Tag Archives: militariana

Infantry Kit Challenge

Posted by

So, it’s long been popular to bitch and moan about how much weight our soldiers carry. Okay. Fine. It sucks to carry all that weight, true. But it’s a lot easier to complain than it is to offer solutions. So, lest you think we are cynical grognards who do nothing but complain, let’s try to offer alternatives.

In that spirit, some rules that I’ll abide by when pondering the problem. Hopefully Fishbreath will also take up the challenge. And you, dear reader, can also feel free to write in with your own ideas.

1.) A loadout should be geared towards a standard area of operations.
This is mostly to avoid nonsense like having to worry about hot and cold weather gear. Since Borgundy is a European country (for some fictitious definition of Europe), I’ll keep this kit focused on a temperate climate loadout. I might also talk changes for winter/desert/jungle, but there it is. Remember, you can focus on one area at a time and leave some things home.

2.) Basic uniform and boot weight doesn’t count
This one is another simplifier. It’s also a huge pain to find uniform weights, and is one of the most likely things to change if you’re switching climates. Plus, it varies a lot, more even than armor. And when most people think “load” they don’t count the clothes on their back or the shoes on their feet. It is assumed your soldiers wear boots and a uniform. You needn’t account for it in the table.

Do note, however, that if you choose to issue protective gear integrated into your uniform (e.g. some combat uniforms have integrated elbow/kneepad pockets) that those protective items count. So if you picked Crye’s combat uniform, say, you would need to list the weight of the elbow- and kneepads, if you chose to issue them. Supplemental stuff (poncho, poncho liner, soft shell jacket, greatcoat, etc.) does count for the weight table. This also goes for extras like spare socks. Those count for weight too.

3.) You may stipulate the sort of infantry your loadout is for (e.g. Light infantry, Motorized infantry, Mechanized infantry, etc.)
Your loadout needn’t work for all situations. You can feel free to assume your soldiers in question have to march everywhere (light infantry), get some trucks to move them (motorized infantry), or get APCs/IFVs to move them about (mechanized infantry). If they have some kind of transport, you can feel free to note things that are carried in the vehicle. These don’t count toward your weight limit (duh), but also don’t count towards the things I’m requiring on the person, like food/water/body armor below (also duh).

4.) You must budget for minimum amounts of water (at least one quart) and food (at least one day’s worth) on the soldier’s person
This is mostly to make the motor/mech guys work a little. You might end up away from your vehicle, so you need to keep some minimums at hand. The above (especially for water) are particularly spartan minimums. But you need to have some food and water on your soldiers, even just a canteen and iron rations.

5.) You must provide a minimum standard of protection (some form of ballistic helmet, AND some form of body armor) on the soldier’s person.
Now I’m being mean. Yes, I know body armor is heavy. Get over it. You have the same political considerations as real military officers. Protect your boys in uniform. I’m not telling you what kind of body armor to wear, that’s up to you and your expected threat. A flak jacket with no plates is ok. A plate carrier with rifle plates and no supplemental soft armor is ok. But you gotta take something protective on the chest. And don’t forget that if you choose SAPI/ESAPI plates, they need soft armor backers to function as advertised. Yes, those count too. As does your plate/armor carrier. Similarly, your helmet must offer some amount of ballistic protection. PASGT is fine. A simple bump/climbing helmet isn’t.

You can always pack more, but some level of head/body protection should be standard and worn at all times.

6.) You must standardize on a weapons supplier, (i.e. choose NATO stuff, or Russian stuff, or Chinese stuff, but no mixing)
This one’s just another real world constraint. You likely have a friend you buy all your small arms from. So do so.

You can have plenty of fun making various specialist loadouts, but you should start with the basic rifleman. Have fun!

Australian Land 400 (Wheeled Component) Downselect

Posted by

The Downselect has happened! Just last week, we saw Australia announce the two preferred bidders for the wheeled component of the Land 400 program. They are Rheinmetall (entering a Boxer MRAV with Puma turret)1 and BAE/Patria (entering a Patria AMV with a CV9035 turret).

Land 400 is designed to replace the Australian LAV IIIs and M113s with a new family of tracked and wheeled vehicles (respectively). The choice of the Rheinmetall and BAE/Patria families represent pretty safe choices. Both of these base vehicles (the Boxer MRAV and the Patria AMV) are in use with armies already, both have already met with some export success, and both have seen some combat in Afghanistan. That’s a laundry list of modern ways to be able to slap a big “PROVEN!” sticker on your vehicle. Someone paid for development already, someone else has already bought one, and some half-starved, uneducated baddies-of-the-year have shot at it with 50 year old hardware. Sigh.

Still, that’s more than can be said for the unselected vehicles. The STK Terrex III out of Singapore had some interesting features but didn’t make the cut. On the one hand, the Terrex had really good networking, an excellent camera system for all-round visibility, and plenty of internal volume. On the other hand, that made it big, heavy, and underprotected. Unlike the Lance turret on the Boxer, the Terrex’s turret can’t make STANAG Level 6 protection, at least not in any version currently fielded, and the turret manufacturer (Elbit) hasn’t challenged this. And a bigger vehicle means more armor weight. That said, it’s a wheeled vehicle, so they all have big, vulnerable tires that everyone seems to be forgetting about. The bigger problem for the Terrex is that it’s completely unproven. No one has bought any. It’s in a USMC competition, but that hasn’t concluded yet. Australia wanted MOTS above all else, and Terrex III isn’t off the shelf by any stretch of the term. Hello development costs, hello inevitable delays, hello griping, hello significant chance of legislative budget kill. So the Terrex III got a ‘no thanks’.

