Tag Archives: militariana

Retro Air Force Procurement

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Here’s a change of pace from our regular procurement game. Let’s go back to a time before precision guidance was all the rage. A time when Saigon was still Saigon (albeit about to fall). A time when a favorite marching cadence was ‘Napalm Sticks to Kids’. A time when the Soviet Union was extant and terrifying and, yes, a time when Gerald Ford was in the white house. Welcome to the mid-1970s. Borgundy is still a reasonably well off European nation, a proud NATO member squaring off against the Warsaw Pact. We’d like a big new frontline fighter for the defense of our realm, and the best and latest in advanced western types are both American: the Grumman F-14A and the McDonnell Douglas F-15A. Let’s compare them, and see which comes away with the win. Remember, it’s 1975, so we can’t let any knowledge of how these two planes shook out affect our choice.

We’ll start with the Grumman offering, since it’s newer. The Grumman F-14 can be thought of as the ultimate fleet defense fighter. It’s built more or less to the same concept that gave birth to the fabulously successful F-4 Phantom II, but supersized, and uses the latest aerodynamics technology. It’s designed to have a long operating range and endurance, so it can fly a good distance out from the carrier, from where it will engage Soviet bombers before they can launch their missiles. To that end, it has plenty of fuel storage, high-tech swing wings for good speed and short-field performance, the most powerful fighter radar in the world (the AWG-9), and the longest range air to air missile in the world (the AIM-54 Phoenix). The Phoenix even has a fancy active seeker, unlike those lame semi-active seekers on the USAF standard Sparrow missile. Like the Phantom, the Tomcat has a two-man crew, one pilot, and one to operate the advanced radar system. It has the same TF30 turbofans as the F-111, however. Peformancewise, the F-14 was designed to match the Phantom as far as speed and maneuverability goes, but have a main armament that’s much longer ranged. And unlike the F-4, it does have a gun–the US Navy learned its lessons from Vietnam.

The McDonnell Douglas F-15 is designed to be the ultimate air superiority fighter, something the US Air Force hasn’t had in years. It is designed to be able to beat any current or projected future fighter type in air to air combat. The US Air Force took the Vietnam lessons to heart too. The Eagle is faster than the F-4, and is second only to the MiG-25 in top speed. It’s more agile overall than the F-4 or the F-14 because of it’s superior thrust to weight ratio and structural tolerance for more Gs. Like the F-14, it has a 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon with plenty of ammunition for a shootout or a strafing run. It does not carry the Phoenix missile, instead it carries Sidewinders and Sparrows, just like the Phantom. Unlike the Phantom and the Tomcat, the Eagle is a single seat fighter. It’s radar, while more advanced than the APQ-72 on the Phantom, is less powerful than the AWG-9 of the F-14. However, automation allows a single pilot to use it effectively. The F-15 was designed with offensive counter-air sweeps in mind, just like USAF F-4s flew in Vietnam.

So how do these two compare? Contractwise at about this time, they’re dead even. The Shah of Iran chose the F-14, the Israelis chose the F-15. Which will we choose? Well, the F-14 has the better sensor suite by far, with the AWG-9 being able to track 24 targets simultaneously, and attack up to six with Phoenix missiles. It even has look-down/shoot-down capability. The Tomcat also has an infrared search and track system mounted under the nose to help with target identification. While the F-15 also has a look-down/shoot-down capable radar in the APG-63, it has less range, simultaneous tracking capability, and simultaneous engagement capability. What it does have are a number of semiautomatic modes that make it very easy for a single crewman to employ in combat. The F-14 was designed to operate (more or less) on it’s own on extended patrols protecting a carrier battle group, or covering a Vietnam-style strike package from Yankee Station. The F-15 was designed with the significant USAF support assets of AWACS and jamming aircraft in sweeps to support strike packages, again, as in Vietnam. It also has a superior IFF system. Recent experience in the air war over Vietnam has demonstrated that beyond visual range methods are not as guaranteed as the missile manufacturers claim. The long-range AIM-54 was designed to kill bombers, and we are somewhat skeptical of its ability to effectively kill agile enemy fighters at range.

Vietnam demonstrated that air combat maneuvering capability is important, and the F-15 excels here. Part of this is because it’s a lighter, smaller plane. It carries less fuel. It’s structure is also rated to handle more G-force than that of the F-14. The F-15 also has far superior engines. In order to cut costs, the US Navy tried to re-use as much as it could from the colossal failure that was the F-111B, and that included the engines. However, not only does this give the F-14A a rather anemic thrust-to-weight ratio, but the TF30 is also very prone to compressor stalls at high angles of attack. It was never designed for a platform that would maneuver aggressively. And because the Tomcat’s engine nacelles are widely spaced, in order to provide room ot carry the big AIM-54 missiles, a compressor stall in one engine can lead to a flat spin, which is very difficult to recover from.1

The Eagle is the cheaper fighter to procure, but the numbers I found may be colored by its larger production run. It isn’t that much cheaper though; they’re certainly in the same price class (like a Porsche and a Lamborghini). The F-15 is significantly cheaper to operate and maintain. It has a number of design elements that simplify maintenance, and it doesn’t have the complicated variable geometry wings.2 This translates into increased availability for sorties, and (of course) more sorties for the money.

