Tag Archives: militariana

HF-3 Antiship missile

Posted by

I’ve talked about my dislike of Harpoon before. In there, I mentioned a pretty good off-the-shelf replacement in Norway’s Naval Strike Missile (NSM). NSM is small, reasonably priced (especially if you buy a lot), and stealthy. It’s got good ECCM and terminal-phase maneuvering capability as well. Awesome!

But I am a jealous man. And those Russians have a number of supersonic missiles. Supersonic missiles, aside from being 79% cooler than slow, subsonic missiles, are a lot harder to intercept because of the shorter reaction time. For a supersonic, sea-skimmer like P-270 Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn), which travels at Mach 2, the missile will clear the horizon with about thirty seconds left before impact. That’s pretty cool.

Of course, there are problems. Chief among them is the source. Russia is a classic power rival for us. We wouldn’t want to depend on them for weapons in the event of hostilities (just look at Ukraine). Plus, Fishbreath generally (and rightfully so) makes me source from NATO powers since Borgundy is a proud member of the Western Powers Club. Gotta buy from friends. Again, this bears out. Even if Russia was willing to sell, NATO would also balk.1 Clearly the simple option of “Buy Brahmos” (or SS-N-22) is right out.

What to do? Well, we could look further afield for an island nation that has a lot to fear from a nearby navy.

No, not England. It’s not 1910. They suck at navies now. Heck, they’ve gotten rid of their Harpoon stocks without any kind of replacement. And even though I think it’s long in the tooth, some antiship missile is better than no antiship missile. Guess again.

Taiwan.

Yes Virginia, Taiwan makes stuff besides consumer electronics. They make their own antiship missiles, for example. One of which, the Hsiung Feng 2 (HF-2), is subsonic. It’s a lot like Harpoon actually, though I don’t think the ECCM and GPS integration of the latest Harpoon models is present in the HF-2. I could be wrong though. But that’s not the missile we’re interested in today. If we wanted Harpoons, we’d get those.

No, the missile we’re interested in is Hsiung Feng 3 (HF-3).

There are lots of gaps in the knowledge of the new, advanced, and relatively secret HF-3. It’s supersonic. With a bit of altitude, it’s said to be hypersonic.2 But there’s no unclassifed top speed estimates that I’ve found to be trustworthy. Ditto for range, though most open source estimates put the range at about 200 km. We know propulsion is a rocket booster/ramjet pair, and we can figure it weighs about twice as much as Harpoon. It’s got inertial guidance with a terminal X-band, active radar seeker. There are also some rumors that it’s nuclear warhead capable. The conventional warhead is said to be 225 kg, which would be more than enough for e.g. the W80 nuclear warhead (maximum yield of 150 kilotons). It’s also designed to execute aggressive terminal-phase evasive maneuvers, and is built to withstand the stresses from doing this at speed.

Because it’s so new, it’s not clear if there’s a reduced-size version for shipboard mounting. This smaller version might trade off some range for ease of deployment. However, there are pictures of ROCS Su Ao (DDG-1802, Kidd-class, the former USS Callaghan) mounting eight HF-3s in lieu of the eight Harpoons she was commissioned with. It’s not clear what changes, if any, were made to accomodate this. Frankly, I don’t care about a small loss of range if it means I can deploy them as a one-for-one Harpoon replacement with speed on our F100s and Sejongs.

Sometimes the things you don’t know about a project are damning. This isn’t one of those times. Supersonic is perfectly acceptable. Even if it’s merely Harpoon-ranged. And if it’s as fast as they say, I’ll be thrilled.

Goose, I’ve got the need. The need for speed. Let’s get some superfast ship killers. We already have the best naval air defense systems available. Let’s give them no reason to hope.

1.) Cf. Turkey’s long range SAM procurement project, when they took a ton of flak from the rest of NATO over wanting to buy from the Chinese.
2.) Cue the pastiche of ‘Greased Lightning’.

Borgundy Chooses a Destroyer

Posted by

Picking a frigate was hard. There are lots of pretty good frigate designs out there, but none were quite what we want. The F100 came closest, so it got the nod.

Fortunately, choosing a destroyer is a lot easier. There’s one best option: an Arleigh Burke-class derivative. More specifically, the South Korean Sejong the Great-class destroyer, which is just an Arleigh Burke that’s a trifle bigger.

What’s so great about the Sejongs? Well, for one, they carry the excellent and proven Aegis combat system. This system was designed to defend American carriers from saturation attacks by Soviet antiship missiles. It’s great at tracking multiple targets and managing the engagement. The same system (albeit in smaller form) is on our F100-class frigates too. Hooray for commonality. Plus, they can plug into land-based IADS.

Where the basic American Burkes have 96 Mk. 41 VLS tubes, which can accommodate SAMs, VL-ASROC, and Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Sejongs have 128 such tubes. This is better than any destroyer afloat, and better than any ship afloat save for the Kirovs. And the Sejongs have better radar and battle management capability than the Kirovs.

The Mk. 41 VLS can accommodate SM-2, SM-3, SM-6, and ESSM SAMs, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and VL-ASROCs for an antisubmarine punch. Which is nearly everything you’d want a destroyer to be able to do. Note of course that ESSMs can be quadpacked four to a Mk. 41 tube. The rest of the armament suite is pretty conventional: sixteen Harpoon launchers, six 324 mm torpedo tubes, a RAM CIWS forward, a Goalkeeper CIWS aft, and a 5″ gun.

