Ukraine

[George Jung]

You are correct; I suspect 'Johan' aims to derail this thread, and to 'his' (it's?) credit - so far, pretty successful.

To the 'ignore' file for him/her/it!

[Peerie Maa]

I dont know what kind of back water hill-billy you think you are talking too, but for all I know, you could be an Indian from Kolkota data harvesting instead of posting crypto currency adverts. Maybe the ball is in your court.

I am not feeding Heimlagas paranoia, and you should not either.

About Johan R

Location:sweden
Tell us:L
Also tell us:y


About Peerie Maa
Date of Birth
May 30, 1950 (72)
Biography Care for a shrimp trawler (built 1915), and a 50+ year old Shetland whilly boat.
Location Walney, near Cumbria UK
Interests Small wooden rowing and sail boats (up to 35 foot) & scale model making Occupation Retired from work as a Naval Architect in shipyard design office

Nuff said.

[dutchpp]

Our friends hard at work in their office in St-Petersburg, the goal is to make the noise as loud as possible.
Distract, manipulate, insult and lie.
trollen aan het werk.jpg
Ignore is the most effective countermeasure.

[Jack Loudon]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...00000425193458

Thank you Andrew and the others who stay out of the fray and continue to provide accurate and credible information.

[Paul Pless]

back to our regularly scheduled program

PARIS, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister said on Sunday her government would not stand in the way if Poland wants to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, in a possible breakthrough for Kyiv which wants the tanks for its fight against Russia's invasion.

Poland has said it would provide a company of Leopards - around 14 - but Morawiecki said a transfer only made sense as part of a brigade - a variable but much larger number. Some 20 countries operate the tank, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Spain, Sweden and Turkey

[George Jung]

Maybe we need 'a pledge'..... you know, for those 'tempted'....

[George Jung]

Curious - why has the US opted for the turbo/high upkeep engine vs diesel?

[Johan R]

I wish everyone could turn up the signal, and turn down the noise.

This used to be a decent thread.

I apologise on my part. But this...

sort of a modern day cross between a dostoevsky and a tolstoy character then

tragic. . .

just after i have laid my friend to rest because of his involvement in Ukraine, becoming something to make fun of is intolerable. Yes Vadim had a rough childhood and life, so do millions of other people, but making light of it just shows this obnoxious and vexatious hole, has most likely had an over entitled and over privileged life, and being an American, i bet over weight too.

[Canoez]

The conflict going on is reminiscent of the Spanish Civil war in some regards - various players using it as an opportunity to test new equipment in the field.

Certainly the introduction of more modern Western tanks and tactics into the conflict will be a test.

[Canoez]

Curious - why has the US opted for the turbo/high upkeep engine vs diesel?

Speed, acceleration, better power-to-weight ratio. I think there were also some advantages with changing out the whole turbine assembly in the field - the intent was that the it could be changed out in fairly spartan conditions and sent back behind the lines for refurbishment/repair.

The turbine engine can also burn a variety of fuels, although the US military has standardized.

[Paul Pless]

Curious - why has the US opted for the turbo/high upkeep engine vs diesel?

according to donald rumsfeld who took part in the selection of the abrams it was political decision made by his bosses

there were two competitors for the contract, chrysler had a turbine engine and gm had a traditional diesel engine,
initially the army wanted the gm tank, but they were overruled by deputy secretary of defense bill clements who said, "the army's next tank will be turbine powered. . ." gm was given a chance to build a turbine tank but declined

one further note in the decison process, at the time chrysler was considered the only manufacturer in the united states that was devoted to a serious program of tank development. . .

of interest, chrysler's initial designed included a extensive exhaust aftertreatment and energy recover system which made their powerplant much more efficient; this was discarded by the army for being overly complicated, needing increased maintenance, and prone to combat damage

[George Jung]

It's a Chrysler?

We're doomed!

[Paul Pless]

It's a Chrysler?

We're doomed!

how did chrysler go from being one of america's largest defense contractors, building the rockets that went to the moon, tanks, naval guns, and nuclear reactors and nuclear enrichment equipment for making weapons in the mid seventies to bankrupt and needing a govt bailout in 1980???

[Nicholas Carey]

Curious - why has the US opted for the turbo/high upkeep engine vs diesel?

