Playstation Controller Runs Syrian Rebel Tank 232
A reader writes "As Syria's rebels work to overthrow the tank-equipped Assad regime, they've learned that it helps to have tanks of their own. They deserve bonus points for integrating video game technology. This is no exaggeration. Have a look at the opposition forces' "100 percent made in Syria" armored vehicle, the Sham II.
Named for ancient Syria and assembled out of spare parts over the course of a month, the Sham II is sort of rough around the edges, but it's got impressive guts. It rides on the chassis of an old diesel car and is fully encased in light steel that's rusted from the elements. Five cameras are mounted around the tank's outside, and there's a machine gun mounted on a turning turret. Inside, it kind of looks like a man cave. A couple of flat screen TVs are mounted on opposite walls. The driver sits in front of one, controlling the vehicle with a steering wheel, and the gunner sits at the other, aiming the machine gun with a Playstation controller."
Re:Novel (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an interesting battlefield trend over the decades where if they can see you, you're pretty much dead.
Your driving I'm watching. (Score:5, Insightful)
Taken out of commision.... (Score:5, Insightful)
by a common spike strip.
It's not a tank (Score:2, Insightful)
It's more of a light infantry support vehicule. Useless against real armor but could shift the tide in an infantry struggle for a street, for example.
Re:If you disable the cameras... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why shine a IR laser when you can launch a RPG?
On the modern battlefield if they see you, you're dead. This is not the era of wooden ships and iron men, or even WWII battleships.
Re:Novel (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an interesting battlefield trend over the decades where if they can see you, you're pretty much dead.
Try the last century or so, the British learned the lesson about what happens when you loose air superiority and show your ass in open country the hard way at the battle of Cambrai in 1917, entire battalions and even regimental sized units were badly torn up by German attack aircraft during the British retreat. Mind you, on this same occasion, the Germans them selves learned a few painful things about the massed use of armor from the British who them selves learned that Tanks can be knocked out by aircraft and that anti aircraft guns with their flat trajectories and high muzzle velocity are good for shooting at more things than aircraft. One has to give the Taliban and the rest of these Middle Eastern guerrilla forces credit for being very, very good at not showing their ass in open country and when they do they usually distribute their forces to the point where airstrikes boils down to the USAF hosing off a $100.000 PGM to kill 6 guys carrying a $150 Khyber Pass AK47 copy and maybe 30 bucks worth of grenades and ammo each.
Re:By the looks of that vehicle.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a friend that owns a WWII Ford M8 Greyhound and has several other WWII-era light armored vehicles, like a half-track armored truck. The designer of this car seems to have missed the important part that too much open interior is not necessarily an advantage. That half-track doesn't have a lot of interior space, literally enough for the soldiers and their equipment, and because of that, the same amount of mass for the vehicle can accommodate thicker armor where it matters, around the people. The vehicle isn't meant to survive a pounding, it's meant to keep its occupants alive when hit, so that they can get out and counterattack. This little car doesn't strike me as designed with that in mind.
Re:Novel (Score:5, Insightful)
This "hillbilly armor" is the same welded on cheap steal armor that the humvees started using when they first when to armor. It wasn't that great and it really didn't stop bullets all too well.
This is not a "tank", but a ghetto version of an armored humvee, without the protection that modern ones have (will stop all rounds short of
Its not much of a "tank" by todays standards, more like an armored car. Tank implies 360 degree turret, think armor and decent sized cannon for main armament.
MBTs, or main battle tanks, the only real tanks left (there are no more light, medium and heavy tanks in the modern age), are heavily armored, tracked vehciles, with large main gun cannons, designed as anti-vehicle weapons, and quick moving mobile guns.
Yes, I know my shit on tanks. Yes its first hand. This is not one.
Re:Novel (Score:5, Insightful)
Hold on, are you trying to suggest that a vehicle that took a month and $10k to design and build doesn't have the same capabilities as an M1A2? Have you notified the author?
Seriously though, cut the guys some slack. It might not fit your definition of a "tank", but it's pretty impressive that these guys are able to design, build, and field vehicles like this. If the fighting goes on for too much longer then I'm sure we'll see version 3 of this vehicle. I doubt they are trying to put these things up against T90s, but it's a novel idea when they need a machine gun out there and an advantage against the other troops. It's like an IFV without the I.