Meet the Namer

@WiseApe

Yes but it makes up for it with a state of the art PA system!

Warmed over 80’s design meet warmed over 60’s design –

http://www.armyrecognition.com/europe/Angleterre/Exhibition/DVD_2007/images/fv-432_upgrade_armor_DVD_2007_Millbrook_United_Kingdom_001.jpg

Could we not have saved ourselves a shed load of development money and purchased some of these for FRES SV?

TD – the protected mobility scout support thingy at the top is no scout; the raised roofplate compared to Scout-SV is an indication there won’t be seats downstairs at the back of Scout-SV – not enough headroom. There have been public jollies for turreted Scout-SV (DSEi for one) but I will bet in the final solution the additional side slab armour will be present, making Scout-SV wider than a wide thing. On the CGI glossy there are side slabs a polite 50-100mm thick; by the time we get to the DVD demonstrator that had grown to 300-400mm thick each side. That’s 3.7-3.9m wide by my sums.

It was just plain huge. I couldn’t belive how wide it was. Not going to be able to go anywhere tight in that. It was almost as large as GD hospitality unit.

I know it’s not a Namer! A Namer is real! I found the fixed wing birds that are going to fly off the QEC, too! http://www.airdromeaeroplanes.com/images/murdoch-2.jpg

AQ commander: “Aim for big bullseye, big reward for those who hit!”

Is there any point in those wing mirrors?

Speakers on the RWS are a nice touch ;-)

Does anybody know what the box next to the grenade dischargers and in front of the RWS is for?

DN, you only need to see someone run over by an APC once to get the point of rear view mirrors.

He survived, barely.

Don’t see a box, but if you are referring to the triangular things, my guess is camera mounts. There is one on the side as well.

I like the third one down, somewhere to stow your day sacks…

http://www.defencephotography.com/blog/2013/our-unique-look-at-scout-sv.html

The more I look at this the more I feel we are getting shafted. Whats so new about it, to justify the money? How much would opening up the Warrior 2000 line have cost?

Observer
‘DN, you only need to see someone run over by an APC once to get the point of rear view mirrors’

I agree, good job they put them in a place with a view down the side of the vehicle then. All that money and the applique armour doesn’t even come with mirrors.

DN – the vehicle has cameras pointing out of every orifice (ooer missus!) including rear-view cameras in the bulges right at the front of the appliqué slabs. Whether the images from these are displayed to the driver (rear-view & manoeuvring aid) or just vehicle commander (situational awareness) I can’t tell.

Chris

Yeah I noticed the cameras on the front edges of the vehicle, not a wise place to put them maybe they should have placed them along the center of the edge looking down like the Mastiff.

When the camera gets pranged by a tree or wall they will need a mirror.

@IXION

Everything about it screams poorly thought out and bolted on. Why is there not an angled edge to the front of the applique to move foliage/obstacles rather than offering a straight edge to it so they can have a battle of wills as to who will give way first?

Why was the cable for the front camera not placed on the underside of the engine panel for protection from everyday wear and tear like boots etc?

‘My father (an RMP) descrobed his national service in terms of how many times he nearly got flattened by tanks’

I agree they can be dangerous, I could share some stories myself. That is why I know the mirrors are doing nothing in the position they are in.

WiseApe – at the back of the DVD off-road arena they had parked FV432 next to Ridgeback. Ridgeback was wider – not by much it must be said if slat armour is ignored – and maybe 25% longer. The roofplate of 432 was lower than Ridgeback’s bonnet. Ridgeback/Mastiff not really known for small size, but all wheeled vehicles are headed towards this bulk at the moment. Now with ASCOD/FRES the tracked vehicles are headed the same way (CV90 Armadillo is little different). Its idiotic as the world’s infrastructure hasn’t grown bigger to match.*

As I noted earlier I assume “Protected Mobility Reconnaissance Support” means its a resupply wagon for Scout, not an APC at all. A tracked Transit van full of ammo, rations, water, spare parts and a spare crew.