From a sensor perspective, the SPY-1D(V) is a pretty obvious component, dominating the sides of the forward superstructure. There’s the usual array of secondary radar systems for navigation, some infrared search and track units for passive scanning, a bow-mounted sonar, and a towed sonar array. All very nice, nothing here needs changing, so I’m touching nothing.

As for helicopters, the Sejongs have hangar space for two midsize units (SH-60s or similar). No shortcomings there. You could lash a third to the hangar deck if you really wanted.

Like the Burkes, the Sejongs are driven by a COGAG1 powerplant, which is simple and provides for excellent speed. It leaves something to be desired with regards to range, but I don’t care. Buy fleet oilers. Besides, we’re a mostly continental power anyway.

Really the only thing we’d do is swap the Goalkeeper for another RAM launcher. RAM is a more effective system than Goalkeeper. I’m not sure why the South Koreans called for both, but we won’t.

As for antiship missiles, as I mentioned in my piece about the F100s, I’d prefer an upgrade here, but I think it’s more important to ride the coattails of what the US Navy is going to buy. If they stick with Harpoon, they’ll keep it modernish, and it will be the best option because of the number bought. Alternatively, if they opt for NSM, its price will get better because of the large quantity purchased.

The Sejongs aren’t very “transformational” or “revolutionary”. We don’t care. They’re an improved version of a good, proven design. They have plenty of space for incremental, evolutionary upgrades. Plus, when the accountants come calling, you can point to obvious working capabilities today in addition to the hoped-for technologies of the future.

1.) Combined Gas (turbine) And Gas (turbine). So you have gas turbines for cruise and more gas turbines that you can use to also drive the screws when you need MORE POWER!

Borgundy Chooses A Frigate

Posted by

Let’s get to picking our own Navy. Like Luchtburg, we’d like a nice, middleweight ship to handle a wide variety of tasks. There are lots of such frigates available, with a bunch of different price points and mission optimizations. Our pick is the Spanish Álvaro de Bazán-class, also known as the F100 class. For us, it represents the best set of compromises.

The F100s have the most powerful air defense missile suite for any frigate in the world, with a whopping forty eight1 Mk. 41 VLS tubes. 48! This is awesome. You’d no doubt expect them to be loaded with ESSMs and the latest SM-2 variant, and you’d be correct. The standard Spanish Navy loadout is 32 SM-2 Block IIIA SAMs and 64 RIM-162 ESSMs. That’s awesome. These missiles are backed up by a smaller version of the American Aegis combat system, and compact versions of the SPY-1 radar system. Very cool.

Having Aegis and the American SM-2/ESSM SAMs is really good from a commonality perspective. There’s no good reason for our Destroyer to be anything but an Arleigh Burke-class derivative (more on that to follow), and it’s really nice to have common radar systems and missiles with the Burkes. I’m a big fan of logistical optimizations where possible, and fewer distinct kinds of spares is always a win. Plus, since the US Navy also uses these missiles, they’ll probably be paying for upgrades, so we don’t have to.

The rest of the F100s loadout is pretty conventional. There are eight Harpoon missile tubes, six 324 mm torpedo tubes, and a 5″/54 gun. The F100 also has the usual bow sonar and a towed sonar array, though the towed array isn’t a very advanced model. It has a Spanish-built twelve-barreled 20 mm cannon CIWS system. This is one of the few things I’m unhappy with, but it’s also one of the simplest to remedy.

The F100s are driven by a CODOG2 powerplant, and have a crew of 250. Lots of navies are going with lower crews on their frigates, but I prefer a bigger crew. More men is better for doing manpower-intensive tasks like damage control. I’m very happy with this compliment.

Maximum speed is 28.5 knots, and the range is 4,500 nautical miles at 18 knots. Pretty typical Frigate stuff here. No reason to complain or specify changes.

As for changes, a few minor things when placing our order. We’d like to upgrade the CIWS to a rolling airframe missile based system, which should be pretty easy. We’d also like a more advanced towed array. Again, nothing hard there. Pretty simple changes. The F100s, like most Western combatants, use Harpoon antiship missiles. I’m not the biggest fan of those, but we’d have to be sure to do the conversion on both these and our DDGs. Not a huge deal, but something to watch out for. Verify compatibility with both before changing things. Or see if Harpoon is getting more upgrades. Presuming it isn’t, the NSM is an excellent alternative.

The only really notable shortcoming is the helicopter capacity. The F100 has a flight deck and hangar for one midsize helicopter like an SH-60. This is decent, but two would be better. Unfortunately, this isn’t something we can easily change. Still, the F100s provide excellent capabilities at a reasonable price. At least if you don’t stop and restart production lines and do a bunch of add-ons to the command and control facilities.

1.) Hilariously, this is the same number of VLS tubes as the Daring-class desroyers, even though those are almost half again the tonnage of the F100s. And called ‘destroyers’, even though they displace as much as a World War 2-era heavy cruiser.
2.) Combined Diesel Or Gas (turbine). So you can drive the screws with the fuel efficient diesel engines or the gas turbines for high speed but not both.

