United States Military Vehicle General: Guns, G*vins, and Gas Turbines

[2805662]

 

Took me a bit. (Et tu) Brutus; the one killed Caesar. 

[DIADES]

1 hour ago, 2805662 said:

Brutus;

Jeebers!  That had better be cheap.  Only one (very small) step up from a Technical.

[Ramlaen]

 

 

[Serge]

Nothing new but the photos :

https://www.armyrecognition.com/ausa_2019_news_show_daily_coverage_report_united_states/ausa_2019_general_dynamics_presents_scale_model_of_its_light_tank_for_mpf_program_of_us_army.html

[Ramlaen]

https://utc.com/en/news/CAS/2019/10/14/collins-aerospace-brings-proven-more-electric-aerospace-technologies-to-abrams-m

 

 

[Ramlaen]

 

 

[Ramlaen]

Problems with CROWS-J

 

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/16/army-delays-stryker-mounted-javelin-missiles/

[Ramlaen]

Moog had another turret configuration on display besides the two that were on Strykers.

 

 

[2805662]

On 10/16/2019 at 6:47 PM, Ramlaen said:

Problems with CROWS-J

 

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/16/army-delays-stryker-mounted-javelin-missiles/

EOS has you covered. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Ramlaen]

1 hour ago, 2805662 said:

EOS has you covered. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

No one seems to want to bite on 30x113 on light vehicles.

[2805662]

1 hour ago, Ramlaen said:

 

No one seems to want to bite on 30x113 on light vehicles.

I *think* there’s been a middle eastern customer who has. 

[roguetechie]

On 10/14/2019 at 6:51 PM, DIADES said:

Jeebers!  That had better be cheap.  Only one (very small) step up from a Technical.

 

This comment alone makes me severely question essentially everything else you say or will say in the mechanized warfare forum...

 

Do you actually have an idea of what you're looking at in the Brutus platform?

 

Because I can assure you the God damn truck it's mounted on is so far beyond irrelevant to any potential thereof of the real thing Being showcased as to be entirely laughable for someone even peripherally interested in this realm to comment on that it's genuinely disconcerting.

 

TL;DR it's not about the God damn truck dummy

[Kal]

On 10/19/2019 at 6:35 PM, 2805662 said:

I *think* there’s been a middle eastern customer who has. 

EOS has sold RWS that support 30x113 to UAE, but those RWS are somewhat separate from the guns they carry.

 

The australian ABC would lead us to believe that they have, personally I would expect that payment for the gun goes to a separate entity than payment for the RWS.

[DIADES]

3 hours ago, roguetechie said:

dummy

I had forgotten how much I enjoy the witty repartee so often a feature of forums in general.  Thank you for reminding me of both that enjoyment and my own failings.

 

 

[roguetechie]

2 hours ago, DIADES said:

I had forgotten how much I enjoy the witty repartee so often a feature of forums in general.  Thank you for reminding me of both that enjoyment and my own failings.

 

 

 

Seriously though, the cannon is the important part of Brutus and it's actually a very major development that heralds not only interesting future possibilities but also the era where foob and etc weapons are finally crossing the technical maturity line in a meaningful way.

 

This is all but the textbook definition of a big deal.

 

This and the gd ngsw bullpups are harbingers of actual advancements in gun technologies across the board which have the potential to let us do things we haven't actually been able to do before in pretty significant ways which also happen to be pretty synergistic with other stuff being developed as well as having some low key potential to dig us out of some holes we're currently in or facing capabilities wise.

 

[DIADES]

1 hour ago, roguetechie said:

gun technologies

You are seeing a gun I think and I am seeing a vehicle.  May reflect our backgrounds - certainly my view does.  I guess as mature adults we should be seeing the system.

 

I don't really see a place for un-armoured guns anymore either - no matter how good the gun is.  Counter battery fire is just too good.  Shoot and scoot, yeah but enemy batteries and loitering drones will be firing on you while your first salvo is still in the air.  The only attraction for a gun on an un-armoured truck is price.

 

I guess I am situating the appraisal - I automatically think peer to peer.  If not that, then gun on a truck is fine.

[N-L-M]

3 minutes ago, DIADES said:

and I am seeing a vehicle

Yes, and I believe you are in fact missing his point entirely- which is, as far as I can tell, that Brutus is a demonstrator for the weapon system, not a proposed system for fielding. Once the weapon system is developed, theres nothing preventing you from say plonking it on an armored FMTV chassis, or doing the same thing to the new 58 caliber barrel and gluing it on top of a LVSR.

Yes Brutus isnt a fieldable weapons system thanks to not being frag proof, but thats not its point.