*Infrastructure and progress – I have on scratchy VHS somewhere the BBC coverage of (I think) the 1957 GP at Monaco. It was brilliant racing – loads of overtaking, tons of wheel-to-wheel action. I watch modern F1 at Monaco and its dull as ditchwater. Reasons? The cars are wider now than they were. They rely on clean air downforce so can’t fight wheel-to-wheel effectively. But chiefly they are too fast for the size of circuit. In the 1957 race there was time on each straight for two or three overtaking manoeuvres before braking for the corner; now cars nose to tail entering a corner are the length of the straight apart by the time the second one puts power down. Its a procession of point & squirt sprints. If someone rich recreated the Monaco circuit scaled up 4:1 then no doubt the modern cars would provide the entertainment that Grand Prix once offered. The new cars are not in scale with the environment any more, and as a result they are ineffective racers; they are no good at their primary task. In all the development in defence related equipment, someone somewhere has become fixed on the scale of threats more than the scale of the tactical environment. As a result new equipment will meet the threats but will not fit the environment. Derrr!

@Chris – Please stop claiming to know more than you actually do. All SV hulls are the same. PMRS, Scout, Recovery, Repair and beyond. By that simple fact alone the roofline is the same for all.

And what is PMRS? Call it a Transit van if you like. I’d think of it more like a Transit Supervan though. Less practical, more vroom.

@TD – Yes, early “representations” were indeed an ASCOD II with a turret on top. That’s pretty easy to see.

@PhillEeee

Do you by any chance know what the trapezoidal box in front of the RWS is for?

Being my first visit to DVD I was astounded at the size of a lot of the vehicles.
A reverse TARDIS is the best description. Scout SV is almost as wide as it is long.
Its not the only vehicle that looks cramped.
I don’t think I could get in the Viking that was on display my knees would have been under my chin. Add body armour and a helmet and things would have been much worse.
The trip around the off road circuit in the Oshkosh M ATV was impressive. But for all its size its only a 4 seater and not a huge amount of space either.
Mind you the standard road legal Ford Ranger did the same course on road tyres. Very impressive. Gets my vote for a Land Rover replacement.

@Monkey

‘What can this stop against the side armour’

I think it’s just stand off for RPG/HEAT warheads, In the pictures that CBRN Guru posted it shows a tool bin in the front right hand side and the door is only about 10-15mm thick.

Does anyone know if the back to the armour is thicker?

http://www.militaryfactory.com/imageviewer/ar/pic-detail.asp?armor_id=82&sCurrentPic=pic1

We can actually afford some of them once the Nellies and spastic heffajump jets are bought. And what is more, they can get to where future OPFOR actually is, not stooge about 300 miles offshore in a safe place or display all of the range and endurance of a young child on a long car journey.

DN, you can adjust a mirror and cover some of the rear arc. You can’t with cameras.

As for complaints about “might get ripped off”, they don’t hold water. Tanks and APCs have lots of antenna and protrusions and I don’t see much being ripped off. If they did, the first to go would have been the smoke dischargers. Anyone lost a smoke discharger in the last few decades to trees?

As for 2 miles to the objective blah blah blah, 2 miles to the objective, yes. 200 miles less of walking. Which one do you want?

@Obersver

‘As for complaints about “might get ripped off”, they don’t hold water.Anyone lost a smoke discharger in the last few decades to trees?’

Ever lost/damaged a tool bin in the last few decades?. Antennas are designed to be flexible, they are not a rigid structure so they do not get ripped off. Smoke dischargers are always on top and within the footprint of the vehicle. Ever looked at the state bar armour gets into on ops?

Ever been on ops?

‘As for 2 miles to the objective blah blah blah, 2 miles to the objective, yes. 200 miles less of walking. Which one do you want?’

Not me mate wrong person.

@DavidNiven – Yes. And no I won’t.

@PhillEeee

Thanks any way.

I suppose there’s no point in going by DN anymore, I might as well use my real name …….. Wahid ;-)

@A Different Gareth
‘I always wonder if the MoD has found itself a Warrior replacement on the sly’

I think you are crediting them with too much intelligence, and wouldn’t the natural choice be Puma? I noticed the pictures in the message board also show the vehicle with bar armour added, do you know if this is the intended configuration?

X, re “the Army” not being able to buy a vehicle.

Try not to expose yourself as such a knob. The Army in the shape of about 15 people posted to the FRES IPT, ATDU, the SO1 Force Development in each of the Arms Directorates, the HQ LAND Capability Development Branch, and DEC Ground Manoeuvre all agreed on the desired spec by 2003 and the selection on a single type from 3 offered in 2006/7.

