[jwhitlark]

I don't have any experience with howitzers, but I had a couple of years on a M1A1 tank, and you have to remember that heavy combat vehicles are designed to fill a particular role under insane circumstances. These things are min-maxed to a degree that just doesn't compute in everyday life.

The general priority (with US equipment) is usually: get the job done, save the crew, be fast to repair battle damage. So while there are blast doors and blow-off panels to (usually) prevent an ammo cook off from killing the crew, there is no system that will stop the turret from rotating if a crew member is crawling between the turret and the hull; laying the main gun on it's next target is given absolute priority.

There are similar things with tracks; they'll wear out and need more maintenance that tires, but when the contest is between tracks and an obstacle, the tracks almost always win. (Or you throw one off the sprockets, which is a royal pain. Mud is terrible for that). That's one of the reasons they haul tanks around on flatbed trucks whenever possible, tracks will eat a road, given the slightest opportunity.

There are videos on youtube of tanks driving over car bombs, and shrugging off the explosion. Not something you'd do if you had a better choice, but...

It's really a case of the operating environment being so different from what we're used to that some of the engineering choices look insane, but it's the battlefield that's insane, not the engineers. ;-)

[carapace]

First of all, thank you for your service. My dad was in the Army. (Briefly. He was too nuts.) Respect.

And thanks for the detailed reply.

There are trade-offs, yes, but that's not really what I'm getting at. It's more that these machines require a huge and intricate supply chains (not to mention supply lines) to function. If anything were to cut them off they're going to be out of commission soon.