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Comment by testing22321 | Hacker News Reader

> this is a good way to also think about why militaries (of various description) use the vehicles they use, from a logistics standpoint

Militaries often make very stupid decisions. A friend was in Defence Materials figuring out what tanks Australia should buy. The M1 Abrams had a support crew of something like 30 vehicles following it everywhere it went (each tank!) and required a full engine rebuild insanely often, something like every 1000 hours.

They are HORRIFIC for logistics.

Australia bought them.

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Is that really the wrong decision for a technologically advanced and industrialized nation like Australia, though? If you can logistically afford to field an M1 Abrams you are going to win against an opponent who can’t field a similar tank, even if they can afford more of them. Additionally I imagine there are other benefits such as integrating with allies who use the same tank.

> integrating with allies who use the same tank.

Ultimately that is the reason they bought them. The Aussie ones will never leave Australia, but can be used for training.

If the big one ever comes, those trained aussies can fly wherever in the world the US has brought a stack a M1s and be good to go.

>The Aussie ones will never leave Australia

Narrator: The Aussie ones are in fact leaving Australia https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/the-australian-m1a1-t...

I think Russia’s war in Ukraine has taught us that’s just not true on the modern battlefield.

But Australia made the buy decision before the war.

From a different comment in the thread - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War.

I guess they should have known better.

I am curious what other factors were at play in those battles. It seems like first, Libya had no air support as western allies grounded Libya’s Air Force, second Libya did not have the logistics necessary to deploy their tanks so far from home, and third Libyan morale and training was low.

> "required a full engine rebuild insanely often, something like every 1000 hours."

If that is true it is delightfully ironic. I have heard that the main reason the M1 has a turbine is that the army saw the dramatic improvement in reliability that turbines brought to their helicopters and said "that, we want that in a tank"

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