What a disgrace selling off Ashchurch.

Any indications yet where the new storage site will be located? And more importantly will it have a rail link?

Wow, the FRES hate continues…

That LAV III with the Kongsberg 30mm turret is fugly.

As for the bridge, TD can you do an article about river crossing of various armies in modern times?

I rather like the Kongsberg turret, but the Piranha 3+ isn’t an elegant vehicle to start with and IMHO most wheeled vehicles with turrets look a bit off. Something to do with the height.

As for FRES hate, I think it’s as much about confusion about what it’s supposed to do as anything else.

Stupid question but why isn’t the mrv land rover replacement not just buy more foxhound?

Shouldn’t we have just stayed with Boxer – we could have stuck anything we want on the back of that and had a vehicle whos engine/drive/suspension/body etc has commonality but flexible by it’s modular design and ability to have a upgraded armour package giving light and heavy armoured versions of the same platform.

The boxer could have carried just about every platform we need – from the common APC to MLRS / AA systems – can’t help think the bods at the MoD need to put their egos away, and stop wasting money.

Ouch monkey, if the Chinese do get that, it would be time to seriously worry.

On a more practical note, I think that with the pressures of the Cold War over, there does not seem to be any more drive to create bigger and more powerful tanks. Sure, the US GCV does give an increase in weight and maybe capability, but there doesn’t seem to be the same “desperation” that drove things like the increase in cannon size from 75 to 90 to 105 to 120mm (and 125 for the Soviets). There was even the proposed 140mm tank gun and the electro-chemical guns.

Currently, we seem to be seeing a lull in technological development and improvement for MBTs, with most of the attention focused on 8x8s.

Arguably the thing to have done would have been to invest in the Warrior family, gradually replacing FV430 series vehicles with Warrior-based equivalents, then try out things like band tracks, electric drives, upgrades with Warrior 2000 and so on. Who knows, with a decent installed base, we might have got more export sales?
That way the FRES programme wouldn’t have been trying to replace FV430 series vehicles as well as all the others. It might have resulted in something sensible, but perhaps not.
But that’s all by the by now.
If KMW and Nexter join up, one wonders which product will take primacy. Boxer or VBCI? Leclerc or Leopard?
What will carry forward?
It must be remembered that the MoD design houses produced some pretty fine vehicles. The rot seems to have set in with joint programmes.

Oh. My. God. That FRES variant is HUGE!!! So wide. How are you going to drive that into a woodblock, or hide it in a bit of dead ground. Ludicrous. Recce by stealth is clearly a thing of the past.

Thanks TD I knew there would be a rational explanation!

TD,

At 38 tonnes (remember that it with appliqué which is probably just there for show) t still has another 4 tonnes to go before it reaches its max.

As for why no more Foxhounds for MRV-P. Well they are hardly cheap so tuts probably a factor and a long wheel base version (I know some work has been done) is going to be well, interesting, to design. That said, there is nothing stopping GD from bidding it. IMO, the one to keep a crafty eye on is Renault and the Sherpa family.

Cost of basic armoured vehicle (ex weapons/comms/sensor systems/DAS etc) assume between £35/kg & £40/kg. Sounds a bit daft but the correlation is spookily close to reality…

The Ashchurch vehicle storage depot is moving to somewhere in Wiltshire. Ashchurch apparently required extensive redevelopment to continue in its role, so relocating the depot was a timely and cost-effective opportunity.

ST, four dismounts is ideal for the Foxhound patrol vehicle, it wasn’t designed to be a bus. And four seats was all you got in the back of a Snatch also.

I don’t know why people are so sure that Foxhound won’t get its nose into the MRVP program. It might fulfil the requirements, it might not. And if it doesn’t get picked, there could be good reasons for that. Foxhound was bought for a specific role, it won’t necessarily make a satisfactory multi-role vehicle; commonality at all costs may not be the best option.

JH, you may well need a strong steel hull to hang that composite armour off.

The web doesn’t suggest that a naked ASCOD has any significantly better ballistic protection than a naked Warrior, so applique armour kits will be what makes the difference.

It’s a misconception that newly developed and lighter armour will make vehicles lighter. Applique armour allows armies to take advantage of new technology, but the trend is generally to provide better protection within the same weight class. Same with active defence systems.

Gewyne,
“The boxer could have carried just about every platform we need – from the common APC to MLRS / AA systems”

The Donar artillery system was plonked onto a flatbed ASCOD 2 hull. Presumably such a vehicle could carry GMLRS or ‘Land Cepter’ (?), or all manner of stuff.

