The Need to Rethink FRES SV
Share by EmailA guest post from Monty
After reading your excellent article on FRES, I think we have every reason to question the suitability of the ASCOD 2 vehicle that has been selected to replace CVR(T). It is as large as a Warrior IFV but doesn’t do anything that a Warrior couldn’t do if it were to be upgraded. I accept that ASCOD 2 is a more modern vehicle, but it seems no more than a Warrior replacement through the back door. What your article convinces me of is the need to find a proper and more appropriate CVR(T) replacement.
Thinking about the requirements of such a vehicle, we need to make a number of important trade-offs:
- Mobility versus protection versis firepower
- Wheels versus tracks
- Protection against IEDs versus low weight
- Cross country mobility versus strategic mobility
- Ease of transportation versus additional weight of adequate protection
- Future upgradeability versus the need for something now
- Size and height versus crew capacity
- Cost versus quality
Rather than discuss all of these in detail, I thought it might be more interesting if not helpful to provide a variety of vehicle concepts that illustrate how different trade-offs would affect the type of vehicle we choose. The following drawings show different ways of achieving user requirements and hopefully each one is self explanatory.
In essence, we need something that is as close as possible to the dimensions and weight of the CVR(T) but that offers increased protection, particularly against IEDs, as low a weight as possible for rapid deployment, increased firepower, better engine and transmission for increased mobility and reliability and as a small a signature as possible for reasons of stealth.
We are rapidly reaching a point where wheeled vehicles can provide equivalent cross-country mobility to that of tracked vehicles. This is not my view, but the collective wisdom of military commentators suggests so. If you strongly believe that the day when wheeled vehicles offer better off-road performance than tracked vehicles has not yet come, have no doubt that it will come, because ultimately the significantly greater strategic mobility offered by wheeled vehicles means that we will invest in them more than we will in tracked vehicles. So perhaps the wheels versus tracks debate has already been won. Maybe.
The most relevant observation in your FRES article is that IEDs have been a real game changer. This is undoubtedly true and any would-be terrorist organisation who has observed events in Afghanistan would make the use of IEDs a core pillar of any future strategy. Behind this point about IEDs is the reality that insurgent uprisings do not respect traditional battle lines and rear echelon troops are now as vulnerable as front line units – if indeed there is a front line any more.
The new reality of IEDs requires a paradigm shift in the types of vehicles we use to deploy troops. It also requires massive expenditure.
The US Stryker Brigades used in Iraq suffered heavy IED casualties – these vehicles were conceived before the IED threat was fully understood. The German / Dutch Boxer is different and includes many enhancements that contribute to better protection. The Boxer may well define what future APCs look like. We’ll know once they deploy in Afghanistan later this year.
In the meantime, here are a number of future CVR options that offer different sets of advantages. While they are relevant to the conflict in Afghanistan (and possibly to potential conflicts arising from the Arab Spring), they were also envisaged to be relevant to a more traditional medium recce role.
With kind regards to all,
MONTY
Category: Thoughts on the Future
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Would have to insist no wider than 2.3m so it can fit into an ISO container!
What are the weight and dimensional restrictions of C130/400M? And do they matter, especially for 16 AAB?
C130 is heading out of service but A400 dimensions will become important, they are pretty generous though.
The UK requirement for payload is 30tonnes and all indications point to it bettering that but we will see when it comes into service
Monty.
Nice idea. The direct Scitmat replacement gets my vote. i think its called a Stomer! Just rebuild using current best practice in terms of hull design balsistic protection active das etc. Conventional engine, band tracks and maybe even hybrid drive. 40mm CTa or Bushmaster 30×73 cannon by ATK.
Thank you TD. I guess one could argue that one needs something light enough to go in by A400 with 16AAB but also with enough punch/armour to roam around ahead of a MRB regardless of bad roads and bridges.
We haven’t mentioned sensors either.
I’d just like to make my usual point that IEDs are not an “I win” button.
Really, they require the other side to act in (what I view as) a monumentaly stupid manner.
IEDs are only a threat if the enemy is free to relay them on your patrol routes day after day after day.
My only other question would be is a 20mm cannon and two javelins really a decrease in firepower from a 40mm cannon?