General Dynamics’ LAV3++ also got a rejection letter. There’s not a lot of growth room left in that design, and they would have needed to pull out more stops, or really, really play up the savings to get a nod. It would have likely been better to try to preempt the competition with an upgrade offer direct to the Australian MoD. By this point, they’re looking for something new. The upgraded LAV also failed to meet the desired protection levels. Sorry, GD. You’re out.

Let’s also look at the two competitors. Overall, I’d say the Rheinmetall option is better2. The turret has much better electronics, and the turret and vehicle offer much better protection. It’s also going to be the more expensive option. BAE/Patria have their work cut out for them to upgrade the protection, and/or make a big play for local manufacturing. They’d also probably be wise to play up the price, but it’s not clear what each side can offer, since they’d need to do some work to get protection levels to the desired level.

As for Rheinmetall, they have the best entrant in the pageant. In addition to excellent armor on both the Puma turret and the base Boxer vehicle, they’ve added an active protection system with an estimated 26 countermeasures. They’ve also added a .50 caliber HMG in a remote weapons station that’s slaved to the Commander’s sight. Finally, the Lance turrets, like the ones on the Lynx at Eurosatory, had Spike ATGM launchers installed.3 These are properly shock-isolated, so bumps from plenty of cross-country driving won’t damage the missiles over time.

I wish Rheinmetall, Patria, and BAE the best of luck in the next phase of testing. And, I’m in agreement with the Australian MoD on their downselect choices. Good times all around.

1.) That Lance turret again. Score.
2.) Cf. my APC Procurement selection
3.) Why the Pumas in the Bundeswehr don’t have these fitted yet is beyond me. But it’s clear they can be without much trouble. Which will make IFV procurement fun when I actually get around to making that budget challenge for Fishbreath.

Parvusimperator & Eurosatory: A Look at Rheinmetall’s Lynx

Posted by

Eurosatory 2016 has just happened1, and let’s take a look at some of the big ticket items. Specifically, let’s look at a new IFV from Rheinmetall.

I’ve written a lot about IFVs, and what’s clear is that there are a lot of different variations on the theme. Different armies want different things, and it seems nobody quite agrees with me (and my conceptual Borgundian army). Let’s see what Rheinmetall has to offer.

Unlike the Puma, the Lynx is a private venture aimed squarely at the export market. So they’ve had to keep costs under control, and develop for one of many armies. Or not–they’ve actually gone and made several different options that you can select from in the Lynx. The base chassis, under all the new stuff, is the same as the Marder 1 IFV. This is an older IFV design, but it’s functional. This saves on some testing, and allows a cost saving option if you can get your hand on some used Marders. The Marder is 1970s vintage tech, but it was a well-protected IFV in its day. And the Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams are both also 1970s vintage, and are still great choices with upgrades. Why shouldn’t the Marder 1 be?

That said, just about everything else is new. Engine, armor, sensors, weapons, suspension. And unlike the Marder, or any other IFV, there are options! We’ll look at what options are available, and then go over what we’d pick. Rheinmetall plans to expand this into an entire family of midsize armored fighting vehicles, but for now we just have the two IFV options.

First of the options is size and dismounts. The clever men of Rheinmetall have developed two versions of the Lynx: the KF31 and the KF41. The KF31 is 7.2 meters long, weighs 38 tonnes, and holds six dismounts. It has a 755 hp engine, so it should have no trouble keeping up with your MBT of choice. Here, you’ve basically got a Puma. Granted, it should be cheaper than a Puma, and it lacks the quick attach/detach armor kit, but otherwise it should meet the same combat profile and provide the same high-end sensor and protection levels as Puma. Cool.

The other size option is the bigger KF41. It’s 7.7 meters long2, weighs 44 tonnes, and holds eight dismounts. Eight! Be still my beating heart. Plus, they redid the suspension design to take the added weight on the KF41, and put in a 1,050 hp engine, so it should still be able to move well. Both the KF31 and the KF41 have blast-resistant seating for all nine or eleven occupants. Both versions, of course, have a crew of three.

Both also have similar turret options in the Lance turret, which is a COTS project. A Lance variant was used in the British Ajax AFV. The Lance turret is available in an unmanned configuration or a manned configuration, and both are available on either Lynx variant. If you want to have the commander be able to stick his head out of the turret, you can. If you want the crew isolated from the ammo, you can. The two man turret does have some reasonably effective ammo isolation, but the unmanned one is going to be better in that regard. You can also choose your gun: the Lance can be equipped with a 30 mm or 35 mm autocannon. Regardless of which size you choose, the Lance is designed to accommodate two ammunition types in a dual feed system, and has all of the electronics and shell-programming systems in place to handle airburst rounds if you so choose. The Lance turret also has the same great optical suite as the Puma, with modern thermal viewers for the commander and gunner, plus obligatory laser rangefinders. The commander’s sight is independent, of course, and is configured to be ready to synchronize to a remote weapons station. Just add RWS.

As a brief aside, while the Germans do not make such a gun, if you’re interested in the 40mm CTWS, that shouldn’t be too hard to fit to the Lance, since that’s what the British used in their Ajax.

