Tag Archives: militariana

Borgundy Challenge Response: APCs

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When considering the APC, we must consider what we want it to do. We already have IFVs to do the front line combat. We have trucks that can transport lots of stuff or men relatively easily and cheaply. We need something in between. Something to handle supportive combat roles that can take fragments and bomblets better than a truck, but needn’t be hardened against serious gunfire. Something to haul mortars, escort convoys, transport wounded, shuttle soldiers, do light and medium vehicle recovery, and basically do a whole bunch of odd jobs.

The obvious choice would be the M113A3, but this vehicle is quite old and not in production any longer. It’s still almost certainly available on the used market, but it’s somewhat protection limited due to the old powertrain and suspension, and we certainly couldn’t rely on procuring the numbers and spares we want from the secondary market. Plus, it’s almost certainly a violation of the spirit of the rules, and makes for a rather boring post. We certainly won’t be giving up the M113s we have, but onward we go to find something more modern.

We can restrict ourselves to requiring a heavy machine gun in a remote weapon station for self defense and no more. An automatic grenade launcher might be a useful alternative, but the heavy machine gun is, in general, more versatile. In any case, either would fit in a weapon station of that size class. Any larger weapon would have a significantly greater footprint in the vehicle, which would compromise its primary transport duties. We’d either have a 20/25mm “giant machine gun” that would need a ton of ammo or a 30/35mm cannon that would require a coax gun and a second ammo supply. So we’ll stick with the one heavy machine gun for self-defense. Mortar carriers will, self-evidently, carry a mortar. This will probably be 120mm, which is a good standard size, and there’s not much reason to go smaller when you have a nice vehicle to haul the mortar and its ammunition around.

Let’s now come to the “Armored” portion of the vehicle. This is what’s separating it from a big truck carrying stuff around. The current modern standard seems to be protection from heavy machine gun fire all-around, and this seems reasonable considering the sorts of threats that it’s likely to face as a second-line unit. In general, mine protection has also been widely increased as part of the lessons learned in the Iraq campaign. While this is less relevant to those of us planning a conventional warfare first approach, our vehicles might encounter hastily laid mines as well in an effort to disrupt rear areas. Plus, with modern vehicles, there isn’t really an alternative. Increasing use of wheeled vehicles as IFVs has led to a plethora of turreted versions, which we’ll skip, and heavier front armor, which we don’t have much of an option on either.

The two biggest contenders here are the Boxer MRAV and the Patria AMV. The Boxer MRAV is rather more modular, since you can actually swap rear mission modules with a crane. It’s also somewhat better protected than the Patria, and more expensive. The Patria has won significant successes in the export market, and comes with more variants already fielded. MRAV comes out of the box with all of the fancy battle management computers that the cool kids like. It’s the extra systems integration and the basically future mission proof design of the Boxer that lets it win out here. With modules that can be swapped out in a couple of hours, the life of the Boxer can be extended with hull refurbishments and new modules containing new stuff. Even though it’s more expensive than the Patria AMV, it’s still cheaper than the VBCI and the Stryker.

I always liked the Sweet Science.

IFV Addendum

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While working on some background research for Fishbreath’s fourth challenge, I discovered two unfortunate things about the Puma IFV. First, while most information I can find claim that it will have the capability to mount and shoot Spike ATGMs, no evidence that this is actually proceeding is available. So we’d likely be stuck paying integration costs. Which brings me to the other, bigger problem: cost. The Puma IFV costs about $11 million or so, and is only in low rate initial production, so more changes could be forthcoming. They’ve already had to redo the suspension by adding a roadwheel and change the armor layout. This is over twice the cost of any competing vehicle.

Unfortunately, we’re already pushing one buy to the legislature of an overbudget supervehicle that we’re expecting to come down in costs. But the Puma doesn’t have the order backlog that the F-35 does, and asking for two from the Legislature is bound for trouble. So it is with heavy heart that we must change our pick of IFV to the CV9035. It does give us a much better gun, two more dismounts, and a proper coax gun for our troubles. Oh, and it’s widely adopted with costs well under control. Congratulations BAE-Hagglunds.

P.S. For those of you expecting a quick resolution to the fourth of Fishbreath’s challenges, you’re going to be disappointed. Finding pricing information is a pain for both of us.

Stop Whining and Love the SCHV

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When I set out to work out what sort of small arms I wanted for Borgundy, I decided to start, rather sensibly, with the caliber for my infantry arms. And I was all set to write something full of hate for the 5.56x45mm NATO round and how inadequate and lame it is. But when I thought about the gun-writer orthodoxy, I started coming up with some problems. So let’s go back, and start from where we can all agree on things. Namely, World War II. The greatest of them all. First, we figured out that full-power rifle cartridges (which I’ll call ‘full power cartridges’ from here on, because I’m a lazy typist), have too much recoil energy to be fired from a normal infantry rifle (usually about 9 or 10 lbs). Somewhat satisfactory results could be achieved in the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, but that weighed about 24 lbs. Second, we knew that rifle cartridges possess sufficient power (for some definition of power that I’ll leave deliberately vague) to kill a man out to distances of over a kilometer. However, for most soldiers, such hits will never happen. Statistical studies showed that 90% of infantry engagements took place at ranges less than 300 meters. But why should this be? Clearly, sniper exploits would tell us that one can see much further than 300 meters in most parts of the world.