F125 Class Frigate

Posted by

Historically, Germany has made some well designed ships in insufficient numbers. Bismarck and Tirpitz were both well designed and well regarded. Bismarck was formidable enough that the Royal Navy issued orders to avoid one-on-one engagements with her.

In general, modern German Frigates1 are high capability ships. I’m quite fond of the Sachsen class, which are excellent ships with a fine SAM suite. Unsurprisingly given the feature set and the small production run, they’re quite expensive. They may or may not be the right choice for you depending on your budget, priorities, and the other ships in your Navy.

But all things must come to an end. And the long chain of well-designed German ships came to an end with the F125 class.

I do not understand the F125 class at all. They’re the biggest “Frigates” in the world, with a displacement of 7,200 tonnes. They are also massively expensive. I am not opposed to large frigates or expensive ships. But I want something for my money. The FREMMs that Fishbreath is fond of and the Sachsens I alluded to earlier are both high capability ships. They’re suitable for any standard mission you might expect from a modern maid-of-all-work from air defense to antisubmarine warfare to land attack to antiship work. The F125s aren’t.

Looking at the F125, it is clear something is missing. And that something is the VLS. The VLS is where you put your surface to air missiles. And, if you’re smart like the Germans, you’ve got a VLS like the Mark 41 that can also take cruise missiles. So the VLS gives your ship the ability to defend itself from incoming antiship missiles and to strike targets over 1,000 miles away. Without it, the F125 is like a clawless, toothless tiger.

The F125 does have the RIM-116 point defense missile system. This is presently the best CIWS in the world. But it is no substitute for proper SAM capability. The CIWS is only able to protect against a small scale attack. It is not capable of contributing to the anti-air umbrella of a task force or providing protection to nearby ships. This might be fine for a small corvette or patrol craft, but the F125 is expensive and important. To put it plainly, the F125 will require escorts, like an aircraft carrier does.

Of course, an aircraft carrier carries aircraft. There’s a reason it has no space for missiles. But the F125 isn’t an aircraft carrier. There are no squadrons of Sea Typhoons ready to scramble from a flight deck. The F125 has one 127mm gun, some smaller remotely operated guns, four RHIBs, a submarine ROV and a pair of helicopters. It has a mere eight Harpoon launchers, and a small crew of only 110. I don’t know what happened to the space. I wish I could tell you.

Such a simple ship should be cheap, but it isn’t. In the tradition of other recent German projects, every gold-plated technological innovation has been thrown at it. The radars are split between the two superstructure islands. Command and control has been split as well. Plus, the ships have plenty of fancy modern stealth shaping. All wasted on a useless hull.

The F125 is optimized for the not very difficult mission of antipiracy hunts off the Horn of Africa. What a spectacular waste of Reichsmarks er, Euros.

1.) Fishbreath would probably quibble about the use of the term Frigate here. Most German frigates follow the European standard of being a destroyer in all but name.

On the Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carrier

Posted by

Of the two of us, Fishbreath is by far the naval expert. But even though I’m an old Army hand, I still know a thing or two about navies. Especially the navy of my native America.

The United States Navy is the most formidable in the world, bar none. Full stop. We’re going to talk about carriers today, and they do that better than anyone. The US Navy is also the world’s second most powerful air force. At least, if we’re going by capability and not just “Things That Call Themselves an Air Force”. The US Navy operates the mighty Gerald R. Ford and Nimitz class supercarriers. These are the benchmark for distant power projection. They are unmatched in both capability and cost.

But we know that those are awesome. Let’s take a moment to talk about other people’s carriers. Specifically, the new British flattops, the Queen Elizabeths.

Decatur’s ghost, they’re bloody awful.

The Queen Elizabeths displace 65,000 tons full load and have a maximum air wing of 40 planes. For comparison, this is the same max capacity as the French Charles de Gaulle, and a bit less than half that of Nimitz or Gerald R. Ford (which max out at 90 aircraft). But the Queen Elizabeths are half again as heavy as de Gaulle, and more than half the weight of Nimitz. Tonnage is a decent low-order proxy for ship cost, so we can see that the Royal Navy has bought more ship without getting more capability for their trouble.

It also amuses me that the Royal Navy only plans to equip their new carriers with an air wing of twenty four planes. What is the point of all that ship for 24 planes? Yes, I know 24 planes are cheaper than 40, but then why make a 65,000 ton ship? You could fit 24 planes in a ship of less than half the displacement, which would be a lot cheaper. And no, you can’t just add planes. All of your strike planning and aviation handling skills are going to be based around the nominal air wing, since that’s what they usually have to work with. Siiiigh.

But it gets worse. Far, far worse. The Queen Elizabeths straight-deck ships, with neither catapults nor arresting gear. Both angled decks and arresting cables were British innovations. Nelson is weeping right now. And probably spinning in his grave. At least you can power London that way.

Of course, in addition to spitting in the face of tradition1, this means the Royal Navy has lost quite a bit of capability. The angled flight deck allows for simultaneous takeoff and landing operations. Previous straight-deck carriers had a wire net to catch planes that missed the arrestor wires, and if a plane missed the net on a botched landing, they’d hit their comrades’ aircraft in the deck park forward. Yay fire. There wasn’t enough room to do takeoffs in front of the net. During takeoff operations, the deck park would be aft, containing planes waiting to take off. No landings here for obvious reasons.

