Infantry Vehicles

[IKnowNothing]

Problem isn’t the gun, it is again a viable fire control for engagement of those.

I’ve been to a bunch of counter drone ex’s, and handheld weapons and conventional turrets aren’t very successful.

1. How much of that would be mitigated by the shot pattern of such a payload?
2. To broaden the effect of that pattern, could the gun be set such that each "shot" is actually a burst with a standard preset oscillation?

Way out of my lane but there seems like a big difference conceptually between trying to hit an aerial point target with a gun (even with airburst) at 1km vice throwing a cloud of #4 buck into the flightpath at 50-150m

 

[FJAG]

Granted I don’t agreed with the way most armies run their AD setups - but I don’t see why down here we can run a set in a platoon on the ADAM cell net and have them have Stingers and not then trust that any other Western militaries Army cannot have their Infantry or Armored units do the same. It shouldn’t be that hard then to add in gun systems for that same role on their core role vehicle as well.

I'm not saying that that we "can't" have things the same, what I'm saying is we're at point zero at the moment and the plan for the future is different which may result in it being different.

Artillery AD units could have a mix of area defence systems like SkyRanger and NASAMS and would have the acquisition radars that the Infantry Battalion AD elements would tie into for coordination.

GBAD looks at delivering two capabilities - an anticipated battery of high mobility VSHORD (roughly a 10 km system) and a battery of area C-RAM (a roughly 5 - 20 km system). These are weapon system agnostic and currently in the definition phase.

"I know something that creates that same effect at shorter ranges, without the need for complex range detection and fusing- but it can't be as simple as a shotgun can it?"

Given how well most members of the military shoot under stress, I’m not sure the Shotgun is a viable option, given it’s fairly limited range and rate of fire.

Old soldier anecdote. When we stood up Blowpipe batteries in the 1970s, each battery was issued shotguns and plenty of ammo to teach snap shooting skills to Blowpipe dets.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

A gun system that can operate while moving is likely required to cover missile AD assets as they relocate and setup in a new area. A lot of the AD systems in Ukraine have been hit on the move or in the process of setup or takedown.

 

[KevinB]

A gun system that can operate while moving is likely required to cover missile AD assets as they relocate and setup in a new area. A lot of the AD systems in Ukraine have been hit on the move or in the process of setup or takedown.

That’s a SHORAD role, so something like MSHORAD works well for that.

 

[Underway]

Revisiting an old discussion on the start of the new year.

Given the combat situation in Ukraine, has the speculative/fantasy "heavy APC" concept finally met its end? You know the tank weight/armoured APC that can shrug off heavy weapons.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Revisiting an old discussion on the start of the new year.

Given the combat situation in Ukraine, has the speculative/fantasy "heavy APC" concept finally met its end? You know the tank weight/armoured APC that can shrug off heavy weapons.

If Afghanistan reminded us of anything, war is definitely a contact sport you can't add padding to soften the hit. The Taliban just made a bigger bomb.

In a LSCO scenario like Ukraine, even expensive heavy armour is getting picked off at a high ratw due to drones, artillery, and ATGMs. Survivability is a tertiary consideration after speed and lethality.

The Sherman tank experience comes to mind. That said, I don't think Canada is ready or mature enough to have that discussion about acceptable combat losses...

 

[Underway]

If Afghanistan reminded us of anything, war is definitely a contact sport you can't add padding to soften the hit. The Taliban just made a bigger bomb.

In a LSCO scenario like Ukraine, even expensive heavy armour is getting picked off at a high ratw due to drones, artillery, and ATGMs. Survivability is a tertiary consideration after speed and lethality.

The Sherman tank experience comes to mind. That said, I don't think Canada is ready or mature enough to have that discussion about acceptable combat losses...

Not talking about Canada, just armour developement in general for IFV/APC's.

My outsider looking in perspective is that drones are not the problem, ATGM are. Few articles out there from Ukrainian troops that chuckle that drones are getting all the glory but are really only picking off immobilized or lone tanks, where ATGM and mines are doing most of the heavy lifting.

Is the fact Europe and NA are not directly involved in the fighting one of the reasons we are not developing better defences on armour for these threats or is this more of a function that its a team sport and tactics need to evolve vs weapons.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Reading between the lines of the IFM RFI:

• IFM planned contract award-2031
• IFM stipulates both ACSV for mortar chassis, and that the SPG will be to support LAV based CMBG's
• LAV VI EOL ~2035

...
when will we announce the LAV700 sole source?

