Tag Archives: armor

Unmanned Autocannon Turrets

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There’s a big interest in remote weapons stations for machine guns, since they let you use the guns without exposing yourself to enemy fire. Their bigger brothers, unmanned autocannon turrets, are also increasing in popularity, because they’re a cost effective way to add firepower to vehicles. Let’s look at some options. Alas, costs are unavailable, so you’ll just have to guesstimate.

EPOCH
First, Russia’s Epoch turret. It’s used on the T-15 Armata Heavy IFV, plus the Kurganets IFV, and could probably be retrofitted on to other things. It’s got a 30×165 mm autocannon with 500 rounds of ready ammunition (dual feed with one 160 round box and one 340 round box), a 7.62x54R mm machine gun with 2,000 rounds of ready ammo, and four Kornet-EM ATGM tubes. The gunner has a day/thermal sight with laser rangefinder. The commander has an independent day/thermal sight with laser rangefinder as well. I do not have information on whether or not these are Gen 3 thermal sights. No secondary remote weapon station is fitted for the commander. Epoch is not protected against autocannon fire. It is fully (i.e. biaxially) stabilized. Eight smoke grenade launchers are fitted. It is capable of high-elevation fire. It does not appear that reloading the turret is possible from under armor. Also, even though it lacks armor, given it’s bulk and ammo reserves, I would expect it to be heavy. Also, relatively expensive. But it does have the most firepower of any turret on our list.

MCT-30
This is the turret that the US Army is fitting to some of its Stryker vehicles for more firepower. It’s made by Kongsberg, out of Norway, and it has a lot of options. The gun is a 30×173 mm autocannon, with 150 rounds of ready ammunition (dual feed with a pair of 75 round boxes). There’s also a coaxial 7.62×51 mm machine gun with 600 rounds of ready ammo. ATGM launchers are available as an optional extra. The gunner’s sight is the usual day/thermal with laser rangefinder. An independent commander’s sight, or a Commander’s Remote Weapons Station, are available as optional extras. The basic turret has negligible protection, but the turret can be provided with protection against up to 30 mm autocannon rounds (STANAG Level 6) as another optional extra. High-angle fire is another optional extra feature, as are threat detection systems and active protection systems. All versions can be reloaded from under armor. We’d expect weight and cost to vary significantly based on desired feature set. It’s not a bad turret, but we wish it could accommodate more autocannon ammunition. A pity that’s not another optional extra. Full stabilization is standard.

Samson RCWS-30
This is an Israeli turret, currently in use on the Czech Pandur II. It’s very barebones, without any kind of protective shell. It comes with 200 rounds of 30×173 mm (in a 140 and a 60 round box), a 7.62×51 mm machine gun with a 460 round box, and a pair of tubes for Spike ATGMs. The turret is fully stabilized and a commander’s independent sight is available. A commander’s remote weapon station is not available. There are no protection options available for this model. On the other hand, it’s only 1,400 kg ready to fight. Also, since it’s an exposed gun and feed systems, it can be fitted with any other autocannon system. Conceivably, one could also increase the ammunition capacity, but that might require more powerful traverse and elevation motors. It is capable of high angle fire as well. This is probably my favorite turret from an ‘add more firepower’ standpoint, since it’s light, cheap, and provides balanced firepower.

Lance-RC
The unmanned version of the German Lance turret, the -RC variant is very nearly identical to the turret mounted on the Puma. It comes with a 30×173 mm gun with 200 ready rounds (dual feed, but I haven’t found box sizes), a 7.62×51 mm coaxial machine gun (probably about 650-700 rounds based on the Puma’s capacity for 5.56), and the option for a pair of Spike missiles. It’s got STANAG Level 6 protection out of the box, and excellent optics for the gunner and an independent sight for the commander. It can also be fitted with additional cameras to improve situational awareness or a laser-based jamming system as part of a soft-kill APS. As you might expect, it’s heavy and expensive. But it’s also very nicely equipped.