[DIADES]

Just now, N-L-M said:

missing his point entirely-

perhaps - but as I read it, one of the sales points of such low recoil systems is their ability to carry their own firing loads thus enabling them to be fitted to any old lightweight chassis.  Point is of course, that any old lightweight chassis can't carry a decent armoured cab and BTW, where does the ammo go?   A second lightweight truck?  With armoured cab?

[N-L-M]

1 minute ago, DIADES said:

Point is of course, that any old lightweight chassis can't carry a decent armoured cab

Sure they can, see FMTV.

1 minute ago, DIADES said:

BTW, where does the ammo go?

Presumably in a fragproof box on said "real vehicle". Because again, the Brutus itself appears to be an expedient for tech testing, not a system for fielding in and of itself.

[DIADES]

2 minutes ago, N-L-M said:

Brutus

I reckon that if the recoil forces are as low (haven't seen numbers) as claimed, then perhaps fire on the move from a heavy tracked platform becomes possible'

 

Given that the proto is on an FMTV surely that is deliberate to illustrate exactly how the OEM sees sales?

[N-L-M]

4 minutes ago, DIADES said:

fire on the move from a heavy tracked platform

I suspect that that is entirely not the goal, for a few reasons:

1. The main difficulty in firing on the move is stabilization of the gun. Howitzers, for reasons of easy loading, have the gun out of balance with the trunnions very far aft to minimize the breech drop inside; however the recoil impulse with a good muzzle brake is not significantly in excess of that of a NATO 120mm or Russian 125mm, which have been mounted on vehicles as light as the Sprut with no brake.

Reducing recoil impulse does not help all that much with needing to keep the breech high off the floor for loading and therefore needing to keep it out of balance in the cradle.

2. The US Army for some reason still has a lot of towed howitzers in service, which I'm sure you'd agree need to be replaced with some kind of SP system cause as they are theyd get creamed in any real kind of war. Unfortunately the budget is not infinite (SAD!), and therefore replacing them all with M1299s is less than doable in any reasonable time scale. And replacing them is a much more pressing concern than firing on the move from a tracked platform. 

 

The rest of the world has either gone or is going the route of wheelyboys for various reasons, which bring with them their own host of issues, which ideally need to be worked out separately before you start full scale design and development. This is in my opinion what Brutus actually is. Brutus being FMTV based may be down to the fact that its a platform the Army has available for this kind of testing, and not due to it being intended to see service in this config. The total lack of any serious systems integration work shown so far makes me less than convinced that this platform is intended to eventually actually see service.

 

[DIADES]

8 minutes ago, N-L-M said:

which I'm sure you'd agree

and I do.  Truck mounted is way ahead of towed - although watching a well drilled team bring their gun into action is a joy.  Providing there are no bad guys...

 

Yes, wheels are for barrows.  I wasn't thinking that a low recoil force would make the platform smaller or shorter, more that the low recoil forces could allow a lighter, more agile platform (tracked) to have acceptable dynamic stability if the gun fired while it was in motion.  Not a deeply considered though, came out as I typed.

[heretic88]

Nothing wrong with wheeled artillery. As long the vehicle is not a normal truck. Sadly there are few examples, like Archer, G6 and Dana. Compared to ordinary truck mounted systems, they have far superior offroad mobility, the chassis is specialized to carry heavier loads, so protection can be also higher.

[Pascal]

4 hours ago, N-L-M said:

2. The US Army for some reason still has a lot of towed howitzers in service, which I'm sure you'd agree need to be replaced with some kind of SP system cause as they are theyd get creamed in any real kind of war. Unfortunately the budget is not infinite (SAD!), and therefore replacing them all with M1299s is less than doable in any reasonable time scale. And replacing them is a much more pressing concern than firing on the move from a tracked platform.

 

Towed artillery is the stuff for real kind of war.

 

3 hours ago, heretic88 said:

Nothing wrong with wheeled artillery. As long the vehicle is not a normal truck. Sadly there are few examples, like Archer, G6 and Dana. Compared to ordinary truck mounted systems, they have far superior offroad mobility, the chassis is specialized to carry heavier loads, so protection can be also higher.

 

Replacing trucks with cannons for Archer, G6 and Dana is like replacing the AT4 with SMAW.

[N-L-M]

1 hour ago, Pascal said:

Towed artillery is the stuff for real kind of war.

Towed artillery would get counterbatteried 10 ways to hell so fast it'd make your head spin. Fire systems incapable of dodging or surviving counterbattery fire will have fuckall survivability in a big boy war. Doubly so for towed guns with substantially less range than enemy artillery, such as say the M777 compared to pretty much anything modern on the opposite side.

Fire-finding radars are everywhere since the 1990s, and the gun's survivability has to be evaluated under the understanding that the enemy is going to shoot back. 

Given that, the ability to shoot and scoot before enemy fire arrives is a critical survivability measure.