I suppose in some ways yes, but in others no.
And one final point.
A few tons is likely to make a massive difference here.
A 15t vehicle offers little flexibility.
A 10t vehicle offers three per flight for short hops, or one for long haul.
Some excellent articles about FRES, enjoyable read all.
What I do miss in this discussion is current and near-term ISR integration (e.g. Bowman C4I). Yes, information sharing has been covered, but the maturity and acceptance of added lower-tier (company/platoon) UAVs and combat experience with this new tool has proven to provide extra capabilities to (all) army formations.
The ‘over the hill’ eye-in-the-sky coupled the secure voice/data Bowman network, in turn coupled to indirect precision firepower (guided mortars and artillery) can take over or augment some roles of FRES.
New smaller battlefield surveillance radars with low probability intercept frequencies are also a vast improvement over the ‘warbling’ sets of the 1990s.
Having said that, recce nowadays also includes interaction with the locals (body language), reading the graffitti on the walls and litterally checking the produce on the local market – electronic wizardry is still not capable of replacing boots on the ground in that respect.
Hi Marcase, in the next article from me, in which my nonsensical pipe dreams will become reality, I will be trying to tie recce in with the ‘network’
Monty:
Interesting set of ideas. I think that they would need to be fleshed out a bit more before a reasonable choice could be made between them and to avoid being accused of powerpoint engineering.
Some of the claims are a little optimistic. HMG protection from anything with windows is unlikely, for example, and anything in that weight class with protection from RPG-7 is going to need bar armour or similar.
The Stormer 30 would be a very interesting place to start, updating with modern computing, sights and material developments such as band tracks
DominicJ:
I think that “monumentally stupid” is at best a bit harsh and at worse crass. If IEDs were so easily avoided, the fact that the British military gets stung by them would imply absolute incompetence and the intelligence somewhat less than a house brick or deliberate sabotage.
To get a measure of the problem, take a map of a mixed urban/rural area and map the number of patrol routes that you can take that allows you to cover the key points on your patch. Then add that some of the key points are actually certain routes. If the number of completely separate routes is less than 7, then I’ll get you in a week or so if I mine one route. How long are your men out there for?
If I’m being sneaky, I can mine ALL the routes and, with command-detonated mines, wait until the roads get suitably run-in by local traffic, then wait until a nice juicy target comes along.
Super Monty.
Have you seen these…….
http://www.mattracks.com/
May one ask what software did you use for the drawings?
While I think about it:
“Would have to insist no wider than 2.3m so it can fit into an ISO container!”
A potentially risky demand. One of the accepted problems with British tanks of the second world war was that the turret ring size was such that they could not be upgunned easily. The turret ring size was being determined by strategic mobility constraints: then it was railway track gauge, now it’s ISO containers.
Width of hull, minus 2 times track width, minus side armour, minus tolerances is your formula for turret ring diameter.
The smaller your turret ring, the harder it is to get weapon and crew into the turret. It also affects turret height. An unmanned turret is possible with a small turret ring, but the back end of the cannon must have room to depress to allow high angle elevation. Thus, a non-deck penetrating turret will be taller than one that have some room below deck level.
Me thinks TD was joking.
Some nice pictures of a German Bv206 which I have just fallen across.
http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/shinecommerce/29970
I never joke when it comes to ISO containers!
I know it creates limitations, especially in track width to hull length ratios but being narrow(ish) means you can go places other vehicles cannot, the ISO container is just a modern day substitute for the CVR(T)’s distance between rubber trees
Which of the above options could be moved by a Chinook? Personally to me only Concept D looks like it would be definitely moveable by Chinook once you added bar armour and additional theatre specific gear, and from a “gut instinct” judgement call to me Concept D appears the worst option. Instinctively, I would go for Concept A, H or I, as they just feel right in my “gut”!
Chinook slinging means less than 10 tonnes realistically, that’s quite an ask if you want decent protection although some clever modular solution might make it possible, not sure
@ TD
When I was looking at what could be stuffed into what helicopters what I found was there were lots of vehicles that were too big for CH47/CH53 by only a fraction.