Of the NATO compatible turrets, what you’re trying to do will determine which you buy. Platform and transportability requirements will also impact your decision.

Leclerc Review

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The Leclerc is a very underappreciated tank. For better and for worse, it got its design completed just before the end of the Cold War. On the one hand, this is bad, because order numbers were slashed, and there weren’t large quantities of surplus tanks to drive the price down in the 90s, when no one in Europe thought tanks were cool.1 On the other hand, it meant it got a lot of really innovative design features pretty early. It’s still a formidable and competitive tank today, held back only by the lack of upgrade budget.

The Leclerc was designed to (finally) replace the venerable AMX-30, after a joint Franco-German project and the AMX-40 project had both failed. The French were the first western power to put an autoloader in a production tank. It’s a ‘belt-type’, and is contained in the turret bustle. It has a capacity of 22 rounds. A further 18 rounds are stored next to the driver in the front of the hull. The bustle is provided with blow-out panels. All ammunition is marked with a barcode, so that the autoloader knows what round types are where.

The gun is a 120 mm L52 smoothbore, developed in France. At the time of introduction, this was the most powerful tank gun in production. It can keep up with the newer Rheinmetall L55 given appropriate ammo design. The gun is fully stabilized.

In a reverse from other western designs, the coaxial machine gun is a 12.7×99 mm HMG, and the commander’s gun is a 7.62×51 mm GPMG. In its original design, the commander’s machine gun was pintle mounted. More recent improvements have replaced it with a remote weapons station mount.

The Leclerc was an early adopter of the Commander’s Independent Sight, giving the commander the ability to use optics to look in a direction other than where the turret faces. The Leclerc was also one of the first tanks to give the commander his own laser rangefinder in the sighting unit, an ability still not found on the Abrams or Leopard 2.

Leclerc came with a battle management system from the factory, though it initially did not have a video display. This was rectified on later models. Just like on other modern tanks, a battle management system provides a huge coordination bonus to vehicle crews and unit commanders, and just like on Abrams, the BMS on Leclerc is integrated with the communications suite.

Leclerc’s protection hasn’t been as upgraded as much as its contemporaries, and here it suffers. The best estimates I can find give it a protection somewhat less than an M1A2 SEP or a Leopard 2A6/2E. Given the era, it’s not terrible, but it could use some work today. It’s an interesting armor array because it uses a lot of materials chosen to reduce weight but are somewhat more costly to work with.

The protection of Leclerc is somewhat improved by the inclusion of the Galix combat system, which is a computer controlled array of 14 smoke grenade launchers. Current modernization plans increase this to 24 launchers. These are capable of launching the usual smoke grenades in quick-blooming and long duration versions, but can also launch antipersonnel grenades. While this system would make an excellent soft-kill component of an active protection system, I do not know of any plans to link it with a missile approach warning system.

Leclerc’s powerplant is my favorite part of the tank. It’s a diesel engine, but it’s a little bit different. Instead of a conventional V-12 diesel with twin-turbochargers, it has a 16.4L V-8, called the V8X, and its equipped with a hyperbar system. The hyperbar system is neither a supercharger nor a turbocharger. Rather, it’s an externally-powered compressor, driven by a small gas turbine engine. This yields absolutely massive boost pressures of 32.1 bar mean effective boost pressure, no turbo lag, and no loss of power at the driveshaft. It also yields big gains in horsepower. For comparison, the V8X generates 1,500 hp, and the same basic engine with a conventional twin-turbocharger instead of the hyperbar system generates 1,000 hp.

