At 50 seconds into the video BAE shows the vehicle with the turret removed. With the upgrades found in the CV90 Armadillo applied to some legacy Bradley's you have a low cost solution. BAE is ready to move on this. The US Army should take them up on it.
Well, it's a solution that should certainly be economical but it doesn't really address the IED-proof vehicle the Army says it requires.
ReplyDeletei think that's part of the problem. the solution to ied's left our vehicles road bound. that made the ied threat even deadlier.
ReplyDeletebesides, M1's have been destroyed by ied's so is their really an ied proof vehicle?
i don't think so.
I wonder. Right now there's no true IED-proof tracked combat vehicle out there but that's because it's never been tried. One thing that the MRAP program taught us is that when the US military really wants something in a hurry, it can be done. The right DoD-industry cooperation. The right production priorities. The right budget. The right amount of oversight and bureaucracy. I think it can be done if the Army and government is willing.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem right now is that the Army itself doesn't seem to be of one mind as to what sort of vehicle it wants. Does it want a rolling fortress like the Namer or rather a Bradley/CV90 class of more mobile and less well-protected vehicle? Against what sort of threats do the crew and passengers have to be protected? Will the platform be sacrificed to save the people, or should it be able to take a critical hit and keep on fighting? Must it have a turret that takes up space, weight and costs? If we all knew the requirements, we could all get to work.
ReplyDeleteThe other problem is that IEDs in a more kinetic type of combat tend to be more like minefields, primarily useful at choke points and thus breached with the use of engineering vehicles.
ReplyDeleteThe threat that they pose now is that it's possible for a couple of guys wearing local clothes to dig up a section of dirt road, plant up to 1,000lbs of explosives in it, and wait for the military patrol that always passes over that point.
Honestly, in fully kinetic warfare, the loss of one armored vehicle is going to be an acceptable loss. When we're patrolling as an occupying force, however, it becomes more expensive to lose one vehicle and its crew.
IF we want a vehicle that absolutely ensures crew survivability, we can just use the old Humvees...and leave all our men in CONUS. Otherwise, we're sacrificing the mobility that wins wars...and numbers as we get more complex vehicles with less crew and storage capacity and much less mileage/range.
Why basing the concept on a chassis that the army plans to retire in 10 years?
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned, M2/3, like M113, though roomy, is vulnerable to IED. Try any or all three categories of MRAP chassis and, if possible, make the modification field-interchangeable between vehicles. That's probably the closest thing we've got to the IMI Namer.
It's difficult nowadays to design a vehicle aimed to defeat BOTH explosive (eg IED) and kinetic (HEAT, ATGM, etc) threats.