Infantry Vehicles

[dapaterson]

Just don't discuss how to refuel them.

Jerrycans, obviously.

 

[OldSolduer]

Jerrycans, obviously.

Jerrycans are for sissies!

Real soldiers use 1 gallon naphtha cans….

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Jerrycans are for sissies!

Real soldiers use 1 gallon naphtha cans….

The old British "Flimsinese", fuel spillage in North Africa with them was 20%, the advent of the jerrican can dropped that to 5%. At 20% spillage, 1 tanker in 5 that made it through the Axis gauntlet was wasted.

 

[childs56]

Jerrycans are for sissies!

Real soldiers use 1 gallon naphtha cans….

LOL, hence why so many Iltis were blowing engines. gas is gas isnt it?

 

[OldSolduer]

The old British "Flimsinese", fuel spillage in North Africa with them was 20%, the advent of the jerrican can dropped that to 5%. At 20% spillage, 1 tanker in 5 that made it through the Axis gauntlet was wasted.

Fuel tankers are nice but a huge target that - well - burns. Ever see a vehicle fire? They are something else.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

 

[ueo]

View attachment 76975

Or flight line?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Fuel tankers are nice but a huge target that - well - burns. Ever see a vehicle fire? They are something else.

I was referring to the tanker ships on the Med convoy run. Not personally seen a tanker truck burn, but have seen the aftermath.

 

[OldSolduer]

I was referring to the tanker ships on the Med convoy run. Not personally seen a tanker truck burn, but have seen the aftermath.

Even a half ton or SUV fire is something to see. Often it’s not a pleasant outcome.

LSVW fires were a thing. Truck Light Self Igniting.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

As a young gunner on drivers course I manged to touch the dipstick to the positive on the Deuce, causing it to melt down, luckily no fire resulted. I had to wear that melted dipstick around my neck with the associated term till a new "Dipstick" was appointed next day for another transgression. funny enough I can't recall one vehicle fire in DND vehicles during my time.

 

[Kirkhill]

Britbots: UK tests 3 heavy uncrewed ground vehicles in first time event - Breaking Defense

The tests are a step toward “what could potentially be achieved on the battlefield with crewless vehicles in the next 10, 20 or 30 years,” said Lt. Col. James de St John-Pryce, commanding officer of the British Army's Armoured Trials and Development Unit.

breakingdefense.com

BELFAST — In a first, the United Kingdom recently tested three different heavy uncrewed ground vehicles (H-UGV) weighing over five tonnes (5.5 US tons) to evaluate speed, terrain and communication system capabilities.

Led by the Future Capability Group (FCG) from within Britain’s procurement arm Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), Elbit’s ROBUST (ROBotic aUtonomous Sense and strike), Milrem’s Type X and Rheinmetall’s Wiesel vehicles all “underwent stringent trials” over two weeks, at the British Army’s Armoured Trials and Development Unit (ATDU) in Dorset, England, according to DE&S.

Elbit ... ROBUST... hosts a 30mm autonomous turret and ... Elbit’s Iron Fist Active Protection System, alongside fire control and mission management systems, ....The vehicle can also carry a capsuled drone for reconnaissance missions.

Milrem ... Type X ... a “wingman” for main battle tanks, designed to support mechanized units. Firepower options include 25mm to 50mm autocannons. Due to integration with a multi-canister launcher, the uncrewed vehicle and also be equipped with UVision Hero 120 and Hero-400EC loitering munitions.

Rheinmetall ... Wiesel ... a fully digitized version of the Wiesel armored fighting vehicle, integrated with autonomous capabilities of the company’s Mission Master UGV and can be equipped with a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station to launch Javelin missiles.

The tests are a step toward “what could potentially be achieved on the battlefield with crewless vehicles in the next 10, 20 or 30 years,”

I think the CO might be a bit conservative in his estimates.

 

[Kirkhill]

A few days ago I came across this article.

Slow your roll: Army plans reduced buys for some key combat vehicle fleets - Breaking Defense

Service FY24 budget documents unveil plans to buy fewer “light tanks,” M88 recovery vehicles, and halt upgunned Stryker procurement in the outyears.

breakingdefense.com

Spending on armor of all sorts to be slowed ... Fewer vehicles on order.

One program bucks the trend, in a sense. The Bradley replacement programme will continue spending R&D money


Bradley



Other armo(u)r, tracks and wheels, are all on the go slow.

Abrams



Paladins



M88 Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift and Evacuation System (HERCULES)



Joint Assault Bridge buy



The two newest programs, the AMPV and the MPFS are also being slowed although the AMPV is being saved by Ukrainian support dollars

AMPV (M113 Replacement)



GDLS Ajax variant the MPFS being slowed is intriguing. Ukrainian rethink or British rethink?