Famously, the F-15’s unofficial design motto was “Not a pound for air to ground”, though this is probably apocryphal. As seen by the minor changes needed for the F-15E, McDonnell Douglas certainly put in enough structural strength for ground attack missions. The Tomcat is also capable of carrying plenty of bombs, though neither the USN nor the USAF has bothered to integrate any air to ground weapons into the stores management system. So that’s a wash. As far as air to air armament goes, the biggest difference is the massive (but also very expensive) AIM-54 on the Tomcat. In terms of number of missiles, both planes field eight air to air missiles. In the ‘small advantages’ column, the F-15 carries more ammunition for its 20mm cannon, with 940 rounds to the F-14’s 675.

So, what is the final decision? We’re going for the Eagle. Better air combat capabilities against fighters and lower operating costs put the F-15 ahead of the F-14 for us. The offensive counter air mission is a much bigger need than a long range interceptor. And if the Soviets come at us hard, it will probably be by land, and we’ll want to neutralize their frontline aviation while bombing the living daylights out of their second echelon, reserves, and logistics. We’ll actually need another plane for the mud-moving; the Eagle is expensive enough without us trying to make it into a ground attack aircraft on our own.

1.) See Top Gun for a hands-on demonstration of a nasty flat spin. At least it’s not inverted. Or you could, but this is 1975, and it hasn’t been made yet.
2.) Stepping out of 1975 for a moment, we can see this reflected in that the USAF still operates F-15s, but the USN phased the F-14 out of service in 2006. But we have no way of knowing that in 1975 of course. 2006 is a long way off in the future; people probably commute in flying cars or something weird like that.

Resurrected Weapons: AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow

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A standard problem for a SEAD1 escort package is that if the enemy figures out what’s about to go down, they may shut off their SAM system radars, which makes it very hard to engage these radars. Switching off the radar has been as standard trick to spoil an antiradar2 missile (ARM) shot since the Vietnam War. Normally, one would expect SEAD aircraft to have to loiter over the target area, which is far from ideal. Loitering SEAD aircraft are vulnerable to fighters or short range IR guided missiles. An alternative concept was put forward in the ’80s with AGM-136.

AGM-136, which went by the unbearably dorky name ‘Tacit Rainbow’, was designed to provide an ARM that could loiter. Built on a cruise-missile type frame, it could be carried in the bomb bay of a B-52 or on the pylons of a wide variety of multirole fighter and strike aircraft. There was also a variant to be launched from the M270 MLRS. The idea was to use these reasonably low-observable platforms en masse against an enemy air defense network. If they found targets, they would seek out and destroy them like any other ARM. Otherwise, they could loiter in the target area waiting, making sure that the enemy did not switch on their SAM radars to engage the incoming strike package.

Like many advanced weapons of the late Cold War, the AGM-136 hit a number of cost overruns, because it had to fly in a preprogrammed area, recognize, and prioritize hostile radar emitters and then engage them. It was eventually cancelled in 1991. Advances in cheap microelectronics since the late 80s, plus the abundance of cheap GPS receivers, would make the AGM-136 a much easier development project today. It’s a nice supplement to EW aircraft like the EA-18G Growler, and would greatly help the survivability of strike packages while not requiring a correspondingly large investment in specialized platforms. With the increasing proliferation of higher-end air defense systems (even Iran has S-300s now), our strike packages will need all the help they can get. A platform like the AGM-136 is a great way to extend the survivability of non-stealthy platforms like the Viper or the Super Hornet.

The one thing that we’d like to investigate further is the ground-launched variant. In general, we would question whether the system would have enough fuel to fly from forward artillery positions to the target area and loiter while a strike package does its business. Near the front lines, we would not expect much in the way of powerful, long range air defense systems, simply because they would have to move quite a bit. On the other hand, they might prove to be cheap insurance over annoyingly potent short range systems like SA-15.

Verdict: Approved by Borgundy War Department Procurement Board, pending a rename.

1) Suppression of Enemy Air Defense
2) More often this is rendered Antiradiation missile, but I always thought Antiradar sounded better, and takes less explaining to the non-expert reader. Plus it’s easier to type.

Terminated Weapons: TOW

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Here’s another one for the chopping block. The BGM-71, Tube-launched Optically-sighted Wire-guided (TOW) missile. It’s been a classic antitank missile of the United States and its allies since 1972. It is time for it to go.

The TOW was a solid performer in its day. It’s killed plenty of tanks, and its received plenty of upgrades. Current versions have either a tandem-warhead, or a flyover-top-attack flight profile, with explosively formed penetrator warheads. So they’re reasonably capable of dealing with modern tanks with their fancy explosive reactive armor (or tons of composites). All that said, they’re obsolete and it’s time to give them the boot.