What sank the project was the IP demanded by politicians as part of the UK Defence Industrial Strategy, an epicly stupid IPT Leader (a civil servant, later sacked from his post) who conceived of the most inept way of procuring a vehicle, the delay in A400M, and the rising toll in Iraq which caused John Reid to call for a review of protection levels, which was completed after he was replaced by Des Browne, who accepted all of the findings which dictated heavier levels of protection.

Now stop banging off simplistic nonsense.

@A Different Gareth
‘space in the floor could be for better mine protection’

That would be my guess, in the picture of the regular Ascod you can see the torsion bars running across the floor making the foot wells. I’m presuming on the Scout version a second floor has been put in to absorb the energy and to prevent the torsion bars from penetrating the hull.

@X

I think you are being a bit selective, Astute is £1 billion over budget and late, Type 45 £1.5 billion over budget and late. From 1996 – 2007 the last two ‘chiefs of defence procurement’ have been Vice Admirals.

No service can say they spend money better than the other, and how could they be able to? they are manned by people from all the same schools and universities as the so called inept civil servants.

X, you really don’t understand.

Throughout the Noughties, procurement was a fully Joint exercise, with people of all services posted to IPTs of all flavours. It was called “Smart Acquisition”. There were also Civil Service people and even industry embedded in IPTs. The DECs were completely Joint, DSTL MOD employees without a Service to cling to. The Joint Doctrine Centre was established in Shrivenham to provide systemic Joint CONOPS for major acquisitions. The first two Commanders were Naval 2 stars, yet they spent much of their time on A400m and FRES. To make the case, as you do, that Single Services either screwed things up, or should take credit for success indicates someone who does not see things cery broadly.

The first T45 IPTL was a Colonel in the Army.

Now do you understand why I think your comments about the Army or Navy in terms of buying kit are uninformed and puerile?

@APATS

‘Political decisions and manufacturing costs’

It’s immaterial, no service in the last twenty years form Typhoon, Nimrod, Astute, CVF and FRES has had a major programme that has come in on time or budget. (the last 3 Navy projects have overrun to the tune of £6.5 billion alone) We could all quote numbers such as nearly £200 million to be told that we cannot convert a carrier to cats and traps, after being told that the design would allow future modification.

I am no defender of the FRES project it has been a farce, but all the services are as crap as the others at procurement there is no gold standard in the UK armed forces.

@APATS
‘It will as I said in my last post set a new low’

I agree, but for champions of other services to complain about the money spent on the projects from other services is a tad hypocritical.

X,

Don’t get precious. After all, you’ve spent 4 years on TD defending the Navy, mostly from a completely parochial viewpoint. Now you are challenged.

Your arguments do not stack up with reality, but after 4 years, I am unsurprised. You seem to me to be a greatly uncritical fan of British sea power, not realising how things are now, and hoping for a return to some Nelsonian tradition. Well, here’s news for you, OPFOR lives on land in complex political arrangements, and does not have a fleet. She might not even wear a uniform, or even be hostile all of the time. Spending money on boats is a waste of time, as is spending monwy on warmed over IFVs. Better to spend it on peacetime intelligence, language training, and satcoms. And very rapid intervention, and in training politicians to authorise such very quickly.

@APATS

The complexity of the project is again immaterial. If you are given the job of managing a project with a budget and run over in both time and budget you have not managed it properly (and it’s not as if any thing we are talking about involves small budgets). We could not cancel the carriers because of poor project management and the contracts we were saddled with, we started building submarines we did not even have the ability to build in the first place (a large thank you goes out to the Americans for their help).

Poor project management is just poor project management, and the common denominators are the senior leadership and civil servants.

PhillEeee – ref heights – I have always made clear that I am drawing conclusions from what I see and what I am told by those that ought to know, not that I have project knowledge. But as A Different Gareth has pointed out the images and photos released by GD show a lower roofline (as on Ulan & Pizarro) for turreted FRES/ASCOD and a raised roofline behind the driver’s hatch/cooling louvres for other variants. It can clearly be see between the photo of protected mobility thingy from DVD at the top of the post and the glossy of FRES-SV with turret just below it. This glossy of four variants all together shows the same so its not a later design decision: http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/9969/ascod25medium1.jpg and this one shows a wider family group with a range of hull roof profiles: http://www.doppeladler.com/da/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ASCOD-SV-varianten.jpg.