The trouble is with these light vehicles is that the public now assumes its Army is safe from IEDs. Current thinking for IED protection means weight.
I agree, I think we are missing a trick if we lose the ability to move even a modest amount of light armour by helicopter
X, not always some of the SA ideas weren’t heavy but were well protected and good at defelecting the blast. I think a v-shaped hull is more important than weight. Vehicles that constantly had weight added to them re IEDs says to me they weren’t thought out well to start with. Seeing as they were the biggest killer in recent years.
Picking up on an earlier thread, I notice that none of these concepts seem to have any room for carrying additional personnel – not even a couple of dismount scouts. Thinking on that?
I am also not sure about the IED survivability issue. Should recce units be putting themselves in that sort of situation? They shouldn’t be doing road patrols or road clearance, they should either be doing covert movement across country – in which case they need a much lighter vehicle, and the risk of IEDs at chokepoints will be much reduced – or they will be doing heavy duty advance to contact, in which case they need a Challenger 2.
The other point is air portability. Given that hauling MBTs by air is possible but not really practical, we should probably consider that
a) anything designed to operate along with MBTs doesn’t need to be air portable either; it’ll have to wait for the MBTs to be landed before it can go to war;
and, more interestingly,
b) we might be wise to start thinking in terms of much heavier heavy armour. A Challenger weighs 62 tonnes. Anywhere we want to take them, we are realistically going to move them by sea and/or by road. Maybe we should be thinking of next-gen MBTs as weighing, say, 80 tonnes, and looking at all the options that gives us in terms of greater protection and additional armament.
And, of course, greater power. The next generation of weapons systems (hypervelocity and directed-energy) are going to be hungry for electricity, and we’ll need big tanks with hybrid-electric drive trains to carry and feed them.
Think out loud here (with regards to the carrying vehicles under a Chinook) – is there an easy way to dismount the turret in the field and carry the turret and main vehicle separately? Would the problem with this plan be the weight of the crane needed at the other end to re-attach the turret?
Also is there an upper limit of the weight of a vehicle that you can safely drop from the back of a low flying A400M with the crew still embarked?
I think we are missing a trick if we lose the ability to move even a modest amount of light armour by helicopter
Have we ever actually needed to do this?
@ Topman
Oh yes I agree. Current thinking isn’t my thinking! Shock waves, like most physical extremes, behave in ways that sometimes go against intuition. Good ground clearance and a continuous blast shield is the way to go. I see the blast shield (heavy metal plate) mounted on to a light casting with tube shaped members cast in to spread the shock. Wave hits plate. Plate then has to bend the casting. If the vehicle goes on its side, as long as every body inside is strapped in and safe, so be it. Rhodesian/SA mine roll cages anybody?
@ A
In Kosovo.
A Challenger weighs 62 tonnes.
The upgraded cr2 for iraq came in at 80 tons with fuel and ammo. They had to have some items stripped off for the transporters to move them.
Regarding ISOs
It doesnt have to fit in an actual container, just the footprint of one
Regarding Helicopterability
It gets better if we look at the CH53K, which can move almost 16t.
Mr Fred
Redefine the Paradigm
We’ve had officers complain their orders were nonesensical, they were ordered day after day to wander round fields that night after night the Taliban were seeding with mines.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6044407/Letting-the-attrition-in-Afghanistan-go-on-is-a-disgrace-if-the-war-is-vital-to-British-security.html
http://jamesdelingpole.com/blog/why-are-we-still-feeding-our-soldiers-into-the-taliban-mincing-machine-333/
Virtualy anything on Defence of the Realm
We send soldiers intyo narrow allys to die at the hands of murder holes, because we’re scared of damaging mud brick hovels.
Allowing the enemy to mine your supply routes is a cock up, allowing them to do it day after day for TEN years, just boggles the mind
Thanks for the comments. This is very much PowerPoint engineering using, funnily enough, PowerPoint. Of course, the specifications are very much ball park.
The problem with IEDs is this: how is it that in a poor country with few shops, a shoddy infrastructure and zero cash, Taliban insurgents can get hold of so many explosives and such sophisticated detonators?
