Leopards, Finland and politics
> Finns will propably not buy the DM53 round at all, because of the expences
So we were too cheap to buy proper ammo for the big cats? Not much of a surprise there really.
The finnish arms deals tend to repeat the same pattern. Generals ask for some big guns. Politicins buy a toned down version. Maybe 20% of the money is saved but some 80% of the punch is lost...
Anyhow that pretty much explains why I lost four Finnish Leo2A4's to a single T-80UM just yesterday. Propably some really bad luck and certaily lots of arrogance on my side involved, but inferior ammo explains a lot too:
I had a platoon of Leopards advancing in column when suddenly a lone Russian T-80 drove out of forest accross a large clearing. Russian tanks do not usually travel alone so I immediately ordered a FASCAM bombardment near there just in case there is more of those coming. Then a shooting gallery like 4-on-1 strugle between the tanks begun. Even after half a dozen non penetrating hits I was feeling victorious - thinking that the Russian tank crew must be spoiling their pants receiving hits from four MBTs just 800-1000m away. Instead they blew up 2 of my tanks when they got to shoot back! Was not feeling invincible anymore but wondering how many ERA blocks that tank could possible have remaining after all the pounding I was giving to it. Well eventually I got the T-80 destroyed by retargetting the FASCAM barrage over there - but only after I had lost all my tanks...
Maybe we should grant the uranium mining license to Areva after all but only if they promise to sell the depleted uranium to Patria... They propably have the know how to produce competent penetrators already if the raw material and political will was there ;-)
ps. this happened in winSPMBT 3.0 standard OOB - playing around with that one a bit before reinstalling the excellent MOD OOB
|