Family of Future Combat Vehicles

[Matt_Fisher]

getting away from RIPSAW (Another thread maybe?) and back to future family of combat vehicles. The LAV High Capacity (LAV-H), would it be better able to support a direct fire weapon system? For those in the know?

I remember seeing the beast in May last year and the GDLS guys said it could handle something like 5,000 Kg more than the current LAV III series. With that I see the vehicle being able to handle more armour and maybe a 90mm or 105mm weapon system for reserve/cavalry use.

Thoughts and idears?

I don't think that adding weight to a vehicle's hull in the form of armour is the magic answer which will make it be able to handle a higher powered weapon.  The hull strength around the turret ring is also a huge area of concern.

What interests me about the Ripsaw's suspension system is its relatively high ground clearance.  If you were to adapt that suspension system to a larger tracked vehicle platform, you could have an armoured vehicle with a significant amount of ground clearance.  With that clearance, you'd then be able to add significant armour to the belly of the hull, i.e. a tracked vehicle with a V shaped hull, which might go a long way to defeating pressure plate IEDs and Anti-tank mines, but with better off-road mobility than a wheeled MRAP/APV type vehicle.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting series of trade offs would have to be made here:

Higher ground clearance = more protection vs IED/Mines and better cross country performance in theory

Higher ground clearance = higher CG, possible limitations to weapons and load carriage, possible limitations to cross country mobility (vehicle more inclined to tip over) greater tactical visibility (CC is higher up) but also greater problems with visual/signature control (vehicle is higher up and easier to see)

Reducing the size of the hull to compensate makes crew accomodations, carriage of stores etc. much more difficult. Changing the form factor to increase the amount of interior volume makes the vehicle larger in other dimensions, affecting tactical and operational mobility (might not fit down a track or inside a transport plane/ship designed for "normal" equipment).

WRT medium weight vehicles in the LAV class, low profile "Wegmann" type turrets or beefed up RWS are the way to go for large calibre weapons carriage.

 

[X-mo-1979]

I was told an announcement would be made for the Lav 3 and coyote replacement in june.Any word on that? I am anxiously awaiting the decision between the two they are looking at.

 

[The Bread Guy]

If you believe the Canadian Press, the CV90 (Wikipedia) is one of the vehicles "under serious consideration" for what appears to be a short-term bridge buy:

The Defence Department wants to buy at least 20 tracked armoured vehicles within the next two years to relieve pressure on the army, whose fleet has been pounded by the war in Afghanistan.

The proposal, which officials are trying to get through cabinet, is one component of an expected $4-billion overhaul of the military's combat vehicle fleet, defence sources said Monday.

The army currently uses light armoured vehicles known as LAV IIIs, eight-wheeled fighting vehicles armed with a 25 mm cannon.

Although agile and quick-handling on roads and solid ground, the army has found LAVs often get stuck in boggy ground along riverbeds where the Taliban have increasingly chosen to stage ambushes.

One of the vehicles under serious consideration is the CV90, which is essentially a light tank that's capable of carrying troops, according to defence sources ....

Further down the road...

.... the Defence Department is planning a major upgrade to its light armoured vehicle fleet. That includes the possible purchase of a newer, larger version of the LAV - dubbed the LAV-H.

That project would help the country's economy since the contract would go to General Dynamics Land Systems, which has an assembly line in London, Ont., and refurbishment factory in Edmonton.

A second pillar of the plan would be an upgrade to the army's 1960s-vintage M113 armoured personnel carriers.

Ross also told the Senate committee that contracts will soon be released to upgrade used Leopard 2A4 tanks purchased from the Netherlands last year ....

 

[X-mo-1979]

From what I was told out of the two choices it was going down to room per person for dismounts.One vehicle had more cubic room per soldier.

I hope the CV-90 gets it.However the other vehicle I was told about was not a lav-h

 

[ArmyRick]

What was the other vehicle? Don't keep us in suspense!

 

[ironduke57]

Wasn´t the ASCOD already mentioned before?
(But I still say PUMA FTW! ;D)

Regards,
ironduke57

 

[X-mo-1979]

Can't remember the name.It was french and wheeled.They were considering it due to the extra cubic room per dismount in the back.However it;s all rumour till it comes down I guess.

 

[ironduke57]

The Véhicule Blindé de Combat d'Infanterie (VBCI) then?
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9hicule_Blind%C3%A9_de_Combat_d'Infanterie

Regards,
ironduke57

edit: Video of an stuck VBCI getting freed by an AMX 30 Tank:
- http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8j1u5_vbci-a-la-traine-face-a-un-bon-vieu_news

 

[Matt_Fisher]

I'd have a hard time thinking that we'd unseat GDLS in Canada with an imported wheeled armoured vehicle that I have a hard time believing does much more than what our current LAV III and proposed LAV-H can do.  Now if it were a tracked vehicle with better mobility, armour, and firepower, it's still going to be a tough sell politically, but if we're trading Canadian apples for French apples, forget about it...politically, it'd be suicide for the government to appear to be stabbing Ontario in the back, or kicking them while they're down in these times of massive automobile industry and manufacturing layoffs and restructuring.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Well the French could promise to open a plant in Bearhead........