The answer is that they’re coming directly from Iran and from Iran via Pakistan. A lot of money is coming from Saudi Arabia (apparently) and other materiel such as small arms and communication equipment is coming from whomever will provide it.
So, effectively, we’re fighting a war with one hand tied behind our backs. We won WW2 because we destroyed the might of German War Machine not so much on the battlefield but at source – by bombing the factories and disrupting the supply chain.
A major factor in bringing the IRA to the negotiating table, was to deny them US funding. Similarly, the only way we can defeat the Taliban is to deny them access to the resources they need.
First you cut the enemy off, then you destroy him. This is Tactics 101. if we got the basics right, we wouldn’t need to spend zillions on IED-protected vehicles.
The genie is now out of the bottle and it looks like IEDs are here to stay. I am sure UK ‘military advisors’ in Libya are encouraging the use of IEDs to disenfranchise Gaddafi’s troops, even though the RAF’s contribution is much appreciated.
Monty – love your artwork ! Well done sir, a lovely contribution to the series.
However in line with TD’s previous articles, I am not sure that we need a 20 tonne armoured scout if we can have a 30 tonne one built on a common chassis with other common components (e.g. ASCOD II or preferably CV90 ‘family’ of vehicles) for “fighting for information” aspect of Recce.
If you want smaller and quieter, oh and wheeled, then build something on Ocelot (sorry, Foxhound).
If you really think we need something between FRES SV and CVR(T) then as someone mentioned – Storme; but personally I don’t see the requirement for this size.
The idea of using the STK Bronco / Warthog chassis is interesting, but surely easier to stick with front mounted engine for that ? Hmmm’ might attempt to “photoshop” that over the weekend !
Once again, “BZ with a time”
DomJ said “We send soldiers intyo narrow allys to die at the hands of murder holes, because we’re scared of damaging mud brick hovels.”
How long before the pointman is a robot? The US are already doing it. As I have said a can’t believe that given the technology available now the British Army is fighting in a landscape where its enemy is hiding behind walls not much higher than 10 foot.
Monty,
Nice article and great graphics. May I suggest a variant Concept D with a Panther as the base vehicle but with a Fox-type 25-40mm turret?
Monty – “war” has moved on since 39 to 45 – where are the Pakistani IED ‘factories’ that we should bomb (with Lancasters) ??
However the IED has always been a threat to soldiers on foot and vehicles, ever since it was buried and called a ‘mine’ – so this is hardly new. Technology moves on, instead of enough HE to blow a track off it may now consist of a Explosively Formed Projectile aimed at defeating side armour (anyone remember the cold war project called the “Off route mine” which was a LAW with infra-red site unit on it) or it could a tonne of fertilizer based home brewed explosive.
As it has been noted, dealing with such threats does not necessarily mean big heavy MRAP’s – they are just one response (Ocelot is a lighter one), helicopters are another — but is it worth building a heli-borne armoured vehicle when we will NEVER have enough helos to deploy a suitable amount of them tactically in a real life op – I doubt it
Regarding the alleyways when the USMC took over parts of Helmand last year, they started removing buildings and straightening roads and the layout of towns. R North covered alot in his blog.
@ Jed re flying armour
I don’t think it has value in high end war. But I think it does bring something to COIN.
You could load up 6 helicopters with say Bv206s and drop them anywhere.
A mechanised version of the Rhodesian fire force.
On the subject of wheels vs tracks. First of all watch this;
http://s156.photobucket.com/albums/t6/pureteenlard/?action=view¤t=centauro.mp4
Mobility demonstration by a modern 8×8 AFV equipped with steering on 3 of the 4 axles, independent suspension and central tyre pressure regulation. This is a reasonable example of what a well designed wheeled AFV can do.
Next, look at this;
http://www.myvideo.ch/watch/815649
Same course traversed by a T-72. Watch what it does when it hits the concrete dragons teeth.
Wheels may be able to go where tracks can but I’d stick to tracks for your scouts so that they can get away sharpish!
IED’s while not irrelevent to the design of your scout should not be a major priority. IED’s are a threat to an occupying force not to the eyes of a modern battlegroup. Basically, don’t use your bloody expensive scouts as patrol vehicles. Use wheeled vehicles like Mastif and Foxhound (or better still, stop invading countries to no national advantage).