Not putting in any kind of catapult or arresting gear causes other problems. Charles de Gaulle is equipped with arrestor gear, catapults, and an angled flight deck, like the bigger Nimitzes and Fords. So the French can cross train with the US Navy. You can borrow notes from the people who have been practicing naval aviation since the 1920s without a break. If the Marine Nationale and the US Navy are doing exercises together, they can take off and land on each other’s ships and share best practices. For the French, this is a great way to build their skills without having to reinvent the wheel. Unlike China or Russia, the French are America’s oldest friends. Do what les Americains do. At least to start. It’s also nice to have an ally’s ships as an optional ship to divert to.

All of that requires that you have the toys to play. The Royal Navy isn’t in the CATOBAR club. So they can’t play well with those who are. They’re also stuck with reduced payload and range, since they’re going to be using STOVL aircraft. Those takeoffs are hard on fuel and put limits on how much you can haul. It was true for the Harrier, it will be true for the F-35B. Shorter range and lower payload than a CATOBAR equivalent. And the F-35C is really nice, with a bigger wing and more fuel stowage capacity than even the basic F-35A. The F-35B loses some tank space to accommodate the lift fan, so it has the shortest legs of the bunch, and that’s before you try to do zippy short takeoffs or leave fuel for a vertical landing.

The more you look, the more isn’t good. The Queen Elizabeths lack any kind of missile armament. I don’t like the notion of turning aircraft carriers into cruisers, but short range missiles like the RIM-162 Enhanced Sea Sparrow (ESSM) or the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile are both a lot more effective than the venerable Phalanx. That’s going to put more pressure on all of those Daring-class destroyers that the Royal Navy didn’t buy. The US Navy has a much more formidable surface escort fleet, and it still put both Phalanx and ESSM on the Nimitzes and put ESSM, RIM-116, and Phalanx on the Gerald Fords.

I don’t like the conventional power plant either. You’re not really going to save all that much for a couple sizeable ships. And you gain quite a bit of range and staying power. Which is super helpful, because politicians love to commit carriers to wave the flag and blow stuff up.

To be honest, it’s hard for me to imagine worse ships. They make excellent white elephants. Something more like Charles de Gaulle or Cavour if a smaller air wing was desired would be a far better buy. But instead the Royal Navy built something bloated and af

1.) Spitting in the face of tradition is punishable by hanging from the yardarm.

Toxotis Self-Propelled Howitzer

Posted by

Okay, so we have our new MBT, and our new Heavy IFV. Now we’ll outline our self-propelled howitzer. Again, we’re going to make logistics and crew safety a priority. We’re going to push the envelope a bit, but not too much. This will of course be a 155mm howitzer. Can we add another standard item, our stock heavy vehicle engine?

We might think no, at first. 1,500 horsepower is an awful lot of horsepower. But we’re getting pretty heavy. The Panzerhaubitze 2000 and 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV are both about 55 tonnes. That’s pretty close to the weight of our tank, and we can always govern the engine down a bit. So it will be a heavy vehicle, to no one’s great surprise. It will be able to keep up with an armored thrust, of course. The powerpack is rear-mounted.

Heavy is good though. It lets us haul plenty of ammo, which lets us sustain proper fire missions. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching The Great War’s wonderful week-by-week of World War One on youtube, it’s that there’s no such thing as enough artillery shells. Artillery does the killing. Artillery is the key to success.

But, a good load of artillery shells (which are, of course, explosive) and the charges needed to launch them (more explosives, duh) is going to be dangerous in the event of an armor penetration. To maximize survivability, we will take a page out of our MBT design and completely separate the crew from the ammunition.

This means a reduction in crew, because we can’t have human loaders. We’ll need to handle loading shells and charges automatically. This is a little harder than it was in the Myrmidon, since tanks use convenient one-piece ammo. So the projectile and cartridge and primer are all in one relatively easy to handle piece. Great. But artillery is different. Artillery has a much larger range spectrum than an MBT gun, because it’s an indirect fire weapon. To make accommodating this easier, charges come separate from the projectiles, and in different sizes. Recently, rather than dealing with a whole bunch of different size charges, some have developed modular charge sets, to let you build a full charge from smaller, easier to handle bits. To no one’s great surprise, we’ll go with this. Specifically, the Bofors Uniflex-2 Modular charge system, since it’s already developed. As a bonus, Uniflex-2 charges are insensitive munitions, so they’re harder to accidentally detonate. Which is great for reducing how bad an accident gets. Electrical fires suck. Electrical fires setting off your stowed ammo load sucks more.

To maximize the potential of the Uniflex 2, we’ll have a chamber volume of 25 L on our 155mm/L52 howitzer. This is a bit bigger than the NATO standard of 23 L, but that’s not really a big issue for us. We can still use NATO standard projectiles, which is the more important bit, since that saves us some R&D money if we can just buy/license existing things like the wonderful GPS-guided Excalibur round. More on exotic and cool 155mm rounds later in this piece. Also, since I know you’re curious, it requires 6.5 Uniflex-2 charges to fill the chamber completely. There are both “full” and “half” size charges, and you need six full-size charges and one half-size charge to fill the 25 L chamber to capacity.

