Combat Team of tomorrow? Mechanized Infantry Company of tomorrow?

[a_majoor]

Thanks for this.  So I struggled with this as I wrote the original post.  Is a combat tm still relevant in a world where we can find and precisely destroy individual AFVs and fighting positions?  If most of the time we need to defeat an adversary's will to resist vice destroying them incrementally then do we need to assault?  If we can reach out thousands of kilometers with precision munitions do we still need to seize ground and is holding terrain viable?

I think our most recent operations, the Stephen Biddle article on lessons learned from Afghanistan is a good example, show that we will still be forced to close with an enemy in order to find them.  In Desert Storm the majority of Iraqi fighting vehicles were also destroyed by Abrams and Bradley fire vice air delivered munitions and that was in a desert against a conventional enemy with us having air supremacy.  This will be exacerbated by our enemy forcing us to fight in complex terrain.  In such operations tanks, and tank infantry cooperation will remain effective if not required.  Defeating our ISTAR efforts will be a major effort by our enemies.  Further, ISTAR takes time.  COIN and Peace Support are likely to give us the time to conduct ISTAR "soaks" and what not.  Major Combat, however, will likely push the tempo which means the time between decisive actions and shaping ISTAR actions are likely to be shorter.  This will place the onus on maneuver forces to gain and develop contact.

I would also propose that precision munitions are low density items.  Against a real opponent such as a Russia or China how long before the west goes bingo on PGMs and how long and how much does it cost to get production ramped up.  Further, the platforms that deliver those munitions are low density and maintenance intensive.  So perhaps we execute some impressive shaping operations in Ph 1 of campaign A.  What happens if Campaign A doesn't win the war?

The question of how do Cbt Tms face this kind of fire power may be moot.  I'm saying that there is still a requirement for an assault and that likely isn't going away.  I'm also saying that combined arms, with tank infantry cooperation as the center piece, at the sub unit level in the form of a cbt tm (not square) still seems like a good approach.  To assault or hold terrain requires mass.  The Cbt Tm provides this in terms of its ability to mass fires, both direct and indirect at the right time and place, defeat and lay obstacles, and provide the ability to assault the enemy in order to effect destruction or seize terrain.  In the defence it provides the ability to hold terrain or effect destruction through mobile operations in depth.  But to do all this it has to mass.  This massing has to be protected.  This means conditions setting must take place.  Air and potentially sea superiority must be gained, C2, and fires assets must be disrupted and the arty/c-btry battle must have been won.  I don't think that is all that different from what we've done since WW 2 really.  Once we've cleared the skies of enemy air and ISTAR assets, and disrupted their ability to control and actually fire their IDF systems then we have an environment that allows for the massing of high signature combat power.

Another question is just what technological fixes are being pursued to the problem of vehicle, and maybe even personnel, signatures to ISTAR assets?  Is it possible to make a Cbt Tm invisible to thermal?  If we could do that reliably and at a reasonable price then we would have a bit of a game changer.  On a more feasible note, we should be buying vehicles that can run turret watch for hours/days on batteries without having to start the engines.  The LAV 6.0 is horrible for this.  To run the radios she pretty much needs to run all night.  This would make us much more survivable in the defence.

All things we need to take a good, hard look at.

Perhaps the biggest game changer will have to be putting economics of scale into the production of "smart" munitions. Consider that your "smart phone" costs @ $600 Cdn, yet contains within most of the things any smart weapon will have within, including accelerometers, GPS, cameras, two separate communications systems (Cellular and Wi-Fi) an accurate clock (and/or a connection with an atomic clock via the network)...

Ordering and building munitions (and almost everything else) on an assembly line basis rather than essentially getting individual "bespoke" items solves a multitude of issues, including cost reduction, providing depth for prolonged operations and allowing the use of mass (Third Offset theory involves using cooperative "swarms" of weapons and sensors). This is much like the huge assembly plant at Willow Park churning out B-24 "Liberator" bombers at a rate of one every 24 hours during WWII brought down the prices of the bombers and allowed 1000 bomber raids.

Camouflage and masking will need to be brought into a new generation as well. Devices like the BAE IR masking panels (which allow vehicles to "present" themselves as cars, trucks or farm machinery) or more futuristic ideas like metamaterial coatings to refract electromagnetic waves around the protected device will tip the balance back towards the defense (although when anything is going to actually make it out of the lab is problematic).

Still this is going to be one of those "wicked" problems that is going to need to be looked at from lots of different angles.