This come at a cost of course. You might have guessed the V8X engine is expensive, and it is. The hyperbar system adds quite a bit of bulk, though the gas turbine can also be used to drive an integrated APU quite easily. Finally, there’s the question of fuel consumption. The then brand-new Leclerc didn’t fare so well in the Swedish tank trials, though GIAT hadn’t really done much optimization of the engine settings. Once they had, the result was probably about what you might expect: better than gas turbines, worse than diesels.2

So what do we think? Well, that depends on the timeframe. Today, the Leclerc is good but in need of some upgrade funds, and the reduction of orders from 1,400 to 460 didn’t do anything kind to the price. But at its debut it was extremely modern, introducing a number of new features that were on the Want List of every modern tanker.3

  1. Looking at you, Leopard 2. ↩
  2. The numbers I have are about 4.5 L/km in M-1 and T-80, >3 L/km for more modern experimental gas turbines like the LV 100-5, about 2.8 L/km for the V8X, and 2.2 L/km for Leopard 2A6. I think newer diesels are supposed to get a bit under 2 L/km. Of course, I don’t have acceleration data for any of these vehicles. A drag race would be very illuminating. ↩
  3. Look at some early 90s vintage issues of ARMOR magazine, especially the ones from 1993. Plenty of great tank designs in there. Or look at K2. ↩

Rampant Armata Speculation

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Let’s have some fun with rumors, speculation, and armchair analysis, shall we?

We don’t know very much about Russia’s new tank, the T-14. In my review, I made the tacit (and completely groundless) assumption that the turret shell concealed some heavy protection for the gun. Something tank-like, i.e. that the frontal armor of the gun could be expected to withstand APFSDS rounds as well as big, high end ATGMs. Like the front of the turret of a Leopard 2A6/-A7/-E or an M1A2.

Let’s try to poke at this assumption a little, shall we?

First off, let’s forget about side protection. No tank in existence can take a modern sabot round to the turret flank and not care. Focus on the front. Clearly, the outer “shell” has negligible protective value. It does hold a lot of systems, most of which are fragile. Of course, there’s nothing else behind the turret face, so hits there will probably tear straight through the fragile sensors and APS effectors. The gun mantlet is not readily apparent, and the outer shell seems to be in the way. Compare the M1A2 and the Leopard 2A6, both of which have big, thick mantlet armor atop and around the main gun. This is curiously absent from the T-14.

Remember, composite armors trade weight for thickness especially when compared to an equivalent mass of steel. So if we want to stop sabot rounds from a tank, we’re going to need a bunch of bulk. And since we’d like to be able to elevate and depress our gun, we’re going to expect to see quite a bit of exposed, movable bulk.

We can also find some images showing a T-14 turret mounted on the relatively light (28-30 tonne) Kurganets APC hull. So there’s at least one lightweight version of the turret out there. Of course, the shell could hide more armor on the T-14 version, maybe. We can’t rule out two versions. Now, it’s hard to figure out how one could hide bulky composites under the shell, given its shape and attachment methods, but we really can’t be sure about anything. The Kurganets hull is a little unusual if only because this idea has gotten very little traction elsewhere. The Swedes have a CV90 version with a low-pressure 120 mm gun prototyped, but have not ordered it and have not achieved any sales. The US Army has a version of the Stryker with a 105 mm gun and autoloader, but this version hasn’t been too popular. The US Army has moved to add more conventional autocannon firepower to some Stryker APCs to get more firepower in the Stryker Brigade Combat Team. So no one else really likes this concept.

We should also note that T-14 has a lot of active protection system effectors. There are ten tubes for the Afghanit hard-kill APS, five on each side of the turret. Additionally, there are two boxes of twelve soft-kill (likely some kind of obscurant) effectors facing outward, one box on each side of the turret, and another twenty-four soft kill effectors in a vertically configured box to protect the roof. That is an awful lot of active protection.

For comparison, the Merkava IV has a Trophy (hard-kill) APS launcher on each side of the turret. Each launcher holds three effectors. No additional soft-kill system is mounted on Merkava. Of course, Merkava IV is also heavily armored, and Trophy is seen as a supplement for flank protection against high-end ATGMs (e.g. Kornet).