Richard North’s biggest contribution to the debate over the British Armed Forces would be to fall off a cliff. He comes across as a pontificating egomaniac and his arguments are binary, so you’re either with him or an idiot. Good way to generate constructive debate. He did post on the ARmy Rumour SErvice for a bit but was basically told to wind his neck in and go forth and multiply each time he did. If he was right more often than he was wrong he might be worth bearing it for but he isn’t
As for being “scared to damage mud hovels”? Javelins, MLRS and 1000lb bombs don’t sound like things that one would use to avoid damage. Granted the British do seem to try and avoid the way the USMC do things – i.e. MICLICs down the high street. Which is best? Difficult to tell, especially from back here. “Hearts and Minds” is a very difficult thing to win if you are undermanned and politically hamstrung and no amount of firepower is going to compensate for dead ground where the enemy can move freely.
But I digress.
What is “new”, at least to NATO armies, is the use of a mine as a casualty causing agent. In open warfare, it was intended as a counter-mobility weapon – putting the enemy in places where you could hit them with the real casualty-causing weapon. Artillery. Lacking artillery that would survive NATO (i.e. US) airpower and counter-battery fire, the buried charge has become the bit that does the damage. It can be inferred that anyone intent of causing a western power as much trouble as possible will stockpile distributed caches of explosives and associated equipment for use as a steady drain on the attacking or occupying forces. Therefore, it is likely to be a threat for any future conflict and by association our vehicles should have protection against them and the tactics will reflect their potential use.
If you are going to lift armour by helicopter then buy MI-26T.
Or buy something ambhibious, so it can deploy itself.
@ Pete re IED
South Africa and Rhodesia “scouts” had to factor in the mine threat.
Also you can’t discount what the public think, even if it is detached from military realities.
I do concede there is difference between fluid “front lines” of the wars amongst the people and fixed front lines of a traditional high end conflic and indeed the difference in the duration of the too paradigms mean that mines/IEDs are used in different ways.
X – Mines are one thing; 500lbs of ANFO under your FRES SV is quite another! Most AFV’s since WWII have been designed to protect their crews from the detonation of a typical AT mine. Even CVR(t) is OK in this respect as it’s Falklands service proved. Mine resistance is one area where wheeled vehicles out perform tracked since a 6×6 or 8×8 vehclie that loses a wheel can often make it’s way back to bas while a tracked vehicle with a broken track is immobilised until recovered or repaired in the field.
I just think that compromising the design of a scout vehicle to take into account the effects of IED’s it may encounter when it is used for a job it’s ill suited to do is not a good idea.
Richard North’s biggest contribution to the debate over the British Armed Forces would be to fall off a cliff.
Might not be everyone cup of tea, but he was spot on about the army’s glacial speed at getting MRAP types into the field and the farce around removing snatch.
@ Pete
I know what you are saying. But when I said light vehicles above I meant things like Wiesel, Bv206, etc. I was talking about shoving things into helicopters.
Just last week a young soldier from the county regiment was killed. And his mother, rightly or wrongly, blamed the army. I don’t know the family. But I do know families like theirs as over 10 years I saw cadets from my old unit go off and join the same regiment. The public expect the “IED problem” to solved. With a shrinking budget vehicles will be used everywhere. Now I am sure the UK won’t be involved in succession of COIN conflicts over the next fifty years. But I think the days of fixed front lines are gone. There won’t be as in the past militarising by the application of a coat of matt green paint.
I hear what you are saying. And I agree with it. I am just seeing in a different way.
As for wheels, well as I said above,
http://www.mattracks.com/
Best of both worlds. Check out the videos on YouTube.
Can’t we create a vehicle where you bang on extra bits of protection after its been transported?
Transporting by air seems to be a big thing along with getting it to do different things.
Surely the best thing is first look at our strategy then produce 2 similar things. We seem to be after a thing which can take IED and then also fight a conventional war (ie the enemy doesn’t need IED because its conventional forces are good enough) and for it to be deployed by air.