Per Wikipedia's article on the M1 Abrams, politics. And some geezer named Donald Rumsfeld.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams

Prototypes

Prototypes were delivered in 1976 by Chrysler and GM armed with the license-built M68E1 version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7. They entered head-to-head testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, along with a Leopard 2 AV prototype for comparison. The Leopard 2 was found to meet U.S. requirements but was thought to cost more.[12] The testing showed that the GM design was generally superior to Chrysler's, offering better armor protection, and better fire control and turret stabilization systems.[14] These early preproduction prototypes were provisionally armed with the M68E1 105mm main gun while a preferred 120mm gun and its ammunition were in their design and component development phase. These prototypes used a combination mount that allowed for evaluating both 105mm and 120mm guns.[20]

During testing, the power packs of both designs proved to have issues. The Chrysler gas turbine engine had extensive heat recovery systems in an attempt to improve its fuel efficiency to something similar to a traditional internal combustion engine. This proved not to be the case: the engine consumed much more fuel than expected, burning 3.8 gallons per mile. The GM design used a new variable-compression diesel design.[14]

By spring 1976, the decision to choose the GM design was largely complete. In addition to offering better overall performance, there were concerns about Chrysler's engine both from a reliability and fuel consumption standpoint. The GM program was also slightly cheaper overall at $208 million compared to $221 million for Chrysler. In July 1976, Lt. Colonel George Mohrmann prepared a stack of letters informing Congress of the decision to move ahead with the GM design. All that was required was the final sign-off by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.[14]

Chrysler is chosen

On 20 July 1976, United States Secretary of the Army Martin Hoffman and a group of generals visited Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Clements and Director of Defense Research and Engineering Malcolm Currie on their decision. They were surprised when Clements and Currie criticized their decision and demanded the turbine be selected. Donald Rumsfeld heard arguments from both in the afternoon and asked for twenty-four hours to review the issues. The Army team spent the night writing briefs and presented them to Rumsfeld the next morning, who then announced a four-month delay.[14]

Within days, GM was asked to present a new design with a turbine engine. According to Assistant Secretary for Research and Development Ed Miller, "It became increasingly clear that the only solution which would be acceptable to Clements and Currie was the turbine... It was a political decision that was reached, and for all intents and purposes that decision gave the award to Chrysler since they were the only contractor with a gas turbine."[14] However, the Chrysler design had the advantage that the entire power pack had room to be replaced by any number of engine designs, including a Diesel if needed.[12]

The turbine engine does not appear to be the only reason for this decision. Chrysler was the only company that appeared to be seriously interested in tank development; the M60 had been lucrative for the company and relied on that program for much of its profit. In contrast, GM made only about 1% of its income from military sales, compared to 5% for Chrysler, and only submitted their bid after a "special plea" from the Pentagon.[14]

On 12 November 1976, the Defense Department awarded a $20 billion development contract to Chrysler.[14]

See also Washington Monthly's 1987 article, "The First Chrysler Bail-Out: The M1 Tank"

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+f...ank.-a04696991

THE FIRST CHRYSLER BAIL-OUT
The M-1 Tank

On a July afternoon ten years ago, Lt.Colonel George Mohrmann sat at his desk on Capital Hill awaiting a phone call. As head of the Army's congressional liason office, he was ready to deliver a stack of sealed letters to members of Congress announcing the winning contractor in the multi-billion dollar competition to build the Army's M-1 tank.

The two competing contractors, Chrysler and General Motors, offered a clear choice. Chrysler had built its tank around a radically different and unproven tank engine, the turbine; GM had used a more conventional diesel engine. The two tanks had undergone months of head-to-head trials at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. GM had won.

The Army, it seemed, was not going to risk adding the M-1 to its growing list of overly sophisticated weapons that cost too much and don't work. "We were sitting there poised to deliver [the envelopes],' Mohrmann recalls. "The decision [to select GM] had been made. We were just waiting for the Secretary of Defense to be briefed.'

The call, however, was surprising. The Pentagon told Mohrmann not to deliver the letters. The next day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered a whole new round of competition. A week later, Rumsfeld turned the M-1 tank program upside down. He mandated that the tank be redesigned to incorporate the turbine engine. Four months later the award--which promised to generate $20 billion in sales--went to Chrysler, and the Army was on its way to getting a weapon suited more for a paved interstate than a battlefield.

There was another mysterious element to Rumsfeld's decision. He not only changed the tank's design to suit the turbine engine; he also demanded, against the strong advice of Army experts, that the tank incorporate a new main gun. Instead of the proven 105 mm gun selected by the Army, Rumsfeld moved forward with a controversial new 120 mm gun that was not only more costly, but more dangerous for soldiers to use. The new gun, together with the turbine engine, would increase the M-1's price by over a billion dollars.