The TOW is heavy. Modern versions weigh 22.6 kg (just shy of 50 lbs) and that’s only the missile. You also have to add in the weight of the launch tube, its tripod mount and the sighting unit, which comes to about 93 kilos (204.6 lbs) altogether. So it’s really pushing the term ‘man portable’. Plus, it still uses SACLOS wire guidance. A Javelin missile has a lighter launcher and is fire and forget, so the missile team can move after launching. Which is good, because they’re position is painfully obvious due to the massive cloud of missile exhaust. Even if the team is killed, the Javelin will still track the target; killing a SACLOS missile crew (or even getting them to flinch) by shooting back at them is a great way to spoil their missile shot. Another bonus feature for the Javelin is that it doesn’t have a massive backblast, so it can be fired from enclosed spaces, or if there’s some stuff behind the missile that you’d rather not expose to hot exhaust (dry grass comes to mind). Even though TOW has a range advantage on Javelin, the Javelin is still a much more effective weapon system for the combat infantryman. The range limitations of Javelin are due to limitations of the command launch unit, not the missile itself; we can probably expect Block 2 improvements to rectify this shortcoming. Plus, depending on the theater of operations, long sightlines may not be available for this to become an issue. The Javelin’s range limitations are unlikely to be an issue in cities or in the forests of Central Europe.

The heavy TOW makes a lot more sense on a ground vehicle, where the weight matters a lot less. Here though, it faces stiff competition from Javelin (and Spike). The fire-and-forget capability of these missiles allows them to move after launching, which is nice if you’re shooting from something thin-skinned and an enemy tank has taken notice of the massive launch signature. While guiding a TOW, a launching vehicle is forced to be immobile. First, the TOW tracker isn’t really set up to handle a moving launch platform and a moving missile in its target track. It is designed around a fixed point of reference. While a vehicle could move slowly and not screw up the guidance too badly, this won’t help them live much, and may cause the wire to snag on some obstacle as the missile attempts to correct for launch platform movement and the target track. Breaking the wire gives you a rather slow rocket, which isn’t overly helpful either.

What about on helicopters? Aerial platforms were a very common user of the TOW missile in Vietnam and elsewhere. However, we now have the vastly superior Hellfire missile, which uses either semi-active laser homing or millimeter-wave active radar. The active radar version (‘Longbow Hellfire’) gives us the cool fire-and-forget capability of the Javelin or the Spike, which lets the helicopter switch targets or evade enemy fire. Even the semi-active laser homing version has advantages over the TOW, though. The Hellfire missile has about twice the range of the TOW, travels about half again as fast as the TOW, and even with the SALH version, multiple targets can be engaged very rapidly. Hellfire variants also have alternative warheads, including versions with fragmentation-augmented shaped charge warheads and thermobaric warheads. This means that the Hellfire missile family can engage more types of targets on the battlefield.

For even more ways to kill tanks, we can look to the UK’s Brimstone missile. This missile is roughly Hellfire sized, and can be fired from helicopters or fixed wing aircraft, even fast movers. It distinguishes itself by being able to fly to a designated area and seek out armor using an active radar seeker. From a rotary winged platform, it has almost three times the range of TOW. And, unlike TOW, it can be fired from fixed wing aircraft (for even more range).

So there we go. TOW really doesn’t fit in anymore. It was a good system in the 70s, and upgrades did a good job of keeping it relevant (unlike the Harpoon). But there are contemporaries that fill its roles better now, so it’s time for TOW to tap out.

Resurrected Weapons: CBU-98/B

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Here’s a new segment that’ll highlight some old weapons that never made it to the big time. I’ll also give my verdict of whether or not I approve of it as a possible system for Borgundy. Our first weapon is a runway denial cluster munition, the CBU-98/B. The idea here was to combine two other, proven effective systems in one cool bomb.

The first of those is the French Durandal bomb. This bomb was designed with a parachute to slow it’s fall as it oriented itself groundward. Then, a rocket motor would fire and drive the penetrator warhead into the runway surface before detonating, to maximize the destruction. It’s a pretty cool weapon designed to put really big holes in runways. Runways are great targets, because you can’t move them, you can’t hide them, and you can’t really armor them. Perfect! Except that runways, being a big strip of asphalt or concrete, aren’t all that hard to repair. The key is usually making lots of widespread destruction.

That’s where the second weapon comes in, the British HB 876 mine. Dropped from Hades cluster bombs (a BL755 variant) or from JP223 dispensers, these small mines are scattered about a runway. They have a nifty dual effect warhead: one part is a Misznay-Schardin Effect warhead that generates an explosively formed penetrator, and the other part is a pretty standard fragmentation jacket. So it combines antivehicle and antipersonnel effects into one cool mine. The bottom has a self-righting device to insure that it deploys appropriately.

The CBU-98/B was designed to put these two together in one bomb. First, for runway demolition, it contained eight BLU-109/B penetrator submunitions. They function exactly like the Durandal, except are significantly smaller, having 2.95 kg HE warheads instead of Durandal’s 115 kg (total) twin charges. But hey, you can put a bunch of them in one bomb. Additionally, the CBU-98/B also contained 24 HB 876 mines to cause problems for combat engineers trying to repair the runway. The whole package went in a standard SUU-64/B dispenser and weight about 385 kg or so.

