Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
Back to the motorization stuff again...

One of the things about tanks, as opposed to, say, armed Toyota trucks, is the maintenance requirements both for the tanks themselves and for the road system. It's quite possible to have a national road system that is primarily dirt tracks (assuming no major rainy season) for pickups, but that does play hell with tanks (again, going back to the interstate system and, also, the German Autobahn).
The real point about any country wanting to "own tanks" or any relatively complicated peace of military technology is the flow down effects of cost. Any bunch of clowns can buy some tanks and drive them around.
Tanks are part of combined arms, which is still the most demanding form of land warfare on the plant both in terms of investment and skill.

The point being that if you take the automotive and high weight debt out of the combined arms equation, you still have some pretty good capability, where even just large numbers can actually start to reap some real benefits. Skill however is still required, but it can be a lot more focussed and gained more easily.