But hey, by the snotty tone of your slap-down you are obviously an expert with inside knowledge so I guess we will all bow to your superior knowledge, which means ASCOD/FRES-SV turret has just been raised onto the stepped up roofplate and the vehicle is 200mm taller than the images thus far have all shown.

Glad that’s all cleared up then.

@APATS

‘difficulty, technical constraints, R&D requirements are all irrelevant?’

No they are part of the project management, they are part of assessing the risks and maturity of the technology, which is then factored into the time scale and cost of the project when the tenders are given. Only the government would accept a doubling of the project cost and time scale without massive consequences to the contractors and only inexperience would allow you to fall for it for so long from the contractor.

@APATS

‘Meanwhile the project tasked with emulating the capability levels of the mighty Austrian armed forces spends billions, does not decide upon a design, has nothing in production and has now decided to emulate those mighty Austrians’

Like I said I agree with you. You can forgive some cost increase on new tech, but FRES is an absolute joke

@Chris – The thing is you don’t do that. Your initial comment was very much stated as fact. Fact based on early glossies, even ones which show a difference between the PMRS shown and the PMRS displayed at DVD.

There’s a lot of negative opinions on FRES SV, and that’s fine when it’s based on fact, not conjecture.

PhilEeee – you are entitled to your opinion. I’ve been back to see where I made a statement as fact and the only one I can find is that the thing has cameras facing in all directions. That was supposition based on peering into the glazed-over recesses and noting the location/field of view. Apologies I didn’t add ‘in my opinion’ to that. But for all other comments I made they were all qualified by terms such as ‘an indication’ and ‘I will bet’ and ‘I can’t tell’ and ‘I assume’ – your understanding of English and mine clearly differ.

As for negative opinions, if you had been a regular reader of comments you might have noted in the past I have stated I don’t doubt FRES/ASCOD would be a competent performer, my gripe with it was that it is the size and weight of Warrior, has the same firepower as Warrior will have, costs a fortune and is no CVR(T) replacement. Note I stated it was the size and weight of Warrior – the protected mobility wagon has just shown ASCOD/FRES has grown wider than Warrior by some margin. If any of this conjecture is incorrect I will be quite surprised.

Well it looks chunky – but could someone explain its role to me? Looks like there is only 4 seats in the back? Also the slab sides – spaced armour or electrical charge?

EC armour is still highly experimental, not fielded yet I think.

Role? Basically an IFV. A semi-do everything vehicle. Light tank, troop carrier, infantry support vehicle, scout vehicle etc. Nothing really special. Which is why the hem and hawing just to select a single candidate from a pool of all so similar candidates is so surprising.

Obsvr – ref EFP-proof recce is the only way – I’ll let you take that point up with RT – I have tin hat on and am taking cover

Two thoughts though – one, EFP devices are not built to standards so how do you define how big a penetrator must be defeated, and two off-route devices are a problem for vehicles staying on the route, and the bigger & heavier they get the more the vehicles remain constrained to those routes.

@Obsver – so this version of scout is a direct replacement for Spartan? Any pics of the Scout turret from DVD?

Woodenwonder – GD stand staff were preventing photos of the turret from close-up. Not unreasonable as there was quite a lot that could be deduced on detailed inspection about how it worked and where the armour was placed. Oops – sorry – I’m not supposed to make such observations any more.

wf – so people in glass houses (vehicles) can throw stones!

Obsvr, mining a place is not random in war, it is because of the current COIN shitstorm that you guys stuck your heads into that you end up with IEDs everywhere.

Mines in war are used very selectively because of one reason. You are mining your own areas. If you lost a convoy due to self inflicted mine damage, your enemy will laugh himself silly. The reality is that mines are used mostly in only 3 areas. At the FEBA, around an objective to limit and delay ingress and around covered chokepoints.

This means that a recce vehicle will very, very rarely hit a mine, unless for some reason it tried to run into an objective, run into the middle of a chokepoint with enemies on overwatch or tried to break through the frontline. Which would indicate a fair bit of suicidal tendency.

Skirt armour is probably more for shell fragments than anything heavy. Strangely enough, such fragments can still cause a mobility kill. The strangest things can cripple a tank, even ironically concertina wire. A 3 coil con wire obstacle has a fair chance of stopping a tank, a 10 coil definitely will.