So what might this mean? Well, we know that the T-14 has a bigger hull than T-72. Scaling comparisons will tell us this. Also, we know that we have to fit all three crewmen up front, so that front compartment must be significantly bigger to accomodate the three crewmen plus all of the displays and computers. Also, loads of hull armor, since the front appears to be quite thick (it’s sloped, and likely some kind of composite or composite + ERA, all of which takes space). We don’t actually save all that much room in the turret basket, since we still have to have some sort of (probably vertical) carousel for enough rounds to make all this worthwhile. And while the engine is a weird X-configuration model, it’s quite a bit more powerful than the one on T-72, and it still needs a radiator, transmission, and of course fuel. So we’d expect the hull to be noticeably bigger, and this agrees with what we can see from playing with scaling.

We also know that while the T-14 is heavier than the T-72, it’s still a light MBT. While it’s hard to draw comparisons to Western analogues, we do note the large hull and thick glacis armor would eat up a lot of mass.

Historically, the Russians have been quite strict about the weight of their tanks, simply because their infrastructure can’t take the weight of big Western tanks.1 For this reason, they pioneered the autoloader in the 1960s, and made heavier use of ERA than anyone else. Both are lighter than their respective alternatives. It’s quite possible that something had to give to keep the weight within tolerances, and the designers chose to accept a less well protected gun. Active protection systems are pretty good at defeating ATGMs, and they’ve made sure to have something for both direct-attack and top-attack weapons. In the current small wars, they’re not likely worried about sabots.

Further, the roof seems like it would blow-out in the event the ammunition storage compartment is compromised, and there are a pair of blow-out panels on the T-14’s belly. So ammunition cook-off will not likely kill the crew. Further, the Russians have put an escape hatch on the floor of the crew compartment. Good for them.

Could Afghanit be effective against sabot rounds? Specifically, the kind of APFSDS rounds fired by a modern tank gun (120 or 125 mm). Again, we can’t know for sure. It might be possible. But I’m disinclined to believe the present statements about it. Afghanit looks to shoot some kind of fragmentation or mini-EFP warhead to damage incoming projectiles. It’s simple and cheap, and works great against RPGs and ATGMs. But these are relatively fragile. An APFSDS round is a solid rod of some dense alloy (based on depleted uranium or tungsten), and it’s moving a lot faster than a missile.

It’s certainly not impossible to intercept an APFSDS round, but it’s a lot more difficult than intercepting a rocket. And the extent to which you disrupt it is important. You intercepted it. Great. What’s the effect? Is it destroyed? Damaged? Destabilized? If the round is still incoming, how much armor is needed to stop it? And what was the incoming speed and penetrator design? Test details are, naturally, hard to find. So color me skeptical that Afghanit can reduce the effectiveness of modern APFSDS rounds2 sufficiently for a lightly armored turret3 to be able to stop them.

Okay. So what do we think? Given the large amount of active protection systems, the reported wait, the size of the hull, and the nature of the turret shell, I think it’s quite possible the Russians are taking the T-14 in a new direction with a less protected main gun. They’ve pushed the envelope before. Some things have caught on, some things haven’t. This isn’t a notion I’m overly fond of, but that’s ok. The proof is in the combat, and the Russians will likely get into some before too long4. The keen observer might then be able to learn something as to whether or not these ideas work.

  1. I pick on Leopard 2 and Abrams enough, so let’s talk Challenger 2. Wouldn’t want the British to feel left out. With their “Streetfighter” Urban Warfare supplemental armor kit, the Challenger 2 tips the scales at 75 tonnes. ↩
  2. To be clear, I mean M829A3 or M829A4 depleted uranium APFSDS rounds fired from the M256 gun on an Abrams or the DM63 round from the Rheinmetall 120 mm/L55 gun on the Leopard 2A6 and subsequent models. Modern rounds, modern guns, no reduced-power charges. We never know what ad copy means, but that’s what you think of when I say “tank rounds shot at Russian tanks,” da? ↩
  3. Supposing the T-14 turret is lightly armored, that. But I suppose we should still define things, so something meeting STANAG 4569 level 5 or 6. In plain english, something ‘resistant to 30 mm APFSDS rounds”. ↩
  4. Unlike some other countries, the Russians are likely to get into a fight and test their new stuff. ↩

Armored Vehicle Fuel Capacities

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I’ve found these to be quite hard to find on the net. All do not include supplementary drop tank options. Except where specified, variants have the same capacity of the original.