But wait, there’s more. The Lance turret has a coaxial machine gun, in proper 7.62×51 mm caliber, unlike the Puma. Plus, it’s got an automatic barrel change mechanism with three barrels to keep up that sustained fire, since it’s not easily accessible in either the manned or unmanned turret versions. Further, the Lance turret can be fitted with a two-tube launcher for the Spike LR ATGM. Unlike the Puma though, where this has been claimed for a while but keeps getting delayed, this was mounted on the Eurosatory display model. You can have your ATGMs now with Lynx!

Protectionwise, Lynx is loaded up with the latest composites, and matches the levels of Puma at protection level C. It’s not easily removable though, so it doesn’t have that slightly better than normal strategic mobility of the Puma. OF course, that assumes that you not only have Pumas, but that you have a bunch of A400ms that work, and no one does yet. A stripped down Puma is still too fat for midsize airlifters that actually function like the C-130J.

The turret also has the usual smoke grenade launchers, plus plenty of cameras, just like Puma. No active protection system (hard kill or soft kill) is fitted though. You’d have to select one to add.

The display model at Eurosatory was the KF31, with a two-man turret, 35 mm gun, and ATGMs fitted. Built for the show, and looked great. Plus, got a lot of attention too. I know Rheinmetall will be entering the Lynx in the Land 400 competition, and I wish them the best of luck. No word yet on what they’re entering though, or what the Aussies have asked for.

What about Borgundy? Well, it should be obvious that yes, we’d totally buy this. I don’t have pricing information yet, but I might be able to scrounge something up or guesstimate. Anyway, we’d order the KF41 with an unmanned turret packing a 30mm gun and the ATGM launcher. 30mm because that should do whatever support job we ask of it and we get more rounds. ATGMs because duh. Eight dismounts because that’s a full squad, and unmanned turret for the extra survivability. We’ll just need to add the active protection system of our choice.

1. (I hope we aren’t giving the impression that we’re rich or famous enough to be there. Yet. -Ed.)
2. I’ve long thought that adding about half a meter or so of length to an existing six dismount design would give me eight dismount capacity, and would be a worthwhile improvement to the FV510 Warrrior or the M2 Bradley.

T-14 Armata fluid capacities

Posted by

Kind of a short, oddball post here, but I thought it might be of use/interest to someone. Also, it’s probably easier for me to find it if it’s here. I stumbled upon a translated excerpt of the T-14’s manual, and here are the capacities for the fuel/oil/cooling systems:

Fuel System
Internal (under the armor) tanks: 860 L
External (outside armor): 755 L
Total nominal fuel capacity: 1,615 L

Like most Russian tanks, the Armata can mount a pair of 200 L drums on brackets aft. Therefore:
Fuel capacity with supplemental tanks: 2,015 L

Engine oil tank capacity: 80 L

Cooling system capacity: 125 L
(including heat exchangers)

Transmission hydraulic fluid capacity: 90 L

Gearbox hydraulic capacity: 20 L

Parvusimperator Reviews the LMT MARS-L

Posted by

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of bullpups. I don’t think that shorter overall length is worth all of the other compromises you get with bullpups, like awkward reloading and godawful triggers and no place to put accessories. I am also a huge fan of the AR-15 platform, so when the New Zealand Defence Force picked a direct-impingement AR-15 in the LMT MARS-L to replace their Steyr Augs, I was thrilled. Ecstatic even. This is also a victory for direct impingement over op-rod systems. It was a very good day. Let’s take a closer look at the MARS and see what improvements LMT has made.

The MARS-L is an offshoot of the CQB16. The biggest changes to the stock CQB16 are in the lower, which is now totally ambidextrous. Ambi safeties are easy to do, you just add a lever on the right side. With a little bit of work with a lever and cam, you can get an ambi mag release without too much trouble. The ambi bolt release requires a bit of extra work to the receiver, and there are a handful of companies out there who will make one for you, including LMT, Knight’s Armament, and Mega Arms.1 The changes are relatively minor, and while they add a couple machining steps and small parts to complete final assembly of the lower, it doesn’t substantively change any of the interfacing parts, so you can add any old upper to the ‘ambified’ lower.

In terms of the rest of the lower, it’s pretty simple. It uses LMT’s SOPMOD-pattern stock, which is an excellent choice. Most pictures I’ve seen also come with an ‘ergo grip’ which is a much better choice than the lame A2-pattern pistol grip. I’m not sure if that’s what’s being delivered to New Zealand though, or if that’s just on the display models because that’s what LMT usually uses on the rifles they build for guys like me. The trigger group is safe/semi/full auto.

The upper has a few differences from a regular M4. The most obvious is LMT’s monolithic upper. The picatinny quadrail handguard and upper receiver are one piece of aluminum, which is clearly stronger than having two separate pieces. It also looks cool, and means you never have to worry about sights getting jacked up because your handguard got knocked around or sucks. The barrel is held in place by a pair of torx screws, which makes barrel changes easy. Not that this is a big deal for most troops, but it’s still pretty cool. It does lock you in a lot more to picatinny rail interfaces on your accessories, but that’s not a bad thing. That interface isn’t going anywhere for a while–it’s got a ton of momentum and lock-in from being around for a while. A lot like the 5.56 round. Note that the regular grunts get a CQB-length (9″) handguard, and the special forces guys get a longer (12″) one. The regular grunt version has a bayonet lug mounted on the right side of the barrel. This way, it doesn’t get in the way of a grenade launcher mounted under the barrel on the quadrail.