Often Project Management is blamed when the basic project is at fault. First we had Service Requirements replaced by Capability Management and now we have moved to Effect! The idea of telling industry what we want the result to be and letting them provide a solution always looked fine on paper but additional external forces have made it almost impossible for industry and the MoD to effectively manage any projects. Due to the length of time project seem to spend in the assessment phase, the MoD keeps trying to include the latest trends and technology to keep up with the Joneses. Industry will always meet any request with the aim of gaining the most profit, but when the MoD’s wish list makes a platform so bespoke that they are likely to be the sole customer, the mark up falls squarely on the MoD. With the length of development and industry mark ups, programmes costs always rise way above the projected costs quoted by both the MoD and Industry which always resulted in either a cut in number, increasing unit costs or a revision in the requirement increasing the time and cost of development. To this you have to add unstable funding issues, which with the increasing length of programmes has a major impact on both the MoD and Industry as this again affect both the number of platforms that are affordable and what capabilities the platform will provide and so some programmes go more and more off the rails, but until recently were not shut down, but kept in limbo moving forward so slowly they didn’t appear to be moving at all. Yet they still cost money. In others the programme costs escalate to a level that the number of platforms that can be afford is so small, the delivered capability is only really good for PR/spin. The Nimrod is a good example of this, and the purchase of only 6 T-45 also shows the results.

In my opinion the MoD needs to more clearly define what it wants and keep assessment in house. It needs to look at procuring more vanilla platforms and then upgrade/adapt them through incremental steps rather than try to purchase a platform that does everything from the start. They need to be very careful when trying to adapt an existing platform, where the work is more revolutionary than evolutionary, the Nimrod MRA4 again is a good example of this. We also need to study more intently what our allies are developing and/or using and investigate whether these would meet our core needs.

The idea of retain core industrial capabilities is often used to justify buying locally, but all our defence contractors are now multinationals, so the MoD’s order book has less and less impact upon them. We have also lost many manufacturing capabilities already so that now all our ammunition and propellants are produced by overseas contractors. Retaining ship building is a good idea if the ships produced have the potential to be exported, and this also goes for AFVs and aviation.

The Warrior improvement programme should simply have been a case of zeroing the life of the chassis and adding a new turret. The gun chosen should have been more mature, but the CTA40 has a lot of export potential and so its choice can be forgiven. FRES(SV) should have been a case of a newer chassis with the same turret as the Warrior with the minimum alteration. The chassis chosen should have already been in production and the whole programme should have been minimum risk. Any existing platform would almost certainly had additional armour packages available and these should have been initially purchased rather than build the same level of protection into the basic platform. Following this train of thought, FRES(SV) should have simply been an off the shelf buy of a quantity of ASCOD chassis as used by Spain and Austria, with the MoD fitting the same turret as the Warrior, probably at the same location as the Warrior programme is taking place. In reality it would be an upgrade to the ASCOD rather than the bespoke platform FRES(SV) has become, and would provide an additional version for export rather like the mutitude of versions that have come out of the CV90 programme. Of course the CV90 could also have provided a starting point, using any one of the variant developed for the Norwegians, Dutch, Swiss etc as the foundation and fitted the improved Warrior turret. In both cases we Would have ended up with an IFV being used as a recce platform but is that a bad thing. If the UK wants to retain heavy mechanised formations both would provide a long term development path, and if tracks were seen as the way forward for medium formations again we would have a strong foundation. In fact as the FRES(SV) is going to end up being used as a Medium/light tank in most scenarios, as has both the Warrior and CVR(T) in the past, being able to carry dismounts is not a bad thing. Both being newer platforms allow co-operation with existing users regarding future upgrades to the platforms in protection, optics etc.

In a nutshell we would have got a new platform far cheaper and far faster and the money saved could have gone to accelerate other programmes or start others to meet capabilities we urgently need.

A Different Gareth – ref dismount numbers – give or take the thicker floor, the basic dimensions of the ASCOD vehicle hiding inside the FRES armoured party-frock are as far as I can tell much the same as the standard in-service versions. If ASCOD can fit 7 dismounts then there shouldn’t be a fundamental reason why a FRES APC variant couldn’t do the same. The PMRS version lost a lot of internal volume to racks so seating in the back is much reduced. The bit that can’t be predicted by us lot outside the programme is how much space would be lost to fancy electronic systems in ASCOD/FRES APC. Whether ASCOD carries 3 crew plus 7 dismounts, or 2+8, or 2+7, will no doubt be the result of similar equipment fit variations.

