Matrix Games Forums

For those of you that were in either Gulf War in a vehicle how fast could you move across the desert?

Good Hunting.

MR

It's been awhile, so I'm not 100% sure I remember correctly, but I seem to recall that the M1A1s had a governor on the engines to cap speeds at 50-60 kmph, which could be attained in the desert.

Of could how fast you could go and how fast you should go are two sparate issues! IIRC, one of our TCs was tearing along at top speed and hit some kind of trench/ditch. The tank broke a torsion bar, and he broke a rib. And any kind of turn at high speed would risk throwing a track.

We are looking for practical speeds in a road march and then in combat formation. None of those are done at top speeds if you want to live long or not break something.

I've just been looking at this for a Bn level game. It seems that formations move quite slowly even if the vehicles they're mounted on can move quite fast.

And formation movement rates haven't changed much since WW2.

Rates I've come across that seem to be borne out historically are:

Move to Contact Advance in Contact Road March / Rout
Lt Recce 5kph 2kph 10kph
Armoured 3kph 1kph 6kph
Foot 1kph 0.5kph 2kph
Motorised 3kph 0.5kph 9kph

(Tabs aren't appearing in the table )

I'm surprised more people haven't chipped in...I'm not sure if I'd agree with the mech movement rates described in the post above, they seem kind of slow, at least for the desert.

Again, its been awhile, but I think that the road march speed in the desert would have been about 15-20 mph, in combat formation 5-10 mph.

Not certain what you're asking for here. Tactically, you can look at the 2nd ACR deployments from 60 to 70 Easting prior to 73 Easting if you're wondering about advance to combat - the 2nd ACR Operations Log is online, and each Easting is a 1000m, so you can do the math.

Operationally, obviously the 3rd ACR moved 400 km in 100 hours. I guess I need to know what scale you're curious about.

The comment was made that the M1 Abrams is 3 times as fast cross country as the M60 Patton tank. While that could be literally true the crew could end up 'dead right' proving it. It could be possible for the tank to go 3 times faster cross country but would beat the vehicle and crew to death doing it.

So, we are looking for some actual advance rates cross country for at least a couple of comparable vehicle types.

Good Hunting.

MR