 

[Kirkhill]

I wonder what costs more

1000 of these

or 1000 of these

155mm +/- 30m

 

[Old Sweat]

Edward and I are probably the only two active members of this site who were around for the mechanization of the Canadian Army circa 1964-1966. For a fair amount of this period I was a lieutenant liaison officer in HQ 4 CIBG responsible for the introduction of the M113 family of vehicles in CANFE (Canadian Army National Force Europe) although the technical details were handled by a RCEME major in the headquarters of the other formation in CANFE, Canadian Base Units Europe, or CBUE.

This was only two decades after the end of the Second World War and the experiences in NWE were still clear in peoples' minds. It was fully understood that the M113 was designed to carry infantry whose job was to close with and destroy the enemy on foot. At the time we did not envisage having panzer grenadiers or armoured infantry such as found in the motor battalions in our armoured divisions. This situation prevailed past the introduction of the Grizzly and I am not sure we have ever considered the LAV as an infantry fighting vehicle.

However, tactics and techniques were modified as we transitioned from motorized infantry to mechanized infantry in the mid-sixties. This was not restricted to the infantry and armour; in gunner-land we streamlined our quick firing planning procedures and began to train FOOs in shooting while mounted in a mobile platform.

I suspect if I was to watch a combat team advance and quick attack today, it would pretty well resemble what we were doing in Germany in the mid-sixtires and what I practiced on CTCC serial 7201. Check that, one refinement is the introduction of the LAC Captain at the company level, as opposed to a gaggle of empty M113s being herded by the Company 2ic. Oh yes, we went from pintle-mounted Browning M1919A4s to a turret with a proper fire control system and some fairly powerful weapons.

So what? Perhaps a feature of the peacetime Canadian Army is a tendency to perfect established ways of doing things instead of asking if a procedure is still valid or if there is a better way. 

Let me modify the above by reminding us that in the sixties we were training to fight on the nuclear battlefield, and the use of tactical nukes was not a threat, but a promise. The mobility of the APCs was envisaged as giving us the ability to concentrate to deal with a Soviet thrust and then disperse to avoid a nuclear strike. Maybe a nuclear or chemical attack (or being the MPI of a massive MLRS attack) still is a valid concern. Is the old adage that in peacetime everyone concentrates of mobility, while in war the emphasis shifts to firepower.

 

[Haligonian]

So what? Perhaps a feature of the peacetime Canadian Army is a tendency to perfect established ways of doing things instead of asking if a procedure is still valid or if there is a better way. 

I think this is a valid point.  It is difficult to come up with better ways when you don't really know what the next war will be like, so why not perfect what you understand to work while working to incrementally innovate, hopefully in the right direction.

Let me modify the above by reminding us that in the sixties we were training to fight on the nuclear battlefield, and the use of tactical nukes was not a threat, but a promise. The mobility of the APCs was envisaged as giving us the ability to concentrate to deal with a Soviet thrust and then disperse to avoid a nuclear strike. Maybe a nuclear or chemical attack (or being the MPI of a massive MLRS attack) still is a valid concern. Is the old adage that in peacetime everyone concentrates of mobility, while in war the emphasis shifts to firepower.

Whenever I'm reminded of this I think that the concept of dispersing for force protection from firepower and massing at a key time and place to strike is not a new idea and perhaps we have something to learn from how we conceptualised operating in the nuclear environment.  Your point on mobility during peace time and firepower during war time is well taken.  Jim Storr has noted something similar as well.

 

[Haligonian]

Very good points, Haligonian.

As for the Engr and Arty candidates, there are few, mainly because they won't be employed as combat team commanders.  Having said that, having them on the course (either as candidates or as "non-assessed attendees") is, in my opinion, essential.  It allows the Tank and Infantry candidates to interact with them throughout the course to get their vital points of view on everything at that very low but important tactical fight.  As for the field portions, going back a year, a FOO party ("ATG") is but one element and is included as part of the "clag" that deploys.

As for the notion of the square combat team; I realize it's essentially a Canadian thing nowadays; however, it's not a passé notion either.  We aren't the US Army and we ought to stop comparing ourselves to them.  We don't have the resources.  So, looking at the force employment concept, I know that 7 years ago we used combat teams that were rectangular (not quite square, of course), but the square model is viable.  As a training vehicle, it forces the candidates to task out the various number of elements based on their varying capabilities.  As a fighting unit, I would offer that the combat team could take on a Russian-style battlegroup and win, 10 times out of 10.  Notwithstanding the 2-OC problem, it is a tight-knit and very powerful unit.  Of course, they aren't of much use in Operations Other than War.  But I would offer that if you're bringing tanks to a fight, there's a reason for them, so there's that.

