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Originally Posted by kevineduguay1
The only for sure is that ten soldiers came out of a Merkava MkI the day is was first shown to the public.
The Merkava can carry two stretcher cases inside the tank.
How many men can sit in the space of a standard military stretcher?
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It is pretty safe that they can indeed squeeze in a full infantry squad or a couple of strecher and assorted medical equipment, a command post or whatever.
The thing is, it appears that these are niche uses which require significant ammo trade offs. Said tanks will be be supported by others and will retain some rounds for self defense or short actions, so for the intended purpose it is not a problem.
You have already been told that with full ammo it is 2-3 combat troops, usually less, which seems reasonable for a tank of that size.
There will inevitably be a gray area between what is expedient and what is doctrine, what is feasible only for special circumstances and what can be used as standard and obviously between the various different models of the tank.
But what everyone here and on tanknet is telling you is that no, you can't have your cake (a full ammo load) and then eat it (carry around a full infantry squad). Given we are talking about a tank apparently not much bigger than others western types and the trade offs inherent in increasing armored volume in an AFV it is hardly surprising.
For it to be different it would raise the question of how it was accomplished, it is not like that every other tank designer is a moron. Even if nobody else was interested in carrying around troops extra ammo or fuel would be always useful, at least as potential. But that cannot be had without paying a price.
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They all come in their own container. Could this allow the ammo load to be shifted from the rear compartment to areas around or under the turret basket?
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Just because you can squeeze extra ammo in some
apparently empty space it does not mean that
1) It won't get in the way of something or someone during actual operations.
2) It will actually remain out of the way once the tank hits the first big pothole or whatever.