I talked to a buddy about this and we both came back to one thing. The war on terror knocked these programs off track.
The point of this post?
We have the lead. The Europeans, Chinese, Russians and others are basically playing follow the leader when it comes to moves in armor development. For example. Wheeled IFVs. The US Army bought the Stryker and everyone is following that lead. Forget the fact that the Army is tailoring its force to be expeditionary...everyone else is copying it.
We have the lead here. We're doing it and others aren't. If nothing else this is DARPA hard, and something that they should keep pressing the gas on.
I thought everyone forgot about un-manned capability in ground vehicles the moment they forgot about Kinght Rider and Kit the car. Poor David Hasselhoff.
ReplyDeleteBut on a more realistic note, I think the R&D departments all over the world will do a lot more tinkering around with smaller robotic vehicles and prototypes like the packbot etc. maybe something a bit bigger before they truly unleash a combat capable IFV or Supply convoy transporter etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd for tinkering around with smaller robotic assets, this current war on terror is an amazing time i belive
well small is good but how about being able to deliver supplies behind the lines between two bases with Terramax unmanned vehicles? How about patrolling the DMZ in korea with black knight ugcv instead of having a division of US Army Soldiers doing the work and cutting them back to less than a brigade? how about not having the UN send troops to the golan heights and instead have them off shore aboard ships and them doing the patrolling instead?
Deletesmall robotic vehicles are good for room clearing. they're awesome for taking a look at ieds...but how about other tasks? thats what i'm aiming at.
Eh Solomon,
ReplyDeleteI just want point to you that wheeled IFV was french, we launched VBCI pre-program, R&D, back in 1990 when Stryker program was launched in 1999..
The wheel thing was, from long time, a french thing : we got taunted back to the past on our wheeled vehicles ( VAB, EBRC, AMX10RC, ERC 90 )...
In contrary, we copied the expeditionnary thing, on US Marines, for our entire army since 1995, when first gulf war faced us our deficienties...We got success with a tiny budget...Perhaps our entire army has less budget than your Marines Corps.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR770.html
Sir, IMHO, unmanned air-and ground-drones are a specific USA’s feature, which does not necessarily suit to war-conception of other technical developed countries. Drones and MRAPs in their current high-degree of development for example – are excellent in Anti-papuan-style wars, usual by now for USA and your allies. But it will not be so effective against enemies with widespread jamming-systems and large-caliber machine-guns and cannons.
ReplyDelete"We have the lead. The Europeans, Chinese, Russians and others are basically playing follow the leader when it comes to moves in armor development"
ReplyDeleteWell that is not true , just look at export orders. How many countries have preferred M-1, M-2 and Strykers ?
As for UGVs the Russians claim they have fielded the Taifun-M .
http://defenceradar.com/2014/04/29/russian-army-unmanned-ground-robot-taifun-m-protect-yars-topol-m-missile-sites/
a tracked guardian ugv? not impressed. the rest of your comment we can just agree to disagree. you're talking sales that is influenced by much more than simply what is best, when you should look at the doctrine being adopted by the various armed forces worldwide.
DeleteI think M-48, M-60 and M-113 reliable simple and adopted in many countries.
ReplyDeleteThing is when the US designes and fields a reliable and affordable weapons system many outside buy.