And yes, we need more of them, they need active and reactive armour, and all that goes with it.  As well as an infantry fighting vehicle that can keep up to them.

Anyway, great discussion all round! 

I think we violently agree that the issue with the square cbt tm is the number of tanks we have.  When you have a paucity of resources you centralize them.  The square cbt tm represents the decentralization of resources at the Bde level, where they are organically owned.  This just isn't going to happen so we should get on with training for Cbt Tms that are heavy to one of the arms. 

Secondly though I don't think the size of the Canadian Army explains the square cbt tm.  It might have some relationship to our insistence on massing of armour and perhaps a sqn echelon system that isn't sufficiently robust.  At the end of the day though I think, as I originally stated, it's a poor use of resources.  It's either a BG comd taking a problem that should be his and giving it to an OC, or he's smashing a sub unit problem with this gargantuan square cbt tm and thereby losing flexibility or accepting risk by not having a reserve or not executing another task.

Even the enemy painted on the Cbt Tm Comd course does not require the force ratios that a Square Cbt Tm provides.  A reinforced motor rifle platoon does not require 19 tanks, 15 LAVs, 150 infantrymen, a troop of engrs, and whatever enablers are brought to the show to destroy it.  It's just a training tool, but I suspect it builds scars.

All things we need to take a good, hard look at.

Perhaps the biggest game changer will have to be putting economics of scale into the production of "smart" munitions. Consider that your "smart phone" costs @ $600 Cdn, yet contains within most of the things any smart weapon will have within, including accelerometers, GPS, cameras, two separate communications systems (Cellular and Wi-Fi) an accurate clock (and/or a connection with an atomic clock via the network)...

Ordering and building munitions (and almost everything else) on an assembly line basis rather than essentially getting individual "bespoke" items solves a multitude of issues, including cost reduction, providing depth for prolonged operations and allowing the use of mass (Third Offset theory involves using cooperative "swarms" of weapons and sensors). This is much like the huge assembly plant at Willow Park churning out B-24 "Liberator" bombers at a rate of one every 24 hours during WWII brought down the prices of the bombers and allowed 1000 bomber raids.

Camouflage and masking will need to be brought into a new generation as well. Devices like the BAE IR masking panels (which allow vehicles to "present" themselves as cars, trucks or farm machinery) or more futuristic ideas like metamaterial coatings to refract electromagnetic waves around the protected device will tip the balance back towards the defense (although when anything is going to actually make it out of the lab is problematic).

Still this is going to be one of those "wicked" problems that is going to need to be looked at from lots of different angles.

Great point on the economies of scale and the price of smart phone. 

Chris's point on what is cheaper, the tank, or the 155mm PGM is well taken, however, to enable that PGM there needs to be a network of sensors in place to enable its delivery so I would suggest that comparison is greatly oversimplified.  The question is probably more about how much does a particular ISTAR platform cost, how much does the C2 infrastructure cost that enables the PGM's delivery, how much does the EW assets cost that protect that C2 infrastructure, how much does the delivery platform cost (this would include the people, how many guys man a M777 vs a Leo), and then how much does the PGM cost.  I suspect if we did that calculation we might find that the tank is much more competitive and might even win out.  We must also remember that the tank brings a pretty great precision capability as well.

Having said that Edward's point on fighting in a nuclear battlespace makes all these precision munitions seem somewhat more manageable.  I'd much rather have to worry about networked sensors enabling PGM delivery than tactical nuclear weapons.  Our greater concern, as Ukraine has shown, is an enemy networked ISTAR system that delivers not precision fires but area fires.  I'm not fully up to speed on how vulnerable our ISTAR and C2 systems are but my intuition tells me they are brittle.

 

[Old Sweat]

I am not convinced that the current family of 155mm PGMs brings all that much to a mechanized battlefield. Both the Excalibur (which is really expensive) and the Precision Guided Kit (which goes for under 10k per each) requires a very accurate target location, like within metres as opposed to the grid for a FM Battery, Regiment or Division to deliver fire on targets up to the size of football fields or Walmarts including the parking lot. We suffer from a shortage in guns and mortars, in part because some of our brain trust convinced themselves a couple of decades back that indirect fire was no longer required. Good thing Afghanistan came along. Mind you, this same bunch felt the day of the tank was over. 

