Posted on 02/16/2014 11:52:44 AM PST by null and void
For the past decade, armor protection has dominated U.S. combat vehicle programs. Now, maneuver officials are breaking with that tradition, abandoning armor for highly transportable, all-terrain vehicles.
The Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., recently reached out to the defense industry to see if it could build the new Ultra Light Combat Vehicle -- a new effort to equip infantry brigade combat teams with go-anywhere vehicles capable of carrying a nine-man squad.
Lawmakers recently cut most of the funding for the U.S. Army's Ground Combat Vehicle -- a move that has all but killed the high-profile acquisitions effort.
The ULCV instead would be designed to travel 75 percent of the time across country and on rough trails.
Army officials continue to work with the Marine Corps to deliver the Humvee replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Leaders from both services were forced to pare down expectations for this truck as costs spiraled out of control as officials wanted to increase armor while lightening the overall weight.
Maneuver officials maintain that the ULCV is not competing against the JLTV. The ULCV is designed to fill a capability gap of being large enough to carry a nine-man squad but light enough -- at 4,500 pounds -- to be sling-loaded by a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
The only way to achieve this weight and meet the capability is to trade armor protection for speed and mobility, Parker said.
"A lot of the stuff we have seen is more ATV-looking rather than enclosed with a cab," Parker said. "Then again, if someone brings something with a cab, we are not telling them not to."
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
I quoted Sherman in a medium length rant I sent out on 9/12/01.
Would that our national leadership had similar historical grounding. Instead, we got “Islam is a religion of peace,” the expenditure of way too much blood and treasure over far too many years, and damned little to show for it.
An ungodly sad truism.
As a standoff weapon, using missiles, where we had air superiority.
Yes they are. “Fight as a combined arms team.” I remember some of that stuff. My Infantry Lieutenants told me that they never wore helmets at Ranger school. I told them that when they outranked me, they could wear whatever they wanted to wear. Panama happened and the story about the guy getting shot in the head and surviving because he had his Kevlar on seemed to change everyone’s mind. Armor, even personal armor, is a pain in the behind until you need it.
The problem with the West and its relations with Islam are two fold.
One, the fallacious mantra, “Islam is a religion of peace”, even if it were true, ignores the fact that Islam is an entire world view, religion, commerce AND government rolled into one that, by definition, requires dominance.
“Islam” means submission!
Islam demands submission, either voluntarily or because of the sword, to the governance of Islam. Our “intellectual elites” have some fuzzy idea about quaintly praying 5 times every day and making the Haj, “you know, all that National Geographic stuff.” For all their pretensions about Women’s Liberation, the Elites seem to have very little problem with the burka and everything that goes with that mindset.
The second problem with our Western Elite “leaders” is that they are running as hard and fast as they can from God, the one true God of Abraham and Moses, who came to Earth as Jesus to redeem us. The Elites prefer to worship themselves, but often Reality bites them and they are forced to acknowledge a power greater than themselves. Their problem is, many will choose to worship ANYTHING other than God.
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Battleships depended on air superiority in WW2 in the Pacific. They are finally gone, yes, but it was a long time after their WW2 “demise.”
days of suture past...
Steel Wheels...
What, no votes from the guys actually riding in these death traps? Why is it that the REMF’s get to make all these decisions?
“it’s inexpensive as hell”
Pity the civvy versions aren’t. New Jeep Wranglers run some $20,000 and up fast. I’m looking for a cheap one that isn’t several decades old.
No idea.
There’s a company that builds a little goober that consists of two steel plates with a a pressurized gap between them that has the same powder that goes into a fire extinguisher.
It isn’t very expensive, it doesn’t weigh much, it doesn’t take up much space, and when they make a box of them around a fuel tank it prevents a fire subsequent to an IED explosion some 80% of the time.
The REMFs refuse to buy and incorporate into combat vehicles because it doesn’t suppress a fire 99% of the time.
bump
Right, why would I want a Bradley when I could zoom to Valhalla on a four wheeler with shrapnel flying.
The Japanese Zero trade speed for armor and “they blowed up good they blowed up real good”.
That means you hose them out, replace the electronics and optics, and put in a new crew."
Sounds just like the old Shermans.
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