Lord Jim – ref in-house assessment – I would be content if industry and MOD worked assessments together but not in the current form. I have always seen cooperation between the value-minded industrial designers, the more purist approach of government scientists, and especially the focused capability-driven pragmatism of the military user as a way to get good kit quick. Two things to note here, one is that the above team description does not refer to MOD procedural management by audit and that is intentional; the second is the deliberate use of the term cooperation. In my view a single entity has to exist in which all the experts work without boundaries – I have described this before – where full visibility of the cooperative venture removes the need for audits (and the sniffy arguments they bring). Looks like Cost-Plus development but is entirely different.

Ref FRES-SV role morph – the rumourmill is rumbling; the best employment of ASCOD/FRES-SV has been reassessed by the Army’s experts and (as the rumours have it) CVR(T) style recce is not a good fit with the new vehicle. “What? Astonishing, Holmes!” exclaimed Dr Watson. As with all matters of great import these days, no doubt their will be lots of effort going into a re-branding strategy that spins whatever change of focus, use or role is determined into a wildly positive it-was-planned-this-way proclamation, with statements the like of “This is good news for the Army” or “This redefined role is in fact what was intended from the outset” or “Of course the Army knew the old ways of performing recce were outmoded and increasingly irrelevant in the modern battlefield” etc etc. Naturally the rumours may be wildly wrong (they often are) but it will be fun to watch and see if the re-branding happens.

@Obsvr. I think the abortive British 1980s ORM you’re referring to was the LAWMINE. The British Army had already had a French ORM in service for some time then and may still now. This thing looked like a trainable tin can – it didn’t fire a rocket – it was simply a big, aimable HEAT charge with a trip (break) wire to set it off.

PE – I don’t know how the organisations interact in the Alliance, but I suspect they are more bounded with interfaces between business groups than I envisage. I suggested last time I wrote about this that the MOD might want to take the role of chief accountant or a senior finance manager or the like, with all the responsibilities that has for the cooperative team, as MOD constantly worries about pennies. In that case they would not be shadowing and critically auditing an industry person, they would take on the role in total and do the work. So there would be nothing hidden; access would be instantaneous; MOD would know exactly what was being spent and where. They would also be embedded in the business decisions – on the spot, immediate awareness, immediate input into project direction. And no big dog & pony show quarterly reviews necessary. Project goes faster, the arguments about progress and unforeseen costs become daily business, and the mistrust that bubbles under the surface between Supplier and Customer (are you sure they aren’t taking us for a ride?) evaporates. I suspect big corporations would refuse such methods (its our business; it would stifle business innovation; other customers would object; the assignee might not be up to the task; etc) but the smaller eager business entities with more of a can-do mentality might relish the openness and pace of development.

I met some of Mission Motorsport last week. The fellow we were talking with described the way their teams knuckle down to the task, all supporting each other, each working to get the best result as fast as possible using initiative and the light management of fully briefed objectives. These guys were ex-forces for the most part, and loved the job (motorsport); their approach reminded me of times 30 years back in industry where people were trusted to do a good job on their own initiative (no formal written procedures and H&S briefs before every new task like ‘bolt this box there and run its harness round to here’). I would dearly like to get a modern production business to get back to this sort of ethos – train and care for the workforce certainly, but for crying out loud trust them to be able to do a good job without being forced to blindly follow instructions in ‘Janet and John Build Tanks’

So it looks like we will be reinventing what the US Army used to call an Armoured Cavalry Regiment in order to find a role for FRES(SV) then. Problem is we haven’t the aviation assets to make it work, especially if we reduce the numbers of Apaches in order to fund the Block III style upgrade.

If the Government doesn’t at the very least honour the promise of a 1% increase in the equipment budget without further manpower reductions, the Military is going to throw its toys out of the pram and what they thought were embarrassing statements to the press in the past will look insignificant compared to what will follow. There can be no more “Jam tomorrow”, come 2015. Failing that the military should just mutiny listing their grievances publicly and watch the politicians panic! Extreme I know but when will they learn that the MoD budget is not a bottomless reserve to draw funds from for other departments.

It is becoming more and more difficult to discuss UK military matters without starting to rant, the above a case in point.

