Military Mashup Machine: Difference between revisions

* A slightly more modest concept was "put more weapons on it" - to shoot at more targets. The basic idea was to have two machinegun turrets, to fire both right and left while crossing a trench. This wasn't thought out well, because against hard targets you need a strong cannon, while infantry is in cover anyway when you are attacking, trenches are zigzagged (if defenders are competent), and a tank is not supposed to do everything alone either way. The result inevitably was worse than simple specialized designs: too big (easy to hit) and expensive (more limited in numbers) for infantry support and too weak for breakthrough. You can see a more practical solution on Soviet breakthrough tanks (heavies supposed to run ahead without infantry support, thus actually deal with cross-and-suppress situation) of single-turret types from KV-1 on: a machinegun in rear turret ball-mount, which points in the direction opposite to the coaxial machinegun, doesn't take much space or weight, and like AA mount, most of the time leaves the crewman manning it available for other jobs. "More light weapons" works for fast responce rather than quantity - in restrictive terrain where an enemy can pop up anywhere - but again, on specialized vehicles, not battlefield tanks.