That isn't another story about the Army's incompetent bureaucracy. "You can blame the Army for a lot of things,' says Anthony Battista, a staff member of the House Armed Services Committee, "but not for the troubles of the M-1.' Rather, it's a story of how outside factors can overwhelm military considerations in the Pentagon decision-making process, how narrow interests--in this case the ailing Chrysler Corporation and, by a strange twist, the U.S. Air Force--can outweigh the need for a reasonably-priced and effective military. The M-1 was never just a weapon; it was also a bail-out package.

Paperwork brigade

When the M-1 program began in 1972, the Army had already spent the better part of a decade and well over half a billion dollars trying to replace its M-60--with nothing to show for the effort. The MBT-70 program had been launched jointly with West Germany in 1963 to standardize the NATO tank force and take advantage of the latest technological gadgetry. With the two nations unable to cooperate, the program floundered for years and finally ended in 1970 after producing just a half dozen tanks. The Army then tried the XM-803, but like the MBT-70, this tank soon sank under the weight of its own sophistication. In late 1971, the House Armed Services and Appropriations committees killed the program.

Meanwhile the Soviet Union was producing new and impressive tanks at an alarming rate. The U.S. Army was desperate, and facing such intense pressure from Congress that it agreed to try something new: good old-fashioned competition. Set a firm price, cut the red tape, and let the industry engineers make it work.

The approach sounds simple, but it was actually a major departure from typical weapons development. A service usually spends years developing several hundred pages of formal performance requirements and systems specifications which it then circulates to defense contractors. The contractors respond with detailed engineering designs, and the service awards the proposal that looks best.

The winning proposal is then converted into an equally voluminous development contract, which must be constantly updated as production difficulties arise and as the service changes its requirements. Each change is renegotiated with the contractor, resulting in cost overruns and schedule delays. Using this system, the Army gave GM the contracts for the MBT-70 and XM-803 before a single tank had been built.

But for the M-1, the Army replaced this paperwork brigade with one remarkably simple document. Aside from some basic standards for size, weight, and reliability, there were essentially no performance requirements at all. Instead, the Army offered only a prioritized list of 16 performance categories, such as crew survivability, gun accuracy, and speed. The Army simply asked that each tank cost no more than $507,000 in 1972 dollars, and that only proven hardware be used. Each bidder would have to design, develop, and actually build a prototype M-1. The final award would be based not on paper promises, but on actual field tests conducted by the Army.

It was a simple message. "The Army told us,"You're the experts. You trade off and give us the best tank you can for the money,'' remembers Lou Felder, who was with the Army's MBT-70 project office and later became Chrysler's M-1 project manager. Even though his Chrysler tank came in second, Felder says "the initial competition for the M-1 . . . [was] probably the best development in the history of the Army.'

[continued]

[Nicholas Carey]

Continued from previous post:

Scalding the troops

When the Chrysler and General Motors entries first met at Aberdeen, the Army found that it had received two very good tanks, both exceeding the Army's performance expectations. But it soon became apparent that the one built by GM was better. The Army tests showed General Motors's tank had superior armor protection, better fire control and turret stabilization systems (for the M-1's fancy "shoot on the move' capability), and a more sound overall design. Meanwhile, GM's price bid for M-1 development and initial production was $208 million compared to $221 million for Chrysler. "As a corporation, GM was hard to beat,' says Major General William R. Kraft, who helped supervise the M-1 competition. "Chrysler seemed to have some trouble getting organized for this program,' General Kraft said. For instance, Chrysler hadn't completed assembling its prototype and had to compete without a finished turret.

More important, though, was the engine choice: diesel or turbine. The diesel engine employed by GM represented a significant improvement over that used in the earlier generation M-60 tanks. Using an innovation in variable compression pistons, the new diesel could squeeze out twice the horsepower with only two-thirds the weight. Although there had been serious difficulties with the new technology when it was first employed in the 1960s, engineers had years of experience with it by 1976.

Theoretically, the turbine used by Chrysler offered a number of advantages over diesel: it was lighter, quieter, less smoky, and, with fewer moving parts than the diesel, potentially more reliable. Chrysler chose the turbine amid a growing sense that it might well be the engine of the future.

But the turbines had serious drawbacks. Unlike diesel engines, all of the air required to run a turbine must be filtered. That isn't a problem for an airplane or a helicopter flying hundreds of feet off the ground, but it can be disastrous for a tank on a dusty battlefield. Designing adequate filters would be a tremendous engineering challenge.