Speaking of capacity, you’re probably wondering how many rounds are carried. The Toxotis carries 60 rounds and associated charges (390 equivalent charge loads total) in two 30 round/195 charge magazines. The magazine subdivision, with corresponding roof blow-off panels, is designed to try to reduce the chance of one hit igniting everything. Ammunition handling, charge loading, fuze setting, and primer handling are all fully automated.

Automatic loading and a modern, computerized fire control system allows for nine-round MRSI1 capability. Toxotis can come to a halt and fire the first shot within thirty seconds of receiving a fire mission. It can get moving again in under thirty seconds.

Electronically, the Toxotis has a fully-computerized fire control system, and our standard friendly unit tracking system. It also has a highly precise navigation suite, which can compute position based on inertial references, from satellite data, or pull in positional information over the tracking system. Fire missions may be computed internally or sent via secure datalink. The radios are designed to facilitate communication with nearby infantry, armor, and aircraft to coordinate support and fire mission requests. So while it can use a fire direction system, this is not required for a fire mission. Like on the Myrmidon, the three-man crew of the Toxotis are all in the front of the hull in an armored capsule. There is, of course, less armor than on the Myrmidon. NBC protection is, of course, standard. There’s also provision for direct fire missions, with a thermal viewer and laser rangefinder mounted on the roof.

To resupply, troops can manually load projectiles and charges into loading hatches at the rear on each side of the turret. These automatically stow the munitions appropriately. For more rapid resupply, the companion reloader vehicle, the Hypaspist, can be used. This is built on a nearly identical chassis to the Toxotis, but it lacks the gun, the rotating turret, and only has a crew of two. In place of the gun is an enclosed resupply conveyor to reload the Toxotis through a hatch on the back of its turret. From here, both magazines can be reloaded. The Hypaspist carries a double-load, or 120 rounds plus associated charges and primers. All ammunition handling within the Hypaspist is fully automated.

Both the Toxotis and the Hypaspist come equipped with a Trophy active protection systems, an array of smoke-grenade dischargers, and a 12.7mm M2A1 heavy machine gun in a remote weapons station on the roof. They are designed for the highest paced shoot-and-scoot missions in mobile warfare. Each weighs approximately 60 tonnes, and the production cost for the pair is $6 million.

Let’s also talk about some off-the-shelf artillery rounds. A standard HE round weighs 43.5 kg, and carries 11.3 kg of HE filler. There’s the M549A1 rocket-assisted HE shell, which has 6.8 kg of HE filler and a rocket motor for extra range. The M110A2 White Phosphorus round, which can be used for incendiary effects or producing smoke, weighs 44 kg, of which 7.1 kg is white phosphorus filler. We have projectiles that can be used to scatter small mines. The antipersonnel variant weighs 46.7 kg, and holds 36 antipersonnel mines. Each mine weighs 0.54 kg, and contains 21.9 g of high explosive. The anti-vehicle variant also weighs 46.7 kg, and holds 9 anti-vehicle mines. Each of these mines weighs 1.8 kg and contains 0.6 kg of high explosive. There’s also a couple submunition variants available. The standard version holds 88 dual-purpose (antipersonnel/antimateriel) submunitions. The extended range version has a base-bleed shell, and holds 72 dual-purpose submunitions. The submunitions are similar to the US DPICM submunitions.

In terms of smart rounds, several more are available on the market at present. There’s the long (1.4 m), heavy (62.4 kg) M712 Copperhead, which uses laser guidance. This provides useful capabilities against quickly identified point targets, including armor. Also available for the anti-armor mission are the very similar Bofors BONUS round and the Rheinmetall SMArt 155 round. Both have a pair of smart submunitions that fall slowly in a spiral pattern. Multispectral infrared sensors and a millimeter wave radar are used to detect armor targets. If one is detected, the submunition fires an explosively-formed penetrator at the target. Finally, there’s the aforementioned M982 Excalibur, which is GPS guided. For fixed targets, this is easier to use than a laser-guided round like the copperhead, since it doesn’t require a designator, but it is not useful against moving targets.

1.) Multiple rounds, simultaneous impact. So the Toxotis can fire up to nine rounds at a target and have them all hit at the same time, totally ruining someone’s day.

The Humble 60mm Mortar

Posted by

A while ago I talked about how the XM-25 was a stupid, useless waste of money. More recently, I expressed my disdain for it’s stillborn parent project, the XM-29. But that is not to say I don’t think that all infantry needs are rifles and machine guns. No, enemies in defilade or behind cover are a classic problem, and I like the classic, time-tested, cheap solution that is the mortar. Today, we’re going to be talking about the smallest of the common modern mortars, the 60mm.

The US Military has been using 60mm mortars since the Second World War, and really liked the concept. So we Americans have stuck with them, and they’re excellent light weapons for the platoon or company. Depending on charge and model, they’re good for a maximum range of four kilometers. Unlike the XM-25, mortars and mortar shells are both cheap. They also actually work. Let’s look at some examples.

The current American standard mortar is the M224A1. Fully assembled, it weighs just under 38 lbs, but it can be broken down into its components (namely baseplate, bipod, sighting unit, and mortar tube) to be carried by the mortar team. Nominally, the M224A1 is operated by a crew of three men. The M224A1 can also be operated ‘commando style’ by a single man. Here, a smaller baseplate is used, and the bipod is omitted. The soldier supports the tube with his hands for aiming. Perfect for light infantry. The M224A1 can be gravity-fired, or may use an optional manual trigger. The M224A1 has a one meter long barrel.

