It seems like it’s basically the end of towed weapons systems like artillery right? I did find this reddit post about the same for the US military: https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1bv7ah6/the_end_of_an_era_us_army_signals_shift_away_from/
It always seemed like towing a weapon would be a huge time-sink. Someone in the comments mentioned that the US military is designed for imperialism (my word) so they need stuff that is lighter-weight to transport on aircraft. So I guess with Chinese systems being actually designed for defense and not having to move them on airplanes, having them on vehicles makes sense.
Vehicles are force multipliers for manpower.
You can put 50 people on a position or you can put a tank on it.
You can put 50 people on a position or you can put artillery on it.
Vehicles require significantly more logistics though, your vehicle is dead in the water if fuel isn’t getting to it. Integrated vehicles require less logistics and less time cost, but they can’t double as something else. The US military chooses not to have integrated vehicles and instead to have towable things so that their vehicles can be used for multiple purposes. They choose this path because they operate under the assumption they will always have perfect logistics and never be cut off. The Chinese choose integrated vehicles because they don’t make this assumption.
The US mindset is built on the assumption of asymmetrical warfare and US supreme dominance. The Chinese mindset is built on assumption of inferiority and the need to counter an enemy that had more resources, experience and better weapons.
Some of those things are changing, but the mindset that has led to these decisions won’t change for decades if ever. It’s part of the core foundation in each military.
The reason they do everything on trucks is because once you fire your position is revealed. You keep your assets moving so the enemy cant make a map of where they all are, and doesnt know how many of them you have left. Atleast not as easily.
Yeah it makes sense. At the same time it’s kind of funny seeing all these specialized trucks that are basically just a turret with wheels. I wonder how much is actually common between all of them? Presumably the same engine, the same computer systems, etc. and just a different “form factor”. But it isn’t obvious from the outside.
I wouldn’t assume they have the same engine. even between 2 civilian trucks one could have a V6, and one could have a V8 and that largely determines how much they can tow. So the weight of what they’re carrying around would determine what kind of engine they need.
The one that really stood out to me was the one the english announcers on the CGTN stream called carrier based laser defense, which was in the parade integrated into truly massive trucks.
These things? Absolute UNITS, I’m guessing the gigantic truck is to carry the generator/capacitors needed to use them.
Yeah what is the massive truck for, given that the laser goes on a ship? Maybe the truck has a big battery or capacitor or something in it? I guess the most obvious explanation is they also have a land-based laser in the works but they finished this ship-based one first, or something like that? I thought I heard that some of these new energy weapons are ship-based because they couldn’t figure out how to fit the massive hardware needed for it into a smaller form factor yet.
could just be that they put them on trucks to show them off in the parade
given the enormous amount of resources that went into the celebrations, building a few custom trucks so they could include their cool new naval laser doesn’t seem all that far-fetchedI was thinking about whether they made the trucks just to show off in the parade, but if they were just showing off, surely they wouldn’t bother integrating all the guts of the system and could just put the emitter head on a smaller vehicle. The sheer size of the trucks carrying them implies to me that the whole functional system is in there.
Its easier to get a towed artillery piece into position than a larged self propelled artillery vehicle.
They are cheaper to make and maintain so its easier to absorb the loss of the actual gun while allowing the soldiers working the gun to flee on the trucks that towed the artillery peice into position. Also, the truck can work as part of the logistics train after dropping off the gun and crew (ammo supply, crew rotation to the rear, casuality/fatality evac, etc).
With smaller and smaller drones that can function at longer and longer ranges and carry enough explosives to either kill the gunner crew with shrapnel or damage the artillery piece itself or fly directly into the local ammo pile of shells, towed artillery is probably only going to be used out of desperation or to burn through alread existing equipment cause its cheaper than trying to decomission them and recycle the metal.
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