The second problem was exhaust. Turbine engines emit far more exhaust than diesels. And at 2,000 degrees this exhaust itself becomes a lethal weapon. It means infantry soldiers cannot walk behind the tank--a time honored practice that helps protect both the tank and the soldier--without being fatally scalded. The hot exhaust also makes it far easier for an enemy to detect the M-1 on the battlefield with simple infrared sensors.

Furthermore, standing idle the turbine uses at least twice as much fuel as the diesel, even though they both offer equal horsepower. Tanks tend to spend up to 80 or 90 percent of their time idling. The high fuel consumption causes tactical problems as well, since fuel trucks have to stay close to the tanks, either by moving with them into battle, or by forcing the tanks to hang back.

The biggest factor pushing the Army to choose diesel, however, was fear. After seeing its last two tank development programs canceled, the Army was reluctant to saddle this third program with an unproven engine. "The turbine really wasn't a mature engine at that point,' says General Kraft. "It's just a conservative instinct to go with what you know.'

The big pitch

By lunch time on July 20, only the stamp of the defense secretary was needed to give GM the award. The Army was so confident of the decision that it began notifying reporters that the award would be made by the end of the day. It wasn't.

At 1:30 that afternoon, Army Secretary Martin Hoffman brought a team of army generals into the office of Deputy Defense Secretary William Clements to brief Clements and Malcolm Currie, the director of defense research and engineering, on the results of the source selection. Given that Hoffman was the official "Source Selection Authority' responsible for making the M-1 award, Clements and Currie were expected to rubber stamp the decision. In fact, Currie had signed a memo that morning okaying the Army's request to name a winning contractor and move toward production.

Instead, Clements and Currie lashed out at the selection and strongly questioned the Army's choice of the diesel engine. Clements argued that the entire source selection should be re-evaluated. When Hoffman and Clements brought their respective arguments to Donald Rumsfeld later that afternoon, Rumsfeld ordered a 24-hour delay to decide whether or not to proceed with the award.

Army leaders were surprised and angry. The tank for which they had waited almost 15 years was suddenly in danger. Following a brief binner break, virtually all the top Army leaders, including Hoffman and Vice Chief of Staff Walter Kerwin, gathered in the office of Assistant Secretary for Research and Development Ed Miller to talk over what happened and plot a strategy. They worked until 4 a.m. writing memos on the validity of the testing process and the need to move forward with the program. "The whole Army mobilized against the delay,' recalls Miller.

At 7:30 the next morning, Hoffman met one last time with Rumsfeld to try to persuade him to make the award, but without success. According to Miller "we stayed up all night writing rebuttals. I don't even think they read the stuff.' Instead, Rumsfeld announced a four-month delay in the M-1 program.

Within days, GM was asked to submit a brand new proposal incorporating the turbine engine. (Chrysler was also asked to submit a design including a diesal engine, but it was never seriously considered.) As Ed Miller puts it, "It became increasingly clear that the only solution which would be acceptable to Clements and Currie was the turbine. . . . It was a political decision that was reached, and for all intents and purposes that decision gave the award to Chrysler since they were the only contractor with a gas turbine.' On November 12, 1976, the Defense Department awarded the contract for the $20 billion program to Chrysler.

[continued]

[Nicholas Carey]

Continued from previous post.

Why did Secretary Rumsfeld overturn the Army's recommendation and choose Chrysler and the turbine instead? At the time, Rumsfeld justified the decision as necessary to standardize key components of the M-1 with the emerging Leopard II tank of West Germany. It's true that the standardization agreement reached with West Germany opened the door for use of the turbine engine several years in the future, but that was at Rumsfeld's request. The Europeans disliked the turbine, had no intention of using it, and only agreed to consider it to appease Rumsfeld. When Robert Parker, then principal deputy director for research and engineering, described the M-1 decision recently, he spoke not of standardization nor of any performance analysis. (Rumsfeld's staff hadn't done any independent analysis of the tank engines.) Instead he explained the decision this way: "Each of us in a position of authority sometimes feels our judgment is what we're being paid for. Bill Clements is a hard-headed businessman who has some pretty strong beliefs. And he just felt strongly that we should forge ahead with the turbine.' Clements, according to Parker, just felt in his gut that the turbine was the way to go.

But others familiar with the selection process say there was another reason. Despite its highly lucrative M-60 tank business, Chrysler had suffered $52 million in losses in 1974 and $260 million in 1975. "Chrysler was already beginning to feel the effects of problems that would become clearer in 1979 and 1980,' admits Lou Felder, then with Chrysler.