And there's a Canadian angle....
DefenceReview.UK


And it is not just tracks that are being slowed

Strykers



Stryker 30mm Upgrades



In a similar vein (Chinooks are Infantry Vehicles)

Army Failure To Embrace Chinook Helicopter Upgrades Endangers Industrial Base

Army planners need to think more rigorously about the industrial fallout from their program choices.

www.forbes.com

The Army argues that it has more pressing modernization needs,



My sense is that the Army is taking an operational pause on the vision thing and waiting to see what happens in Ukraine - especially intriguing, I think will be the field trials of the Leopards, Challengers and Abrams.

If I had to bet I would put a fiver on the Army looking at the Optionally Manned Platform as the basis for a medium heavy tracked fleet (30 tonnish?) in line with the CV90 philosophy? One set of tracks for everything from 7.62mm to 120/155mm.


And Stryker? Is heavier armor and heavier weaponry really the way you want to go for a vehicle that will need to deploy quickly and widely?



I just saw a video posted on the CSC thread (???) showing a highspeed Anglo-Japanese landing craft - the BMT Cayman. The interesting bit as far as I was concerned was the combat load -

1x 26 tonne Type 16 105mm 8x8 "Tank Destroyer"
2x 4.5 tonne Komatsu 4x4 "Light Armoured Vehicle".

A very French looking configuration for dealing with rapid deployment security in its home islands.

I think everyone is on "Wait Out" for a while - especially if you are building legacy systems. Same position as wagon wheel and tacking manufacturers were ca 1917.

Linked

AMPVs and ACVs spur changes for BAE Systems’ York production line - Breaking Defense

Assembly of the Army’s new self-propelled howitzer program is moving out of the York facility to make way for an AMPV and ACV “Center of Excellence.”

breakingdefense.com

Global Force 2023 — BAE Systems is making space at its York, Pa. facility to ramp up production of the Army’s Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle line and Marine Corps Amphibious Combat Vehicles by moving other vehicle work to different locations around the country, according to a company official.

Although the Army has not yet made its AMPV full-rate production decision, that pending milestone will require the company to move from producing 12 vehicles per month up to roughly 16, with the goal of churning out 197 AMPVs each year. When combined with the Marine plans for its ACV line, BAE’s vice president of business development for combat mission systems, Jim Miller, said the company needs to clear out space at York to make it the AMPV and ACV “Center of Excellence.”

The first big change previously involved moving M88A2 Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift and Evacuation System (HERCULES) production to Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, but now the company has decided to move M88 hull work over to a different “partner” altogether.

the Army’s Self-Propelled Howitzer Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) program, one that includes the M109A7 howitzer and the ammunition carrying vehicle. Miller said the welding machines at York will still be used to fabricate PIM hulls but vehicle assembly will be moved to Anniston before they are moved to Elgin, Okla. for final assembly and testing.

changes at York are occurring, in part, due to $27 million from Ukraine supplemental to ramp up AMPV manufacturing, and another $250 million internal investment. Those dollars, Miller said, helped pay for new robotic welding machines and an ACV swim pond.

 

[Kirkhill]

I wonder if

With the interest in 5 tonne vehicles their is room to revisit this child of the 80s developed by the Israelis and the Italians.

The intent was to give the WW2 vintage Shermans a 105mm capability by improving the WW2 6 pounder / 57 mm
The solution was a saboted APFSDS round marketed in the 80s as a Hypervelocity round.
It was trialled on ground mounts and M113s as well as being fitted to Shermans and used by the Chileans.

Otomelara developed an autoloader turret that worked in a 6616 APC format as I recall.

Israeli IMI 60MM APFSDS-T Ammunition

Since I started to specialize my collection interests to large bore APFSDS and related ammunition about 14 years ago I have been on the hunt for a IMI 60MM APFSDS inert round. So far I have been unsuccessful but last week I finally acquired three IMI 60MM cases that I am pretty fired-up about. 🙂...

forum.cartridgecollectors.org

The 60 mm Gun​

Officially, the weapon is known as the 60 mm High-Velocity Medium Support (HVMS) Gun. It was a joint development started in the late 1970s between Israeli Military Industries (IMI) and OTO-Melara of Italy. The 60 mm (2.3 in) gun was designed for infantry support, the idea being to give infantry units increased anti-armor firepower by giving them a powerful, but light gun that could be mounted on light vehicles. A joint project to develop a lightweight turret housing the gun, which could be mounted directly onto light vehicles, such as the M113 APC, was planned, but this did not come to fruition. The two companies split during the project, developing their own versions. Despite being a success, the weapons did not enter service with either the Italians or the Israelis.

The 60 mm High-Velocity Medium Support (HVMS) Gun in testing on an ex-British 6-Pounder gun carriage. Photo: Unknown Source
The gun had a barrel length of 70 Calibers (4.2 meters), with a fume-extractor placed halfway down its length. The barrel was constructed using the autofrettage method of metal fabrication. In short, this allowed the barrel wall to be thin, but extremely tough. The gun utilized a hydrospring recoil system, meaning the spring surrounds the breach-end of the barrel, protected by a shroud. It is further protected from the elements by a truncated rubber – or possibly canvas – sleeve. The hydrospring system allows quick barrel changes as the gun and recoil system can be removed/installed as one unit.