So what do we think of this weapon? We really like it. Putting runways out of action is an important mission, and we do like penetrator weapons and cluster effects. They have the bonus effect of pissing off the hippies, which is good. Some questions of cost remain, as do whether or not the increased amount of damage when compared to a comparable sortie of more conventional bombs is significant enough to warrant the procurement. My instincts tell me this is probably the case. You could get more destruction with a bunch of bigger conventional bombs with unitary warheads, but a set of CBU-98s are going to take up fewer pylons and weigh less. It would also be a useful cruise missile warhead, saving aircraft the dangerous and difficult runway overflight mission.

Verdict: Approved by Borgundy War Department Procurement Board.

Resurrected Weapons: AGM-124 Wasp

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The cold war ended before a lot of nifty weapons could get into production. Like many of them, the AGM-124 Wasp was intended to kill Soviet tank forces and reduce the margin of superiority that the Red Army enjoyed. In addition to never throwing anything away (like that crazy relative you have), the Soviets tended to attack in echelons. Since they had numerical superiority (admittedly, partially due to having a ton of old stuff lying around), they could attack in a broad front, and then have another broad front waiting to hit you again, and they still had reserves to throw at you. NATO’s plan was to counter asymmetrically, and they had a wide variety of projects under way in the 80s. The American ones were known under the umbrella “Assault breaker,” and one of them is going to get looked at here.

The AGM-124 Wasp was intended to be used in a swarm. Beat numbers with numbers. It was a small, lightweight missile, to be carried in big pods beneath ground attack aircraft and lobbed in an area en masse. From there, the Wasp’s millimeter wave radar seeker would take over, hunting down targets and destroying them. Data is spotty; I’m not sure if it had a tandem warhead or not, or if the idea was to hit the Russian tanks with enough missiles so as to not have to care about whatever ERA the Russians had mounted. Also, in the 80s, fewer Soviet tanks had ERA mounted.

What do we think of this weapon now? If anything, it’s an even better idea. Modern sensors being what they are, millimeter wave seekers and tandem shaped charges are a bit cheaper, and avionics have improved to where feeding data on a target area is a lot easier. Preprogrammed target data wouldn’t be needed to the extent that it would in the 80s. If made today, the Wasp would be a cheaper, spammable version of Brimstone, and that’d be awesome. I’d probably go for a tandem warhead, but don’t need to go too fancy with these. Keep it simple. Keep it cheap. Load them up in pods under your multirole aircraft of choice and let fly against staging areas. This is probably well beyond the usual “Yes, buy” sort of thing and into the “Shut up and take my money” realm. At least if you’re worried about enemy armor.

…are you not?

Verdict: Approved by Borgundy War Department Procurement Board

Terminated Weapons: Harpoon

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At Fishbreath’s suggestion, I’ve decided to combine some of my resurrection posts with some terminations. Weapons that really should have been cancelled a long time ago, that are in desperate need of replacement. To use a sports metaphor, if I’m calling some up from the minors, I should relegate some others back from the majors. First on the chopping block: the Harpoon antiship missile.

Harpoon has been the western standard antiship missile since its introduction in 1977. It’s got submarine launched, ship launched, and air launched versions, a good active-radar seeker, and you can fit it on most anything. Great. And in the late 70s, it was a good weapon. It gave the warships of the USN some much needed anti-surface punch, and you could retrofit it onto almost any platform.

Looking at it right now, the harpoon sucks.

There are plenty of current market competitors that are better. The harpoon is subsonic; there are plenty of competitors (e.g. SS-N-22 Sunburn and SS-N-27 Sizzler) that are supersonic at least for the terminal phase to reduce reaction time. Is it long ranged? No, the Harpoon is almost painfully short range. Again, the Russians have some really cool long range missiles like the SS-N-19 that have tons of range. Oh, and the Harpoon isn’t stealthy either. Nope.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. This isn’t me hating on weapons for not being new. There are plenty of weapon systems that I like that are rather long in the tooth, but have appropriate upgrades to stay current. The C-130, B-52, M-16, and AIM-9 have all received upgrades that keep them useful and competitive with more modern contemporaries. The B-52 and M-16 are particularly good examples of this, having beaten a number of attempts to replace them. There’s nothing wrong with an old weapon per se, but we have to keep it relevant and competitive with contemporaries. Upgrade or replace. Up or out. It’s not that hard.

Let’s look at some weapon systems that we could use to replace the harpoon. Two come to mind. One is the Brahmos, a joint Russian-indian antiship missile system. It’s launchable from surface ships, aircraft, trucks, and submarines. It has an operational range of 300-500 km. Even if we take the low end, that’s more than twice the quoted range of the Harpoon (“more than 124 km”). Oh, and it can go faster than Mach 2.8 terminally. Pretty awesome missile. It is, however, rather heavy at 2,500 kg for the air-launched version and 3,000 kg for the other versions. The Harpoon weighs a svelte 691 kg. So the Brahmos isn’t a perfect replacement; there are ships that we might want to give antiship capability to that can’t fit the big Russo-Indian missile. And Fishbreath will surely start complaining if I only choose a Russian system as a Harpoon replacement, and get upset if I demand bigger ships. Fishbreath likes his wee ships, you see.