General Motors, by contrast, was faring quite well in the mid-1970s. Though affected by the industry-wide lag in auto sales in 1974-75, GM still managed to turn profits of more than $2 billion. Unlike Chrysler, GM was not at all dependent on government business, which accounted for only about 1 percent of its sales, compared to 5 percent for Chrysler. Chrysler's tank division represented the only money-making operation in the corporation. Because of the cost-plus system of defense procurement, a contact would practically guarantee a considerable future profit. "General Motors really didn't care about the tank business,' recalls one government defense analyst. "But for Chrysler it was a matter of life and death.' In fact, it had taken a special plea from the Pentagon in 1972 to convince GM even to bid for the M-1 program.

Chrysler executives pulled out all the stops in their attempts to influence the M-1 award. On June 17, 1976 Chrysler chairman John J. Riccardo visited the White House to meet with William Seidman, the assistant to the president for economic affairs and executive director of the powerful Economic Policy Board. Seidman was a close friend of Gerald Ford, one of a select group of advisors with personal access to the president.

According to Seidman, Riccardo's agenda for the meeting was simple: he wanted assistance for Chrysler. "The Chrysler people came in looking for help,' recalls Seidman. "And when we looked into it we saw that they were in some trouble. We wouldn't give them any direct aid, but we did look to help them out within the regular decision process.' With the M-1 award only weeks away, the direction of this help was obvious. "We went and talked to the people in the Pentagon,' Seidman recalls. "We wanted to find out whether Chrysler was going to win that contract. We let them know that there was a problem [at Chrysler] and that Chrysler was in for help.' Seidman insists that "we didn't order anything. We just made sure that they were aware of the problem.'

A week after the meeting, Rumsfeld made the decision to push the turbine engine in the NATO standardization talks.

Following the Riccardo-Seidman meeting,Chrysler continued its lobbying effort, right up through the day of the scheduled award to GM. That day, Chrysler lobbyist John Keegan hand-delivered a letter to William Clements. In the letter, Chrysler, which should not even have known the results of the source selection, threatened to issue a formal protest if the Army went through with the award to GM.

The Army Edsel

The M-1 contract provided a desperately needed financial boost to Chrysler, creating $60 million annually in profits in a period when Chrysler's automotive operations were consistently losing money. The benefits became even clearer in 1982, when Chrysler sold its tank business to General Dynamics, netting $336 million in the midst of its most serious financial crisis. The award ranked alongside the 1979 federal loan guarantees as a key factor in the company's remarkable turnaround. "The sale gave them the cash they needed to get over the tough times and develop their new product lines,' says one former Chrysler official now with General Dynamics. As defense analyst Paul Hoven says, "If you're looking at the financial success of Chrysler and Lee Iacocca, you're probably looking at a tank contract.'

Today, Rumsfeld and Hoffman deny that helpingChrysler was a factor in the decision. In fact, Hoffman claims, "the financial condition of Chrysler consistently cut against them in the competition.' Rumsfeld adds that "those are the kinds of things that are said by people who are on the fringe [of the decision-making process], who don't like a decision and figure that something of this sort must be behind it.'

But in reality, politically motivated contract awards have been a fact of life for decades. Perhaps the most famous case involved the TFX aircraft in 1962, when Robert McNamara awarded the $6.5 billion program to General Dynamics--which was financially ailing and politically well-connected--after a military evaluation team had four times rated Boeing's plane superior. One White House insider admitted later, "Bob McNamara was instructed on what to do about the TFX. He was told what to do . . . [and] he was a good soldier.'

More recently, political factors weighed heavily in the award of the infamous DIVAD anti-aircraft gun to Ford Aerospace and Caspar Weinberger's decision to buy Lockheed's C-5B transport instead of McDonnell Douglas's C-17, which was strongly favored by the Army and Air Force. In each case the award was given to the contractor in the greatest financial difficulty--not the one with the best weapons system. More such instances are likely to be seen in the future. A recently retired Army officer put it this way: "If you think you can maximize socio-political factors without exacting a major penalty in military performance, why not?'

Chrysler, of course, had every right to lobby Seidman, just as Seidman had good reason to make the Pentagon officials "aware' of Chrysler's problems. The health of a large corporation employing thousands of people is a serious matter. In this case, however, the cost of satisfying these non-military concerns was high. When the M-1 began rolling off the assembly line in 1980, the Army found that the turbine engines were seriously deficient. The air filter system, as feared, had not yet been perfected and the engines broke down at an alarming rate. "We were still having tremendous problems [in the late 1970s] with the turbine,' says General Donn Starry. "We had to completely redesign the air intake system.' Ultimately, the Army had to slow down its production of the M-1, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to implement needed changes. The tank that was once described as "the best procurement in Army history' had become, as Barrons put it, "The Army Edsel.'

