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| This tank never should have gone out of service! The US Army is looking for "airborne armor" and this would have filled that role perfectly! If we can't innovate maybe its time to take a look at modernizing Sheridans in storage to a 21st century level. |
Special Note to World of Tanks! Buff the damn T69! The M41 is a tier 7 and has better specs, the AMX in the lower tiers have better specs etc...you guys nerfed the only real threat in the USA line when you castrated the T57 and now even the pathetic AMX 50 is more powerful! Enough with the anti-US bias!
The recent updates (company funded) to the M8 Buford should fit the bill nicely:
ReplyDelete1. 120mm gun
2. Studied Hybrid Drive
3. Transportable in a C-130
4. Armor upgrade kits
5. Space for troops in the back or extra supplies (if converted to Hybrid drive)
6. Tracked
7. Exists now
link
DeleteThe M8 is a development of the operational light tank called the Stingray.
DeleteHere is the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M8_Armored_Gun_System
It was fully developed in 105mm as part of the AGS competition in the 80's. It was designed to be air-dropable from a C-130 at baseline armor. Little known factoid, the M551 Sheridan was retired on the "promise" of upcoming M8s (which were "type classified in '95). Production was to start in '96 but the program was canceled in '97.
The Thunderbolt:
Using company funds, United Defense developed a tech demonstrator that had upgraded armor, a hybrid drive (with an additional 4-man rear compartment), band tracks, better systems (like GPS, FLIR, etc), and a 120mm autoloader. It still maintained it's C-130 air-drop requirement. They demonstared the M8 Thunderbolt version at an Armor conference in 2003.
https://web.archive.org/web/20031010094626/http://www.uniteddefense.com/pr/pr_20031006c.htm
Here is the open rear compartment of the M8 Thunderbolt demonstrator showing the 4-man seating
Deletehttp://www.combatreform.org/m8agsscoutinteriorifhybridelectric.jpg
Has existed since the 90s, right?
DeleteWhen I was in (airborne infantry at the time), there was a vocal minority that wanted the M8 buford, but following the dogma of emphasizing only TOW humvees, infantry with Javelins, and Strykers, the Buford was quickly thrown into purgatory, alongside any hopes of airborne deployable tracks.
Now that CAS is placed in serious jeopardy with the drama over the A10, our strategic response forces are in a very precarious situation.
I hate admitting it, but Sparky DID have a good point there.
How does the hybrid engine compare to the standard one in performance and range? As pictured, that compartment doesn't look super useful for dismounts in a tactical scenario. There's no vision blocks or com gear and even less storage than in a Brad. Maybe that space could be better used than as a closed box for a dismount team. A mortar or some vertical launch system maybe? An even bigger engine? Or at least finish the darn thing with a way to see and find out whats going on.
DeleteModernize M551's.....you are kidding right? If not where would you start?
ReplyDeletedrag out the old files, decide what needs to be changed, build a prototype, perfect it and then start production. i know its more complicated than i laid out but you get the idea. don't like the Sheridans then how about the Stingrays? how about the FCS mobile gun? how about a manned BAE BlackKnight? my point is that airborne armor isn't as hard as the 82nd and HQ Army is making it out to be.
DeleteThe 82nd has been try to get then hands on a few of the M8 AGS prototypes for over a decade.
Deletehttp://lists.topica.com/lists/natlsecrt/read/message.html?mid=808575281&sort=d&start=408
I'm a old 11E2T, I know all of their short comings. As a armor crewman it is a difficult task, aluminum hull, paper casings, crappy transmissions, at 17 tons it didn't work! Also main gun tube would not always recoil you had to pump it up by hand! They were RPG magnets 11 ACR lost 5 in one day to RPG 2s. When you make them light enough drop, something has to go and that is usually crew safety.
DeleteHello fellow tanker, 19K here.
DeleteThe closest I got to a M551 was playing tag with them at Ft. Irwin after the OPFOR guys got done mocking them up to look like various Soviet armored vehicles..
Actually, that's not the "closest" I got to one.