Consider that a rifle bullet will need about one second to reach a distance of 600 meters from the shooter. In that time, a reasonably fit man who is aware that he is being shot at can sprint 5-9 meters, in any direction he pleases. It will probably be from cover to cover, but we could think of this as in some random direction that would certainly be unknown to the shooter. So the chances of hitting the target at such distances are very low, unless the target is unaware or you can fill the area with bullets with your machine guns. For this reason, the Germans sought an effective range of about 500 meters or so for the 7.92x33mm round, the first of what I’ll call the “Short Rifle” rounds. This gave them a bit more range than they thought they’d need, but because they didn’t need the power of a full power round, they could make the bullet lighter and manageable on full automatic. And fully automatic fire is a great force multiplier. Submachine guns were very popular and effective weapons, but they have a very short effective range of 50m. The German StG-44 pointed a way forward, trying to bridge the gap between a service rifle and a submachine gun, and by all accounts was very successful.

After World War II, we know that NATO stuck with full power rounds with the 7.62x51mm NATO, and eventually changed over to 5.56x45mm NATO, which is a classic example of a small caliber high velocity (SCHV) round. Currently, “everyone” (or at least every chairborne commando gun-writer) says that the 5.56mm round is inadequate, and that we should move to something in the 6.5-7mm range. However, the extant examples of such rounds, the 6.5 Grendel and 6.8 SPC, not to mention the .300 Blackout, resemble the short rifle rounds with somewhat better external ballistics. Certainly as far as weight and recoil energy are concerned. Which brings up an interesting point if we look East. The Soviets adopted a short rifle round, the 7.62x39mm, shortly after WWII, as did the Chinese. If the modern 6.x proponents were correct, we’d expect at least one, but probably both of these major powers to have stuck with something similar in the short rifle round. But they didn’t. The Soviets went to SCHV with the 5.45x39mm round in the early 1970s, and the Chinese went to the 5.8×42 in the 80s. Let’s see if we can’t reason out why.

The Soviets and the Chinese would have had access to M16 rifles and their associated 5.56mm ammunition as a result of the battles of the Vietnam war, and weapons were almost certainly taken from captured stocks in North Vietnam for further study. And they found a lot to like. 5.56mm weights about half as much as full power rounds like 7.62mm NATO, and about two thirds as much as short rifle rounds like 7.62x39mm. This means that a soldier can carry more ammo for the same weight (because no one ever actually reduces the soldier’s load, despite every utterance to the contrary. Sorry S.L.A. Marshall). More ammo was a boon for the war planner. Not only does it allow units to hold a position for longer, but units that have fought through a chance contact or ambush aren’t in dire need of resupply. What’s more, smaller rounds are easier to make in bulk, and easier to ship. Perfect if you have a big army that is going to need tons upon tons of ammunition to slay the foreign devils.

Another helpful advantage is the flat trajectory that simplifies aiming at combat ranges. With the right zero, a soldier does not need to adjust his sights or his aim to be able to hit targets within combat tolerances from 0 to 300 meters, or across the practical range of the soldier. We might think that a flatter trajectory would let us get reliable hits at ranges beyond 300 meters, but this is not the case. In addition to the problems of evasive targets mentioned previously, it is very hard to distinguish targets at ranges beyond 300 meters when they do not wish to be seen. While it is easy to spot and engage nice big silhouette targets at ranges of up to 500 meters even without optical sights (see the USMC rifle qual), soldiers who are trying to live to see another day by using cover and camouflage to hide themselves are very difficult to spot at longer ranges. So the SCHV rounds make basic combat shooting easier, but they don’t remove the requirements for fancy optical sights and marksmanship skills at longer ranges.