[continued]

[Nicholas Carey]

Continued from previous post.

The only logical choice

The Chrysler bail-out only explains a few hundred million dollars of the extra costs involved in building the M-1. Another bail-out explains the rest. This one involved the M-1's main gun and a prized aircraft program of the U.S. Air Force.

Both General Motors and Chrysler initially proposed using a 105 millimeter gun on the M-1. While the 105 mm was the same gun used on the older M-60, a new generation of more powerful ammunition had just been developed which vastly increased the gun's effectiveness. A trilateral committee of American, British, and West German experts in 1975 unanimously recommended keeping the 105 millimeter gun for the M-1. "We were making so many improvements to the ammo for the 105 that it looked like that gun could kill anything the Soviets had for a pretty long time,' says Ben Schemmer, editor of the Armed Forces Journal. But Donald Rumsfeld saw it differently. In June 1976, Rumsfeld's negotiators in Europe agreed to West Germany's request that instead of standardizing around the American 105 millimeter gun, we would modify the M-1 to handle a new German 120 millimeter gun.

From a military perspective, Rumsfeld's deal made little sense. While the 105 mm gun was a proven weapon, the 120 mm gun was less accurate, added greatly to the program's costs, and wouldn't be ready for two or more years.

In order to keep the M-1 program on schedule, the Army would have to design a "hybrid' turret that could handle the 105 mm gun in early production and the 120 mm gun later on. General Robert Baer, the Army's M-1 project manager, testified that this bigger turret--which made a bigger target for enemy anti-tank weapons-- would reduce the overall effectiveness of the tank by as much as 10 percent.

In addition, the 120 mm gun was more dangerous to use than the 105 mm gun. Because its shells lacked the protective metal covering found on 105 mm rounds, the ammunition was much more likely to explode prematurely and tended to leave burning residue in the breech, a major hazard for the gun loader. The Army suffered a woeful experience with similar ammunition in Vietnam.

The 120 mm gun did offer a bigger bang:because of its greater mass, the 120 mm shells could travel further and with more force than the 107 mms. These larger shells, however, greatly limited the ammunition load. Probably a tanker's worst nightmare is to run out of ammo on the battlefield. "It was just a personal opinion of guys like me, who'd spent much of our lives inside tanks,' notes General Kraft, "that we'd rather have more bullets than a bigger whack.' Furthermore, the Army felt strongly that the 105 could beat anything in the Soviet force. Writing in March 1976, Currie concluded: "U.S. evaluation of the tank guns . . . further confirms the adequacy of the 105 mm and indicates that need for a larger gun than 105 mm in the future is very unlikely. The major considerations . . . weigh so much in favor of the 105 mm system that, in our view, there is no other logical choice.'

Yet just three months later, Currie's boss,Rumsfeld, agreed to standardize around the 120 mm gun. Again, the Pentagon said it was in the name of NATO compatability. But the decision actually reduced the level of NATO uniformity, since the vast majority of tanks in Europe already used the 105 mm gun.

So way did Rumsfeld agree to standardize on the 120 mm gun? Asked that question, many military experts point to the skies--to the airplane known as AWACS.

In their final planning meetings for the M-1 contract award in July 1976, Army officials were joined on several occasions by a man wearing a blue uniform, Richard Bowman, a general with the U.S. Air Force. Serving as director for European and NATO affairs in the Pentagon's international security affairs division, Bowman took an unusually active interest in the M-1 program.

"The underlying politics was Air Force,' saysAnthony Battista, "particularly AWACS.' AWACS, the Air Force's airborne warning and control aircraft, had originally been designed to coordinate U.S. air defenses against possible attacks from Soviet bombers. But when the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty was signed, AWACS suddenly found itself without a mission: why did we need this expensive radar plane to stop Russian bombers if we weren't going to stop their missiles?