I would dearly like to see the long range rocket delivery system project resurrected, but I am not holding my breath. In the meantime, a M777 battery, while vulnerable to CB, can really reach out and touch someone. I would like to see a third one added to each of our field regiments if for no other reason than the flexibility it brings to the artillery's contribution to the land battle. See above for not holding my breath.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I am not convinced that the current family of 155mm PGMs brings all that much to a mechanized battlefield. Both the Excalibur (which is really expensive) and the Precision Guided Kit (which goes for under 10k per each) requires a very accurate target location, like within metres as opposed to the grid for a FM Battery, Regiment or Division to deliver fire on targets up to the size of football fields or Walmarts including the parking lot. We suffer from a shortage in guns and mortars, in part because some of our brain trust convinced themselves a couple of decades back that indirect fire was no longer required. Good thing Afghanistan came along. Mind you, this same bunch felt the day of the tank was over. 

I would dearly like to see the long range rocket delivery system project resurrected, but I am not holding my breath. In the meantime, a M777 battery, while vulnerable to CB, can really reach out and touch someone. I would like to see a third one added to each of our field regiments if for no other reason than the flexibility it brings to the artillery's contribution to the land battle. See above for not holding my breath.

I wonder if a few hundred autonomous targeting drones could help with that....

 

[Old Sweat]

I wonder if a few hundred autonomous targeting drones could help with that....

They probably could, just as one drone could bring the div arty down on the target, or if it was a small and important point target, the drone could do the same, but with a lot less rounds.

 

[Ostrozac]

A reinforced motor rifle platoon does not require 19 tanks, 15 LAVs, 150 infantrymen, a troop of engrs, and whatever enablers are brought to the show to destroy it.  It's just a training tool, but I suspect it builds scars.

And as lessons show from Ukraine, that platoon is NOT going to obediently stand and hold its ground against such a force. It will fire three or four ATGM, call in the artillery and rockets, pop smoke, and move to an alternate position. The Russians and Ukrainians are defending in depth with fairly low troop densities, not stacking all their guys onto a single grid square.

 

[Old Sweat]

And as lessons show from Ukraine, that platoon is NOT going to obediently stand and hold its ground against such a force. It will fire three or four ATGM, call in the artillery and rockets, pop smoke, and move to an alternate position. The Russians and Ukrainians are defending in depth with fairly low troop densities, not stacking all their guys onto a single grid square.

Exactly what it should do, and what we should do in a similar situation. The platoon has imposed some delay and perhaps casualties on the advancing force, and generated intelligence regarding the advancing force's axis and possible intention. Perhaps it has also help channel the enemy towards a killing zone.

This, of course, begs the question of why so heavy a combat team?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I wonder what costs more

1000 of these

or 1000 of these

155mm +/- 30m

Except your going to need more than 37 guns to stop 1,000 tanks and their counter artillery which they excel at.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

So I just finished this years Cbt Tm Comd's Course and I figured I'd take a look at this thread again.  Having re read it a few thoughts come to mind.

Thankfully we got back in the tank business.  While our ISTAR capabilities can certainly enable us to take greater risks in certain areas there will always be a requirement to gain contact and develop it in order to facilitate decisive actions.  If you can't survive that contact then decisive actions will not be able to follow or will be launched with much greater reduced understanding of the enemy and therefore suffer a much heavier cost than necessary. 

Unfortunately we didn't buy a lot of tanks, and we didn't plan to be able to immediately maintain them which results in extremely high VOR rates.  The maintenance issues are supposed to be fixed in the coming years but in the mean time there is an awful lot of tanks that are down or driving around with their turrets over the back deck.

Our tanks lack ERA and Active Protection.  This means that they are vulnerable to all manner of ATGMs, even some more antiquated ones.  They are likely also vulnerable to DPICM like munitions.  This needs to be rectified.

While we bought tanks, thereby alleviating many of the initial concerns of this thread when we thought we'd be divesting the tank capability, we still have many of the same concerns because we bought so few of them.  We have three squadrons of tanks spread between two brigades.  There is some talk of going to a sqn per bde.  Either way this doesn't provide us with the required depth.  A Bde Comd is required to decide between centralizing all his tanks under a single BG and likely advancing 1 up or splitting them and advancing two up.  The BG Comd is then forced with a similar decision.  In a peace support/COIN environment our tempo will be reduced as tanks are moved from Coy to Coy with maintenance breaks to conduct sequential vice simultaneous operations.  All this tells me that the favoured COA of square combat teams simply aren't feasible any longer.  And haven't been for some time.