But what about lethality? Are SCHV rounds effective enough to justify making a switch? Admittedly, I’ve sold the accounting guys already, but let’s continue all the same. Lethality is a pain to talk about, because it’s not readily derivable from a number. For small arms though, you armchair physicists out there can shut up about kinetic energy–momentum is a better zeroth-order proxy for lethality. But that’s not a very useful proxy; it’s only good if you want a number to play with. Reality isn’t nicely quantifiable–it’s complicated. Gel tests are better, especially since the no-good treehuggers will get mad at us if we try to do more pig testing. Anyway, the idea of gel (a proxy for flesh) is that we want a cavity that is deep and wide. Deep, because (if you recall your high-school anatomy course), your heart is not on the skin, and we may have to shoot through things that are in the way (arms holding a weapon in firing position, gear carried on the vest, etc.) We want it wide because we want the best chance of damaging something important, like the heart or the central nervous system. Were we civilians hunting, say, wild hogs, we’d choose a nice, controlled-expansion soft- or hollow-point bullet. This would give us great expansion and penetration, and thus plenty of dead hogs (and tasty bacon!). But soldiers are forbidden by various treaties and conventions to not use such bullets. So let’s move on. The best we can hope for is that the SCHV bullet will hit the target in such a way that it will tumble rapidly, losing velocity. If the initial impact velocity is high enough (usually, above 2,700 feet per second for most standard military ammunition) the tumbling will cause the bullet to tear itself apart. Even though this is a tiny bullet, this causes some really nasty wounds. If you can only get tumbling out of your bullet, that still makes for a big, destructive wound channel. The worst case (well, from the perspective of effectiveness–it’s still pretty sucky.), is the “ice pick” case, where the bullet goes straight through, minimizing the wound channel size.

So now we get to the historical cases. In Vietnam, complaints about the M-16 were generally about issues with maintenance. No complaints about lethality were heard–in fact the lethality was praised by the troops, and damned by the red cross. In Afghanistan, the Russian 5.45mm earned similar praise from the Soviet troops and infamy from the mujahedeen, who called it the “poison bullet”. In Somalia, and again in Afghanistan complaints started to come up occasionally about lethality issues. Now, the skeptics among you might have some issues here. Can a soldier, who may not have an optic with magnification, be sure of how many hits he scored and where? Were these hits really center of mass shots? Did he hit at all? And why were the complaints not universal? Why were some soldiers, often in the same units, totally satisfied with the performance of their 5.56 rounds? Further, in Afghanistan, many would point out the longer engagement range as further proof of the failures of the 5.56. However, the Soviets had no complaints from their 5.45mm rounds. So what’s different? Well, we have a bunch of asinine restrictions on fire support missions in Afghanistan that prevent timely assistance to infantry. And, to no one’s great surprise, eventually the enemy figures this out and exploits it with snipers attacking infantry. In Vietnam, the enemy tried to get as close as possible because they feared our artillery. We can also note two more issues with the “5.56 is crap” theory here. First, if 5.56mm was so useless at range, why would SOCOM make the Mk 12 SPR in 5.56mm? Special forces can pick their gear–why would they use such a weapon if it is so ineffective? And use it they did; SOCOM units registered plenty of long distance kills with the Mk. 12. Second, if we are using Afghanistan as our instigator for change, we’re saying that we are expecting to fight more wars in that sort of terrain. Even if I wasn’t designing a force around a conventional war, I would find this a dubious proposition. I might be more swayed by arguments in favor of preparations for urban warfare in that case–but those would almost certainly favor shorter range rounds.

We’ve established that 5.56 can be an effective round at longer ranges. Something to note here is that the choice of the bullet itself for long range shooting is a little different from the NATO usual M855. The Mk. 12 is usually used with Mk 262 rounds, which are match bullets designed for their long range performance. I’m sure the shooters among you are thinking that I’ve cheated by looking at match rounds. To them I grunt, Belichick-style. They’re missing the point. I can choose whatever rounds I want to disprove the claim that “5.56 is useless at range”. If that claim was true, then I could load whatever rounds that I please, and should get the same piss-poor results. If the argument is that using basic service rounds I’ll get poor range performance, then I would say, did you miss all of those earlier paragraphs? Scroll up, actually read them this time, and come back. I’ll wait. Bullet design is pretty important, and I’m just not a big fan of M855. Given the choice, I actually prefer Vietnam-era M193, since it fragments more reliably. M855 is sort-of-armor-piercing, with a steel cap, but not a steel core. It’s not super helpful, except for telling you which Level III plates are cheap and lame. Soft flak vests can be dealt with by just about any 5.56 with its high velocity, and hard plates will need the fancy, tungsten-cored M955. And we can totally do better than your father’s M193 with modern bullet design. Something more like M855A1 (don’t let the designation fool you–it’s really an entirely new round) or Mk. 318 SOST. The key is getting a bullet that will tumble upon impact regardless of the nature of this impact (so minimize the impact of “Fleet Yaw”), and both of these bullets do this. M855A1 also takes advantage of modern, more consistent, less temperature sensitive propellents to up the chamber pressure. We can get away with this, because said modern powders won’t dramatically increase pressure in a hot bore. I’d prefer bullets themselves that use proper lead (because the “environmentally friendly” bullet gripe is dumb), but the example is good. The point is that these are excellent examples of effective, good 5.56 rounds, and SOST has gotten rave reviews in the ‘Stan. So we can find “infantry grade” rounds that are plenty effective at infantry distances.

