruiting challenges" vanish in the face of conscription.

If you think that the US will ever reinstate the draft, short of an active invasion of the Lower 48, you're smoking something you need to share with the rest of us.

We're currently at the point where vehicle sizes are essentially peaked, because various ethnic groups have hit their genetic maximums in height, and for some reason the Dutch are very tall. The only way to decrease vehicle sizes now, besides playing component Tetris, is reducing crewman sizes. But you don't need to go so low as 5' 5", which is the point I was making.

Preventing 1/3 of your intake from being Tank crew is a really bad idea.

 

[Kat Tsun]

If you think that the US will ever reinstate the draft, short of an active invasion of the Lower 48, you're smoking something you need to share with the rest of us.

I'm sure the same was said after WW2 and maybe the WW1 and Civil War.

The dissolution of the American draft was done as a political expediency to soothe America's ego after Vietnam, because it had been in place for too long and Americans dislike peacetime drafts, not because it made military sense, and if push comes to shove it will simply come back. All the infrastructure has remained in place with Selective Service.

Preventing 1/3 of your intake from being Tank crew is a really bad idea.

Then, again, you look for shorter people and compel them to join the military. Or you attract them with actually competitive pay. If you do neither, you get the current issues with DOD: not enough pay for a bad job.

If you're going to massively reduce height of fighting vehicles, at least without touching things like gun depression, the only way to do that is to ultimately find smaller tank crewmen. This may happen naturally if the US gets hit with a famine that reduces the height of its pool of soldiers, or it may happen artificially through selection, or it may never happen. In the latter case I expect a lot of armored crewmen will simply die, because their tall vehicles will be detected and destroyed first by ATGW teams, who are shorter and have smaller signatures than the tank.

Given how few tanks the US has in storage and in inventory, it's a genuine concern if it ever becomes involved in a major ground war that it can't simply combined arms airpower its way out of and has to actually fight like a real army, like what happened in Korea or Italy, or Ukraine if you want a more modern example.

It has about 12-16 months of fighting in it judging by Russian and Ukrainian combined loss rates of tanks. Maybe longer, if you start attacking with light infantry and heavy artillery, but the US doesn't have much that artillery to begin with. Better hope the war's over by Christmas.

 

[TomS]

I'm sure the same was said after WW2.

The US never ended conscription between 1940 and 1973.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The US never ended conscription between 1940 and 1973.

I thought it ended after WW2, and restarted after Korea, but I was probably conflating the veterans' exemption with ending the draft.