Foster

seren's intro~

Welcome back, then.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

<Snipped quote by Foster>

Not a shoot and scoot platform then, more a long range seige partially/ heavy countrt battery gun.

And they cannot just turn thr gun on a "turret" mount.

@PrinceAlexus

Yeah, teh 170mm gun is pretty much the NorkIranian concept of the 175mm M107/M110 203mm "long-tom" for long-range counter-battery/coastal-battery spam. From US experience with the 175mm, the small-bore long-range was decidedly less-accurate and was discontinued in favor of a new-fangled spammable guided rocket artillery concept. It's biggest success was in the 1970s when the IDF used it to knock out Egypt's Theater-level Air Defense System due to its 40-50 km range.

At least, that was before it became HIMARS o'clock (the original rounds for the M270 actually had less range). And we've got one on the beach.

Using the 2S7 as an example, the Koksan's emplacement time would be in the order of 6 minutes.

Also, Serbia did a thing with some old Vietnam-era US 155mm towed artillery, they slapped it on a truckbed and rebarreled them as 203mm mortars. Basically a poor-man's short-range long-tom, it generally matches/exceeds the range of the Soviet 240mm in a package that basically re-used stuff in Serbian surplus. They also did a thing to the 9M14... turning them into a poor-man's TOW. (the 9M14's construction was already funky, as the original rocket-motor was in the midsection, they added an additional one in front of the warhead in tractor-configuration, and replaced the tail wire-guidance unit with a radio-controlled version so it could slap twice as far, twice as fast, and with twice the penetration.

It's the one on the left, "normal" 9M14s are alongside

It's a great big chonking 30kg sky-torpedo when a normal 9M14 is closer to 15 kg.

Iran's shooty-n-scooty are basic 155mm M109 and M109 derrivitives augmented with stuff like 160mm mortars kitbashed onto things. That or running-up and yeeting a tank round. There's also unguided rocket-spam but we'll assume HIMARS focused on suppressing that eldritch nightmare of friendly-fire.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

<Snipped quote by Foster>

I wouldn't worry exactly how many they have; it's not really important to the plot, and I'm not going to be counting off each one meticulously. They have 'as many as the plot requires' to make it interesting and exciting, rather than adherence to realism to that degree. I do like the frankenstined AFV's though, that's very in keeping with the setting, and especially makes sense with the ISL becoming a thing too, giving them a bit more of an identity.
I'm mostly envisioning us facing off against older soviet-era models at the moment, and the more advanced/modern stuff becoming an issue as we start to hit more key and vital areas down the line, once we advance both in geography and plot.

@Rhona W

To be fair, franken-tanks is kinda Iran's thing.
From left to right:
Shahram (radiological-recon lab), Hiedar-5 (minelayer), Hiedar-6 (BMP-1 turret on BTR-60), Tiam (T-55 /w a 105mm gun grafted to an M47 Pershing hull) and a pair of Zulfiqars (M48/60 Patton series with a "new" turret featuring the T-72's 125mm gun and fire control system), and a Karrar (Zulfiqar's turret on a T-72 hull)

Anyways, I'm thinking about throwing an NPC'd APC to take the right flank, but debating whether it'll be a surplus M113 Zelda, or a rebashed Norkie tenk with some Serbian ATGMs. I did consider momentarily the LVTP-7, but I figure those are better used hauling freight (follow-on infantry). I was also been regretably informed that our M60 Patton does not have any WP smoke rounds.

Gonna note Iran only received like 300 BTR-60s, so every variant kinda detracts from this number; which is why they've kitbashed BTR-50s back into the role of the BTR-60. Iran also has/had like one of the only production-plants for building/upgrading M47s overseas, meaning they can maintain M47s considerably easier than aging T-55 hulls (which'll likely end up being used as 170mm heavy-artillery [M-1978 Koksan]).