Further, I'm not convinced on the validity of the square cbt tm structure in the first place.  Back in Germany days (and to this day doctrinally) the tank Regt had 4 sqns of 4 trps each.  This meant that the Bde Comd could detach two Sqns to the Inf Bn's and attach a coy or two to the Regt and still keep it as a maneuver headquarters.  Our Bde Comd's now face the choice of penny packeting out their tanks to Inf BG's or throwing them all into a single BG and leaving the others with no armour support and little anti armour capability.  The initial pages of this thread shows that conducting offensive operations against an enemy with tanks, or other serious anti armour capabilities and real IDF will be very difficult and we don't have the resources to do it nor the knowledge.  With only a squadron in the bde we've reduced the problem but not eliminated it.

Having said all this, the future cbt tm looks a lot like cbt tms of the past but it's not square.  It will often feel light on armour if operating in open terrain against a mechanised enemy.  It's likely a Coy with 1 or 2 trps attached or a sqn(-) with a platoon attached.  No change with the attached FOO and engineer trp.  It should have its own IDF capability, preferably able to fire from the vehicle.  It requires robust echelons that can support dispersed operations that include operations at the half sqn size and perhaps below.

A good post and refresh of a good thread!

It is important to remember that the Combat Team Commander's Course is indeed a course at heart and not a collective training event. This does not stop us, of course, from trying to use the CTCC as collective training. The CTCC has also become, somewhat, an end in and of itself. There is a certain emotional attachment to the course - it seems to be vital ground for many. I did enjoy my CTCC and I enjoyed supporting three CTCCs as part of a squadron. 

Regarding the tank squadron, there were never had four tank squadrons in Germany. There were two squadrons with a third squadron as a flyover until the Mulroney era increase to three squadrons there plus the one in Gagetown.

The square combat team is a large beast. Remember, though, that both the battle group and the combat team are doctrinally flexible organizations. The current Battle Group in Operations defines a Battle Group as: " an ad-hoc and temporary combined arms grouping based on a manoeuvre unit HQ: it consists of a combination of attached and integral infantry and army sub-units, with their integral CSS elements..."

The same publication defines a Combat Team as: " an ad-hoc and temporary combined arms organization based on a manoeuvre sub-unit HQ: it consists of a combination of integral and attached infantry and armour sub-subunits..."

This means that both the Battle Group and Combat Team are flexible and scalable. The smallest Combat Team would be a Sqn/Coy HQ plus one infantry platoon and one tank troop. Not much of a Combat Team but there it is! The largest would be the subject of your ire, the square Combat Team. The square Combat Team is indeed a large organization: practically a Battle Group in its own right. Our doctrine allows the BG CO to make Combat Teams as he sees fit based on his estimate. The CTCC tries to use the square Combat Team to stretch the span of control of the student.

I could see a square Combat Team formed for specific instances. An advanced guard, perhaps, or a combat team operating on a independent axis. We would have to know what the Bde and BG composition were. If all three tank squadrons were brought into the same unit for an exercise or operation the possibilities open up.

An infantry-led BG consisting of three infantry companies and a tank squadron would, admittedly, rarely find the opportunity to form a square Combat Team.  The BG CO would be very unlikely to assign so much combat power to one of his OCs. He has plenty of options for grouping where his sub-units can operate under his direction and in concert with each other.

Barring urban operations it would be equally unadvisable to automatically form three small combat teams each consisting of an infantry company and a tank troop: classic penny-packeting. Grouping should be based on the assessment of tasks, the individual characteristics of the friendly forces and the force ratios.

Regarding tank squadron echelons, they are already quite robust. Tank troops are fire units while the tank squadron is the manoeuvre unit. This has to do as much with concentration of force as to do with sustainment.

Cheers,

T2B

 

[Infanteer]

We would have to know what the Bde and BG composition were.

Bingo.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Bingo.

And, although we like to focus on infantry and tanks, we would need some integrated Armoured AD assets or we'd be hooped, of course.

 

[a_majoor]

WRT the picture, the choice isn't either/or, but rather "BOTH".

Tanks will evolve to become highly protected and mobile fire support platforms, capable of using both smart and dumb rounds for IF and DF tasks, depending on circumstances. The complimentary IFV's will likely have automatic cannon and guided missiles in their RWS pods, to provide a wider range of options. All future vehicles may have to be designed around the Swedish idea of external ammunition magazines for rapid reloading in the field.