While in the civilian world, Picatinny rails aren’t the most popular thing, and quadrails are decidedly old-school, for the military they’re still the right choice. They have lots of picatinny-rail accessories in the system already. Many of these do not have Mlok or Keymod versions, so adapters would be required. Which gets you back a bunch of weight that you got rid of by going to Mlok/Keymod. Plus, you can’t get rid of picatinny rails entirely, because optics mount to *those*. Mlok and Keymod aren’t designed to let optics retain zero after mounting/dismounting. And you can’t get a receiver with those. Plus, you can get a 40 mm grenade launcher to attach to quadrails. No such luck for Keymod or Mlok. So why bother with a bunch of redundant attachment methods. Suck up a bit of weight, and stick to quadrails, if you’re an army.

Internally, it’s got the LMT improved bolt. The Special Ops one has the LMT improved bolt carrier. I’ve already talked about these2, so I’ll just summarize and say that they are redesigned a bit to improve the life of these small parts. I like the design. Anyway, you might be wondering why not an op-rod AR design? There are a lot of those out there, and lots of people seem to like them. And that’s basically what the HK 416 is. But it doesn’t really get you anything, and it has its own downsides. Most of the HK 416’s ability to take sustained fire longer is due to the heavy barrel profile. Colt can get you almost the same thing for less trouble on your AR-15 with the SOCOM-pattern barrel used on the M4A1. More barrel, more fire. And LMT does not use lightweight barrels on their builds.

The op-rod is a conversion, and it adds issues in that you’re applying forces in ways the bolt carrier wasn’t designed to take, so it can tilt and have issues with wear. Also, the op-rod adds weight. The direct impingement system puts the ‘piston’ bit inside the bolt carrier, so there’s no op-rod to deal with. Which means no op-rod weight. Even if you’re concerned about the gas tube melting, you can beef that up a bit and still come out way ahead in the weight department. Adding an op-rod to an AR is a solution in search of a problem. Not that op-rods are bad, just design the gun from the ground up around the operating system. Like you should. Or just crib from the AR-18 design like everyone else.

But enough about technical gun engineering discussions. What does this give the Kiwis that they don’t have with their AUGs. Well, it’s replacing the Aug A1, which had a fixed 1.5x optic. This was revolutionary in the 70s when the Aug was introduced, but it’s eclipsed now by much more capable optics. The MARS can accommodate the fancy optics of today and tomorrow with it’s rail interface for adding sights. It also can mount (and comes standard with) folding backup iron sights, which is piece of mind.

Further, the conventional layout means that in recent urban warfare engagements, you can switch shoulders to take opposite corners at will without eating brass. Plus, you get a better trigger, and although we’re not talking match triggers here, godawful triggers make for politically embarrassing hits on bystanders. Just look at the NYPD’s 12 lbs pull weight triggers on their Glocks.

One more thing comes to mind, and this one isn’t thought of a lot, probably because most people don’t shoot very much. If your gun hasn’t malfunctioned, you haven’t shot it enough. Fact. And, because of where the bullpup action is, and how sealed up it has to be to keep your face safe, when a bullpup malfunctions, clearing it is a massive pain. Tearing a weapon apart on the range sucks because you’re always losing things. Have fun doing it under fire.

It’s nice to have a real-world military agree with you. Go Kiwis! Say, the MARS-L looks an awful lot like the rifle I specced out for issue.

This is the best 5.56 service carbine around, bar none. Better than the SCAR, better than the G-36, better than a regular M4, better than any lame-ass bullpup, even better than the 416. Better than the XM-8 if that was still a thing. Sorry HK. We’d take them in a heartbeat. Specifically, the regular infantry version, with the bayonet lug and shorter handguard, but we’d specify that enhanced carrier.

1.) Check out my build notes here.
2.) See my Milspec Challenge article

Resurrected Weapons: XM-8

Posted by

And now time to examine another futuristic weapon, the XM-8. This was an offshoot of the failed XM-29 project, where some in the US Army tried to get a more direct replacement for the M-16.

The XM-8 was a carbine firing 5.56 mm rounds. No fancy caseless ammo, no airburst grenades, just bullets. The same bullets that cranky guy up the street shot in Vietnam, even. What was different here?

The XM-8 was designed to be lighter and more reliable than the M-16. Reliability would be improved in a number of ways. HK built the XM-8 around it’s highly successful short-stroke gas piston system that had been used in their G-36. The body of the weapon was entirely polymer, with easily swappable components, and design by the Udelhoven Design Studio.1 Plus, while there were a number of ergonomic and internal design improvements over the stock G-36, they used the G-36 magazine.

Let’s talk feed devices. Recall that the original AR-15/M-16 magazine was a 20 round box magazine with no curvature. The magwell was designed to accommodate this, and is also not curved. Army desires for a 30 round magazine required some amount of curvature to accommodate the taper of the 5.56mm cartridge. But the magazine had to be compatible with all M-16s, so the top had to be kept straight. So there’s a kink in the 30 round magazine where the curved section meets the non-curved section, and this can cause problems. The G-36 magazine has a continuous taper, and is made of translucent polymer, so you can see how many rounds are left.