DeleteAs a Boy Scout, I was camping at a Regional Jamboree and they had one brought in as part of a static display. We were climbing in and all over it for hours. Well, we could go inside for a few hours at least until another Scout found out what the little red handle was for on the outside :)
Hey! I served in RVN on M551's 3/4 Cav 25th ID, they were not all bad, the 152mm with flechette rounds were extremely effective! I've gone up against fortified bunkers and buildings, busted jungle and survived! With the ATGM's of today they wouldn't stand a chance! By the time you made them crew survivable they would be to heavy to drop. Which is still a major problem today. We are being rapidly outclassed! We still use M-113s, and don't have a Trophy System to protect the Abrams platform.
DeleteIt isn't a question of technology or platforms, it's a question of leadership and priorities.
ReplyDeleteUntil Airborne BCTs run into an enemy that a Javelin can't take out, it's not going to happen. If that means Airborne troopers die, so be it, but unless they start dying in large numbers since they have no armor, this program will continue to be punted.
And let's talk about ammo for the beast. Unless they have a HE or HESH round, it means it isn't going to be effective against anything besides other armor. And if that's the case, why doesn't TOW or Javelin fit the bill?
They have two great rounds for it, a shotgun canister round and a multipurpose round that can change it's target set based on fuze settings (wall-defeat, air-burst, point-detonate, delayed fuse - bunker, etc)
Deletehttp://www.army.mil/article/98946/Army_developing_new_120mm_AMP_tank_round/
A March 2013 story? Until they field it, it doesn't exist.
DeleteThe Army "had" the M8; "had" the Crusader; Comanche....hell all the things the Army "had" would field a fantastic Army. Until they put dollars into it and field it widely, it's all sweet drunk talk.
That link is to the "new and improved" multipurpose round.
DeleteThere have been several generations of MP (Multi-Purpose) tank rounds
M830A1 HEAT (fielded 1994)
http://cms.atk.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/ProductsAndServices/AS-M830A1.pdf
USMC DM11 MP-HE (fielded 2003)
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2012armaments/Tuesday14105ewert.pdf
Actually, seeing the airborne mission as infantry centric is -exactly- the problem. Airborne Dragon put a handful of M1/M2 into Bashur and used an entire Regiment to seize the APOD, thereby linking one to the other and both to the predictable (pre-registered) delivery point.
DeleteAs a non-maneuverable force and the Abrams couldn't abandon the infantry to a serious counter attack (20 T-72s come over the horizon and start plinking) and the infantry wouldn't have their trucks for another 3 days.
This is all backwards. We need tank special warfare teams that can be pushed straight to a roadway or drylake or across a border in an 'allied' state that may not known they are part of the fight.
Why?
Shrug. I doubt we will see another Saddam level fight but if we do, we cannot afford speed bump forces of infantry nor sacrificial lambs in Humvees and M880s or whatever the Dodge Technical equivalent is. I don't care if we have traded Dragon for Javelin.
Similarly, if the meat drops in the fire in Taiwan or Korea, we _don't_ want to be waiting on ships from CONUS. Nor do we need to support ROC/ROK forces whose elite infantry is just as 'special' as ours. We need mission forces that can roll off small intruder craft (JHSV launching some form of LCVP) onto beaches /behind/ the frontal areas with enough firepower to commit assymetric mayhem and thus be useful to the local ground commanders while MAGTF or Big Army get underway.
If someplace like Pakistan, DPRK or Iran were to implode and we decided it was 'us or the terrorists and option number 2 wasn't acceptable' on nuclear depots, we need an ability to drop away, drive to and STAND ON (or near) the secured site, denying it to any and all comers.
This is not something that a bunch of SOF riding around in technicals can manage.
You have to be under armor protected to at least 30mm ballistic and you have to have a _dual layer_ APS system, one directed energy like the AMAP-ADS and another a rocket interceptor like the Quick Kill to provide significant defense against increasingly speed SALH ATGW and even some kinetic penetrators (TACOM tested the AMAP-ADS and found it's 10-20ms operating time to be compatible with APFSDS defeat).