VehicleFuel (US Gal)Fuel (L)
M15051,907.6
M1 with UAAPU4501,703.4
Leopard 2317.01,200
Challenger 2420.61,592
Leclerc343.41,300
K2342.41,296
Namer369.81,400
Merkava IV369.81,400
T-72264.21,000
T-80B486.11,840
T-80U467.61,770
T-90317.01,200
T-14426.61,615
M2197745.7
CV9030/CV9035221.9840
SPz Puma237.8900
ASCOD227.2860
Boxer MRAV145.3550
BMP-1122.0462
BMP-2122.0460
BMP-3184.9700
M11380302.8
M113A195359.6
Marder 1172.2652
Stryker52.8200
BTR-8079.3300
BTR-9079.3300
M270163617.0
M109135511
2S1145.3550
Panzerhaubitze 2000264.21,000
K9 Thunder224.5850
Centauro137.4520
G6/G6-52/G6-52L184.9700

IFV Autocannon Ready Ammo Capacities

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I mentioned this already in Bradley Planned Improvements, but it’s easier to find if it’s separated into a nice reference post. Also added information for the Stryker with Kongsberg MCT-30 unmanned turret.

IFVReady CapacityCaliber (mm)
M2A3 Bradley30025×137
M2 – 30 mm conversion18030×173
M2 – CT40 conversion9340×225 CT
Stryker with MCT-3015030×173
CV90402440x364R
CV903016030×173
CV90357035×228
Puma20030×173
K2122440x364R
BMP-250030×165
BMP-350030×165
T-15/Epoch turret50030×165

Some notes on the above:

  1. I’m defining “Ready rounds” as “rounds from which you can fire without manual loading”, since these are autocannons. So the CV9040 gets the quick-access rounds counted as ‘stowage’, because someone has to grab them and refill the 24-round ready feed system (three eight-round racks).
  2. The K21 gets credit for 224 rounds because the 200 rounds it has under the turret basket are connected to the gun via an automatic resupply system. No manual top-off required.
  3. Russian IFVs do not have any additional autocannon rounds stored separately in a non-ready condition. I.e. ready capacity is all you get.
  4. The “Bradley 30 mm Conversion” listed uses the existing 2-man turret suitably modified to accept the new gun and ammo. There’s also images of a Bradley with the turret crew moved to the hull and what appears to be an MCT-30 unmanned turret mounted in place of the original turret. It will match the Stryker/MCT-30 for ready ammo capacity.

US Ground Combat Systems Are Not Obsolete

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I came across this article in the Free Beacon this morning, whose headline reads as follows: “Army’s Ground Combat Systems Risk Being Surpassed By Russia, China”.

Look, if you’re reading this article, you’ve read a lot of our articles. You know that I, Fishbreath, am not the expert on ground combat systems. Not really my cup of tea. You know, therefore, that when I say, “Man, this article is dead wrong,” that it really is just flat out dead wrong. Let me revise the Free Beacon’s headline: “Army’s Ground Combat Systems Risk Being Roughly Equalled By Russia, China After 40 Years Of Curb-Stomping Dominance”.

In the modern era, a combat system’s age is not nearly as important as its current capability. The T-14 and the Type 99 are modern tanks. They compete against the modern American system, the M1A2, in the three categories by which all armored fighting vehicles are judged: firepower, protection, and systems1.