The M6 mortar family from Hirtenberger is the British standard mortar, when they’re not being criminally stupid and removing them from equipment tables. The M6 comes in three different barrel lengths: 640 mm, 895 mm, and one meter. Bipods and baseplates are standard across all models. Again, smaller baseplates are available for ‘commando style’ operation.

Since 60 mm mortars are pretty common, shells are available from a wide variety of manufacturers. The same sorts of warheads are available in all of the catalogs though: HE, combined effect antipersonnell/antimateriel, white phosphorous smoke, red phosphorous smoke, illumination, and IR illumination. Nothing too sophisticated here. Inert training rounds are available as well, and mortars are cheap enough that you can afford to practice with them.

Mortars are a proven solution to the problem of cover on the battlefield. They work. They’re cheap. Get some for your army today!

Lessons from Wargame: Airland Battle

Posted by

Fishbreath and I are big fans of Wargame: Airland battle (which I will abbreviate as WALB, for I am a lazy typist). Now, I won’t pretend that it’s a perfect simulation, but it’s a solid one which should be relatively consistent in it’s assumptions/errors. So I thought it would be a good place to test some ideas, at least until I finally buy Steel Beasts (which also doesn’t do airpower). I have rather less time in Red Dragon, but I’ll add notes where appropriate.

I tend to roll with tank-heavy decks, with a good amount of airpower. So I’m usually rolling with America for NATO (because USAF) or USSR for Pact (because duh). Some observations and conclusions, in no particular order:

Observation:
If we’re talking tanks alone, the T-80U is tops, followed by the Leopard 2A4 and then the M1A1. The T-80U has a marginally better gun, and gun-launched ATGMs, which gives it a bunch more range. Flank armor is weak, so hit it there. The Leopard 2A4 and M1A1 are pretty similar, and both are noticeably less good than the T-80U. Though numbers even things up.

Conclusion:
Gun launched ATGMs are cool, because they give you more range. Puts the priority on seeing the other guy first of course. Though, that’s really important all the time, as we’ll see. Note that tank optics are a little nerfed in the game, to make you use recon units. Which is fine, but does deprive the Abrams of things that the US Army got right before everyone else, namely high end thermals. Otherwise, this one’s all about the gun. As for the numbers game, Uncle Joe said it best.

Observation:
Of course, this isn’t a straight-up tank sim (like Steel Beasts). So when playing NATO, I’ll go with America. The M1A1 is almost as good as the Leopard 2A4, with the biggest deficiency being that you have to gas it up more frequently. This happens to me a lot. But playing America gets you a much, much better air force, better attack helicopters, and Bradleys.

Conclusion:
It’s all about the combined arms, shock. No big surprise here. Games like this tend to strongly encourage playing as the bigger powers who give you more options. This was one of the few things improved in Wargame: Red Dragon–they allowed you to group lesser powers to get a well-rounded unit set.

Observation:
I love Bradleys. One of my favorite combos is the M3(A1) recon vehicles with some M1(A1) Abramses. This gives me a long range sight with the good recon optics, plus a long range missile punch from the Bradley TOW-2 missiles. It does take a little micro to keep the Bradleys alive. I probably don’t have to remind you to put the big tanks with the heavy armor out in front.

Conclusion:
ATGMs are useful on IFVs, who knew? It’s more that this armament set of smallish autocannon with lots of ammo + ATGMs on IFVs is useful for just about any target I encounter. I try to bypass towns, personally. Other loadout decisions might also work for your intended use case. I will say that the Bradleys are also quite formidable on the defensive, again, as long as you can keep them from being hit too much. The 25 mm gun with large ammo reserves and good fire control is pretty good against aircraft. Not much to be done about IFV survivability except go heavier. That seems familiar…

Observation:
In that same vein, I’m big on American-style aggressive reconnaissance. Recon vehicles alone seem to have a nasty habit of dying. As part of an armored spearhead, they live longer.

Conclusion:
There are two schools of thought on recon: recon by stealth and recon by force. I like the latter. It fits with my tactical conceptions. I don’t think there’s a wrong way to do recon, but understand your role and the vehicles. Bradley’s ain’t stealthy. Something like the SPz 11-2 Kurz doesn’t bring a ton of firepower to a fight. And the American school fits me better, so I like it more. Glad to see it can actually work too.

Observation:
The Soviets have some great SHORAD in Tunguska. That thing is amazing. Interestingly, my favorite from the NATO perspective it the cheap and cheerful M1097 Avenger, which was a surprise to me. It is not as obviously amazing, and I probably wouldn’t have picked it if I didn’t desperately need to make do while I wait for Eagles to swat things out of the air.

Conclusion:
You knew the Tunguska was great. Guns, missiles, mobile like a tank. Love it. It is sometimes advisable to order it to shut down its autocannons so that it doesn’t announce its presence to enemy armor. The success of the M1097 was a surprise to me. It’s a HMMWV with a big rack of stingers on the back in a turret. But Stingers are excellent MANPADS, and it’s a great thing to hide and use to ambush marauding aircraft and helicopters. And then move to a new hiding spot before the inevitable counterstrike. It’s the kind of SHORAD you could really load up on. Maybe load some WVRAAMs to for a bit more range.