The weigh seems to come down to protection as well, perhaps we need to tailor the fleet for two types, but try and keep it as common as possible because of the reasons I’m about to get in a bit.
Produce a chassis which can be for fitted or produced for IED protection, then with less.
Then we’ve really got to ask ourselves about transport by air, a quick rapid deployment by air would be great and quick, perhaps we should only produce a certain type for this role then ship the rest out from a location quite nearby via ship, I think we need to approach things with a bit of “ok it doesn’t have to last that long just protect soldiers and limp away, it’s cheaper to put them in another one”
One of the problems seems to be a lack of availability of spares and vehicles for when one gets blown up. So if we keep them common ie if a suspension breaks, we either got tons laying about or we got enough vehicles laying about to replace it with.
What’s the point of having very expensive equipment which can take tons of punishment in service (meaning you have less of because they’re bound to cost more) Then for when it’s out of action not have anything to replace it or any spares.
I think we need to comprise on cost, capabilities and protection for the role, but something we can build a shit load and its components.
It seems the UK gets the equipment, then later down the line we’ve got less and the costs to support them goes up and availability down.
This whole vehicle thing is quite a big thing for someone who is very uneducated in this, figures, weights, guns get thrown about, so many different models its quite hard to get your head around it in a matter of a day or so. So take what I say with a pinch of salt.
But I’m thinking this all in one is perhaps just a folly, we might be better of producing something like a car manufacture. Bolt on bits for the role (ie a chassis which can an IED with a shell thats good enough for an RPG instead of a tank)
Even I’m struggling with my concept, because the disposable vehicle or part will probably struggle in a theatre which is only a few hours old and in forward operating bases in Afghanistan.
One thing that has to be remembered is that the average member of the public is not only ignorant about military matters, but also ignorant about engineering and science, not to mention actively misinformed.
They buy the concept that wars can be fought without casualties.
They believe that a V-shaped hull is all you need to defeat all conceivable IEDs.
They believe that you can hide from small arms fire behind doors, tables and car bodies.
They believe everything put out on “Future Weapon” (and the people who watch that show should be regarded as better informed than the average)
As a result, much public opinion about military matters should be take with enough salt that it’s lack would make the Dead Sea taste like Evian.
Mass production (and similar comparison to the car industry) is one such fallacy. When someone comments that a military vehicle costing more than a Rolls-Royce they should be reminded that Rolls-Royce makes more cars than almost any military vehicle. I haven’t added it all up, but I think that there are more Rolls-Royce cars built than M113s. This is not really a mass production market.
Cars tend also to be monocoque construction these days, so there is not much in the way of modularity. You might be able to add xenon headlights, a better radio and the like, but you will not be able to change out major structural components easily. Some off-roaders, with ladder frame chassis, are better suited in this regard.
The Mattracks look like a maintenance headache – all the complication of wheeled drive trains, with the additional complication of tracks at multiple location
The general public are ignorant about most things. How many of them have degrees in economics, medicine, law, agriculture? But they vote in governments to make decisions on these matter for them. Public perceptions, right or wrong matter.
As for Mattracks being maintenance nightmare. Well they are as complicated or as simple as a lot of things deployed into the field. Mattracks and similar systems are used to extreme conditions by private sector and governments agencies the world over. I think it is more shock of the new than there being anything innately wrong with the system.
I’m not sure that ordinary people are that stupid about war. They do after all understand that they will be supplying the bulk of the personnel.
X
Mattrack not new. Landrover’s were available with them in the 1960′s elctricity/waterboards bought them. (being 1960′s british technology they broke a lot)
Headache, not nightmare. Fundamentally it is more parts which will always require more maintenance.
@ IXION
You are on about the Cuthbertson system aren’t you? Having poked around a Landy with such a system I can tell you it unsurprising that it broke down often. There are lots of satisfied users of the Mattracks system (and similar) whose concerns about maintenance will be on par with military users. This reminds me of all the discussions about whether the Army should have fielded 300Tdi in Wolf because of all the “complications” of the turbo.
Monty
Most of the Talibans funding comes from protection money paid by haulage contractors.
Haulage contractors we in turn pay to haul our war fighting material.