So now we come back to those “6.x” intermediate rounds. Specifically, I’d like to look at 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendel, because those actually exist. While they’re somewhat handicapped by having to fit in an M4 magazine, this means there’s no weapon weight penalty, and it keeps the ammo weight about as low as we can. However, we’re still paying quite the weight penalty–each loaded magazine weighs about half again as much as a comparable 5.56 mag (with a 30 round magazine for each case). What does this weight/higher cost of ammunition get us? Well, 6.8 SPC was designed to explicitly give us better terminal performance than 5.56, and it delivers, even when we compare modern, fancy rounds. But these modern, properly designed rounds certainly give us nothing to really complain too much about in 5.56, in a lighter, cheaper, more controllable package. So there’s no reason to switch (and SOCOM agrees with us–they’ve basically got rid of any plans that they might have had to switch over). 6.8 SPC at least delivers what it claims to out of a standard carbine barrel. Out of a long (24″) barrel, 6.5 Grendel delivers phenomenal ballistic performance, but if you put it in a regular carbine barrel, performance suffers. There are also as yet unsolved issues with stuffing a longer tracer round into that case, or trying to make it work in a belt-fed weapon. Some might say that this doesn’t matter, but if you’re actually trying to have one cartridge to rule them all and any hope of reducing weight like proponents claim (do the math though–you fail), you’ll need to replace a full power round like 7.62 NATO in the support weapon role, which means belt fed. And that’s if you buy into bulky drums for the squad machine gun–I don’t. So the Grendel doesn’t deliver the goods on a perfect intermediate cartridge round either. Are 6.x rounds good? Sure. For military use, do they have advantages over 5.56 that offset the penalties of cost and weight? No.

So, the infantry will continue to carry light, reasonably effective 5.56x45mm NATO rounds. Next, we’ll choose a carbine to launch it.

On the Throwing of Gauntlets

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OY!
FISHBREATH!

Come out, Fishbreath!

I expect and demand to see procurement postings for the following four big-ticket items:
–An Infantry Carbine, complete with reasoning on choice of caliber and overall configuration (conventional or bullpup)
–A Sidearm
–A General Purpose, Medium-sized Utility Helicopter
–An Attack Helicopter

Pick up the gauntlet and respond if you dare, or be forever known as a poltroon and lazy shirker!

Procurement 4D: Lightning Squalls

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Richard Bong’s Ghost, I appear to have left out the F-35A from my procurement discussions. How could I have?

To be honest, I came into this not liking the Lightning II at all. It’s heavy, ugly, has relatively poor handling characteristics on paper, and is riding a massive hype machine. Oh, and it’s really, really expensive. It’s just not what I would have considered. But, I can’t have a discussion of modern fighter procurement without at least touching on it. And that means admitting that the F-35A is about as desirable as an independently-wealthy supermodel in a dating show. Which is to say, unfathomably desirable. I have great respect for the Israeli air force, and they’re on The List. I also respect the South Korean Air Force, which is also in a threatening location, and they cheated on the requirements (no really, they rewrote the requirements) just so they could get a piece of that Joint Strike Action. Neither of these air forces were part of the original partnership group, so they’re not trying to preserve local jobs. And despite the sticker price, Singapore calls it ‘economical.’ So, what am I missing? Well, a classified-level briefing and some fancy mathematical models of air combat, certainly. But beyond that, it’s probably important to figure out why the F-35A is so desirable to the world’s air forces. So let’s take a closer look at the Pride of Fair Columbia.

The F-35A is stealthy, and it’s in production now. Where else can you get both of those? Go ahead, look around, make a few calls. I’ll wait.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Right there is something that you can get nowhere else without violating our rules. Stealth is cool. Is it as stealthy as a B-2A Spirit? No, but the Lightning II isn’t a big heavy bomber either. Its stealth is X-band optimized, and with internal weapons carriage its radar signature can’t be beat in its class, unless you want to look at prototypes or things that the US Congress says You Can’t Have. And unlike some people, I’ll hold myself to those rules. If you want stealth this is the only game in town. And you know the stealth is going to work, because Lockheed Martin has plenty of experience with those materials and that design. Which reminds me, just in case you’re not sold on this whole ‘stealth’ thing, go blow the dust off your VCR and put in your CNN Archive tapes from Gulf War I. Pretty cool. Operating with impunity over the heart of one of the premier air defense systems at the time. Stealth is a massive gain for survivability in the face of modern, integrated air defense systems.