An even better Harpoon replacement on a one-for-one basis is the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM to you acronym-loving cool kids). The NSM is lighter than Harpoon at 410 kg. It’s range of 185 km is better than Harpoon (at least as far as quoted range goes). It’s got GPS integration. There’s a version that fits in the internal bays of our F-35s, which gets even more range (about 290 km or so). Most importantly, it’s stealthy. So the enemy will have less warning to react to it. It’s also cleared for a bunch of aircraft, ships, and land based vehicles already. Big gain right here as far as stealth goes, since the Russians have finally wised up and mounted CIWS on their ships. This is important, as NATO ships don’t usually carry enough Harpoons to overwhelm point defense systems.

There are a couple of experimental weapon systems of note that might be worth pursuing, namely the Anglo-French Perseus and Lockheed Martin’s LRASM (an antiship variant of the AGM-158 JASSM-ER). Both of these are stealthy, have good range, and are vertical launch capable. I prefer the LRASM a bit more since it’s based on an existing missile platform. Neither is available yet, but we’re content to get some NSMs now and wait for the fancy new developments from MEADS and LockMart for VLS tubes or longer range aerial strike missions.

Oh, and if we needed VLS integration to give our DDGs a big punch, or needed a lot more range than NSM, we could always go buy some BGM-109Bs again. Tons of range, fits in a VLS Tube. Another good choice while you wait for the fancy new stuff, and you can at least fit enough of them on a DDG to have a decent chance of overwhelming the air defenses of an opposing battlegroup.

I’m sure one last objection is coming from some of you. “But wait, Parvusimperator!” I hear you say. “What if I believe that I control the sea, and don’t really care about antiship missiles.” Well then. First, I would tell you that you’re an idiot. Even during the height of the British Empire, they maintained their position by having a navy stronger than the next two navies put together. You maintain your dominance by being able to crush all opposition, not by taking it for granted and going through some stupid hippie draw-down. But if you really didn’t care, no antiship missiles is lighter and cheaper than a battery of old crappy ones. Though, again, this is stupid. Antiship missiles are good.

Borgundy Chooses A Carbine

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Here’s another challenge I tossed Fishbreath. It’s also a chance for me to wade into a bunch of classic internet arguments. First, we’ll deal with the old elephant in the room: the M4. The M4 gets an advantage over the competition by being based on an old (good) design, so the research and development costs are long since paid off. The Stoner-type operating system (colloquially known as “direct impingement”, even though the back of the bolt is technically a piston riding inside the bolt carrier assembly), means that it’s lighter than its competitors with similar barrels. Finally, Colt and the US Army have been quietly rolling improvements into the gun to improve reliability. Current mean rounds between stoppages is currently 1 in 6,000, which is phenomenal. The AR-15 series has the ergonomics that everyone loves to crib from, with the super-fast reloading magazines that drop free and a last-round bolt hold open. Nothing has a simpler or faster reload process than AR-15s, as evidenced by their competition popularity. The aluminum quadrail handguards and barrel nut serve as a heatsink, pulling heat away from the barrel and increasing the length of time to cookoff. But it would be really, really boring for me to just take an M4 and call it a day, so I decided to restrict myself to only the stock version available from Colt Defense, without all those fancy aftermarket gubbins. And also a legislature that wants a new, cool carbine. So, glossing over the M4, on to the new stuff!

We could go with a bullpup, but bullpups suck. The concept is to get a longer barrel in a shorter package for those obsessed with urban warfare. And shorter is better, but let’s remember that everyone’s classic idea of a room clearing gun is a Remington 870 with an 18″ barrel, and that’s the same length as an M16 overall, and longer than an M4. For vehicle ops, the shorter length is nice, but there were no complaints from using full-length M16A2 rifles in Desert Storm. Overall length is not the most important firearm characteristic. And we have to pay a significant price by going with a bullpup configuration. First, because the trigger is fundamentally detached from the hammer/striker, we’re introducing linkages, and thus a sucky trigger. This negatively impacts the accuracy of our soldiers. We can’t have a collapsible stock without sacrificing the length advantage, so we can’t adjust length of pull for body armor or different size soldiers. While most modern bullpups have switchable ejection, so left handers don’t have to eat a steady diet of brass, this isn’t really something to be done in the field, so soldiers can’t choose which side of cover to expose themselves over (Well, unless they want to expose most of their torso, and that’s silly). Modern bullpups tend to lack rail estate, and don’t have easily swappable handguards, so they’re harder to accessorize with lasers, lights, thermal scopes, and all the other accoutrements of battle. Finally, reloading is awkward for a soldier wearing modern body armor (i.e. with hard plates) and load bearing equipment. The SAS basically teach soldiers to move the back end of the rifle from the shoulder to the middle of the chest in front of the stuff that the soldier is wearing in order to be able to manipulate the magazines effectively. It’s interesting to note that for the vast majority of countries who issue bullpups generally have their hardcore tier-one special forces operators use a conventionally-configured rifle. And it’s nearly always an M4. When it’s not it’s something like the HK416, which is 95% M4. So, really, why bother? There are more important things than having the shortest carbine. But in case you don’t believe me, let’s look at some specific bullpups and why they suck.

