Posted on 10/06/2016 6:55:20 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The Army’s long search for a small tank that packs a big punch seems to never end. Now, General Dynamics is looking to do something about that with their new Griffin tank technology demonstrator. Unveiled at this year’s Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention in Washington DC, this little tank is meant to be a jumping off point for finally fulfilling the Army’s mobile protected firepower requirement.
The 27 ton Griffin is a franken-tank of sorts, which is not a bad thing. It uses pieces of existing technology to lower costs and development time–and also return some investment to the Army for projects abandoned years ago.
The Griffin's main gun is the XM360 120mm cannon that was designed at great cost under the now abandoned Future Combat Systems initiative. Remarkably, the gun weighs less than half the weight of the Abrams' 120mm cannon, but it packs the same punch.
The Griffin's turret is a scaled-down version of the M1 Abrams turret–hence the family resemblance. The change in scale reduces turret weight from 22 tons to just eight. Inside, the turret is identical the M1A2 SEP V2 Abrams according to Defensetech.org, with all the same controls, monitors, storage spaces and crew placement.
It even packs the same 7.62mm coaxial machine gun as the Abrams, located next to its main gun.
The bottom half of Griffin is also borrowed, in its case it comes from the UK’s Ajax family of multi-mission armored tracked platforms. This system is about as modern as it gets, and with the UK ordering hundreds of them in multiple variants, production and research and development costs can be minimized along with overall program risk.
Mike Peck from General Dynamics describes Griffin and where it could lead:
The whole idea behind this technology demonstrator is to get the Army and General dynamics talking about how they can make this platform both suitable for Brigade Combat Teams and affordable. Any brand new weapon system will have an uphill fight when it comes to getting funded, but a project like the Griffin packages mature technologies and existing technologies in an innovative way may have a better chance of making production.
Though technology demonstrators often use off-the-shelf components, doing so has migrated to high-end production hardware as well in recent years. Even the B-21 Raider, the USAF’s new stealth bomber, is taking this approach when it comes to many of its sub-systems, lowering risk and hopefully keeping the program on track to meeting an ambitious target price per unit.
Another light tank that carried a big gun was already designed for this exact mission, the M8 Armored Gun System. The C-130 transportable M8 was designed to replace the M551 Sheridan for the 82nd Airborne, and it could have been possibly integrated with other units as well.
The Sheridan was finally retired in the mid-1990s, and although six prototypes of the M8 were built around the same timeframe, the Army stepped away from the concept. Let’s face is, land warfare was not really a hot topic at the time.
In the last few years this all changed, and expeditionary land warfare–even in denied access environments–has been a major focus within the Pentagon. This prompted BAE Sytems (who bought United Defense) to roll out an upgraded version of the M8 at last year’s AUSA conference, which also got a lot of attention. Yet the M8 does not integrate many proven technologies, including a new advanced chassis and a common turret, like the Griffin does.
General Dynamics is hoping to test the Griffin system, or a tweaked version of it, for the Army in 2017. If it were to get an Army order it's possible the USMC could also order the system, and there are export prospects for it as well.
Notice how these "news articles" always seem to read like press releases.
Robot tank?
How big a round this light tank is resilient too? The problem with light tanks, for example, the Sheridan is they only provide protection against small arms fire.
Bait for ATGMs.
...ping....
It has a magical turret.
Its scaled down M-1 turret, scaled down from 22 tons to 8, BUT ON THE INSIDE the turret is identical the M1A2 SEP V2 Abrams according to Defensetech.org, with all the same controls, monitors, storage spaces and crew placement.
The magical turret probably has a lot less metal but may have some other armor technologies or metals that compensate. I don’t know if the barrel of the gun was included in the weight but they did say that the gun was half the weight, maybe it is made of titanium?
Interesting.
What happened to the Bradleys? That 3 round burst thing of 30mm is very effective.
I dont think we need a smaller MBT or a larger BFV. I am not liking this model.
Transportable by C-130. That’s a plus.
On the theory side, I’m wondering if one day soon every nation will go to war against every other nation.
Why is there even a manned turret?
Put the gun in a remote turret with an autoloader, put the crew in the hull. That would cut down on the weight, admittedly at the expense of ease of service.
The other thing they would need to work on is “situational awareness” software that allows the TC to be aware of the area around the tank at all ranges, without having to put his head out.
Check this new thing out, it's got a hatch right there on the front, where the enemy is, with hinges on the outside.
Right...
...but, on the upside, if the DOD buys it, those cats in the suits at that arms show will cash in big time!! /s
Where is Lt. Gruber’s “Little tank” from Allo Allo?
“What happened to the Bradleys?”
I believe they’ve been retired. Not sure why, it seems stupid and wasteful to me.
“That 3 round burst thing of 30mm is very effective.”
The Bradley had a 25 mm cannon. I understand that the same 30 mm chain gun the Apache uses is going to be used with something close to the MRAP chassis.
At 27 tons (versus 65 tons for the Abrams), it also can traverse more bridges without exceeding their structural weight limits. This is important in many parts of the world.
A tank is worthless if you can't get it to where it needs to be.
Probably not really that hard to do. Just replace the depleted uranium armor with the aluminum that Ford uses for its pickup trucks. Loose the weight without losing the size.
Actually, reducing the armor would make sense, since they really aren't survivable against modern anti-tank weapons.
If I was designing a light tank, I'd put in an autoloader and keep the people out of the turret. Design it like a plane - one driver, one weapons officer, with dual controls so one person could operate it in an emergency.
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