Monty – ref Foxhound cost – does the £1m unit cost include the protected ringmount weapon, the Bowman and ECM kit and all the other stuff MOD will add to any vehicle purchase? Or it that the GD off-the-shelf basic vehicle price? If the latter its expensive.

Ref Warrior CSP – until last weekend I thought Warrior seating was 3+6; I was put straight by someone that knows, but his description of the 7th dismount seat was that it was cramped pokey unpleasant and uncomfortable and no-one sat in it unless absolutely necessary. Sounds like that particular seat probably doesn’t meet Def Stan 00-250 Human Factors guidance anyway…

“the protection levels are outstanding for a vehicle of its weight ( and suspect it may on a par with CR2)”

The internet widely states that ASCOD is protected against 14.5mm AP across the front, Monty. The Spanish ASCODs are often shown with a smattering of applique said to improve that to 30mm.

I don’t recall seeing SV sporting any additional armour on its nose, which might suggest that those big metal saddlebags on the recce support vehicle do little more than bring SV’s fragile hardboard sides up to the same level of protection as the bare front.

If that’s 38 tonne combat weight, Monkey, then it won’t be 10 tonnes of additional armour only.

There’ll be bullets, sandwiches, lemon squash to factor in. Some fat squadies, a shovel -there’s always a shovel- radios, fireworks, a full tank of diesel, an Xbox, guns, crisps, porn… it all adds up.

Seriously, look at FRES. In what environment can that vehicle conduct Reconnaissance as we know it? Operating with an Artillery FOO in a Warrior was always a nightmare for CVR(T), because it was too big to hide. That thing is preposterous! I’d expect Light Cavalry (whatever that is) to start picking up any Recce by stealth taskings as there is NO WAY that FRES can operate covertly. That will mean creating some sort of ‘Recce mast’ for Jackals/WMIK, which is possible. So you will end up with guys at ‘the tip of the spear’ (Battle group recce), potentially exposed to MBTs whilst in a screen or similar, in a 4×4, whilst ‘Medium armour’ (a non-existent concept doctrinally) sits off to the rear with a weapons system incapable of dealing with the MBTs anyway! This is what happens when you buy vehicles before you’ve written the doctrine. It’s a dogs dinner!

Ed, you do have a point. My *guess* is that the FRES will end up in roles that are less “recce” but more “scouting” and “screening” similar to the conops of the American M2 and M3 vehicles, so technically, the conops for that has already been written, just copy it from the Americans.

Most of the recce guys here believe that the best recce vehicle is either a light strike vehicle (particularly the Chenowth) or a motorcycle or even a bicycle.

Observer,
It’s not as easy as just ‘copying’ it from the Americans. It’s about changing the entire philosophy of the Royal Armoured Corps and the wider Army, for no reason other than we ordered the wrong vehicles and frantically need to hammer square pegs into round holes.
As a former recce troop leader myself, I would NEVER want to be reporting back to the Brigade commander on the movement of enemy armour to my front from the confines of a Chenowth, motorcycle or bicycle. CVR(T) was ideal for many years, and is still capable of doing a job to be honest, because it was fast, small and you had a fighting chance of surviving provided you didn’t take a direct hit. Plus 30mm SABOT might give an MBT a mobility kill if you were lucky, or damage the optics with HE etc.
Having done an exchange with the Bundeswehr, the Fennek is a terrific platform. Reasonable armour, reasonable firepower, very small and very fast. Whoever does our recce should have something similar. FRES is a jack of all trades, master of none.

Be fair Ed, even without the recce role, your army would still need a screening/scouting vehicle operating close to the battlegroup, so it isn’t as if the FRES is out of a job. They would also need infantry carry, so the FRES does do double duty as the APC/IFV of the armoured brigade.

I believe RT has did a tour in GWII where 30mms were used to cause catastrophic kill of an MBT and that the Americans have used the medium calibres in their Bradleys with similar results. Those were export versions of the T-72s though, not sure if a T-90+ would fare as badly, but still , a T-72 is an MBT.

As for the Fennek, it does look good as an infiltration vehicle. Personally though, I still see a need to be air lifted past enemy defence lines, just in case you can’t go through by land.

And interestingly, there seems to be heaps of recce guys hanging around here.

Must be the *Wet Paint* toucher in all of us. :)

Obs – I have heard from multiple sources that ought to know that big turreted ASCOD/FRES-Scout-SV has lost its dismount seats because of mission electronic stuff. Presumably there will be an ASCOD/FRES-APC somewhere along the line; it may have a light turret or RWS, I don’t know. But it doesn’t look like double duty applies.