The AUG sucks
The Steyr Aug was one of the first bullpups, and it looks really cool. It has a quick-change barrel, but who cares? Soldiers won’t carry a bunch of extras in case they shoot one out playing Rambo. And they’re not going to swap barrels before a mission. So, cool but useless feature, check. It’s got a really crappy trigger where a partial pull shoots a single shot, and pulling it all the way back shoots fully automatic. Possibly one of the most bone-headed trigger ideas of all time. Are the Austrians too good for a normal fire mode selector? Eventually the Irish got fed up with the stupid, and added a little locking catch to the trigger to function as a fire mode selector. It probably makes the trigger even worse. It uses it’s own proprietary magazines, not the M4 magazines that everyone and their uncle makes, and that many companies in America have worked to improve. They’ve finally figured out in the A3 version that last round bolt hold open is good, and that people might want something that isn’t the tiny 1.5x scope that came on the original. Good for them, but good luck mounting anything more than another optic on that small unit. God forbid you want to add some night vision or a laser or a light. Oh, and you have to do some serious modifying to make it work with an underbarrel grenade launcher like the M203, since most quick-change barrel assemblies have a built-in vertical foregrip. But don’t worry, it shoots rifle grenades. Which is great if it’s the 1920s and you’re French, but the rest of the planet has moved on. Oh, and it was kicked out of the Norwegian service rifle competition early, which probably means reliability sucks.

The F2000 sucks
The FN F2000 is the one bullpup where you can switch sides at will thanks to the forward ejection system. On balance this is a good thing, though it’s going to piss off every range safety officer in the world. And it’s going to make clearing a jam a new special level of hell, since you have to start opening little ports to be able to get at anything. It doesn’t have a last round bolt hold open, which is lame. Again, there’s minimal space for accessories, so you’ll want to contract for some adapters, or fight like it’s 1983 all over again. It comes with a pretty lame 1.6x sight by an unknown manufacturer, but at least there’s a rail under that. I will give points to FN for doing a good job with a grenade launcher attachment. They have a reputation for having poor reliability and being maintenance intensive–maybe because you need trapdoors to get to the operating parts, maybe because its ambidextrous design is too clever and ends up being a magnet for things that cause stoppages. But hey, it’s been adopted by Slovenia, so there’s one not-so-major military who thinks it’s ok. Oh, and it’s Gadaffi approved. At least the other bullpups here have been adopted by a bunch of actual militaries.

The Tavor Sucks
The Tavor is probably the best bullpup around right now. That said, the trigger on it is really horrible, even by military standards. It has feed issues when trying to run it with Pmags. I have no idea how well the design deals with heat from a bunch of shooting–probably badly, since it looks like it’s just going to trap most of it. There’s room for a red dot, but accessory placement options are pretty limited when compared to more conventional designs. Accuracy testing has produced mixed results, with many of the more reliable sources giving poor accuracy under otherwise good conditions. And it still suffers from all those inherent bullpuppy drawbacks. If you wanted a bullpup, this is the one to get, but we don’t.

That leaves conventional carbines. By similar reasoning as in our pistol post, the ARX-160 is out because no one else has bought one yet, and it also has a bunch of extra complications internally (switchable ejection? Really? Just use a brass deflector). That leaves the HK416 and the FN SCAR 16. Another classic internet argument, yay. First thing we notice is that the SCAR is lighter than the 416 by a lot. And it has a cool stock that collapses and folds, instead of just collapses. All that is good, but a good chunk of the weight of the 416 comes from a heavy barrel profile, large steel barrel nut, and large aluminum quadrail handguard. This all works to provide a big heatsink that means that the HK416 can deal with waste heat better than other carbines. When the USMC wanted an automatic rifle for more sustained fire than a regular M4, HK basically engraved USMC on the side of a regular 416 and called it good–and won. They didn’t need any fancy closed bolt/open bolt hybrid operation system; the HK416 met all of the rounds-until-cookoff standards that the Marines wanted as originally designed. Further, the extra area of the rail means that there’s more room for a soldier’s hands, plus the increasing number of accessories that the mission might call for. The other big advantage is that the HK416 is issued more widely, so more bugs have been worked out. It’s the general issue service rifle of Norway, and is the USMC’s new automatic rifle. So we too will go with the HK416.