The G-36 is pretty “European” with a paddle magazine release, and most bolt work being done with the charging handle, which is atop the gun under the raised sight rail. It can fold to either side for ambidextrous use, and can be locked to either side for use as a forward assist. The XM-8 made some improvements here too. A shoe, sort of like what’s on an HK pistol, was added to the mag release so you could press a lever on either side of the trigger guard with your trigger finger to release the mag. Bolt release was in the front of the trigger guard. The selector was the usual ambidextrous affair, with safe/semi/full auto on the trigger group.

The XM-8 also tried to improve accessory attachment methods. Picatinny rails are expensive to machine, and add weight to the weapon and height to the accessory mount. For the same reasons that we would see the development of Keymod and Mlok in the civilian world in 2014, HK and Picatinny came up with PCAP. Just like Keymod and Mlok, PCAP uses a bunch of negative attachment points2, but it was designed to totally replace Picatinny rails. Specifically, it was designed to be a superior sight attachment system. PCAP naturally mounts things in the same place each time, so sights naturally will hold zero when mounted and dismounted.

Further, the XM-8 had a new sight. The XM-8 had to be lighter than an M-16, so a sighting unit was designed to integrate a red dot sight and an infrared laser sight. This gives day/night capability in a single unit, with one battery, that’s lighter than the two separate units with two batteries and two sets of mounting hardware. Plus, the sight was synchronized so that sight adjustments to the red dot also adjusted the infrared laser sight. The military version was called the ISM-IR. If you’d like one with a visible laser sight, the civilian version is so equipped, and is the ISM-V.

Of course, then politics intervened. No army requirement was actually listed, so Congress started asking questions. HK’s competitors started asking why they hadn’t been given a shot to deliver something new if the army wanted that. Plus, some people had spent money earmarked for OICW on the XM-8, and that brought up more questions. In the end, the XM-8 was cancelled for being too expensive for what it was. At the end of the day, it was more reliable, but still fired 5.56 rounds downrange.

So what do we think? If you’re looking for a new carbine system, because you’re finally joining the 5.56 train or your previous issue carbine is old and busted and you want some new hotness, the XM-8 makes a good choice. Though, it does require new accessories because of the new attachment system.

Honestly, that might be one of the better parts of the XM-8. We really like PCAP, and we especially like the ISM-IR. That can be had in Picatinny railed form too if you want. Plus, at some point, you have to accept some development costs to get something better in the system. We’re seeing some forces go to Mlok3, and PCAP is better because it gives you a sight solution too. On the other hand, we’d really like to compare it to some of the more refined AR-15s and similar that have come out since the XM-8 program was cancelled.

Verdict: Funding Approved for program testing by the Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) They also do design work for Audi.
2.) Also known as holes. Precisely cut and aligned holes.
3.) Including Canada.

Resurrected Weapons: XM-29

Posted by

The saga of attempting to improve the effectiveness of the average infantryman continues today. Now it’s the turn of the Americans. In the late 1990s, the US Military wanted to try to replace the M-16. Again. And the conclusion of the experts was that bullet-launching technology had peaked with the M-16, and there weren’t any good ways to improve it further. So more lethality would have to come elsewhere.

Considering the problem of an enemy behind cover, the committee decided that the right answer was to have some kind of man-portable airburst munition. And this led to the design of the XM-29 OICW.1

The XM-29 had three components. The critical one was the grenade launcher. It was a bullpup-looking affair, firing 20mm grenades from a six-round detachable box magazine. These were quite a bit smaller than everyone’s favorite 40 mm grenades, so as to be workable in a magazine, but there still weren’t many of them. Which led to the second component–the “KE Module”, which was a 5.56 carbine made by HK. It had a conventional configuration, and only an 8″ barrel. Further complicating things, the one trigger on the carbine had to also work the grenade launcher, but you had to be able to separate the two modules and use them individually (after a trigger unit was added to the grenade launcher. Plus, there was a massive thermal sight/laser rangefinder/fire control computer unit on top to coordinate the airburst over the head of the enemy. The idea was that the operator would use the rangefinder to determine range, manually program in the distance for airburst, and then fire a grenade.

Unsurprisingly, the result was big, heavy, and very expensive. Fully loaded, the XM29 weighed 8.2 kg, or a hair over 18 pounds. That’s ridiculous. It was big and unwieldy. Oh, and did I mention the cost? The XM-29 was projected to costvover $10,000 per unit. Plus, airburst grenades are roughly ten times as expensive as regular, contact-fused grenades.

All this might be forgiven if it worked. It didn’t. Oh, the carbine bit fired ok. But there were tons of problems with the airburst mechanism. And when it worked, it was judged insufficiently lethal. The 20mm round created fragments that were too small, there was insufficient explosive for a very large kill radius, and a whole bunch of fragments and energy are going to be directed upwards, away from the target. I can’t imagine that it would have been all that combat effective to have to manually program in airburst distances when enemies were firing back either.

After dumping a whole bunch of money into the airburst 20mm rounds, it was finally decided that they were unworkable. The only way to get sufficient lethality was to up the caliber. 25mm was settled on, but this would mean an even bigger grenade launcher unit. Between the ballooning weight and rapidly escalating cost, the project was terminated, and split into the XM-25 (which I’ve talked about here) and the XM-8 carbine (which I’ll talk about later).

