Army Cancels GCV Competition

[Fuchs]

Now wait a minute. You seem to assume a single fill up and its resulting range is all that is important.

Yes, and I can elaborate on why this is the case.

The sad historical truth is that combat service support rarely if ever catches up with armoured spearheads to supply them unless they rest for a day or two. This means that the tactical if not operational culminating point of attack of a heavy brigade is defined by its vehicles' practical driving range (ammunition consumption is typically rather low on very mobile ops).

The fiscal aspect is unimportant in comparison. Capabilities have their price.


1,000 km road range MBTs are actually feasible (refitting Western MBTs with EuroPowerpack and using the freed two cubic metre space for fuel tanks already does the trick!) and this could (in my opinion) revolutionise armoured warfare more than Chobham armour and 120mm smoothbore combined.
1,000 km road range is even more easily feasible with soft vehicles (excluding motorcycles of course), only light and medium AFVs would have trouble to meet that road range.

Maybe the mountainous portions of the border. Maybe adjacent to a concrete wall built around Kandahar with concertina and signs warns civilians.

Nice. Now you add all smugglers on the list of your enemies. And many traders. And you strangle the economy, making mercenary jobs and drug economy even more attractive. Concertina wire and minefields are obstacles. Obstacles that are not at least observed by troops are useless. So you need to add incredible quantities of troops to make your questionable obstacles work in that huge country.