EFSS is what we got. But is it what we needed? The EFSS was birthed out of the Dragon Fire Concept. It envisioned a heavy mortar that was capable of rapid fire. Of being left in place and firing without a crew. Of basically providing instant, on call fire support. Somewhere along the way, the designer of the system and the Marine Corps got into a pissing match and the concept was allowed to die and surrogate systems became primary. So instead of a cutting edge mortar, the Marine Corps was left with a tired, old, French mortar system that requires Marines to jump up on boxes to load it.
Read about the Dragon Fire Concept here. But the question should be asked. How did the Marine Corps go from a cutting edge weapon system to what it has today? According to my limited research, this is the first sign that Marine Corps Procurement was going off the rails.
More to come.
I am guessing that money ran out.
ReplyDeleteWill that Dragon Fire fit into an MV-22? I'm pretty sure that was the criteria for picking the EFSS.
ReplyDeleteYES! yes it will! and it was designed from the outset to fit not only the MV-22 but could also be fitted into an LAV and would use its attached baseplate as the firing platform so no modification to the LAV was needed. additionally it was able to be put into action in 5 minutes.
DeleteRan out of money???
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should have stuck with the Jeep & Dragon Fire as the development of the ITV & EFSS as a whole was a real mess and made the F-35 look like a model program.
www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy09/09-041.pdf
On the IFV dev and production cost, the guys at Howe & Howe Tech could have done it cheaper and better.
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