So that’s the overview. What do we think of this project? Well, the basic concept might be sound, since I’m all in favor of raining death upon my enemies, but the execution is terrible. It would be much better if the grenade module could attach to an existing rifle to reduce costs, like the Korean K11 program. This also uses a 20 mm grenade module though, and I share the US Army’s concerns about inadequate killing capability of the 20 mm grenades.2 The 25 mm grenades of the XM-25 are more effective, and a 25 mm launcher is far too big to mount on a rifle.

An even better solution would be to get airburst 40 mm grenades. There, the launchers and the grenades are already in the system. Lethality has already been proven, and there’s already cheap grenades in the system. You simply have to work out the guidance and fusing, but you’d have to do that anyway with an XM29-type weapon.

Verdict: Funding Denied by Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) Objective Individual Combat Weapon. They chose the stupidest name they could.
2.) I have no idea if the South Koreans are satisfied with the performance of the 20 mm, or if they’re banking on the enemy being unarmored, malnourished North Koreans who are also easily frightened or something.

Resurrected Weapons: The HK G-11

Posted by

We’re going to look at some prototype rifles that never got off the ground. First is the most exotic, the HK G11.

Back in the 80s, the Bundeswehr issued the G3. They hadn’t yet gone over to 5.56mm yet. And they noticed the classic problem of soldier marksmanship: Most soldiers are very poor shots in combat. But what to do about this problem? Automatic fire is hard to control. It can be done with sufficient training, but we’re talking about the average grunt here. A burst of three or so rounds might sound like the ticket, but subsequent shots tend to miss high and right (or left) based on body mechanics and how they interact with recoil. Consistent high right missing isn’t super helpful for getting a higher hit percentage out of a weapon. What if the burst was out of the gun before the recoil impulse got to the shooter? Three superquick rounds. That might give you the spread you’re looking for.

A brief side note: the US Army, with their cool guy M16s noticed a similar problem, and would launch a search for a similar solution, the Advanced Combat Rifle program, based on similar reasoning to the above.

So we want a burst mode that’s super quick. 2,100-rounds-per-minute quick. That’s gonna be tough. And we’re going to want regular rates of automatic fire if we set the selector to full auto. Here comes the complexity. The engineers at HK considered the problem, and decided on an enabling technology: caseless ammo.

Without that pesky case, there’s no extract/eject portion of a normal operating cycle. Less to do means it’s easier to do it all quickly. Yay! Plus, caseless ammo is way lighter than cased ammo. A gain for the logistics geeks. Plus, this would be a SCHV round: 4.73×33 mm1. This worked to to being significantly lighter than M855 5.56. Rough back of the envelope calculations shows that for about the same weight as a G-3 and 100 rounds of 7.62×51 mm, a soldier could carry a G-11 and 500 rounds of ammunition.

Now let’s get back to America. To get adoption, the US Army wanted the ACR rifle to have a 100% higher hit probability than an M16A2. The G-11 was one of the entrants. Plus it had to be durable and reliable, etc.

A few other notes on the G-11, the rifle to fire these tiny caseless rounds. It weighed about 3.6 kg empty, had a Hensholdt unmagnified reflex sight, and a 45 round box magazine. The G-11 had integrated storage for two additional magazines for quicker reloading, sort of like the redi-mag system. It also had a bottom ejection port for ejection of misfires, or administrative clearing. You might imagine the mechanism to handle the 2,100 round per minute hyperburst plus regular full auto would be complicated and it was. And caseless made it worse. But it worked.

For the hyperburst, the barrel, firing chamber, and magazine assembly were all free floated and recoiled together. Picture a modern howitzer, except much smaller. And the nature of the mechanism meant that you’d get the three projectiles out before that recoiling assembly hit the back of the receiver, which is how they avoided transmitting the recoil for a little while.

Reloading was an interesting design too. Cartridges were in a box magazine above the rotating chamber, and were dropped in tail-first and then rotated 90 degrees into firing position. Turning a cocking lever further would dump a cartridge out the bottom if needed.

Now, let’s talk about the problems. You see, the cartridge case, that pesky bit that we deleted to cut weight and simplify the firing cycle, actually gives us a lot. For one, the cartridge case makes it easy to unload the gun. You can pull pretty easily on the rim of a cartridge case. You can’t pull easily on a compressed powder block. And you’ll want to unload it if a round fails to discharge and you need to get rid of it, or if you’re just done at the range and putting your weapon back.

The cartridge also protects all of your propellant. A cartridge case is relatively durable, and is insensitive to scratches and nicks that might arise from rough handling. It is also reasonably water resistant. No such luck for the caseless round. There were problems with damaged cases and extraction was a pain.

Further, the mechanism got weird because there’s no case to provide a seal at the back of the chamber where the firing pin is, or to seal off the barrel behind the fired bullet. Enter more complexity and a little plastic bit that went at the end of the caseless round to seal the barrel. Barrel sealing problems persisted, though.

Less obviously, the cartridge also provides a great way of getting rid of heat. A bunch of heat from firing the gun goes into heating the cartridge, not the chamber, and then the hot spent cartridge is ejected. Goodbye heat! HK had to contract with Dynamit Nobel for some special insensitive propellant that was then lacquered and used that for the rounds.