I know what you’re thinking though. First, you’re going to gripe about the F-117A shot down over Serbia. And yeah, okay, you got me. Stealth isn’t perfect, and I never claimed that it was. This is not a cloaking device. It just makes it a lot harder to detect on radar. And in Serbia we’re talking about a really clever piece of surface to air missile operation, plus somewhat sloppy route planning package on an aircraft that had no systems to warn it of an incoming missile. Credit where it’s due, that was a hell of a shot. But it’s not really an indictment of stealth technology as worthless. We still have a phenomenal sortie:loss ratio here. The next obvious gripe is that the F-35A can only carry two JDAMs internally (with two AMRAAMs, or six AMRAAMs without the bombs). And it’s true, that’s not the greatest loadout ever. But we need to be precise–that’s the sneaky loadout. Two 2,000-lbs-class precision guided munitions is exactly what the F-117A carried. It can carry more in low-threat environments, when we’re less worried about our radar signature. But, unlike an F-16 (say), the F-35 can also sneak in and blow stuff up like an F-117. Which was pretty freaking useful despite its smallish loadout. And the Lightning II has really good range performance with only internal stores too.

But there’s more to the F-35 than just the stealth option. Even if we load up all of the external stores, we still have all of the electrics. And the electrics and sensors on the F-35 are second to none. On the front aspect, the F-35’s IRST is basically a built-in Sniper XR targeting pod, and that model is top of the line. So it’s got all of those features without needing to blow a hardpoint on a TGP. That’s not all though. There are six IR sensors around the airframe, arranged for all-around, always-on coverage. You read that right. Always-on. The computers integrate all this for the pilot to identify and track things all around him. When he turns his head, he sees what the appropriate sensor sees, right in his helmet, but the rest of the sensors are still feeding the computer data. No sensor panning. With the computer’s sensor fusion, this gives him the best situational awareness anywhere. Infrared and radar data is combined for identification and tracking purposes. The distributed IR system gives not only awesome infrared searching and tracking, but also missile approach warning, all in one system. But that’s not all. The F-35A has one of the top radars in the world, the AN/APG-81. It may not have the raw power of the IRBIS-E, but it’s cleverer, with fancy LPI modes and built-in electronic warfare capabilities. It’s got everything you’d want for reconnaissance too, with multiple ground moving target detection and tracking, high resolution mapping, and combat identification modes. But wait, it gets better. The F-35A has an integrated electronic warfare suite. It can provide all the SAM radar ranging data and jamming support that it might need, no bulky pods or separate EW aircraft needed. The F-35A has a datalink as well. While it’s not the first fighter to have one (cf. Fishbreath’s post on the Gripen), it has a particularly good one with some compelling features. Specifically, it can datalink to things that aren’t aircraft, such as long range surface to air missiles in order to provide guidance data. It’s like having an extra wingman when you’re fighting near friendly ground forces. Call it a home-field advantage.

Okay, so the F-35 has a lot of really compelling features that you can’t get in any other fighter. Awesome. But what about handling? Well, it gets some help from the internal stores. Anything inside clearly creates no drag. According to many sources, the F-35A with internal stores handles about like an F-16 with a similar weapons load. Now, there are a whole bunch of caveats here, but since I’m not about to try to make a fancy 3D comparative graph of performance data on these two planes, so I’ll take them at their word of “Roughly F-16-grade handling”, and it ought to be good enough for the purposes of this argument. Is ‘Roughly F-16-grade handling” enough? While the F-16’s handling is pretty darn good, the Rafale’s is better, as is that of the Sukhoi Su-35S, the most likely near-term opponent (anything more advanced isn’t in production yet, so it’s a lot harder to predict what the production version will be capable of). So what does that better handling get you? To know this, it helps to know why we bothered going for handling in the first place. At the start of the “Fourth Generation” of jet fighter design, a missile could reliably engage a bogey regardless of its aspect. But the missile had a limited envelope, which is to say the zone in which it could see a target to engage it. Call this envelope a roughly 60-degree cone with the apex at the nose of the launching fighter. Better maneuverability meant that you could get your cone on the other guy first, and so you got first shot. Does this ensure a kill? No, because PK is never one. But it helps, because it usually gets the other guy to go defensive, which meant he had something better to do than try to kill you. Getting first shot is always better. Now, the F-35’s designers say that given the fancy sensor fusion and all-aspect sensors, as well as missiles that can engage a target on any relative bearing, we don’t really need all that agility. You’ve got first shot if you can see him and if he’s close enough. You also get the stealth on your side, to reduce your radar signature, and thus the range at which the other guy can lock you up and get his shot off. All points in the Lightning II’s favor. And there’s the aforementioned integrated electronic warfare, to make an opponent’s life worse.