From there point of view, the war funds itself, or we fund their half anyway.
Jed
Tankettes are quite inneffective in large numbers.
Where they work best is when you have a few in an unexpected place.
I’m going away to find which bloody Indo-Pak war it was!
It was Ladakh, 1948. A small number of 15t Stuart M5 tanks rolled up a third of the invading Pakistani forces.
The other obvious example is The Falklands.
Where again, the other side didnt bring many (any?) antitank weapons, and so could do almost nothing to stop a few tankettes destroying their positions, one by one.
X
Or in wars, where the enemy doesnt expect to face armour…
Mr Fred
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.
We arent talking about destroying homes “in the crossfire” as it were.
The point is we should have methodicaly destroyed and rebuilt towns.
Afghan towns and villages were designed to be death traps for invading forces. The losses our forces suffered in Sangin are a terstiment to how well they achieve that goal.
Mines arent a new weapon used against occupation forces. And even if they were, North was ranting about the primary goal of the Taliban being to kill a few men a week with them all the way back in 06.
I’m sure in Iraq a river boat patrol hit a mine on the same sodding bridge three times in a single month!
Mr Fred again
“They buy the concept that wars can be fought without casualties.”
What, do you mean like the invasion of Iraq, where we lost, 50(?) men each time round?
I’m happy to accept worthwhile casualties.
When dead captains letters are being published and they say, “my men died for nothing”, I struggle to accept it was worthwhile.
I do read the casulaty reports coming out of afghanistan.
It doesnt take a genious to work out that the men who died this month died in basicaly the same circumstances as the men who died last month and last year.
If you leave a road unguarded, the taliban place a mine.
If you drive over it in a Viking, you die.
Modularity would seem useful for air transport. One of the candidates for the USA’s BCT Ground Combat Vehicle Program, the German Puma IFV, uses modular armour which can be added on after arrival by A400M.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_ifv#Mobility
“A group of 4 A400M aircraft could fly 3 class A Pumas into a theatre, with the fourth airplane transporting the class C armor kits and simple lifting equipment.”
@ DomJ
In a later Indo-Pak the Indians pulled off a surprisingly audacious move with PT76s. I am not going to tell you when and where………
Sorry, but most of these “proposals” for FRES SV are pointless, and wouldn’t really work. Upgraded Warriors can do many things, but given we only procured about 800 (IIRC), we have 900 bulldog FV432s to replace just for starters, and the Warrior line has long since closed.
We don’t need to go around looking for a new design to fit what we need, they already exist, hell most of them are in service. Ascod II will slot nicely into the Medium heavy armour class alongside warrior, below that we already have Warthog, a versatile chassis which can take some of the roles of the CVR(T), as well as several wheeled vehicles, whilst still retaining the ability to be slung below a chinook (albeit in 2 pieces), for true CVR(T) replacement their is only one place to look, CVR(T). Modernised (already in build)/Extended (stormer)versions can still find a place on the battlefield, and with modular armour they could have a minimum deployable weight which was slingable whils having a max armour package capable of higher protection.
We do not need to re-invent the wheel, we just need a little common sense, binning FRES SV is not common sense, FRES UV on the other hand is a different story, but then it seems to be dead in the water.
“We are rapidly reaching a point where wheeled vehicles can provide equivalent cross-country mobility to that of tracked vehicles. This is not my view, but the collective wisdom of military commentators suggests so.”
Me thinks he misunderstood the 8×8 fashion and all the lackey’s articles about how great wheeled AFVs are and how obsolete and strategically immobile tracked MBTs are for comments by competent and honest commentators.
Central tire inflation systems have been introduced in the 1950′s. There has only been marginal progress in wheeled AFV offroad mobility since then. In fact, today’s wheeled vehicles are rather overweight and thus not exactly good off-road.
Individual vehicles can pass an obstacle course, but whole battalions equipped with 20 ton 8×8 vehicles suffer unacceptably from the frequent occurrence of individual vehicles getting stuck or rolling over. This leads to more careful battalion movements – road movements.
The only thing that looks like it’s just around the corner is rubber band tracks, but they’ve been around the just around corner for 15-20 years.