Observation:
My Soviet decks, and especially my American decks tend to lack a lot of infantry. Especially the well armed ‘shock infantry’ that a lot of the other European powers have. A bunch of this is because I prefer armored thrusts and ripostes to slugging it out. This basically means I’m gonna have a hard time dealing with built-up areas. That’s the price I pay for my builds. Also, Fishbreath likes the infantry-defensive type fight (maybe he’s got a British character to his tactics?), and so I usually leave that to him. Instead, I’ll take the deep Thunder Run any day of the week.

Conclusion:
Specialization is good. Urban combat sucks. Bring infantry if you’re stuck there. Or avoid it entirely. You can get a lot of success with deep thrusts. Especially if you’ve used some probing moves and skirmisher-type engagements to figure out where the enemy isn’t. Protip: that’s where you should be striking.

Observation:
I’ve got some good rounds with a German armored deck that comes with their excellent Panzergrenadier shock infantry. If you’re gonna storm a town, go heavy. In Red Dragon, Panzergrenadiers ’90 are awesome.

Conclusion:
If I’m gonna go infantry, I’m going with infantry that bring stuff. All the stuff. The bigger rocket launchers the better. Oh, and that buzzsaw that is the MG3. Cue the Panzerlied. Maybe I should build a Castle Iter Rules deck. It’s also in Red Dragon that you can get Marder 2s, a formidable IFV with staying power. You still don’t quite have the Death From Above air support that is the USAF though.

Observation:
Okay, let’s get to it. The USAF is the best AF, hands down. Want air superiority? They’ll get it. Want something to die? You got it.

Conclusion:
Airpower rocks, news at 11. Von Rundstedt’s ghost is yelling “Duh!” over my shoulder as I type this, I’m sure. If you can see it, you can bomb it. And if you can bomb it, it’s gonna die. The USAF even has plenty of SEAD to take out those pesky Soviet SAMs. Or you can use the F-117A. I’m pretty sure it was never intended to be used like some kind of stealth stuka, but I don’t care. It’s my go to if I want to get rid of some pesky command vehicle. Also, can I say napalm and cluster weapons rock? Because they totally do. I love you, Dow Chemical.

Observation:
The Soviets have the best overall air defenses around with the aforementioned Tunguska and the excellent medium-range Buk. They really need it given the mighty USAF, plus several other NATO members that have decent air forces that are good at bringing pain. Beware Tornadoes.

Conclusion:
Nothing new here. The Russians invested heavily in SAMs, and it shows. Also, cluster bombs are super effective. Shocker. Defense in depth is helpful. Tornadoes and similar are especially problematic because they come in low and fast, giving minimal time to react. The big vulnerabilities are against fighters, and against widely-deployed AAA, but I’ve usually spent my points on other things by then.

Observation:
The F-14 Tomcat/Phoenix combo is stupid awesome. It’s my go-to American fighter, despite the availability of the F-15C.

Conclusion:
This is an interesting function of some in-game limitations. Given the smallish size of the battlefield and lack of early warning from ground based radar or AWACS (and thus no early interception opportunities), my options are to have fighters loiter over the battlefield on patrol, or scramble to intercept. I’ve found loitering to lead to a bunch of annoying ambushes from enemy fighters or medium range SAMs, and it almost always means I don’t have air cover when I need it because of fuel concerns. If I’m intercepting, then the long range of the Phoenix missile makes up for all other shortcomings of it and the Tomcat. The Tomcat was built as an interceptor and it’s quite good at this. Being able to launch first even gives it a good shot against Flankers. So even though the F-15 is the better air superiority fighter, the F-14 is better in Wargame. Although its much less famous, similar conclusions apply to the MiG-31 Foxhound for the USSR (which is much more of a pure interceptor design than the Tomcat).

Resurrected Weapons: Marder 2 IFV

Posted by

Ah, another wonderful late Cold War vehicle that didn’t survive peace. As a bonus, it’s super confusingly named. Do not confuse this vehicle with the Marder II tank destroyer of World War II. Thanks, Germany. I’ll use Roman numerals when referring to the tank destroyer, and arabic numerals for the IFV.

Anyway the Marder 2 is a look at what the Puma might have looked like if the Germans weren’t so hell bent on shoehorning the thing into a damn A400m. Let us suppose we worried about a proper, conventional war, and let us suppose we don’t care about overrated air deployability with a bunch of massively overpriced transports that have been consistently plagued with problems. And that we don’t have. Let us also suppose that we are German designers, and we love our armor properly heavy.1

We’d get the Marder 2. It weighs 44 tonnes kitted out. Hey, just like the Puma with the full armor kit. Unlike the Puma, the Marder 2 had a more conventional armor layout. It could withstand 40 mm APFSDS rounds on the frontal arc, and 20 mm APFSDS everywhere else. Pretty hardcore. Armor was composite right out of the gate, so it was also quite effective against HEAT rounds and ATGMs.

Marder 2 also had a proper manned turret for two. The main gun was a big 35 mm autocannon with a whopping 177 ready rounds, and another 110 stored in reserve. That’s some serious firepower. More than twice as many ready as a CV9035. I like it. I like it a lot. There was also the usual MG3 coax machine gun. As a further bonus, the cannon and feed system was designed to accommodate 50 mm Supershot with only a barrel change. A never-was round for a never-was vehicle.