Lord Jim – agreed ref the need to sort out an increase in equipment & platform purchasing (and an increase in armed forces manpower to suit). But I am not convinced MOD is able to look after its own best interests. I have offered MOD vehicle designs of competitive capability that (if historical experience is representative) would be cheaper to buy and run – no interest returned. I have approached MOD at many levels suggesting there are better ways to buy kit than the current decade(s)-long multi-stage competitive procurement process. Mostly no response; Lord Levene did engage but I failed to convince him there was a better way. So the MOD has no interest in buying similar capability at less expense/more capability for the same budget, nor is it interested in invoking a less expensive and faster procurement method. Looks to me like an increase in budget would be at risk of being all used up in making the procurement process even more complicated.

Is armoured infantry only fights other tanks and ifv? What about them fighting enemies logistical supply and other soft skin vehicles.

PeterE – I tried that. I took various generations of BAE MTIP turret and ‘off-the-shelf’ versions from Oto, Rheinmetall and Hagglunds and perched them on Stormer 30 hull as a what-if design exercise. MTIP1 was a reasonable fit; after that the turret overhangs grew too large for the Stormer. That exercise was the impetus to start designing my own hull to see if moving stuff around would create a better solution. In the end, after making some design choices even I wouldn’t have predicted before I got stuck in, I got to a balanced and compact hull that could take either FRES-SV turret (BAE or GD/LM) as well as either Warrior FLIP turret (BAE or LM) and Rheinmetall’s Lance turret as seen on Boxer. Mobility (as calculated) far exceeded the norm and accommodation and protection ended up better than would be expected at this vehicle size, although some of the more extreme design compromises that had to be made might be difficult for Users to deal with.

To remove those difficult compromises in a vehicle of compact dimensions I had to abandon the existing turrets and draw one up instead (although no doubt if an order were in the wind BAE or LM would consider a bit of rework of their own turrets). This ended up with a vehicle of Scimitar width but a bit longer and a bit higher (not as high as Scimitar2 though) and a bit heavier. And with minor prep fits in a 20ft ISO. Just. Mobility same as the first design but its somewhat more cramped and driver protection while still pretty good is not as good as with the initial design.

The first hull design using the FRES/warrior turrets is wider to accommodate the turret baskets – the extra width also offers a bit of extra length while keeping a sensible mid-range L/C ratio for good overall handling.

In the interests of balance I should point out the BAE CV21 from what little can be gathered from images is Stormer 30 with the CV90 Recce CTA turret on top – this is the turret from their FRES mobility demonstrator that was doing the rounds in 2009/10 – I suspect the rear overhang of the CV90 version was shortened for the CV21 fit. I also imagine the rear end of the Stormer hull was reshaped to let the ring move further rearwards.

None of the above carry the foot-thick side armour of ASCOD/FRES – one of the reasons why they remain small light and agile – so would not be able to resist as much punishment as the bigger vehicle. But they can go where ASCOD/FRES wouldn’t fit and cross structures ASCOD/FRES would break and do so (in the case of my designs) faster and quieter than booming ASCOD/FRES. Horses for courses.

Obsvr I fail to see how on or off road mines change my point in which you do NOT mine random places behind your own lines in war. Especially one which you need to “turn on and off”. That would involve human oversight. You mistake equipment for usage and tactics. An ORM that you turn on or off would still be used only in the situations I mentioned too. FEBA, objective and chokepoint, all within human control, not in the middle of nowhere where your own stuff can hit or be hit by it, still same result, blue on blue.

PE – like you say its what can be judged ‘significantly better than what we have’ – the running gear of Stormer is not in the first flush of youth, much being 1970s CVR(T); at Goodwood last week I spent some time with one of the Stormer HVM vehicles into which I had some design input; the soldiers looking after it were careful in what they said but it seems the RA are being careful on how much the vehicles are driven. Possibly just the track life issue that was mentioned by the soldiers (all CVR(T) have a fairly short track life not ideal for road transit under their own steam) but the transmission design started out a bit fragile (got better after some early design updates) and may still need care to keep it going. Would it stand up to the kicking it would get as a fighty combat vehicle rather than the lighter treatment in the air defence carrier? Maybe, but transmission reliability might be a concern for the user. The turrets are new design; they have good sensors/weapon/FCS and are likely to have a reasonable service life in them.