First off: firepower. The American contender mounts the stalwart Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore gun in the 44-caliber length. The Germans, being a little squeamish about depleted uranium2, made an L/55 version for higher muzzle velocities. This gun, either the lengthened version or the original with depleted uranium, still sits in the top tier of tank guns as far as penetration goes3. The Russian and Chinese entries both use the Russian standard 125mm caliber; the Armata uses the 2A82, the shiny new version sans fume extractor for installation in the unmanned turret, while the Type 99 uses the ZPT-98, the traditional Chinese clone of the 2A46. Neither is clearly superior to the Western choice of gun. Standard 125mm ammo is nevertheless lighter and shorter overall (counting the penetrator and propellant) than the one-piece 120mm loads usually fired through the Rheinmetall guns. In exchange, the Russian-style gun gains the ability to launch ATGMs—questionably effective against modern tanks—and a little bit more power for HEAT rounds, which have the same issue as the ATGMs. Call this one a slight win for the Abrams.

Next: protection. The Type 99 falls behind quickly here; it’s more or less a T-72 hull, and the T-72 doesn’t have a great deal of headroom for armor. Too, the Type 99 has to deal with the swampy, rice-paddied Chinese south. The Chinese can’t build a T-72-based tank much heavier than the current 52 to 54 tons, and the protection they can achieve there is limited, given what they have to work with. The Armata, though it weighs in in the 50ish-ton range itself, has the benefit of an unmanned turret. Unmanned turrets can be smaller, and armored volume is expensive in weight terms. Our own parvusimperator claims Armata has roughly Western-equivalent protection. Give Armata an edge, even; there are no squishy humans in its turret, and no explodey ammo in its hull. The unmanned turret, unproven though it may be, neatly isolates the two. Call this one a slight win for the Russians.

Finally: systems. This is the hardest one to write about, since the Russians and the Chinese aren’t talking. We know more or less what’s in the M1A2: nice digital moving-map navigation, color displays, modern sighting units, separate ones for the commander and gunner, with nice thermal displays. I think it’s reasonable to assume the Armata has similar. We can see that it has an independent sight for the commander, and the Russian avionics industry has built color MFDs and moving map systems in the past. Presumably, the charionics4 in their tanks won’t be too far behind. It’s even less possible to speculate about the Chinese; their latest MBT entered service around the turn of the century, and who knows what they’ve stuck in it. Call this one a tie between the Americans and the Russians.

In a way, though, systems are the least important item here. Unlike armor or guns, swapping out the computers, stabilizers, navigation systems, and sights in tanks is more or less trivial. There may be integration costs, and there are definitely upgrade costs, but ordinarily, you don’t run into the same sort of critical design problems you find when, say, trying to cram a 140mm gun into an Abrams turret.

So that about wraps it up. Contra the Free Beacon article, the new Combloc5 tanks do not surpass the Abrams in any meaningful way. Where they are superior, it’s a matter of degrees. Elsewhere, they still fall behind the Abrams. What we have today is not a new era of Combloc dominance. It’s a return to parity for the first time in almost forty years.

Let’s go back a few years more than that. It’s 1972, and the fearsome T-72 has just entered service. It’s faster than the M-60, hits harder, has better armor, and is being cranked out of the Soviet tank factories at an astonishing rate. The armored fist of the Soviet Union could well crush Western Europe. This doesn’t sit well with Western Europe.

The Germans and Americans are already hard at work on the MBT-70. It reaches a little too far, and doesn’t quite work out. The Germans and Americans each take the blueprints and build something on their own, and we get the Leopard 2 and the M1 Abrams, entering service in 1979 and 1980. This begins the aforementioned era of Western tank dominance. The Abrams and the Leo 2 are vastly superior to the T-72 and T-80. The Russians do some various upgrade projects to the T-72 and T-80 over the years, but never regain the lead. The Leo 2 and Abrams see upgrades on more or less the same schedule; they’re still a generation ahead.

Finally, today. The Russians have Armata, a legitimate contender; the Chinese have the Type 99, which is sort of the Gripen to the Abrams/Armata F-22: some of the same technologies, still half a class behind. Which brings us to the final decider. Quantity.