But what if we’re wrong? What if the Pentagon and Lockheed got their vision of the future wrong? Well, we’d still have all the nifty strike and EW support aspects that I mentioned previously. As for the dogfights, let’s look at some history. The F-4 Phantom II is, on paper, rather a poor dogfighter. It’s big and doesn’t have the handling of it’s Russian contemporaries. In Viet Nam, we saw that it’s vaunted AIM-7 Sparrow missiles weren’t very good at their jobs. And, since the USAF and USN didn’t train pilots in dogfighting, they weren’t very good at it. So the Americans got their butts handed to them by the Vietnamese. But then, the Americans decided that something had to change. So the TOPGUN program and the Red Flag exercises were created, to train pilots in dogfighting. Even dogfighting with opponents who flew different planes, with different strengths and weaknesses than a pilot’s own. And the pilot training emphasis meant that afterwards the Americans gained a favorable kill ratio against their Vietnamese opponents. Similar results happened in the Arab-Israeli wars, where superior training on the part of the Israeli Air Force made up for any shortcomings in their fighters. Looking even further back, General Chennault’s Flying Tigers had an impressive kill:loss ratio against Japanese pilots in China, despite flying aircraft that looked terribly inferior on paper. So, if we do our part with a good training program, we can make up for any shortcomings that a fighter might have. But to be fair, we don’t know these shortcomings yet.

With all that said, the advantages of the Lightning II outweigh the disadvantages of lower payload and less agility when compared to the Rafale. We’ll suck up “good enough” 4th gen fighter handling (or better depending on which reports you read) for the avionics, situational awareness aids, and stealth features. Stealth provides an extra option for the Lightning II; if we choose not to use it on a given mission we get a F-16/F/A-18 with stupidly good avionics and integrated ECM. That’s a fine package. Also, being American, the F-35 is dominant in the 4th dimension of aircraft design (i.e. the political one) as well.

Comment on our procurement posts in the Procurement Games comment thread.

Procurement 4C: The Right Stuff

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Now we get to the good planes. The planes that made the cut. The planes that have the right stuff. So which will win?

First to go is the Eurofighter. This is another case of reality making an otherwise excellent fighter not work out well in practice. It should be a great choice, being optimized for air-to-air engagements first, and having what is by all accounts an excellent cockpit. In simulated dogfights, it’s even beat the Raptor a few times–and when it did the planes weren’t fitted with IRST or helmet-mounted sights. And that hints at one of the problems. Stinginess on the part of the builders because of a hippie ‘peace dividend’ has not only reduced the procurement numbers, driving up the costs, but they’ve also looked to delete things no sane person would remove. The Germans bought fighters without the suite of jammers and warning systems. The British considered deleting the gun. And everyone is dragging their feet on the latest sensors. IRST and AESA radar integration are proceeding slowly. Who knows if or when the fancy AESA radar will actually fly on production fighters–which means Borgundy might have to shoulder the cost of integration of something that really ought to come standard on a modern fighter. Plus, the fact that there are three countries as primary contractors instead of one means that you get to deal with politics and all three. Hello delays, cost overruns and a sticker price that is embarrassingly high. The Rafale is slightly less dogfight optimized than the Eurofighter, but it has one prime contracting nation that is actually upgrading, and it’s a whole lot cheaper. The Rafale also carries more. Both the Super Hornet and the Gripen are significantly cheaper as well. So, the Eurofighter gets the axe.

Next down is the cheap and cheerful Gripen. I’ll go light on the summary, because Fishbreath has written on it extensively. Suffice to say it’s cheap to buy and cheap to maintain. I could make this elimination much easier by looking at the Gripen-C that’s actually flying as opposed to the Gripen-E that has been offered/promised Brazil, but that’s hardly fair. Also, Fishbreath would whine. So, why not the Gripen-E? Well, again, where’s the radar? It’s promised an AESA unit, but very little is known. I can tell you it won’t be a very powerful unit, because power requires transmit/receive modules and the Gripen has a tiny nose. Will it be good enough? Will it have the features that we’ve come to expect on such excellent units as the APG-80? We don’t know. We could probably take a chance on the radar, but the Gripen’s small size means it’s rather payload and range limited. It’s certainly not going to be very capable of a deep interdiction tasking. In terms of dogfighting, its small size is a benefit, but it doesn’t help it as a bomb truck and we need to do both. Borgundy is also concerned about the EW systems, or rather, the lack of a strong integrated EW suite. We’d probably have to pay for more of that, especially as SEAD capability is notably absent from the Gripen-E. Honestly, the Gripen’s low cost and ease of maintenance led it to fare much better than I thought it would, but at the end of the day, we want fancier electrics and more hauling capacity.

That leaves the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which I will refer to as ‘Rhino’ like US Navy pilots and aircraft handlers, and Dassault’s Rafale. The Rhino has a significant price advantage, but otherwise they’re very similar fighters. Both have plenty of carrying capacity and hardpoints, with the edge going to Rafale for overall capacity. The Rhino has had an AESA radar for longer, and it’s currently widely in service. Rafale is just now getting those pushed out to the Armee de l’Air’s fleet. The Rhino’s radar is a bit better according to the published statistics, but the Rafale has an IRST unit. Both have a serious avionics suite built around making information easily available. Due to the IRST and the superior EW-suite, the Rafale does more with sensor fusion in it’s cockpit. On the EW front though, the Rhino beats all comers with its specialized EW-variant called the Growler, which is a phenomenal addition to the support fleet of any air force.