Instead of canceling AWACS, however, the Air Force simply changed the AWACS's mission. Instead of defending the U.S. against strategic bombers, AWACS was supposed to assist tactical fighter planes in Europe and act as an overall battlefield control station. (This mission was questionable as well since AWACS almost certainly turn off their radar periodically--the key to battlefield control--to avoid being destroyed by enemy missiles.) With General Bowman leading the way, the Air Force began an intensive effort to sell AWACS to our allies, particularly West Germany. As one congressional staffer put it, "General Bowman's only job was to sell AWACS to NATO. If he wanted to become a three-star or a four-star, he'd better see to it that that happened.' But the Germans seemed to be giving the Air Force a cold shoulder, apparently reluctant to buy yet another U.S. weapon (they had just agreed to a major purchase of F-16s) while the U.S. consistently neglected to purchase German-designed arms. In late March 1976, Carl Damm, a member of the German Bundestag, delivered a message to his counterparts in the U.S. Congress: "To speak quite frankly. . . . I personally do not see any possibility for the Federal Republic of Germany to take part in the AWACS program unless the United States of America spends a corresponding amount on German tanks. This would be a fair deal, a two-way street.'

While the Germans had few illusions that the U.S. Army would abandon its M-1 program entirely in favor of their Leopard II tanks, they did hope the U.S. would at least adopt the 120 mm gun. In fact, it was essential to the German Army's own strategy for lobbying the Bundestag. "The German [Army] was having difficulties selling the expense of the Leopard II to the Bundestag, and the tank's big selling point was the 120 mm gun,' explains one former Army officer. "Unless they could get the U.S. to agree with the threat and go to the 120, they were in trouble.'

So they turned up the heat on Rumsfeld."Rumsfeld had taken some political shots from the Germans,' says then Army Secretary Martin Hoffman, "and he wanted to do something-- the 120 gun was paramount.' The need to sell AWACS could only add to the pressure.

Throughout 1976 and 1977, awaiting a final commitment from the U.S. to put the 120 mm gun into production, the Germans continued to hold back their support for a NATO purchase of AWACS. Finally, around the same time the Carter administration finally agreed to the 120 mm gun in early 1978, the AWACS purchase received NATO funding, with West Germany leading the way. Ultimately, NATO purchased a total of 18 AWACS for well over a billion dollars. More important in the eyes of the Air Force, NATO's involvement in the program served to quell congressional opposition to AWACS and ensure continued funding.

While the Air Force was delighted with the deal, it was the Army that paid the price. In addition to the penalties of poorer accuracy, diminished ammunition stowage, and increased vulnerability, the switch to the 120 mm gun added more than $1 billion to the cost of the program, mostly for the purchase of new ammunition.

Political lemon

Today, many of the M-1's problems have been solved. Even its most fervent critics acknowledge that it is a better tank today than the trouble-plagued lemon that emerged several years ago. But despite its progress, the M-1 still bears many scars from its early development. Excessive fuel consumption rates have limited the tank's range and required added investments for fuel and refueling vehicles; maintenance costs for spare parts are reportedly ten times higher than those for the M-60, and hot exhaust has placed permanent constraints on the M-1's battlefield usefulness.

Looking back on the M-1 episode, Ed Miller is resigned and a bit cynical. "We held an honest and above-board competition for three years. We had extensive data and test results. We had binding price bids for full-scale engineering development and for the initial production. We were enormously upset by the decision to give the award to Chrysler and switch, guns, but we went through with it.' After all, Miller adds, "that's politics.'

COPYRIGHT 1987 Washington Monthly Company

[Peerie Maa]

how did chrysler go from being one of america's largest defense contractors, building the rockets that went to the moon, tanks, naval guns, and nuclear reactors and nuclear enrichment equipment for making weapons in the mid seventies to bankrupt and needing a govt bailout in 1980???

Dunno, but I know how GEC Marconi destroyed itself.
The old MD was fiscally cautious, and had built up healthy cash reserves. When he retired, his replacement blew the cash reserves with some very ill-considered purchases of US companies, and crashed the conglomerate.

[heimlaga]

When you stop being an immature paranoid farmer. Which will be never.

Då får du börja bevisa omedelbart. Gärna på svenska.
Min såkallade paranoia beror på att jag har läst skyddspolisens varningar och att jag känner igen den vanliga stereotypa Putinpropagandan när jag ser den. Då finns det två möjligheter. Antingen är du en professionell propagandist eller så är du svensken Johan som har lurats av propagandan.

Jag är förresten inte bonde heller även om jag driver litet skogsbruk som bisyssla.

[skuthorp]

I see the whiteants are still active helmlaga.

[WX]

So I reviewed your posts over the past several days, and you are correct.

My apologies.

I had you confused with someone else.

Thank you.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Stefan Korshak’s column for yesterday.

