Monday, August 13, 2018

Picture Of The Day

A tank of Team Iran in the first semi-final of the Tank Biathlon 2018 international competition held as part of the International Army Games at the Alabino training ground in the Moscow region. The teams of Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, China and Iran performed in the first semi-final. August 7. © Sputnik / Eugene Odinokov

WNU Editor: The above picture is from this photo-gallery .... This Week in Pictures: August 4-10 (Sputnik)

3 comments:

jac said...

Marvelous Iran tank without any explosive protection. But it will be different in a real war.............:)

fazman said...

Merkava turned into scrap metal in last conflict to, so who knows?

B.Poster said...

How much can we really tell about how well tanks or any other weapons and their crews are going to perform in an actual war scenario versus how well they perform in a "competition?" I would say the competition tells us very little about how well the various tanks will stack up against each other in an actual combat situation.

The reasons for this are several fold. 1.)The competitors are going to "hold back" for the competition meaning they are going to be careful not reveal to a potential adversary their actual tactics during a competition saving the big stuff for an actual war situation. 2.)Which crews are going to be used? I don't think they are going to waste the efforts of the "varsity" on an endeavor such as this. 3.)Which equipment is being used? I suspect if the top of the line equipment is being used here it will be put on light duty so as not to reveal all of its capabilities to a potential adversary. 4.)As this is only a "competition" we're the only things involved are pride along with perhaps a risk of injury (think a pre season American football game), the crews aren't going to have the same focus as they will during an actual war situation where life and death decisions are involved. As a Viet Nam veteran once explained to me, when there is an actual war some of the people we thought we could be depend upon we cannot and some we had no idea we could depend upon come out of nowhere to do things we never thought they could.

I could go on but suffice it to say competitions of this type tell us nothing about how the sides actually stack up against each other in a war situation. One wonders why we waste time on such things. I suspect it is to give the "Junior Varsity" on each side an opportunity to practice and perhaps the "Varsity" can get in a few "reps" in preparation for actual war drills. Basically things like this seem to be a waste of time.