Ref Rarden vs. MBTs – several rumourmill tales of mobility kills by Rarden, things like popping holes through final-drives. Whether by skill or accident isn’t noted. But on balance showering MBT with ordnance from 30mm guns is probably not a success oriented strategy.

Fennek weighs 10 tonnes, and is air portable.
I think we are operating from a different lexicon Observer. The British Army doesn’t do armoured ‘Infiltration’ as far as I’m aware.
You can’t do a screening/scouting job from a massive, noisy piece of armour. CVR(t) has traditionally done it. FRES will, I suspect, be incapable of doing it in the way that we do now. It is too damn big. Any defensive screen around a BGHQ is likely to be done by Challenger 2, so no role for it there either.
The Scout variant has no space for dismounts, so can’t be used as an IFV, but Warrior will pick that up anyway. It has no job! It’s best hope is that it is made into a PM variant to take over from 432.
As for your argument on the potency of 30mm, that was rather my point! It was ‘good enough’.

ISTAR is about layering assets, of which ground-mounted manned reconnaissance is just one.
Black Hornet is great for chucking over a compound wall but eff all use for identifying the Russian vanguard.
Larger UAVs have their uses too, but a man on the ground saying what he can see and making an informed assessment is still a key part of the process. That man on the ground is best kept alive and stealthy if possible, which is where the concept of Armoured reconnaissance comes from, and CVR(t) has proven to be great. Put him in a hulking great London bus (FRES), that he can’t hide anywhere, and his chances of survival against a T90 are non existent (and they were low to begin with!).
Simplistic but that’s about the sum of it.

@ TD “Does anyone know doctrinally and procedurally what PMRS is meant to”

In a nutshell and without releasing sensitive information into the public domain yes.

Only thing I would say is KRH BG in BATUS are trying out the ISTAR Troop, consisting of CVR (T) and CH2. I was trying to rattle my brains as to what the Russians called it as part of the formations during the cold war. I remember all the diagrams we had to learn but the names escape me, Advanced Vanguard is the only name that springs to mind.
I would also say you should not believe all the shite you hear about CH2 LEP, there are lots of options on the table. The gun is not one of them though. Same as fleet management, that will not be an option either. All tank regiments will have 56 in camp, not as current a mere Sqn now and then.

CBRN, the ones where they use BRDMs to probe the enemy? Think it was “Forward Security Element”. Which was part of the “Advance Guard” (your Advance Vanguard), so technically it is an advance guard of the advance guard. :P

Hey, if it works for them, who am I to argue. Results > pretty formations.

Ed, I don’t want to seem rude or challenge your probable considerable experience in a crass way; but…..

Both you and RT often come across as a little hide bound at times and desperately devoted to the platform you have worked with For the whole (?) of your career. Now I am no cavalry man having been Signals, but my father did “armoured Recce” in Korea in a Centurion, any way……..

Our U.S. friends have written much since GW1 about their own trials and tribulations and vacillating back and forth between sensor equipped Hummers at one end of the scale and M1A1 at the other.

Personally I question the concept of stealthy Recce in the face of thermal imagers, ground based radar, seismic sensors, acoustic sensors etc etc….

So, do the force structures of Army 2020 provide a heavy “Recce by fire” capability with FRES Scout and protected mobility. variants carrying. UAV teams, dismount scout teams etc with the Reaction Force; with the so called Light Cavalry units of the Adaptable Force in their Jackal’s providing the nearest thing to the old CVR(T) capability ? (Although the Jackal is hardly small and quiet – perhaps we would replace them with Fennec if we had the cash ?)

I think RT suggested the Cavalry establishment had become enamoured with the GW1 conops of fighting for information against an armoured opponent within a manoeuvre based campaign composed of a lot of “meeting engagements”. His point being that they had bamboozled themselves and were just plain wrong.

However surely there is no simple one size fits all answer ? Just as CVR(T) was not actually perfect and has its own weaknesses, so to does FRES SV have a different set of weaknesses. However to equip the majority of just 3 Cvalry (ex-formation Recce) regiments that are to fight alongside Chally 2 and Warrior, it doesn’t seem out of place to me. Attach a squadron of Jackals to each regiment to cover the “slightly more sneaky” element – alongside Helos, infantry Recce teams, UAV’s of various sizes, and Light Recce Regiments of the Adaptable Force, how do we not have all the bases covered ???