Lots of engineering and testing got these problems sorted, more or less. And here’s where the story gets vague. Depending on who you ask, there may or may not have been some thing that weren’t quite sorted. But they were sorted to the satisfaction of the Bundeswehr, who was about to adopt the G-11 in 1990, and there are plenty of documents to back that up. But then the cold war ended. Goodbye Soviet Union, goodbye scary threat, hello expensive reunification. And here the Germans decided against the G-11, which would be massively expensive. Remember, you’d have to set up new weapon and ammo production lines, and the ammo production lines would be entirely new methods. It’s not just a different size of brass/steel cased bullets. NATO wasn’t about to retool with the Soviet Union gone. So instead the Germans moved to (finally) adopt 5.56.

As for the ACR project, well, that was really more of an investigation than a serious replacement effort. And even though soldiers liked the compactness,2 reliability, and capability of the G-11, and even though the G-11 exhibited a significantly higher hit probability than the M-16 (or the G-3 for that matter), it did not meet the 100% higher hit probability, and was not adopted.

Where does that leave us, then? Well, it’s time to decide how we rule on this. And the G-11 has an advantage over some of the other weapons we’ll look at in that it’s doing some things that an M-16/SCAR/whatever-5.56-carbine-you-issue-now can’t do. Namely, that fancy hyperburst, and way more ammo for the weight. Plus, since the ammo in question is square, it packs more compactly too. So there’s a logistics win and a weight of fire win. Both of which I really like. Some of the G-11K2 prototypes even were fitted with picatinny rails to mount different optics, so I don’t even have to worry about having that done.

That said, there are some concerns we’d like to put to rest. Since it’s been a while, let’s get a few LRIP guns to make sure the manufacturing process is still good, and do some high round count testing. Plus, I’d like to do some gel tests and intermediate barrier3 tests. Even if that means some projectile design updates to make the terminal effects satisfactory, I can’t forsee any major problems left.

Verdict: Approved for LRIP and phased adoption by the Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) Or thereabouts. I’ve seen some variation betwen 4.7-4.9 mm or so.
2.) Despite looking like a space 2×4, troops even liked the ergonomics
3.) Usually sheet metal and tempered glass, i.e. car parts.

The Battle of Shilovo: 1942

Posted by

Welcome to Shilovo. It’s July 4th, 1942, and the Wehrmacht has embarked on yet another ambitious offensive: Fall Blau. This time, the plan focuses on the south, pushing from last year’s front (very roughly, a line from Kursk due south to Dnepropetrovsk, then southeast to Rostov, about 800 kilometers in total) to the Baku oilfields and the city of Stalingrad.

It’s only just begun, though, and we concern ourselves with the fighting around Voronezh, and more specifically, a work settlement a bit to the west called Shilovo. (It doesn’t exist anymore—it’s just part of Voronezh.) Shilovo sits on a hill overlooking the Don river, a strategically-important barrier keeping the Nazis out of Voronezh proper. Historically, the Germans took it on July 5th and 6th.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to hold them off a little better than that.

Notice a few features about this map: first, the UI I forgot how to hide. It’s covering the place name for ‘Trushkino’, the town at the bottom center controlled by the Germans. It faces Shilovo across a deep valley. Roads run northwest from Shilovo and northeast from Trushkino, then split to the north and northwest to meet one of the two crossroads objectives. Besides the valley between the two towns, and the hillside south of Shilovo, the map is more or less flat, which presents a problem: I know the Nazis have some armored vehicles, and I don’t have much in the way of anti-tank weaponry. The sum total of my force is as follows: two rifle companies, the battalion machine gun company (ten or so Maxim guns, all told), the battalion mortar company (same deal), and the battalion AT company (armed with anti-tank rifles, which may as well be rocks for all the good they do).

From the Russian side, this is almost entirely a defensive effort, and that’s reflected in my chosen deployment. (We won’t talk about my first mission in this campaign, a defense to the northwest. It didn’t go well.) One rifle company, under Homenko, is deployed at the northern crossroads, reinforced by most of Beda’s platoon. Drobotov’s platoon holds the central crossroads, while Churginov’s platoon serves as a reserve between the two. Bits and pieces of the machine gun company and the anti-tank company are detached to strengthen the two crossroads strongpoints.

The remainder of Beda’s platoon, along with the battalion mortars and the bulk of the machine guns, are deployed on the forward slope on the western approach to Shilovo, commanding the valley. With good, overlapping fields of fire, and tons of ammunition to boot, I suspect the machine guns will serve to hold the valley approach to Shilovo without issue. I’m more concerned about the central crossroads. If the Germans bring tanks down the west road, I’ll have a bad time of things. Hopefully, the northern crossroads strongpoint will be sufficiently distracting.

Anyway. Let’s get this show on the road. I had hoped to provide some extra screenshots here beyond the few I took during the battle, but alas, my VLC screenshot button isn’t working correctly, so you’ll just have to rely on your war correspondent, me.

The Germans begin their attack with a push, oddly enough, across the valley. The machine guns deliver a murderous hail of fire into the advancing Wehrmacht troops, and in large part, the advance stalls about halfway to my line. German forces will rally and push up the hill somewhat, but never in any organized manner, and never any closer than about one hundred meters to the guns.


Gunners on the northeastern outskirts of Shilovo engage German forces in the trees near the Trushkino road.

The northern crossroads, as I thought might be the case, turn out to be more interesting. It takes the Germans about ten minutes longer to make it down the road toward the strongpoint, but they arrive in greater force, and I have fewer heavy weapons to spare. It quickly becomes clear that the main German advance is coming from the west along the main road, so I shift some of the defenders facing north—a second machine gun team, and one of Beda’s squads—to meet the threat.