WRT the question of guided artillery, the problem has actually been solved some time ago. MERLIN was an 81mm mortar round with millimetric radar, STRIX was a 120mm mortar round with infrared homing and BAT was a prototype submunition with several sensors, including acoustic. With this type of munition, once a target box is designated, the round can activate its seeker and do the rest (KSTAM is a current 120mm top attack round for tanks with similar properties). Having a wide variety of different seeking mechanisms (either multispectral on each round, or different types of rounds) provides ways to look for and overwhelm even protected targets, a T-14 Armata may have active defense, but eventually it will run out of munitions or encounter a round it isn't programmed to defeat.

This makes targeting and coordination, especially in a high tempo environment, much more important. The team can be widely dispersed and still mutually self supporting in the defense, or gather together and become capable of attacking a wide circle around it by fire. How this gets done is probably the real question to answer.

 

[Haligonian]

Tango,

I agree with what you're saying.  I'm sure there is a time and place for the square cbt, however, I believe these will be quite limited, and of course task organisation must be based on an assessment of tasks and the structure of the parent units.  My point is that with our current structures the square cbt tm is a highly unlikely task organisation.

My other point, that is related to many you made, is that we seem wedded to the square cbt tm which is just one method of organising a cbt tm.  Cbt Tm in operations is a good example of this with all of its TTPs being very detailed descriptions and diagrams on the conduct of operations of a SQUARE cbt tm.

Regarding tank squadron echelons, they are already quite robust. Tank troops are fire units while the tank squadron is the manoeuvre unit. This has to do as much with concentration of force as to do with sustainment.

Totally agree that the tank sqn ech is robust but there is no spare capacity there, hence the reason for tank squadrons being resistant to being broken up.  My point is that ADO will give us opportunities to disperse our armour assets but we'll need the sustainment capabilities to do this. 

On this point the Australians appear willing to decentralize their armour more so than ourselves.  The following is out of LWD 3-3-4 Employment of Armour on page 3-2.  You can find it here, http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/Files/Our%20work/Publications/Doctrine/LWD_3-3-4_Employment_of_Armour_Full.pdf

Troop Group
3.5 The smallest deployable armoured unit is a troop group. A
troop group consists of the vehicles, equipment and the
personnel needed to operate as part of a CT or BG and should
not be committed to tasks at less than vehicle patrol sizes.
Typically, a troop might be assigned operational control to a
CT.
3.6 A troop group deployed independently of its parent sub-unit,
must have a specialist repair vehicle and personnel included.
Even with this support, there are limitations to how long such a
group can operate without regimental support.

I don't think we are in a place where we would consider deploying a single troop as people often bristle at the idea of detaching a single trp from its parent sqn.  The Marines also do this aboard their MEUs.

 

[CBH99]

**I don't mean to hijack the thread at all - I'm following the topic with quite a bit of interest.


Question for those of you who know what your talking about.

-  Does the introduction of the TAPV bring anything to the table, in regards to the "Combat Team of Tomorrow"?


*In one of the posts above, the new Lav 6.0 is mentioned as being less than ideal in that it needs to basically keep the engine running at night in order to power the turret/surveillance equipment.  Will the TAPV potentially bring something beneficial to the combat team that it doesn't currently have?

 

[George Wallace]

*In one of the posts above, the new Lav 6.0 is mentioned as being less than ideal in that it needs to basically keep the engine running at night in order to power the turret/surveillance equipment.  Will the TAPV potentially bring something beneficial to the combat team that it doesn't currently have?

It doesn't matter what vehicle you have out there, if you are running the turret you are using power to use the sights and ranging equipment.  You need power for the sensors, laser and sights; but you can use hand controls for movement and optical sights not requiring power if conditions permit.  The Surv Suite is a whole different story; and the few vehicles that have it WILL use a lot of power and need to recharge their batteries eventually when static at night.

 

[daftandbarmy]

**I don't mean to hijack the thread at all - I'm following the topic with quite a bit of interest.


Question for those of you who know what your talking about.

-  Does the introduction of the TAPV bring anything to the table, in regards to the "Combat Team of Tomorrow"?


*In one of the posts above, the new Lav 6.0 is mentioned as being less than ideal in that it needs to basically keep the engine running at night in order to power the turret/surveillance equipment.  Will the TAPV potentially bring something beneficial to the combat team that it doesn't currently have?

It would seem that the TAPV could best be used to draw fire for our real armoured vehicles...

 

[cavalryman]

It would seem that the TAPV could best be used to draw fire for our real armoured vehicles...

Isn't that part of recce's job anway? >