"Why Grav Tanks? Logistics!" Topic

A recent thread on how Grav tanks work TMP link
got me thinking about what advantage a grav tank would have over a standard caterpillar track tank. There were some obvious ones like speed and the ability to skim over terrain which might bog down a conventional tank.

But then I realized that there could be one enormous reason to favor grav tanks: Breakdowns. The whole caterpillar tread system is an incredibly fragile mechanical system. The first tanks were lucky to go a mile or two before breaking down. Even a century later, tanks can only go a few hundred miles before requiring serious maintenance.

But if a grav tank works through some sort of gravity field projector or some such, then it is possible that there are NO MOVING PARTS! Such a system might be able to go for long periods without serious maintenance. This would be invaluable to any armored force, especially one operating on an alien world.

Logistics, always logistics!

Agreed. And they are cool.

More evidence that Scott is a genius; this is a great point – one of our friends works for General Dynamics Land Systems and a huge selling point for the LAVs is how little down-time they have in the vehicle pool for repair compared to tracked APCs; one of my tread-head buddies was a tank commander and he reckoned his tank spent about an hour under repair for every hour it spent in the field (he may have been a touch unlucky)

Like they say, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics

Well, that, and speed, and the ability to make strategic attacks around the globe, from any direction, irrespective of difficult terrain (at least for the more capable, later models, which can fly like jets or VTOLs).

Except for per unit cost, and given life cycle costs, the treads and wheels might be cheaper. My bet is that they'd be in specialized assault units and relatively rare. Think about how many DD-1000s we were supposed to get versus what we can afford.

Grav Tanks are magic tech at this point. Just as easy to argue logistics against them as for them.

Well, perhaps the anti-gravity mechanisms in the propulsion system are incredibly fragile…or require enormous amounts of maintenance themselves…or burn a very hard to produce fuel…you get the idea. Just to argue the other side :)

Still the best GravTank combat game, IMHO!

Sure, grav may be fine, but when it breaks down, how do you tow it..? ;-)

Well not really. Do you know how many man hours are required to keep a jet flying compared to a tracked tank? Now think space shuttle type upkeep on a combat vehicle. I can just see you getting a couple of hours of combat time every day and 22 hours of upkeep the rest of the time, which means a dedicated team of mechanics or two following this thing every where. Just think of that logistics trail.

Nah, in the far future, maintenance will be a minor issue.

Just look at how little automobiles need to be serviced, compared to how far they can drive, compared to 100 years ago.

Grav plates have no moving parts, and those fusion/anti-matter drives are expensive, but pretty low-maintenance too.

But when nuclear powerplants do break down or go down for planned maintenance halts, they're down for a while.

Same for the space shuttle: obscenely reliable in service, but it took several months of repairs and maintenance between weeks-long missions.

Sure, grav may be fine, but when it breaks down, how do you tow it..? ;-)

I seem to recall a Traveller vehicle design that addressed the problem.
Basically your RV dosn`t tow the broken vehicle, it lifts it!

Being a former Army Bn then Bde Maint. Officer … if it has parts that move, are under torque, exposed to high heat, etc., etc. … they will require maintenance.

And being a former Air Ops Officer, if it flies … it requires as much or more maintenance than ground vehicles. Military maintenance happens before, during and after ops … not just when something goes wrong, breaks, over heats, etc. …

I'd imagine Grav Tanks would be no different …