 

[suffolkowner]

Reading between the lines of the IFM RFI:

• IFM planned contract award-2031
• IFM stipulates both ACSV for mortar chassis, and that the SPG will be to support LAV based CMBG's
• LAV VI EOL ~2035

...
when will we announce the LAV700 sole source?

long way out even for LAV700

 

[PrairieFella]

Reading between the lines of the IFM RFI:

• IFM planned contract award-2031
• IFM stipulates both ACSV for mortar chassis, and that the SPG will be to support LAV based CMBG's
• LAV VI EOL ~2035

...
when will we announce the LAV700 sole source?

Saw them live, impressive machines, but too damn big.

 

[KevinB]

Revisiting an old discussion on the start of the new year.

Given the combat situation in Ukraine, has the speculative/fantasy "heavy APC" concept finally met its end? You know the tank weight/armoured APC that can shrug off heavy weapons.

I think the Bradley has shown that one doesn't need a tank to be survivable - there are a lot of Bradley's that have taken Russian tank gun and ATGM hits, and remained combat effective, or Mobility kill with the crew surviving.

But it isn't light - and while not Merkava weight - the MICV program down here (formally known as OMFV) is no light weight - as your are looking at 40-50t in the uparmored configuration.

 

[PrairieFella]

I think the Bradley has shown that one doesn't need a tank to be survivable - there are a lot of Bradley's that have taken Russian tank gun and ATGM hits, and remained combat effective, or Mobility kill with the crew surviving.

But it isn't light - and while not Merkava weight - the MICV program down here (formally known as OMFV) is no light weight - as your are looking at 40-50t in the uparmored configuration.

Which is insane. That's way too heavy for an APC.

 

[KevinB]

Which is insane. That's way too heavy for an APC.

Remember we have Combined Arms Battalions, the tank and IFV fight together (terrain etc dependent)

The M1A2 SepV3 is 72 tons before the TUSK and 75 something with it.

The M1A3 is supposed to be ~55t so an IFV can be close to that.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I think the Bradley has shown that one doesn't need a tank to be survivable - there are a lot of Bradley's that have taken Russian tank gun and ATGM hits, and remained combat effective, or Mobility kill with the crew surviving.

But it isn't light - and while not Merkava weight - the MICV program down here (formally known as OMFV) is no light weight - as your are looking at 40-50t in the uparmored configuration.

I think the Bradley has been the star of the whole show...

 

[Kirkhill]

I think the Bradley has been the star of the whole show...

I wonder how much of that is down to the rapid fire cannon. The ability to keep the target under fire at close range seems to buy the Bradleys some manoeuvering space and time when facing 6 round per minute Russian tanks.

 

[quadrapiper]

I think the Bradley has been the star of the whole show...

Challengers seem to be doing reasonably well, too, though not sure how much of that is skewed by the enthusiasm of highly online British Army veterans.

 

[Halifax Tar]

How have the Leos been holding up ?

 

[PrairieFella]

How have the Leos been holding up ?

It seems all of the western kit shreds Russkis when used properly. Problem is there isn't enough and the Russians still get to break the kit eventually.

 

[daftandbarmy]

It seems all of the western kit shreds Russkis when used properly. Problem is there isn't enough and the Russians still get to break the kit eventually.

As the German Panzer Commander noted "One of my tanks was worth 10 of yours, but you always had an 11th tank."

 

[KevinB]

Challengers seem to be doing reasonably well, too, though not sure how much of that is skewed by the enthusiasm of highly online British Army veterans.

All of the Western tanks were shown to have issues in dealing with the FPV drones and top attack AT grenades from ‘normal’ UAS. The blowout racks save the crew when this occurs - and Russia has expended a significant amount of energy (resources and personnel) to try to get propaganda victories against the Western tanks. The Abram’s was probably the largest target for this.

The Challenger II is the only Western MBT to have suffered a K-Kill from tank on tank action, but the engagement was a little lopsided and the Chally was stuck several times over a 270 degree arc (if you end up in a horseshoe ambush - not sure blame can be put on the tank design - and the other Challengers seem to have succeeded in shooting their way out of it.)

This resulted in the UAF added ERA blocks as well as RPG fences to all the Western tanks. As well as all new Western MBT designs have APS being integrated, but mainly for C-UAS and C-RAM and a host of sensors to detect incoming threats, as opposed to the original concept of APS being used to try to defeat incoming tank rounds, ATGM’s and RPG’s

I wonder how much of that is down to the rapid fire cannon. The ability to keep the target under fire at close range seems to buy the Bradleys some manoeuvering space and time when facing 6 round per minute Russian tanks.

The Bradley’s also got provided with 25mm APSFDS-DU ammo, which has been proven to be able to cut up the front of a T-90M.

So you have TOW for longer range standoff and the Bushmaster with DU for the close range AT option (not preferred), and flip to the HEI belt for less armored targets

There are other auto cannon systems in Ukraine, but they lack the DU Armor Penetration.