/tangental info on the M-1978 for @PrinceAlexus so they can get into an arty-duel: Due to center of balance issues, the gun needs to be shoved forwards to the middle of the hull for transit, but slid back to the rear of the hull to be in firing position after the recoil-spades have been dug-in. The amount of recoil they contend with is also hilarious.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

I'll leave the exact details of what's where open to some interpretation, so that your posts can have some creative freedom, within the bounds of what's specified on the map. Expect more of the same kind of equipment, vehicles, and forces that we've already encountered though, as drawn from equipment used by the Iranian Army. Though, expect them to be holding back their good stuff for later on.

I hope this helps with writing your replies! Looking forward to what's coming next. Hopefully after the next battle scene when we've secured the town, we can have more of a moment for our characters to actually interact in person as well.

@Rhona W

On that list, I'm gonna note Iran has parts for 1500 T-72s, but so far irl only ever fielded/assembled 400 of them, (and elected not to assemble the other 1000 for internal-security reasons) using the leftover bits to help with Karrar MBT production. Similarily, Iran has mass-produced replacement parts for their BMP-2s to such a similar scale that seeing wild BMPT-62s appear would not be out-of-place here. The Zulfiquar 1 appeares to be more based on the older/retiring M-48s from their inventory (180 in total, so ~150 functioning Zul-1s kinda tracks with this). While the more advanced Zul-3 production kinda curtailed due to funding issues as there were still 100 remaining M60A1s to modernize later.
-Also noting that Karrar and Zulfiqar production uses T-72 components, and would likely detract from the absolute total of 1500 units.

From what I can tell, the Safir-74 is almost a dead-project as only 200 of the 400 actually received the full upgrade, the Tiam basically being an attempt to keep the turrets around atop ~150 ancient M47 Pershing-hulls. But even that program went nowhere.

An interesting thing to note is they allegedly had like 1000 BTR-50s in deep-storage, meaning they could basically flood the battlefield with Makran IFVs... although I've never found the hatches for the troop-compartment (and the unmanned turret is blocking the original hatches), leading to some rather unfortunate implications for the tank-desanties.

For everyone's sanity, probably safer to go with the Iraqi mod that has side-doors

-Or pretend the Makran has side-doors. Either way it's a big blessed chonker.

As in this setting the soviet union kinda stuck around, it would be safe to assume Zulfiqar production had been more-complete (so 250 Zulfiqar-3s), and Soviet bankrolling would keep Karrar production to their goal of 400 units to supplant the T-72S series in frontline service. While the Tiam likely would be more of a tank for the less-trustworthy militias.

Not sure if we can slap an M60 turret on an M47, or a T-72 turret to a Chieftain, but we can find-out.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

If anyone else shows interest, I'd probably suggest something strange like the Begleitpanzer-57.
-Literally "Escort tank, 57mm" so basically a Marder-1 based BMPT or 2S38 (BMP-3) Derivatsiya.

-Would probably go with Argentina upgrading their TAM-hulls to such.

It's been a while

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

@Arminwraith
Now that I've put some thought into it, the Puma should look into the proposed upgrades of the Challenger 2 Streetfighter program.

Passenger/driver-operated remote weapons stations (may also serve as driver's backup-camera), commander's override for driver's station (in addition to override for gunner's station) and a sensor on the tip of the cannon-housing/hull-corner for peeking around corners w/o exposing the entire tank. This ofc was integrated with the "ironvision" suite allowing the commander or driver to see "through" the tank via augmented reality. You can probably take it even further with dual-display thermal/NV to basically get ODST-grade VISR vision, or just range-gated night vision for long-range clarity for IFF.
-The downside of range-gating is that it is active (illuminated) night vision, so it's basically Gen-1 but cranked up to 11.

Oh, and a chonky anti-personnel/barricade dozer-blade

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

@Arminwraith
Hammond!

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

Spike LR missile racks, maybe a rack of matadors (RGW 90/wallbangers) for dynamic entries, a bunch of MRO-As if you just wanna blow up buildings en-masse.

Shattered Steel - Armoured Fist. An RP about modern armoured vehicles in an alternate world- ON HIATUS

@Arminwraith We could probably use a personnel-carrier, something with missiles, an autocannon, and a grab-bag of infantry with heavy-weapons; as those sorts of things tend to do well in the urban combat coming-up.

If you want to be really exotic, something on wheels.