GBAD - The return of 'FOBS'

[PrairieFella]

Boeing tapped to continue work on new US Army air defense system

Boeing has been selected to move forward in the U.S. Army’s Indirect Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2 Second Interceptor competition, the company announced. The program seeks to develop a new medium-range interceptor designed to defend forward operating bases and other fixed...

defence-blog.com

As an expeditionary Army I'm thinking that our AD needs to focus on the SHORAD (to cover our maneuver forces) and a medium-range system similar to this to cover our FOB's. Do we need the longer-range (Patriot-type) systems for our expeditionary Army or only for homeland defence?

If only for defence of Canada (presumably under NORAD) should any long-range ground based AD (if we do procure such a capability) be an Army/Artillery asset our should it come under the RCAF?

Im not very knowledgeable on this but this is what makes sense to me.

The way I see it, any guns or line of sight missiles like Stinger should belong to maneouvre units, something like Gepard as an example for a gun system for immediate local defence against choppers, drones, etc.

Any ground based missiles that is beyond line of sight should belong to the Arty, say something like S-400 or that ground based CAMM system the Brits (I think) are developing. The Arty already has the radars and are experiences in beyond line of sight systems.

Any future strategic BMD systems should belong with the RCAF since they're integrated with NORAD anyways.

 

[FJAG]

Im not very knowledgeable on this but this is what makes sense to me.

The way I see it, any guns or line of sight missiles like Stinger should belong to maneouvre units, something like Gepard as an example for a gun system for immediate local defence against choppers, drones, etc.
Any ground based missiles that is beyond line of sight should belong to the Arty, say something like S-400 or that ground based CAMM system the Brits (I think) are developing. The Arty already has the radars and are experiences in beyond line of sight systems.

I don't disagree on the basic concept but disagree on the details. Any simple 'immediate local defence' item that does not need to integrate into the overall AD architecture and which does not place an uncommon training or maintenance burden on the manoeuvre unit, should belong to the manoeuvre unit. In that respect I could see something like Stinger or hand-held anti-drone systems with the units. Gepard is actually a fairly sophisticated system with a radar and integrated into the AD network. A Gepard-like system is better allocated to a specialized AD unit with the appropriate C&C and maintenance and logistics system. The dividing line between the two is a bit blurred but it's not too hard to analyze any particular system and its care and feeding needs to determine whether something can be realistically organic or need a specialized structure.

Any future strategic BMD systems should belong with the RCAF since they're integrated with NORAD anyways.

It makes sense to divide AD as between the three services. AD system capabilities and requirements differ significantly as between the army, navy and air force albeit there is a certain jointness of components (such as the missiles) as you look at the different levels. As an example, you can have a significantly heavier radar system for ships or installation defence than you can reasonably put onto an army mobile system. Ships obviously do not need mobile launchers, while an identical mobile system may have uses on domestic installation defence.

I'm not to sure where Canada will go with defence of Canadian infrastructure. I'd certainly put the C&C of a North American AD system into RCAF hands. I'd also put the 'ownership' of any launcher systems in the hands of the RCAF if it has no comparable role in the army's expeditionary role. BMD is a good example.

The question that is left is what do you do with residual systems that can neatly fit into an expeditionary role and a homeland defence role?

 

[MilEME09]

Idea, Revive the MMEV concept but make it tracked, turn CRV7 into a vampire esc weapon for anti drone, 25mm cannon, plus missiles. Now for the platform, lets take the oldest of our Leopard 2A4's their turrets are out dated and obsolete with parts hard to get. So rip those off and drop in this new MMEV turret, creating a tracked vehicle to keep up with armoured formations and provide protection from air threats.

 

[PrairieFella]

Idea, Revive the MMEV concept but make it tracked, turn CRV7 into a vampire esc weapon for anti drone, 25mm cannon, plus missiles. Now for the platform, lets take the oldest of our Leopard 2A4's their turrets are out dated and obsolete with parts hard to get. So rip those off and drop in this new MMEV turret, creating a tracked vehicle to keep up with armoured formations and provide protection from air threats.

Honestly, not a bad idea for all of our leopard hulls and then buy something new off the shelf for tanks, aevs, arvs.

 

[FJAG]

Question for those who know - are our Leopard maintenance issues in the turret or the powerpack/powertrain? Most of our M109/M113 series issues were with the latter.