The MMEV (and to a lesser degree the MGS) are, in my humble opinion, the prime examples of what is wrong with both our doctrine and procurement systems. Here are some things I know with a fair degree of certainty about this whole situation:
1) The Army is adopting new doctrine focussing on non-linear, asymmetric warfare in 'complex terrain'. Commonly known as three block war. Our own doctrine states that most fighting our Army will undertake in the future (or even now for that matter) will be in cities, forests, mountains and jungles against a guerrilla or insurgent type enemy. No one has yet been able to tell me how a lightly armoured, extremely expensive vehicle with limited mobility and weapons geared to destroying tanks at very long ranges is going to fight Tabliban insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan etc.
2) The MGS was forced down our necks by politicians and was not the brainwave of someone in DLR. The Army looked at a light weight wheeled direct fire system in the mid to late nineties as a possible replacement for the Cougar and, maybe, the Leopard. An SOR was drawn up for this vehicle and GMDD in London did some initial conceptulization work on an Armoured Combat Vehicle (ACV). However, experiments showed that the ACV could not fight and survive on the modern battlefield so the project was shelved until technology could allow a 20 ton vehicle to fight and survive like a 60 ton tank. In the interim the Army spent a good chunk of change upgrading the Leo C1 to the C2 standard so that they could remain in use until 2015. Then, in 2003, out of nowhere the MND announces the MGS purchase and everyone who remembers the ACV project is scratching their heads. In fact, the SOR for the MGS wasn't realeased until one month after the announcement of the purchase and it was almost identical to the ACV SOR. The project staff literally did a find and replace on the SOR to put 'MGS' where 'ACV' used to be! So now we have a vehicle that has already proven it is not capable of meeting the requirements laid out in the SOR. Now, here is where I have a problem with the procurement/doctrine world. When the MGS/MMEV buy was forced down our necks we could have taken a hard look at the realities of modern warfare and the capabilites our Army would posses and written a decent 'concept of employment' for the direct fire system of systems. My argument here boils down to this: the MGS is a decent Assault Gun but is a shitty Tank Destroyer. In fact, the US Army lists the target set for their MGS as being bunkers, infantry in the open, soft skin and light armoured vehicles and its mission is to support assaulting infantry in close terrain. We, in our infinite wisdom, decided to employ the MGS as a tank destroyer in concert with other, similar, tank destroying vehicles (MMEV, TUA). The target set for the direct fire system of systems includes the T-72M tank first and foremost and the concepts I have seen in various briefings talk about 'range overmatch' against opponents thanks to the 8km range of the ADATS. This sounds distinctly like a system designed to fight the Soviet hordes on the rolling North German Plain rather than take on guerrillas with AKs, IEDs and Molotov cocktails. We should pull our heads out of our collectective posterior regions and start thinking about employing the MGS as an Assault Gun vs. as a Tank Destroyer.
3) The MMEV may 'brief well' on PowerPoint but actually making that thing work will not be as easy as photoshopping an ADATS turret onto a LAV hull! The presentations I have seen have shown the MMEV equipped with the ADATS missile (or Hellfire for direct fire), CRV7 rockets (laser guided a la LKPK), NLOS missiles and (get this) SLAMRAAM missiles. On top of this they want to mount a new 3D search radar and new EO system on the turret too. This is an unparalleled technical challenge that will end up costing us a hell of a lot more than we think (if it ever works). Each of the weapon systems mentioned above uses a different guidance system (laser beam rider, laser homing, fibre optic, radar/data link) and none have ever been integrated onto the same platform. On top of that, if you replace the radar and EO system, you will have to replace the display systems and computers too and then you have to squeeze all that kit into a LAV chassis or, worse yet an MGS chassis! Someone is dreaming in technicolour. The icing on the cake is that we then intend to employ this vehicle in a three block war scenario - a scenario where LOS is rarely more than 1 km, where the enemy is not considerate enought to drive around in the open in T72s and where one IED or RPG could easily destroy your extremely expensive and kill your highly trained crew.
So what? Well, here's what I propose:
Employ the MGS as an Assault Gun. In fact, buy more of them and ensure every Bde has some to train with - they are a decent piece of kit (not the best, mind you) if employed properly.
Keep at least some of the Leopards. There are still 66 good Leo hulls left that could be used to provide us with a decent direct fire capability that can survive better than the MGS/MMEV/TUA system on the battlefield. I would even say that they could be manned by the reserves but that is a whole other debate! My reasoning for this is that if we employ the MGS as an Assault Gun, we may want to keep a few Tank Destroyers around for those scenarios where we might need that capability (Korea, Syria, Iran etc.). Although asymmetrical warfare seems to be the way of the future, I'd hate to put all my eggs in one basket. Besides, the US Army swears by the Abrams in Iraq so maybe we could learn something from them.
Cancel the MMEV project as quickly as can be done. Long range (perhaps 'realistic long range' is better term) anti-armour fire can be handled by the TUA, especially with the 4.5km range TOW 2 Aero coming on line. The money saved could be redirected towards more MGS, O&M for the Leo fleet and improvements to the TUA. Hell, I am sure there would still be money left over in the SCIP to replace the Leos with surplus German Leo 2A4s (about 60 should do it), what with the Germans giving the things away for a song and a dance lately (reference recent Greek deal).
That's it. These are all just my opinions but as you may notice, this is something I feel very passionately about. I have read a much as I can get my hand on about this stuff and have come to the conlusions you see above. However, I know I don't have all the answers and would love to know what you guys think.
Pro Patria
MG
Scrap the MMEV project as fast a humanly possible. It does not make any sense in our day and age and