Personally I have never had an issue with the L30, doctrinally the tanks killing range has always been between 2 to 2.5km, even in the Gulf. Yes engagements have been recorded further out but for destroying armoured vehicles with Fin the optimum range is as I have already mentioned. HESH is a wonderful round to fire live, because of the slow velocity you can see the trace all the way to the target and the effect is impressive on buildings, trenches etc.
In my view there is no need to change it as it still performs an adequate function and of course has been mentioned in previous posts, Tanknut Dave gives an excellent summary of why it will never be smoothbore.
We used to practice urban environments a lot and I still think it is the vehicles biggest weakness, without intense mutual support from infantry, who even then cannot cover every nook and cranny, you are a sitting duck. I think the recent videos from Syria have born that out.

@ Observer Thanks
Yep the ones with the BRDM’s but also the T72’s, they were like forward recce probing about and reporting back and if engaged used the tanks as a back up to move around.
We seemed to have an obsession with stealth and smaller is better, where the soviet mind set seemed to be prod about, get picked on by the opposing force, decide if you could take it out, if not carry on and leave for the next part of the formation to deal with.

@CBRN

Didn’t we have something similar called “recce in force” or as the “real” recon guys jokingly call it “recce by pissing people off”? :)

@Monty

Very, very good questions, with really hard to figure out answers. Part of the solution is people concentrating on the “do not be seen” part of the “survivability onion”, hence all these recent “stealth tanks”, but you are right in saying that more and more people seem to see killing MBTs as a viable goal to aim for.

One of the goals that needs to be looked at is counter-ISTAR. More and more countries are going into the information warfare and systems integration route. Sooner or later, you’re going to bump heads with someone that has a decent C4I network which should be taken down fast. RT mentioned a jammer mortar round before. We might also need to look into cheap counter-UAV solutions and maybe not so cheap anti-MALE/HALE solutions. In normal usage, even if the enemy does not have a good C4I net, playing music over his radios is still a good way to mess his coordination up. No air support, no artillery support, no reinforcements.

Jed
The trouble is that under Army 2020, a Reactive Brigade will not have any Light Cavalry to take with it in order to achieve the ‘force packaging’ that you describe.

Ref: “Personally I question the concept of stealthy Recce in the face of thermal imagers, ground based radar, seismic sensors, acoustic sensors etc etc….”

All of these assets are only as good as the operator/analyst sat behind them. Thermal Cam nets to mask vehicle heat sources have existed for years and are extremely effective. Similarly, there are numerous stories of people being told that ground based radar had picked up an enemy armoured BG to the front, only for it to be a camel or similar. They are fallible.

I firmly believe that a well trained, manned recce element will always be invaluable to a commander. Don’t forget that many CVR(t) equipped Troops would simply laager the vehicles in a hide miles from the target and then TAB in to conduct the recce element. I sometimes feel like people imagine a line of ‘tanks’ sat bare arsed on a hill staring at a target. There are ways and means of being sneaky.

No, but it would make it a damn site more difficult to put the vehicles into a ‘hide’. Trying to find a bit of dead ground that you can fit 4 FRES SV and an Artillery Warrior in, or a wood block that you are capable to driving them into will be bloody difficult. Tactics will adapt I’m sure, but out of necessity rather than expediency.

Ed

Thank you for your responses sir. Good points well made, but:

Yes indeed, surely the whole point of a FRES SV Protected Mobility Recce Support, or just a bloody APC variant, is to deliver the Cavalry man to where he can indeed shuffle forward through mud and such to get into a good position with his binos / thermal image / laser range finder etc ?

Different scenarious and uses of a Formation Recce / Cavalry regiments capabilities, there are times when debussing is going to put the crew at great risk of artillery fragments or even small arms fire. Again, manouvre warfare against a neer peer opononent or COIN in the sandpit (or in the Jungle) will require different approaches.

To your point about FF2020 structures, I did suggest a FRES SV Scout equipped Regiment might have one Jackal (or even better Fennec) equipped squadron, or being that what we really seem to be good at is creating ad hoc scratch formations, add a squadron from an Adaptable Force Light Cav. Regiment to the “Heavy” Cav regiment for the deployment. Of course that might screw up follow on rotations a bit……..