This is the same column as in post #8763 but in the Medium format which is easier to read:

https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/j...f-fdf99c0eede3

[WX]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64372508

The Estonian ambassador in Russia has been ordered to leave the country by 7 February after the Kremlin accused the country of "Russophobia".In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said Estonia had "purposefully destroyed" relations with Moscow.


Margus Laidre is the first ambassador Russia has expelled since invading Ukraine last year.


Estonia responded by asking the Russian ambassador to leave by the same date.



Russia's move against Mr Laidre comes after Estonia recently ordered a reduction in the size of the Russian Embassy in Tallinn.


Moscow was told to reduce its embassy from 17 to eight by the end of January. In a statement in January, Estonia said embassy staff had stopped seeking to advance relations between the countries since the conflict broke out.

[sandtown]

Our friends hard at work in their office in St-Petersburg, .

Of course Ukraine, the US and many other countries do the same thing.

By many accounts the Ukrainians are quite good at it.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The Russian internet campaign against Ukraine is doing better than their military campaign is.

We have examples of both a Russian troll and a useful idiot here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/u...lin-propaganda

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Andrey Medvedev, the living defector from Prizoghin’s Wagner operation, has been arrested in Norway. With luck this is for his protection:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64374948

[sandtown]

We have examples of both a Russian troll and a useful idiot here.

No, you do not.

Mostly, you have examples of alternative points of view,

which you want to shut down with personal attacks.

[skuthorp]

Hemlaga, and his country, have been at the pointy end of Russian agression before. So he knows better than most what's going on.

[sandtown]

Hemlaga, and his country, have been at the pointy end of Russian agression before.

You conveniently left out the Barbarosa backstory . . . .

Actually, I am unaware of ANY Russian invasions of Germany other than the WWII response to German Barbarosa.

Help us out here . ..

[Osborne Russell]

The Russian internet campaign against Ukraine is doing better than their military campaign is.

We have examples of both a Russian troll and a useful idiot here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/u...lin-propaganda

That's the Gov talking, eh?

Wish we had that kind of Gov over here.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

We cannot allow the Kremlin and its shady troll farms to invade our online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war. The UK Government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely with allies and media platforms to undermine Russian information operations.

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said:

These are insidious attempts by Putin and his propaganda machine to deceive the world about the brutality he’s inflicting on the people of Ukraine. This evidence will help us to more effectively identify and remove Russian disinformation and follows our decisive action to block anyone from doing business with Kremlin-controlled outlets RT and Sputnik.

[Osborne Russell]

Ignore is the most effective countermeasure.

At length, I'm coming around to this position. Give me another twenty years.

[robm]

Hemlaga, and his country, have been at the pointy end of Russian agression before.
You conveniently left out the Barbarosa backstory . . . .

Actually, I am unaware of ANY Russian invasions of Germany other than the WWII response to German Barbarosa.

But Heimlaga is Finnish, not German.

[sandtown]

But Heimlaga is Finnish, not German.

Point well taken . . . blush . . . three times since 1918?

But Roosia has in general been more the invaded than the invadee . . .

[WX]

But Heimlaga is Finnish, not German.

The Finns know all about Russian aggression.

[dutchpp]

The ISW Russian offensive campaign assessment, January 23.
https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...anuary-23-2023

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian intelligence assessed that Russian forces are preparing for an offensive effort in the spring or early summer of 2023, partially confirming ISW’s standing assessment that Russian troops may undertake a decisive action in the coming months.
• The Wagner Group’s outsized reliance on recruitment from penal colonies appears to be having increasing ramifications on Wagner’s combat capability.
• Russia continues to deepen military and economic relations with Iran in an effort to engage in mutually beneficial sanctions evasion.
• Russian forces continued limited counterattacks to regain lost positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Ukrainian forces struck Russian concentration areas in occupied Luhansk Oblast.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks around Bakhmut and on the western outskirts of Donetsk City.
• Russian forces likely conducted a failed offensive operation in Zaporizhia Oblast in the last 72 hours.
• Russian forces have not made any confirmed territorial gains in Zaporizhia Oblast despite one Russian occupation official’s continued claims. The occupation official may be pushing a narrative of Russian tactical successes in Zaporizhia Oblast to generate positive narratives to distract Russians from the lack of promised progress in Bakhmut.
• The Kremlin’s efforts to professionalize the Russian Armed Forces are continuing to generate criticism among supporters of new Russian parallel military structures.
• Russian officials and occupation authorities continue efforts to integrate occupied territories into Russian social, administrative, and political systems and crack down on partisan dissent in occupied areas.