The Russians have about one hundred Armatas. They only entered service last year, so I give them a pass. Their eventual plan is to acquire about 2300.

The Chinese have about 800 Type 99s. I have no idea if they’re still being produced.

The Americans have roughly 1000 M1A2s, the most recent Abrams. Of course, we also have about 5000 M1A1s of various marks, most of which have been upgraded to include nearly-modern electronics.

Even if we allow that the Type 99 and the Armata are superior to the average Abrams in American service, which is wrong, we still have twice as many as both other types combined.

The Free Beacon may say otherwise, but I say we’re doing just fine.

  1. To include sights and viewers, as well as command and control computers. ↩
  2. Understandable, given that in most hypothetical wars, the Wehrmacht Bundeswehr would be shooting it over their own land. ↩
  3. As far as anyone knows. Armies are a little cagey about revealing how punchy their guns are, for some unfathomable national security reason. ↩
  4. Electronic systems for tanks, by analogy to avionics. (An avion is a French plane, a char is a French tank.) ↩
  5. Yes, I know they are, respectively, not Communists anymore and nowadays only Communists inasmuch as they’re heirs to a truly Communist body count. I don’t care. ‘Combloc’ is a reasonable way to refer to Russia and China in the context of this article. ↩

M2 Bradley Part 2: Variants

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I’ve already discussed my affection for the M2 Bradley. Everyone knows that the Bradley is loaded with firepower, though. What most don’t know, is that there were a ton of vehicles proposed off of the basic Bradley chassis. There would have been a complete family of combat vehicles that would fill a number of neat niches, but it didn’t happen for reasons of costs and that stupid peace dividend thing. We’ll start with the variants that we all know and love, and move to the more exotic ones.

The first and most obvious variant, of course, is the M3 Bradley Cavalry Vehicle. Intended for reconnaissance, it replaces all but two of the dismounts with a double load of stored 25mm gun ammo and TOW missiles. As far as recon vehicles go, it’s pretty big. But it’s also really heavily armed, and makes a good choice of a vehicle that can be used to cover the flanks against against an attack. It’s very much on the French model of recon vehicles, which is a model I approve of.

Next we come to the Bradley Linebacker. This was made somewhat hastily after the Bradley ADATS (see below) didn’t happen. It replaces the twin-tube TOW launcher with a four-tube Stinger launcher. It’s a pretty simple switch, and the resulting vehicle isn’t very well integrated into an air defense network. And Stinger missiles don’t have the greatest range, but it allows mechanized formations to have an extra antiair punch for dealing with low flying aircraft or attack helicopters. Also, visually, it doesn’t look all that different from a regular Bradley, so it’s a bit harder for ground attack pilots to spot which vehicles need to be prioritized.

The last of the TOW missile pod substitutions was the M7 Bradley Fire Support Vehicle. The job of this vehicle was to direct artillery fires. Key changes were a ground vehicle laser designator, a high end inertial navigation system to provide a good reference for the vehicle’s location, and extra radios to keep in good contact with the artillery. The laser designator, plus an additional high end night sight were in a box that replaced the TOW missile tubes.

There were several attempts to upgun the Bradley, given the concern that the 25mm autocannon would prove inadequate against newer IFVs. This has been a recurring trend, but they’re worth mentioning here. Variants have included using a 30x173mm Mk. 44 autocannon, the 35x228mm Bushmaster III autocannon, a 45x305mm cased telescoped weapon (the ’80s COMVAT program), and the 40x255mm cased telescoped gun from France. I don’t have much detail on the 35mm version, but the 30mm version had 180 ready rounds (and 360 stowed rounds). This is really good as far as 30mm gunned IFVs are concerned, but I don’t see much of a point. The 25mm M919 DU APFSDS round is almost as good an armor penetrator as the 30x173mm APFSDS used in Europe, and having 120 more rounds makes up for the smaller HE payload of the 25mm.