BV Buster

Good points all round, and I’m not against the idea of a bit of recce by fire in a bigger vehicle. My main gripe with FRES is that we can sit here and work out why it MIGHT be a good choice. However, that is not why it was chosen! The Doctrine has not been written, the vehicle requirement has not been met and we’ve ended up ‘alles uber der platz’.
CVR(T) needed replacing. Of that there is NO doubt. But we are now trying to create reasons why we have ended up with the vehicle we have. Similarly the only arguments against a small CVR(T)-type vehicle seem to be when it is placed in a ‘conventional war’ environment against a high tech, shit hot adversary. And how many of those have we done…..?
An 80% solution that you can sling on a plane at a moments notice was all we needed/need. Or Fennek.

LOL, off topic sort of, by while typing my last comment, got a work IM from a Canadian colleauge asking what “take a Recce” means in British English…… :-)

BV, call me a cynic, but I suspect the new orbat will be, surprise, surprise, similar to the old orbat. What do you think?

@BV Buster you are totally correct the doctrine has been written and tried out on the SPTA. It is now as I mentioned in an earlier comment being trialled in BATUS. It could of course fall by the way side but more likely to be adjusted.
Don’t worry I’m on your side, the days of “Dinky Toy” size recce is over. Big is beautiful, can we hide it, of course we can. If we can hide a god damn Titan with a No10 bridge in the woods then SCOUT/PMRS is a piece of piss.
I always thought it was a pain in the arse putting up cam on a tank and always wondered how the hell the three man crew of Titan managed. With lots of cursing I would imagine.
Yes there is the air transportability issue, but am sure the RSGD, QDG’s and LD’s would be quite happy to take that task.
When people talk of CBRN doctrine these days, it’s not of the enemy blasting a 1km square of 300 rounds of 122mm sarin rounds or MBRL firing hundreds of rockets filled with blood agent. Those days have gone and we have moved on. The same for Recce, we talk a lot about capability but where is the next big conflict where the enemy is going to have the same level of sophistication and technology as us.

I have to say I don’t really remember Titan hiding in the woods.

” but where is the next big conflict where the enemy is going to have the same level of sophistication and technology as us.”

China. Those bastards are into cyber war in a big way.

Monty,

Are you announcing the demise of the tank, again?
The arrival of the anti-tank gun, the arrival of the shaped charge, the arrival of the guided missile, the arrival of the helicopter, the arrival of the artillery cluster munition, the arrival of precision weapons for fighter-bombers, the arrival of guided artillery, the arrival of a different kind of ATGW, the arrival of artillery-delivered smart munitions and the arrival of another kind of ATGW. All of these things have presaged the end of the tank, which it bewilderingly still of great utility across the globe.

Just because armour is vulnerable to something doesn’t mean it is obsolete. Infantry is horrifyingly vulnerable to almost everything the modern battlefield has to offer. If tanks are obsolete, then surely infantry are even more so. Slow, vulnerable and with limited lethality.

ST, that “new paradigm” is SOP from decades back. It’s at least 20 years old or more.

Yowser! Recce wars!

There are lots of types of Recce, from LRDG style long range / long time stuff through to BG Recce about 10 minutes before the Chally’s and Warriors tip up to the FUP, and then there’s stuff like Close Observation Platoons as we had in NI, the SF and now SFSG do their thing differently, and along the way there’s Sapper recce and you need to invite the Gunners along as well sometimes. It is not a “single solution”.

I come from recce experience in Formation Recce, which is normally characterised by “get out there somewhere quite far away, don’t get seen and importantly, don’t get killed because otherwise we won’t have a Scooby as to what is going on. And whatever you do RT, don’t start a fucking fight”. Monty and Ed Zeppelin have different and equally valid experiences, but in their cases OPFOR is rather closer, and possibly already suspicious, moving up the heavy weaponry and prepared to shoot on sight.

I’m all for stealth and not being sensed at all, but that calculation works best with not having to fight or at least stand your ground for information.

How about resurrecting RDF/LT 75mm ARES? Well ask the US nicely…

Obsvr,

Was not thinking so much about the gun position type of recce, more about scoping a piece of terrain with a FOO to work out how best to spring a nasty on OPFOR with arty. Start from the west or east, all at once or herd them somewhere? What’s the exact time of flight? From where are the aircraft coming, will it conflict with shell trajectories (Kevins worry about such things)?

Recce’ing a gun position is probably a low importance task, otherwise it would not be left to Gunner subbies. Here’s a grid square, park up somewhere and don’t bunch.

Review of the Ocelot Utility during Australian trials: http://www.w54.biz/showthread.php?61-All-Terrain-and-High-Mobility-Vehicles/page24