I suspect they will open the tender up to allow them to compete, but ensure that regional benefits are a major factor in the selection process. Unless the French think they could also capture a large US contract as well, it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Matt_Fisher]

Well the French could promise to open a plant in Bearhead........

I suspect they will open the tender up to allow them to compete, but ensure that regional benefits are a major factor in the selection process. Unless the French think they could also capture a large US contract as well, it wouldn't be worth it.

...and unless the French plan on opening up a major manufacturing facility to build almost the entire vehicle in the US, and hire on US engineers to basically redesign the thing, or partner with a major US defense contractor so that it's ITAR compliant, then it doesn't really have much of a snowball's chance in Hades at winning any US business.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

I'd have a hard time thinking that we'd unseat GDLS in Canada with an imported wheeled armoured vehicle that I have a hard time believing does much more than what our current LAV III and proposed LAV-H can do.  Now if it were a tracked vehicle with better mobility, armour, and firepower, it's still going to be a tough sell politically, but if we're trading Canadian apples for French apples, forget about it...politically, it'd be suicide for the government to appear to be stabbing Ontario in the back, or kicking them while they're down in these times of massive automobile industry and manufacturing layoffs and restructuring.

Makes sense, until you read the high level mandatories.  And don't forget that IRBs can make anything seem palatable.  This will alll sort itself out in the coming months, but there is both more and less on the table than meets the eye.

 

[X-mo-1979]

I'm wondering how all the kit will be distributed when it returns to Canada.Are we going to see the heavy medium light battle groups they talked about a couple years back?Or will we have a very small fleet of vehicles at each base training on differnt platforms .i.e Lav 3 and the replacement vehicle?
Or will the newly purchased equipment be put away for the next time we fight a war.

 

[McG]

Is that [LAV-H] the 8x8 version that was used to test the GIAT turret?

No:  http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/28681/post-659097.html#msg659097
It looks like the LAV III/Stryker but is slightly larger (GDLS engineers claim this is for improved mobility reasons), better armoured, with significantly improved suspension, and other tweaks to give greater range of performance.

I was told an announcement would be made for the Lav 3 and coyote replacement in june.  Any word on that?

Your source is confused.  The LAV III is not about to be replaced (in fact, there is a mid-life upgrade project just kicking itself off the starting line).  There is a project to replace Coyote, RG-31, some Bison, and some G-Wagon.  However, you are probably thinking of the Close Combat Vehicle which is intended to provide an infantry platform to compliment the Leopard 2.  You can see more on CCV here:  http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/81408.0.html
and here:  http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/70177.0.html

If you believe the Canadian Press, the CV90 (Wikipedia) is one of the vehicles "under serious consideration" for what appears to be a short-term bridge buy:

CCV will not be a "bridge" or "band-aid" solution.  It will be a permanat tiny-sized capability that the Army will have to sustain into the future. 

 

[a_majoor]

DARPA has another approach for vehicles (if this works we are looking at the generation after next...)

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/08/darpa-ifab-vision-for-open-source.html#more

DARPA iFAB Vision for Open Source Foundry Fabrication and DARPA Autonomous Robot Program

1. DARPA has the iFAB program to develop "foundry-style manufacturing capability." By which they mean microchip foundries - the generic, build-any-chip-for-any-designer factories that churn out microchips for every application you can imagine, and which are the dominant mode of manufacture for most of the silicon in use today.

The specific goals of the iFAB program are to rapidly design and configure manufacturing capabilities to support the fabrication of a wide array of infantry fighting vehicle models and variants. Parallel efforts titled vehicleforge.mil and Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Combat Vehicle (FANG) seek to develop the infrastructure for and conduct a series of design challenges (termed Adaptive Make Challenges) intended to precipitate open source design for a prototype of the Army's Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV).

The iFAB end vision--to be developed in the second phase of the program which will be solicited under a separate BAA at the conclusion of the present effort--is that of a facility which can fabricate and assemble the winning FANG designs, verified and supplied in a comprehensive metalanguage representation with META/META-II tools.

2. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation program. ARM seeks to provide future robots with enough autonomy so they will require only occasional high-level supervision by human operators. According to DARPA, this will simplify human control, potentially improving how tasks such as bomb disposal are carried out and allowing individual robots to carry out a variety of missions.

The four-year program’s goal is to develop software and hardware that allows robots to autonomously grasp, manipulate and perform complex tasks with minimal human direction. DARPA has tapped a number of research teams to tackle various parts of the program. These areas of work include developing designs for a multifinger hand emphasizing robust design and low cost and software that allows robots to perform several tasks.