Handlingwise is where the Rafale edges out the Rhino though. The big Rhino could really use more engine power than it’s got, and in embiggening the Hornet, the spry handling has suffered. The Rafale has a more recent aerodynamic design and better power for its weight. The Rafale can still get decent range with conformal fuel tanks and no fewer than five hardpoints plumbed for droptanks. And, with nine other hardpoints, the Rafale is still capable of hauling a heavy warload. It’s got the interdiction capabilities, the dogfighting capabilities, and the sensor capabilities that we need. So it’s our choice for modern multir—hold on.

I appear to have forgotten one. Bugger. That won’t do at all.
It appears our conclusion was a trifle premature. Join us next time when the Rafale has a fly-off against the F-35A Lightning II.

Comment on our procurement posts in the Procurement Games comment thread.

Procurement Games 2014: How to Win, FREMMs, and Influence People

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In fighter procurement, there’s a concept known as the high-low mix: buy a small number of expensive fighters and a large number of less expensive fighter. The theory goes that it’s bad to be outnumbered and bad to be out-gadgeted, so mix the two together and mitigate the disadvantages of both1.

There’s a similar paradigm in naval procurement, although the reasoning is different. Big, expensive surface combatants—your carriers, your Kirovs, your Burkes—are well and dandy, and indeed, are usually more capable than the equivalent tonnage of smaller things. They have an enormous and obvious drawback, though: physically, they can only be in one place at a time. Luchtburg has its ‘high’ platforms in its aircraft carriers2, and it also has its ‘super-low’ local naval force3. What has been missing, up to this article, is a solid, dependable, light- to middleweight warship: an Oliver Hazard Perry for the modern age.

I’ve rather given up the game in the title, because, for a nation in the Americas, there is only one choice that makes any sense for worldwide sea lane influence: the FREMM, a French-Italian collaboration. Specifically, I’m talking about the Italian anti-submarine version. Over the French version, it has 900 tons, extra range and speed, room for a second helicopter, extra VLS tubes4, anti-submarine cruise missiles, a towed array, and a better radar. As I see it, a frigate5 has three major roles.

First, and most traditional, is the anti-submarine role. The Italian ASW FREMM is an extremely capable ship in this regard. Perhaps its most critical edge over other, similar options is the ability to carry two medium-lift helicopters. With their mobility, sensors, and immunity to counterattack, helicopters are extraordinarily important ASW assets, to the point where I dismiss out of hand any ASW ship without room for a brace of helos. Also important is a good towed sonar, and FREMM doesn’t disappoint. It has an advanced towed array from Thales, which has such exciting features as a separated transmitter and receiver array for working around layers, and low-frequency operational modes for longer active detection ranges.

Second, a ship operating by itself must be able to defend itself against air and cruise missile threats. The Italian version uses the Selex EMPAR radar, one of the class-toppers in the realm of passive electronically-scanned arrays for naval vessels, and the Luchtbourgish version carries thirty-two tubes6. As with all FREMMs, it supports Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles. As an added bonus, the latter has a dedicated anti-ballistic variant in testing, and already has minor anti-ballistic capability. Luchtburg’s FREMMs will come with standalone SEARAM launchers mounted on the foredeck and the hangar roof.

Third, a frigate must be able to attack other things on the surface, be they other seagoing vessels or land targets. The VLS, with its sixteen SYLVER A70 cells, can support cruise missiles, and the FREMM has eight cruise missile launchers amidships (the Italian version can launch anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine missiles, and land-attack missiles from the midships launchers). Further, for smaller targets, our FREMM variant mounts a pair of OTO-Melara rapid-firing 76mm guns. OTO-Melara produces a bunch of interesting ammunition for its rapid-firing guns, including an anti-ship round with IR terminal guidance, and a GPS/INS-guided land-attack munition.

1. I think. I’m not actually an expert.
2. And probably Arleigh Burkes or indigenous large missile destroyers, but I haven’t decided yet.
3. I’ll tell you later.
4. As equipped, it only has sixteen, but the Italians reserved room for another sixteen.
5. I’ll be using the European term for the FREMM, although calling a 6900-ton ship a frigate is patently absurd.
6. I would like more, but I don’t think it’s plausible to pack them in.

Comment on our procurement posts in the Procurement Games comment thread.

2014A: Project Carius (The Thunderbolt MBT)

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To beat the Red Army, you need numbers. Thus holds conventional wisdom as well as the experiences of Napoleon’s Grande Armee and Hitler’s Wehrmacht. You. Need. Numbers. Borgundy doesn’t have those. Can’t really get them either, because conscription is gone, and there’s no use trying to go down that road again. Can’t borrow numbers, because the NATO big cheese, America, has a bunch of other commitments in other parts of Europe, not to mention Asia and the Middle East. So, like all powers stuck at a quantitative disadvantage, we’re going to go for a qualitative edge. Hence, Project Carius, which has yielded Thunderbolt, the most powerful tank…in the world. Let’s take a tour.