Borgundy Sidearms

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Not wanting to throw a challenge to Fishbreath that I could not do myself, I think I’ll pick a sidearm for Borgundy. Like the US Marines, we tend to issue anyone who might see some combat somewhere a carbine. Yes, even officers. But it would be a colossal copout to write “see carbine post”, and there are still some needs for pistols, so we should pick one of those too. First, caliber. This part is easy: 9mm Parabellum. Frankly, pistol calibers suck at combat (which is why we issue so many carbines), and the only reason you fight with a pistol is because you don’t have anything better at hand. Once we accept that, 9mm is about the smallest acceptable round in terms of ‘pistol stopping power’, and going bigger doesn’t get us much more in stopping power (since .45 ACP is still a sucky pistol cartridge, not a manly rifle cartridge). Choosing the smallest acceptable round gives us more rounds per mag and lower recoil, which is important since most military guys don’t shoot their handguns all that much. So they get the most chances to hit, and the lower recoil makes follow-ups faster.

That entirely too predictable choice out of the way, we come to the decision of which pistol to pick. There are many to choose from, so let’s run down what we need in a pistol. We want a reliable pistol, that’s also reasonably priced (come on, it’s a pistol…there are better things to blow cash on) and accurate. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help us very much. There are tons of pistols that meet these criteria. We’ll go further by requiring it to have been already adopted by another major military, since we don’t want to be a testing ground for such unimportant things. We do this because pistols aren’t worth losing sleep over, but it still doesn’t help us very much.

We still have several excellent pistols in the running, including the Beretta 92, the SiG P226, the Glock 17, the HK USP, the Browning Hi Power, and the CZ 75. Now we come down to pedigree and shooter’s preference. Shooter’s1 preference being what it is, the Hi Power gets tossed out for having a stupid magazine disconnect. It’s also the oldest of the bunch. The Beretta 92 is the next out, since I don’t like the combination safety/decocker. Why would I both add a step to my draw stroke that I might forget and have a long, heavy double-action pull? No thanks. We’ll next toss the SiG since I’m really not a fan of double action triggers on semiautomatics. On revolvers, I see the point, on semiautomatics I do not. I don’t like the double action/single action transition. Both the USP and CZ can be carried cocked-and-locked, which I like. Gives me that consistent trigger. So we have gotten it down to three on purely preference grounds. The CZ has a somewhat less favorable reputation for reliability than the HK and the Glock according to the best sources I can find, so it’s out. The HK and Glock are both hard to beat in that regard. HK vs. Glock is a classic internet argument, but for our purposes the decision is simple: Glock is cheaper, and in all other characteristics, the guns are comparable, so we’ll go with Glock. More specifically, that Glock 17.

Well, that was easy.

1.) Namely mine

M1 Variant Naming Silliness

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Fishbreath and I often like to laugh at the Russians and the goofy naming conventions that they have for things that have been produced a lot, like the T-55, the T-72, or the Su-27. That said, they’re not the only ones to do it, and the naming schemes for my favorite tank, the M1 Abrams, are particularly annoying.
Here they are, in order (ish) of when they were first made.

XM1
XM11
M1
M1IP2
M1A1
M1A1HA3
M1A1HA+4
M1A1HC5
M1A1D6
M1A1AIM v.17
M1A1AIM v.28
M1A1SA9
M1A1FEP10
M1A1KVT11
M1A1M12
M1A1SA13
M1A2
M1A2SEP14
M1A2SEP v.215
M1A2SEP v.2 TUSK16
M1A2SEP v.2 TUSK II17
M1 TTB18
CATTB19
M120
M10421
M122
M123
M124

1. There were two rather different prospective designs for the M1, one made by GM and one made by Chrysler. Both designated XM1 for the trials to see which was best. Figuring which XM1 is which is an exercise left to the reader, who will no doubt find it enlightening.
2. IP for ImProved.
3. -HA for Heavy Armor, i.e. it’s got first generation depleted uranium armor.
4. M1A1HA subsequently upgraded with second generation depleted uranium armor. Unofficial, but included for completeness.
5. -HC for Heavy Common, i.e. made with second generation depleted uranium armor.
6. -D for Digital. An M1A1HC upgraded with electronics to the M1A2 standard. No factory reconditioning is expressed or implied by this designation.
7. AIM for Abrams Integrated Management. Earlier model factory reconditioned to be like-new, and then a whole bunch of electronics are added.
8. As -A1AIM v.1, but also upgraded with third generation depleted uranium armor.
9. -SA for Situational Awareness. As -A1AIM v.2, but with a confusing new name. See -A1AIM v.2.
10. -FEP for Firepower Enhancement package. As -A1SA, but for the USMC. See -A1SA.
11. -KVT for Krasnovian Variant Tank. M1A1 modified to look like Soviet tank for training purposes.
12. Export variant for Iraq. Because they got their butt kicked twice by Abrams tanks, so they figured they might as well buy some.
13. SA for Special Armor. Export variant for Morocco. Not to be confused with the other M1A1SA.
14. -SEP for System Enhancement Package. Adds third generation depleted uranium armor and some improved electrical systems.
15. Even better electrics.
16. TUSK for Tank Urban Survival Kit. Makes the tank better suited for urban warfare. Technically, may be applied to any variant. Usually seen applied to A2, A2SEP, and A2SEP v.2s.
17. TUSK II has better supplemental armor than TUSK.
18. Tank Test Bed. M1 variant used for a bunch of late 80s experiments.
19. Component Advanced Technology Test Bed. A more-radical, experimental, late-80s tank.
20. The Grizzly Combat Mobility Vehicle. No, I can’t use the name again because that’s not the designation. I didn’t write “Abrams” after every designation up there, did I?
21. Wolverine assault bridge.
22. Panther II Mine Clearing Blade/Roller System.
23. The Assault Breacher Vehicle25.
24. Armored Recovery Vehicle. No, roles do not count as part of the designation, or else I would have written “MBT” after a whole bunch of things up there.
25. What’s the difference between Combat Mobility Vehicle and Assault Breacher Vehicle? No idea.