@Obsvr. Addermine.

http://www.jedsite.info/support-lima/lima/law80_series/addermine/addermine-intro.html

http://www.jedsite.info/support-lima/lima/law80_series/ajax/ajax-intro.html

PeterE – I think there are some interesting developments in hybrid drive; certainly the loss of the big heavy transmission frees some space (providing the batteries and control units don’t end up the same size/weight/durability). Rubber tracks offer big advantages too, with one obvious downside – spares. Track links and track pins are small and can be replaced in the field. With rubber track there are two options; segmented track with track pins linking the sections together, or continuous band. If the former is used then maybe each vehicle might carry a track section for field repair. I can’t see any combat vehicle carrying a complete continuous band of track, so the vehicle would be left trackless if one snapped/ripped until a big REME wagon turned up with another band. And a crane to move it around. Also, where individual links allow almost any circumferential length track to be assembled, segmented tracks might step up in size by metres each time a section is added. Continuous band track will be the length it is. So if there were several variants of tracked vehicle deployed, each with a custom length of similar continuous band track, REME would need to hold spares of each length track. This may be a problem.

TOC – in various section lengths yes. Other brands of rubber track are also available…

A Different Gareth – different turrets. The one on the GD flyer looks like a development of Steyr’s SP30 turret fitted to Ulan and Pizarro. Big angled appliqué hides the original turret outline but I think that’s what it is. As for the Dane’s ASCOD being different to all the others? I thought it was general knowledge that all AFV production runs were different from any other…

It seeems that nobody understood my questions. I was talking about target of opportunity. If armoured force and logistical force were both present which one takes the priority?

AAMR, think no one actually answered. Priority is the force that can kill you, so armoured. The B vehicles can keep for later. And you don’t deploy infantry from the vehicles to kill B-vehicles, no matter how fit your infantry, they still can’t outrun a truck. Most likely scenario, you use the co-ax on them, maybe some medium calibre HE. 105 or 120mm probably only when you are well stocked with ammo. Heard stories of Abrams using sabot on buses in Desert Shield, bit overkill IMO but if their logistics was good and they had lots of ammo, well, that is one way. Wasteful but it can work.

Thank you, observer. However it seems to my novice mind that it is better to engege logistics supply. Since an armoured force or any force for that matter can’t survive without logistics. So if you destroy logistic the job is done.

AAMR, you think the enemy doesn’t know that as well? :)

The logistics chain is going to be buried in the enemy’s rear areas. You’ll need to punch through his front lines first. Not an easy task. They call this kind of thing a “breakthrough” attack. Every commander dreams of this. How many can pull it off is a different story. Lots of historical cases where the attempted breakthrough turns into bloodletting. For example, Market Garden is a classic example of an attempted breakthrough attack, the battles of Ypres and the “Race to the Sea” was a mutual bloodbath to prevent the enemy from breaking through into the logistics areas.

The enemy knows what you’re going to try to do, and since it is so predictable, it also becomes very difficult to do.

Observer, thanks for answering me. That is a very good point. One more question if you don’t mind. Then how a maneuver warfare works? If they are moving at different locations at different times, aren’t there logistics more exposed than static warfare? Sorry another one. I read that to overcome attritional warfare they started moneuver warfare. Since to win you need to engage the enemy, how does maneuver warfare works?

AAMR, difficult questions. Phil and I have been debating this for years. His stand, which has very good points too is that in a peer to peer war, both sides can throw enough soldiers at each other that any breakthrough can be smothered in defensive lines before it can get too far. My contention is that these small gains are still gains, and that even though it is only temporary and to cause a breakthrough attack is costly in men and material, it still is one of the very few ways to get ahead.

Like the previous answer, “maneuver warfare” is a bit of an idealized case, best example would be GWII which some people call the “biggest training exercise ever”. Now against Russia or China, things might be a bit different.

Well, gain a gain. It seems lots of studies going into shorten supply lines. However it seems by a lot publications by US army that even proper infanty units lots supply. I was astonished to see that relative comparison of logistics between armoured forces and infantry is small. Supporting any forces despite its method( mechanized,airborne etc) is a hude thing.

The joke about “gains” is also that the more you “gain”, the more your own defensive lines stretch, so in the end your “gain” is also a loss. There was one skirmish in WWII that the Germans pulled back for 20km to let the Russians overstretch their lines, then overran the overextended attackers, so sometimes “gains” can be a loss as well.

It’s a big headache. Phil is most likely correct in the eventual stalemate, which leaves both sides in big trouble.