Okay, so you're on the ground in a 20 ton vehicle with all it's armor onboard and no 'kit' addons to worry about. But you still don't want to get into a major fight with threat armor or even ATGW because they will run you out of APS rounds.
What do you do?
You switch to MRM_KE or CE, that's what.
We have tubes capable of putting out rounds that rival long barrel SPH for ballistic range (set HEAT, fire KE, watch it fly into the next county, fill out paperwork). WHY are we not using OTH guided rounds, especially as Sniper is now standardized and LAHAT is coming online?
You take a tall tank like the Buford and you give it a 30-40` super-el capability and you can start plinking at 10-12km. And every round which isn't intercepted by and ARENA or Trophy system is going to go in because MRM-KE can pick engine deck grilles or TC hatches or GPS covers. No need to go busting through 1,100mm or more of frontal arc defense. NONE.
DeleteThe rear bay is useful too. First, because if you make the air delivery option match to an A400M rather than a 1956 C-130 door + weight constraint you can push the sponsons out into spaced armor plenums which house 100HP engine on one side and a 500HP engine one the other. Easy diesel range for a hybrid drive with one giving you days and days of station keeping recharge on the vetronics and environmentals. And the other being your 60-70kph cruise engine. Lose one, limp on the other. If you can make the tank wide enough.
And with that done, the rear bay can be used for RORO palletized VLS for tandem stacked electric MAVs on a rocket booster. Nothing fancy. Just a general 10-20km reach out before bussing the Raven or whatever. This means, if you have an hour or two on the batteries, you aren't wasting half of it getting to station and can go for semi-close ballistic lofts before scooting in low and electric, on a more sophisticated GPS autopilot on the drone.
If you have a CLGP facility forward and a low impulse drone capability aft (say 3X5X2 for a total of 30hrs of drone coverage, X3 vehicles / 4 cardinal point coverage lanes = 3.5 DAYS of surround sound targeting and protection) and now you can be a hunter.
Do you 'secure' that depot facility by leveling it? No. Not if it's got nukes. Do your secure it by standing on it, playing king of the mountain while everyone and their other cousin Mohammed takes pot shots? No. See 1 with 20 million of them and a few of you. But what you CAN do is provide mission security from an offset point while low profile teams go in to blow igloo doors and generally seal off access to the site 'pending arrival of the rest of the MAGTF'.
Which is where we have an ENORMOUS hole in our conops today. Because we are focused on Go Big or Go Home conditions which do not correspond to the needs of most OCO emergent situations. During the Cold War that was alright because we had Bloc run agencies who remembered what the Cubans almost did during 1962.
Now we have individual nuclear states the size of Kansas which might collapse at any moment due to internal strife or _lack of food_. And we cannot let whatever (our stupidity) refuses to allow to be properly IAEA catalogued and inventoried run off into the darkness under somebody's burqa.
We need to up our game. Do more with less (COD4 scenario) and be ready to go in DOUBLE QUICK on the jump to secure facilities with microforces that can survive for say 10 days of independent ops while we get it all in the sock.
Imagine what would have happened in 1991, if Saddam's armor columns had had to roll back on themselves because Specwar teams running the landbased equivalent of the SEAL boat teams had decided to mess with their logistics.
We could have turned Kuwait City into a Khafji pushed four CVBGs right up the Gulf and saved ourselves 2 trillion dollars, 20 years and 3,500 civilian lives by pushing Saddamn's nose in, right then and there.
The Marines need to stop thinking they are an Army Corps occupational force and start getting back into the smaller, harder, faster expeditionary with violence mission set again.
M&S, that is a very epic argument. Impressive.
DeleteI wish during the initial invasion that we had airborne armor. The Buford would have been extremely useful. Certainly better than waiting for CAS if you are caught between a rock and a hardplace, with your heavy armor in the opposite side of the country, where it is fuck all useless to you.
You also bring up a good point with the MRM-KE. US tank-gun based missiles have been largely ignored following the cessation of the terrible Shillelagh. One of the points that many have used in accusing me of "russophilia" is my support of their common use of anti-tank gun launched guided missiles. They certainly have their uses. And we have gone on far too long without them.