Borgundy Challenge Response: Anti-Tank Weapons

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While Borgundy agrees with the Russian view that the best weapon to combat a tank is another tank, and combined arms with plenty of tank-infantry cooperation are the keys to success, this does not mean that the infantry should not have weapons for killing tanks. It’s all the more important since most modern western IFVs don’t mount anti-tank missiles. While Fishbreath’s challenge isn’t strictly accurate structure-wise for mechanized infantry, the general point holds. We’ll need two weapons: a man portable anti-tank guided missile (henceforth ATGM), and something unguided that can defeat tanks up close with the secondary purpose of battlefield demolition. We can’t really do away with the rocket launcher requirement, because the rounds are cheap and useful for blowing up bunkers and the like, plus if a tank gets in close, they don’t require any guidance preparation. Guidance is clearly required for longer-range shots.

We’ll start with the relatively simple unguided case. With a general trend towards western suppliers, and the unfortunate demise of much of the French arms industry, our choices are rather limited. We first must answer a simple question: how much tank should we be able to kill with a rocket? Requiring penetration of heavy front armor, with likely ERA kits will drive up the weight (also the cost, but not by much–these are unguided weapons after all). The Panzerfaust 3T is probably the most powerful available rocket, should be reasonably capable of dealing with most modern frontal armor, even if ERA equipped, and comes with a computerized sight to aid in making long range shots. However, it weighs 33.5 lbs (15.2 kg). If we accept side penetration only, we have choices. The standard one-use only rocket is the Saab AT4, which weighs 14.8 lbs. Alternatively, for a somewhat heavier (20 lbs or so) reusable weapon, we could go with the Carl Gustav with it’s wide variety of available rounds. That said, we do really want the properly tank-killing potential of the Panzerfaust 3T. Since our army is heavily mechanized, we have an infantry fighting vehicle to help carry the load most of the time. We also have the IFVs gun, which provides a useful volume of high explosive support. However, the 35mm Bushmaster III chain gun on our IFVs isn’t really capable of killing tanks from the front, but it is reasonably capable of engaging them from the side. The Panzerfaust 3T at least adds an additional capability to the squad. Plus, there are large stocks of T-72 and T-80 tanks that could be pressed into service that can shrug off frontal hits from either AT4s or Charlie Gustav rounds.

On to the guided weapons. This is a little harder, because there are lots of similar systems available. First, taking stock of the threat, we should look at enemy armor. Again, we see the same problem as before of getting stuck in the race between armor and shaped charge warheads, made worse by the range requirements. For this reason, some modern missiles have attempted to get around the problem by attacking the top armor, which is thinner. The Milan missile doesn’t use top attack at all, but it’s basically obsolescent. Other missiles have better range, tank-killing power, and fire-and-forget options. The heavy hitters in the competition are the Israeli Spike and the American Javelin, both of which have better guidance and bigger warheads than the Swedish BILL 2, which uses an overflight top-attack rather than a diving top attack flight profile. Javelin and Spike are similar missiles at similar price points, but the Spike has a longer-range man-portable version, and it has the option to keep the gunner in the loop with a fiber optic cable. Javelin can only do a fire and forget launch mode, but it has a better seeker, and both the Javelin missile itself and it’s reusable command launch unit are lighter. Cost is roughly comparable. We’ll take lighter and more effective within the range that ATGM shots are likely to be taken, so we’ll take the Javelin.

So, that should settle the challenge. That said, given our heavy and heavier options above and recent experiences in Iraq, there’s a need for a light rocket for demolition work, especially in urban settings and for bunker busting. It is also a useful squad capability, as it can be used to maximize shock effects in the initial moments of contact. For these uses, we want something light and cheap. Issues of carrying capacity can be handily resolved by our IFV, because it can carry what isn’t needed. This can be considered a bit of an “arms room” for the squad, provided we don’t go too overboard. For weapon choice, we can actually go even lighter than the AT4 with the older, Vietnam-era M72A7 LAW. It’s rated for about a third of the armor penetration of the Panzerfaust 3, but it only weighs five and a half pounds. It’s a perfectly adequate demolition rocket, and the light weight means it’s easy to add to the squad’s loadout even when there are no tanks around. It’s not a fancy warhead, but it’s cheap, light, and cheerful, and compliments the big panzerfaust 3 well. Plus, lest you think I’m cheating by buying more types of weapons than originally called for, the US army still buys old M72A7 LAWs plus the newer, more formidable AT4s, and Javelin missiles. And the Germans supplement their Panzerfaust 3 with Matador rockets.