The fire on my position intensifies. The Germans clearly want this crossroads. Mortar fire begins to land in town, and the piddly 50mm mortars attached to each of my companies can’t even begin to fire in reply. They stick to shooting at the oncoming Germans, which is admittedly more scary than effective. (Your average 50mm mortar bomb has about 100 grams of explosive, which is less than some hand grenades of the time.)

The situation worsens about 20 minutes into the mission. A halftrack comes down the road, and while its mounted machine gun is keeping my anti-tank gunners’ heads firmly below trench level, a pair of Panzer IIs roll up the road. This is no good. Time to bring in the reserves.


A machine gun team shoots past Russian trenches (at frame left) toward advancing German infantry, while a Panzer approaches from the right.

One of the anti-tank gunners manages to get a shot off at the halftrack, which is enough to force its crew to bail out. By now, though, the Panzers have backed off, and are now working their way around to the north, where my defenses are lighter. One of them pushes into the town, about fifty yards behind the camera above, and begins shooting up my poor defenders. Fortunately, between the carnage west of Shilovo and the reserves arriving and bulking up the line south of the crossroads, the Germans realize they can’t hope to break through without further reinforcement. They call for a cease fire, and I gladly accept.

The casualty ratio favors me, as you might expect from a victory in a dug-in, defensive battle. I started with 400 men, of which about 250 were front-line combat troops, and lost 50, including a few machine guns lost and a few abandoned. (The abandoned ones will be recovered.) The Germans lost 150 out of 360, including one halftrack. I put some fire on both tanks, but neither appear to have been greatly inconvenienced by it, and undoubtedly, they’ll show up again.

Having survived this battle, I only had one more to play on the first turn, and it played out very similarly—the battle played out over Shilovo again, except shifted one grid square south. The same deployment, with machine guns covering open ground, served me well, and I’m into the second turn of the campaign now. I was able to bring some artillery up all along the line, along with anti-tank guns and air spotters. I expect the next few battles will feature much improved fireworks.

WS-2: Heavy Rocket Artillery

Posted by

The Russians have done a good job reminding everyone (or at least, everyone watching/paying attention/sending observers like good military intelligence types) that rocket artillery is awesome, and those “icky” cluster warheads are super effective. Even if the hippies hate them.

But of course, if you are worried about the Russians, say, or anyone else, you might want some rocket artillery of your own. And you might want to buy from the Russians, but they might be whom you are worried about, and supplies might be problematic in the event of war. And BM-30 is dreadfully expensive. You might try buying American, but they only make HIMARS these days, which is half an M270. More problematically, they won’t sell DPICM cluster munitions to any new customers, and it’s questionable if they’ll keep selling the stuff to old customers. You could buy guided rockets with unitary warheads, but they are dreadfully expensive. And then you’d want small caliber rockets like the old BM-13, so you could get more than six on a truck.

Ugh. Terrible options. Fortunately, artillery rockets aren’t all that sophisticated weapons, so we could source them elsewhere. Throw in a bit of licensed production and we’d be all set. There are several countries that make their own rocket artillery setups, but today we’re going to go to China.

Ordinarily, we might be a little wary of dealing with China in such matters, but since we’re buying, it’s not like they’ll be able to copy our stuff. Plus, they might be very threatening to Japan and South Korea, but there’s a convenient Russia between us and them. Quite the buffer. Let us see what they have, shall we?

Enter the WS-2. The largest multiple rocket artillery system in the world. It might even be classified as a short range ballistic missile. But shut up, you can get a truck-launcher that holds six missiles, so it’s totally an MRL. They’re just really, really big rockets. They’re 40 cm in diameter and 7.3 meters long. The standard version has an inertial guidance system and a range of 200 km, and a version with GPS/inertial guidance and 350 km range is also available. Perfect for bombarding Taiwan from across the Strait of Formosa. Or pounding enemy concentrations.

What warhead types are available on these monsters? It carries a 200 kg payload, which is quite a lot of high explosive. And HE/Frag and HE/Frag/incendiary unitary warheads are available. But CEP is 600 meters, and that’s not very good unless you’re trying to level Taipei. Or Grozny. So let’s talk things that will make hippies cry.

Warhead option one is the small bomblets. Sino-DPICM, if you will, though these are a bit larger. Each bomblet is a HEAT/Frag munition, rated to penetrate 85mm of RHA steel armor and having a lethal frag radius of seven meters. 540 bomblets are carried in each rocket.

Option two is the bigger, anti-armor bomblets. They still have a fragmentation shell, but add an incendiary component good for a four meter radius. The shaped charge is much bigger, being rated for 180mm of RHA steel armor. I’m not sure if these are guided or not, but it’s easy enough to modify these to work like SADARM/Bofors Bonus/etc. 61 are carried per rocket.

Option three is a unitary thermobaric warhead. It’s good for 29 psi of overpressure at a distance of 25 m from the warhead detonation.

So it’s a big, cool system. Note the obvious shortcoming of a rather large minimum range of 70 km. Also, there are no mine dispensing rockets as of yet, but I’m sure we can work something out. Probably oughtn’t be the only rocket artillery, but it’s a nice oversized, long-range shotgun for the battlefield commander all the same. We’ll probably mount the launcher on a truck chassis that’s already in our inventory rather than add a new one for this.