Joe, I'd have thought you'd have been more inclined toward something both suitable for transport and doing some serious shooting. Those dinos getting loose from Jurrasic Park a problem in your neighborhood again?
Posted on 08/26/2003 6:13:43 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:07:10 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Army's new state-of-the art infantry vehicle slated to make its combat debut in Iraq in October is vulnerable to the kind of rocket-propelled grenades now being used by Saddam Hussein's guerrillas, a consultant's report charges.
The Army, which rebuts the report's findings, plans to send 300 Stryker armored vehicles and 3,600 soldiers to Iraq. This first Stryker brigade will help put down the resistance that has killed more 60 American troopers since May 1. It will also be a preview of a lighter, more mobile Army for the 21st century.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Could happen, once the power plant gets developed. But watch out for Joachim Steuben's White Mice....
Joe, I'd have thought you'd have been more inclined toward something both suitable for transport and doing some serious shooting. Those dinos getting loose from Jurrasic Park a problem in your neighborhood again?
That's the *White Mice* referred to in post #241. but if I make it to Chechnya, I should be safe there. Their sort never comes around a combat zone.
-archy-/-
Alternate possibility [intirm]:
Chassis from this:
With the turret from one of these [which CAN be airdropped, unlike the Bradley turret with IGS] on top. Instant [more or less] 152mm-armed fire support vehicle, antitank capable, and also replacing the role of the CEV for MOUT direct fire requirements.
Of course, if the Stryker chassis won't support it, M113A3 hulls could be used instead, the way the Australians and Singapore used their versions with British Saladin or Fox turrets.
1. Direct-fire engagements by manned vehicles are the last resort.
2. RPVs are preferred for reconnaisance and direct-fire engagement tasks. The smaller, the better.
3. Given that hiding a full-up MBT is kind of hard, and that most engagements will be in urban areas (Ralph Peters: "In the future, 'urban combat' will be a redundancy"), the main threat that the FCS manned vehicles will face is the RPG and mines.
4. The preferred defensive schema of the manned FCS flows from this, in order: avoid detection by enemy heavy forces (first line of defense), deflect/kill RPG rounds via active defenses, detect/avoid/neutralize mines, have enough armor to prevent significant penetration by an RPG round or REASONABLE mine, be able to take SOME (not a lot) of penetration by an RPG without killing the crew or the vehicle.
So how does this contradict my point? This guy is still an ambitious Xlinton-appointee, who hopes to vault into a still-more important position to (a) line his pockets and (b) do still more damage to the Army.
My guess is that no matter WHAT the commander's name is, they'll pick up the *Hammer's Slammers* tag. Unless by fortuitous circumstance his name happens to be Jean Rasczak...
I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer!
Here's the entertainment! Now have fun! That's an order!
Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has.
Use that freedom.
This is for you new people. I only have one rule: everyone fights, no one quits.
If you don't do your job, I'll shoot you. Do you get me?
- Lt. Jean Jean Rasczak
4. The preferred defensive schema of the manned FCS flows from this, in order: avoid detection by enemy heavy forces (first line of defense), deflect/kill RPG rounds via active defenses, detect/avoid/neutralize mines, have enough armor to prevent significant penetration by an RPG round or REASONABLE mine, be able to take SOME (not a lot) of penetration by an RPG without killing the crew or the vehicle.
Two other vehicle killers you'd better factor in: advances in *fire and forget* and SACLOS AT guided missiles like AT14/9M133 Kornet, AT15 Khrizantema, Javelin, Ground-launched Hellfire [MBT kills from 10KM!] and LOSAT. Granred, the payback is much more cost-effective if they can be used for a tank kill, but if they're used to wipe out a 9-man Stryker squad and its crew, that'll do...and imagine such an event in the light of today's one-or-two a day casualty lists from Iraq.
The other consideration is mines, not the conventional ones you very reasonably are concerned with, but a much smaller, command detonated shaped charge warhead, implanted in the ground and fired by remote control into the vehicle's thinnest belly armour, either by wire, radio or laser designated command. Think of it as a Claymore mine for vehicles...and an improvised version would require nothing more than a PG-7 HEAT grenade warhead, a golfball-sized lump of C4 or Semtex, a doughnut roll of commo wire and a claymore firing clacker....