The cased telescoped rounds are kind of cool though. The 45x305mm CTA was originally a collaboration between Ares Inc and GIAT (France). While we in the US shut our part of the program down after the first Gulf War showed just how well we could kill BMP-2s with the 25mm, the French stuck with it, getting the English as second-choice partners and eventually shrinking the round down to 40x255mm CTA, which is now entering actual production. Interestingly, the Bradley can hold 105 of the 40mm CTA rounds. That’s a firepower upgrade I’d strongly consider, given the much bigger HE payload and the improved KE power in the 40mm CTA rounds. More on IFV guns later, for now let’s get back to the Bradley.

I’m going to group the next two variants together. Both replaced the troop compartment and the regular turret with a different arrangement to carry some new fancy missiles. Neither missile program survived the cuts at the end of the cold war. I’ll also look at both missiles in more detail elsewhere. The first vehicle was a dedicated anti-tank missile platform that would make the Soviets jealous. It replaced the turret and troop compartment with a pop-up KEM launcher assembly. This missile was beam riding and achieved results with a heavy long rod penetrator at high velocity. The second was the combined anti-tank and anti-aircraft ADATS missile, which ended up being adopted only by Canada. It’s a nifty electro-optically guided short range SAM that had a combination shaped charge and fragmentation warhead. The Bradley ADATS had a radar system that could track ten targets at once, but the missiles were laser beam riding, and the Bradley ADATS also had an infrared tracking system. Both vehicles and their respective missiles showed quite a bit of promise, but needed more funding to finish the program, and in the early 90s, this just wasn’t going to happen1.

But FMC’s2 engineers weren’t content to stop there. They had a number of designs based on the Bradley chassis and powertrain. This base, the Fighting Vehicle Systems Carrier, had a three man cab at the front that was lightly armored. You’re most familiar with this vehicle as the base for the M270 MLRS, one of the best rocket artillery pieces available. This vehicle gives the option of 227mm rockets with a wide variety of payloads or two ATACMS short range ballistic missiles. But that’s the one you know. The one that got made. What else is out there?

If you imagine an M270, but replace the missile launcher with a big aluminum box, you have the basic picture for the next set of vehicles that I’m going to talk about. The first is the XM1070 electronic fighting vehicle system. It has a crew of six (three in the cab, three in the box), a telescoping, 20-meter tall mast, and 60 kW of AC power on tap to drive all of the neat electronic warfare goodies that the modern general demands.

Next we come to the XM4 Command and Control vehicle. This had space for six men in the box, and had a telescoping 10-meter mast. Internally there were extra radios for the command staff, map boards, and battlefield management computers. Unlike the army’s previous command vehicle, the XM4 was designed to not require setting up a tent at the back for everyone to have enough space to get work done. As a result, it was NBC-protected and was capable of operating while moving, unlike the M577.

An ambulance variant was proposed as well. With the aluminum-armored body, it was designed to evacuate casualties and provide early medical treatment. Two medical personnel were carried in the cab with the driver, and the aluminum box could be configured for 9 patients on stretchers or 12 ambulatory patients on seats, all under armor that can resist artillery fragments and machinegun fire.

The next set of vehicles are logistics vehicles. Two cargo variants are avalable. One can carry six pallets of ammunition, the other can carry 2,000 gallons (7,570.82 L) of fuel. The cargo carrier can be switched from the solid cargo configuration to the liquid cargo configuration in one hour. Both cargo variants have a five ton crane. To round out the logisitcs and support package, an armored maintenance vehicle is also devised. This has space for three additional crew in the back compartment, and comes with welding equipment, an air compressor, a hydraulic pump, a workbench, and of course, plenty of tools.

There you have it. Probably the most versatile family of vehicles ever build around an IFV. Pity we didn’t see more of them in service.

1.) Thanks, Clinton.
2.) Food Machinery Corporation. I shit you not.