The gun has the feature of being both manually and automatically loaded. Manually consists of the traditional method of sliding the shells into the vertically-sliding breach by hand, though, in this case, there is hydraulic assistance. The automatic method consists of a vertical magazine with a three-round capacity loaded in a similar way to Bofors’ automatic guns. This system is recoil-operated with a shell-to-shell reload of three seconds. These could be fired one-by-one, although there was also the option of firing a three-round burst. Chile decided to modify their guns to be manually loaded, with a new rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute.

A Spanish-language promotional poster produced by the Italian Company OTO-Melara, featuring the statistics of the APFSDS-T round and the High-Explosive shell. Photo: Foro Militar General


The weapon was equipped with both High-Explosive (HE) and Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot, Tracer (APFSDS-T) rounds. Both rounds were produced by OTO-Melara. In Israeli tests, the gun proved to be precise at over 2,500 m. The APFSDS projectile flew at an initial speed of 1,600 meters-per-second and was able to penetrate the side armor (15 – 79 mm thick) of two T-62’s, side-by-side, at 2,000 m. At maximum, the dart could penetrate 120 mm of armor, angled at 60 Degrees, at a distance of 2,000 m.

If it is a Bofors style loading system perhaps these could be considered as bases for modification to produce a high rate of fire 57mm?

I understand the CV9040 achieves its aims by mounting the gun upside down so that it feeds from the bottom and ejects from the top.

 

[FJAG]

GM Defense squad vehicle cleared by Army for full-rate production

The 5,000-pound ISV is based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 truck and uses 90% commercial-off-the-shelf parts.

www.defensenews.com

 

[childs56]

did not meet the requirement to be able to travel 1,200 mean miles between operational mission failure.
weapons testing reports noted additional troubles, including steering problems, bent seat frames, engine cracks and overheating.
Despite identified issues, the ISV’s key requirements were met

This is hilarious. It works kinda, so we will accept it knowing the failures and just work with it.
What I find interesting is engine cracks and over heating, this has been a ongoing issue with their Engines for a long time in "severe" duty applications they still have not fixed it fully.

Hopefully they have a heater and tarp system for the cold

 

[Spencer100]

did not meet the requirement to be able to travel 1,200 mean miles between operational mission failure.
weapons testing reports noted additional troubles, including steering problems, bent seat frames, engine cracks and overheating.
Despite identified issues, the ISV’s key requirements were met

This is hilarious. It works kinda, so we will accept it knowing the failures and just work with it.
What I find interesting is engine cracks and over heating, this has been a ongoing issue with their Engines for a long time in "severe" duty applications they still have not fixed it fully.

Hopefully they have a heater and tarp system for the cold

I work with Ford Customer Service division (the parts and service people at Corporate) Ford was having heavy warranty costs on diesel engines (the V10 built in Windsor) in Alberta they were replacing a ton of engines in the oil fields business. They put a team on it because it was happening nowhere else in the world at the same rate. The engineers go out there to find the companies put the truck though hell and add, remove or move the airboxes and then beat the crap out of them. Ford said OK you do this and we will work on changes here. The oil and services companies all said nope that's too much work. Ford engineers then got a little miffed saying we have to work together on this. Nope. We then will not be able honour the warrenties. They told them no problem we already knew you would do that but you did it for longer than GM. LOL

 

[Spencer100]

did not meet the requirement to be able to travel 1,200 mean miles between operational mission failure.
weapons testing reports noted additional troubles, including steering problems, bent seat frames, engine cracks and overheating.
Despite identified issues, the ISV’s key requirements were met

This is hilarious. It works kinda, so we will accept it knowing the failures and just work with it.
What I find interesting is engine cracks and over heating, this has been a ongoing issue with their Engines for a long time in "severe" duty applications they still have not fixed it fully.

Hopefully they have a heater and tarp system for the cold

One point.....its a truck....buy them in bulk.....use them like you rented it.....depose. turn over fleet. don't not over spec.

I put to you it would be cheaper in the long run. Put a five year contract out with yearly buy turning over fleet every five years. 20% a year.

Here we buy a bunch of special spec'd units at super high price and keep for over 20 years.

 

[FJAG]

did not meet the requirement to be able to travel 1,200 mean miles between operational mission failure.
weapons testing reports noted additional troubles, including steering problems, bent seat frames, engine cracks and overheating.
Despite identified issues, the ISV’s key requirements were met

This is hilarious. It works kinda, so we will accept it knowing the failures and just work with it.
What I find interesting is engine cracks and over heating, this has been a ongoing issue with their Engines for a long time in "severe" duty applications they still have not fixed it fully.

Hopefully they have a heater and tarp system for the cold

You misread that. Those were the original issues from the low production rate vehicles which were addressed. There were some additional issues afterward which were too minor to make an issue of.

 

[KevinB]

You misread that. Those were the original issues from the low production rate vehicles which were addressed. There were some additional issues afterward which were too minor to make an issue of.

I’m guessing he didn’t read the actual article.

 

[daftandbarmy]

But what if it rains? ;