And if the much-vaunted *metalstorm* roman candle charge technology comes to pass, consider the possibility of a DIPCM mortar version, activated by sensor and raining a preset number of semismart projectiles down on and armored vehicles, light or heavy, that come within the tactical area of responsibility if its basic sensors, or additional data fed to it by anything from a recon team to a JSTARS data link. That too, can make life hard for crews, whether wheeled or tracked. [Though tracked crews can do more to avoid the road juctions that are likely preregistered targets for artillery FOs, minefields, and future developments that capitalize of the control of such chokepoints.
And we're probably overlooking one or two other developments that'll help ruin the day for some of those future troopies. But those listed are bad enough news.
-archy-/-
Funny thing: the 40mm gun from the Sgt York [the vehicle was such a flop that Sgt York's family petitioned their congressman to initiate a namechange as demeaning to their ancestor] might not make too bad a weapon for use as Stryker or M113A3+ armament, similar to the 30mm gun and 7.62mm PK machinegun *Kliver turret* with 4 AT-14 Komet antitank missiles found on the Russian BTR-80 Kliver turret.
It'd do nicely as a light armor or unarmored vehicle killer with het or DU HVAP projectiles, would work nicely against troops in the open [particularly if a canister round for close-up work was fielded] and might even fulfill some of the roll DIVADS/Sgt York was meant to.
Of course they never got around to the further development of the alternate to the Sgt York/twin 40mm gun design that had been brainstormed as an alternate plan in case the twin 40, awfully similar to the old M42A1 *Dusters* of Vietnam, turned out to be the flop that it proved to be. That backup plan was a GAU-8 30mm of the A10 warthog mounted in a purpose-built turret on an M48A3 chassis... which also has possibilities; there's now an even more pressing need for a DIVADS weapon, but it has to be one that works.
I do know of one military museum where a Sgt York prototype is being kept in storage. Under canvas, lest anyone see or photograph it....
-archy-/-
Of course, I could have posted a pic of one ot these M8s...also germaine to the discussion. Of the two, I'd prefer to go to a fight in the one without the mogas engine and the rubber wheels.
Though I worked on a project a few years back to replace the M6 gun of the M8 armored cars and M3/M5 light tanks provided to some countries under the Foreign Military Aid Program with a 20mm automatic cannon, probably more useful in their usual roles in protecting presidential palaces and airports. But the M8 armored car of WWII was better armed than today's Stryker, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was more capable off-road as well; and it's armor protection was also about 12-15mm steel armor.
I could probably do better directing specific individuals with a lot more experience than I have in wheelies toward such developments- I've got one pal who spent quite a bit of his time in the BAOR in British Ferrets, Saladins and Fox CRVs, and there's one cranky old reprobate in the Atlanta area who survived a tour with the Rhodesian Armoured Cars regiment and made it back here. They'd be the ones to chat up, though if I pull off my visit to Grozny, I'll let you know what Ivan has to say about his BTR80s with the Kliver turret.
I worry that we are pushing hard for a Future Combat Vehicle that is based, as far as I have been able to tell, on a concept that in the next half a dozen years or so we will develop a composite material that has incredible strength yet is very lightweight. I do not mean like the material we have now, some of which is very good, I mean material many times stronger and many times lighter.
It's possible- I've seen a transparent ceramic that puts ballistic rolex and Lexgard to shame. And even the circa-1983 USMC experimental M113 composite hulls were said to be able to withstand .50 caliber fire.
The other concept I hear often is that we will develop in the next few years the ability to use electronics to ensure projectiles (chemical or kinetic) shot at the FCS will "miss" their target.
Again, possible; as is an onboard laser that may be able to take out incoming ATGMs or aircraft-launched turret poppers, though the power requirements may require a vehicle nearer the size of a tank, if not necessarily as heavily armoured as one. And such developments would certainly offer interesting possibilities for upgrades of existing equipment to be nearly as capable as future developed systems.
While both of these are admirable goals, and someday may be possible, I just don't think we will get there nearly as fast as many believe. And even if we do, there'll never be enough of the new/best version around, and some users will have to do with earlier versions or even earlier systems. That can have benefits as well as deficits, so that too can offer tradeoffs worth some serious consideration.
In the meantime, we need folks brainstorming a bit like you have been doing in order to fill the heavy/light gap and urban operations requirements we will continue to face from now on. And to get the most *bang for the buck*, as well as avoiding some possible traps that might not occur to enginers or REMF project officers. Some things can't be fixed with green tape and the wire from a C-rat carton [oops! No more C-rat wire for fixing stuff- we're doomed!]
Have enjoyed the discussion!
Yup. I suspect more will follow in future. Kindly continue to report on anything interesting, and I'll try not to forget to duck. Again.
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