There is something missing though. You guessed it: ATGM capability. I still really like having it.

The rest of the Marder 2 is pretty conventional. It had just under 1,000 hp in a V8, letting it keep pace with the Leopard 2. It also matched the Leopard 2’s road range of 500 km, which is nice. It had a crew of three and seven dismounts, just like the Marder 1 IFV. Not terrible, but not great either.

Some other numbers: It was 7.31 m long, 3.48 m wide, and 3.05 m high. It had a fuel capacity of 890 L. The commander had an independent, stabilized thermal sight. The gunner had all of the fancy fire control systems you’d expect from the early 90s, plus the ability to shoot at low flying aircraft.

Interestingly, the dismounts sat on seats in the middle facing outward. Each man had a vision block. No firing ports were provided, which is good. Those never worked as advertised, and just compromised protection. I’m not sold on the merits of this seating arrangement with the vision blocks. I’d much prefer benches along the outer sides of the troop compartment rather than in the middle. It simplifies the rear hatch setup, and ends up using the passenger compartment space more efficiently. This is one place that the Puma does well with its repeater displays. Small cameras are a lot less disruptive to armor too. Note that this is nothing that can’t be fixed. Most early IFVs, including the Bradley and later model BMPs, had firing ports plated over. We have much smaller breaches to deal with. And the original Bradley had a pretty goofy seating layout that was later made sensible. And a more conventional seating arrangement would give us some room for those ATGMs we like.

Unsurprisingly, we’re a big fan of this vehicle. Even with it’s 1991-vintage design, it’s almost exactly what we’d want. It’s got tons of firepower, great protection, good mobility, and good capacity.

1.) Or at least, German designers in certain eras. Early WW2 designers didn’t favor particularly heavy armor on Panzers. This of course changed with later models. And the Leopard 1 was reasonably armored, but not heavily like a Chieftain. The Marder 1 was well armored for it’s size, however, and the Leopard 2 is about the equal of the Abrams. Modern German armor is loaded with armor, as is good and proper. (Leopard 2A6/2E: 63 tonnes, Leopard 2A7: 69 tonnes, Puma: 42 tonnes, PzH 2000: 55 tonnes)

Terminated Weapons: PARS 3 LR/Trigat

Posted by

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Three big European nations, all washed-up, has-been powers, decide to collaborate on a project. They threw everything including the kitchen sink into it. The end of the cold war meant a reduction in ordered numbers, a boatload of delays, and the sort of cost increases that make legislators hold angry hearings. Somehow the project didn’t get cancelled, and now one of the three actually has some.

It’s the PARS 3 LR ATGM. Also known as Trigat, this was supposed to be the cool new missile of choice for attack helicopters in France, Germany, and the UK. The Europeans had their own TOW equivalent, called HOT. The latest version, HOT-3, was rather better than the TOW-2A as far as range and armor penetration were concerned. The Americans decided that they wanted something better. They buckled down, said “Hughes, get ‘er Done!” and got the awesome Hellfire missile for their helicopters, starting in 1984. The Europeans stuck with the wire-guided HOT for quite a while, but eventually decided that they needed a new missile too. No problem. They’d team up. Hey, the ECC was still cool back then. They hadn’t figured out that these multilateral programs were nothing but goat rope.

Of course, in 1991 the Soviet Union broke up. Goodbye Cold War. Hello vengeful legislatures. As we’ve seen before, lots of stuff got frozen as is. Big projects died. So the Americans, who had Hellfires in production, got to keep them. Funding for PARS 3 was cut, which brought delays.

Let’s look at the missile before resuming our history lesson. It’s about Hellfire-sized, weighing 49 kg and measuring 1.6 m long and 159 mm wide. It’s got the usual tandem shaped-charge warhead that we’d expect. Guidance was an imaging infrared system, something like what you’d find on some Maverick missiles. Nothing wrong here, but it was new ground for the Europeans. Definitely something that would drive cost up. Remember, basic Hellfires have semi-active laser homing guidance. Which is quite a bit easier and cheaper. I’m all for fancy fire-and-forget, but the perfect is the enemy of the good enough. And getting away from wire-guided missiles is much more important for missile range and helicopter survivability.

The Hellfire is cheaper, combat proven, and comes with some alternative warhead options, including thermobaric and fragmentation warheads. There’s also the radar-guided AGM-114L version, which is pretty fancy, and gives that fire and forget capability. It’s been combat proven all over the world. Get rid of the stupid PARS. It’s overpriced and doesn’t do anything the competition doesn’t.

But don’t just take my word for it. Two of the three partners backed out. First was the UK. They didn’t much care for the project, or the Eurocopter Tiger (a wise decision). They went with Apaches and Hellfires. They even got the fancy Longbow fire control radar for their Apaches, and the AGM-114L version (among others). Awesome. Good on you, GB! Even the French, who stuck with the Tiger (Tigre?) project, got sick of the issues. They bought Hellfires for their Tiger(re)s, like the Australians did. Look, when the French back out of a project because it’s too expensive and not delivering, you know you’re done. The French are as protectionist as they come, and work hard to keep a native arms industry as best they can. But even they have limits.

Somehow the Germans actually bought the darn things. Very silly. I’m sill confused about the utter foolishness of it. Just. Buy. Hellfires. Even the French agree.