Sorry, no flash photography.

MAIN GUN
We’ll start with the main gun, both because it’s a striking aspect of the tank, and because it’s where I started in the design. Most modern tanks use a 120mm gun if they’re good friends with America, or a 125mm gun if they’re good friends with the Soviet Union. Thunderbolt’s main gun is a 140mm L/47 smoothbore. L/47 means its barrel is 47 times longer than it is wide. It’s built for high-pressure rounds, and APFSDS-T rounds from it will go clean through the turret face (i.e. the thickest armor) of any current tank. It’ll laugh in the face of 1,200 mm of RHA steel. If we can hit it, we can kill it. Other less interesting but nonetheless important features of the gun include a protected bore evacuator and a thermal sleeve.

The aforementioned APFSDS-T rounds are somewhat problematic. To get the desired performance, each round is a one-piece unit (no separate propellant charge) that is 1.5 meters long and weighs 40 kg. This mandates the use of an autoloader, rendering crew size debates academic. The large round size also makes internal ammunition arrangements difficult. We’re also very concerned with survivability–we’re building a main battle tank, not a tank destroyer. To maximize crew safety, we’re going to take a page out of the Abrams design and store our main gun ammo in the bustle, beneath blow-out panels. The idea is that we won’t be able to perfectly protect the ammo from enemy fire, so accept the vulnerability and direct the blast outward, away from the crew. Then, we’re left merely with questions of mechanical layout and capacity. Our autoloader system will use a pair of side-by-side, electrically-driven horizontal carousels, each containing 18 rounds. The carousels are isolated from the crew compartment and each other by bulkheads, with small doors that open automatically for rounds to pass through. Rounds are indexed electronically by barcodes, allowing the computer to know how many rounds of each type are remaining. Blow out panels are above each carousel compartment. The twin carousels provide some measure of redundancy, allowing the tank a chance to continue fighting if one carousel is compromised. Other available round types include HEAT and a gun-launched ATGM. This missile insures that the Thunderbolt gives up no range to the Soviet AT-11 Sniper GL-ATGM.

OTHER GUNS
The Thunderbolt has formidable secondary armament as well. Instead of the usual coaxial general-purpose machine gun, the Thunderbolt mounts a 30mm Bushmaster II Chain Gun. This was chosen to maximize stowed kills and increase the number of targets that could be engaged without the use of the main gun. The Bushmaster II is electrically driven, making it phenominally reliable. It’s dual feed capabile, and is compatible with all standard NATO 30x173mm rounds.

The commander’s roof machine gun is a pretty conventional affair. We have an M2-HB mounted in a remote weapons mount, slaved to the commander’s independent sighting unit. This is pretty typical for modern tanks.

SENSORS AND FIRE CONTROL
The Commander normally observes the battlefield through his independent viewing unit. He has the option of using either day or thermal imaging modes, with 3x, 6x, 13x, 25x, or 50x magnification. He has his own laser rangefinder, as well as optional stadia rangefinding reticles for HEAT or APFSDS rounds on higher magnification settings. The commander can pass targets to the gunner and have the turret automatically turn onto target, or receive targets from the gunner and have his viewing unit turn to the target for additional observation. The commander can also override the gunner and slave the turret to his sighting unit for aiming purposes. He can fire the gun if desired. Additionally, the commander can see the view through the gunner’s sight on his monitor. The commander’s sighting unit has an auto-scan mode if the commander wishes to keep an eye on the monitor while doing other tasks. As a backup observation system, he has eight periscopes arrayed around his hatch to observe the battlefield.

The gunner observes the battlefield and targets on it through his roof-mounted panoramic sight. He also has day or thermal imaging modes, with 3x, 6x, 10x, or 20x magnification. The gunner’s sight also has a laser rangefinder, as well as optional stadia rangefinding reticules for both ammo types. The gunner’s backup sight is an 8x telescopic sight that has been boresighted to the main gun. It can also be used to verify that the gun is clear of an obstruction. Thermal imagers for both the commander and the gunner are dual band units (MWIR and LWIR).

The driver has the usual trio of periscopes providing a reasonable field of view while buttoned up. The center periscope is a combination thermal viewer unit that gives him the ability to operate at night without lights. Additionally, a thermal backup camera is fitted to aid in backwards maneuvering.

The Thunderbolt uses fiber optic cables and a data bus to coordinate information for the computer system. In addition to the aforementioned sensors, the Thunderbolt is equipped with the usual set of crosswind sensors, muzzle reference system, and cant sensors. The fire control computer will automatically compute lead for a firing solution on a target. It is also capable of automatically tracking a target. The computer system can interface with the datalink to share data including position information, maps, planning details, and targeting data with other nearby vehicles. Position data for the current tank is determined by the inertial navigation system, GPS receiver, and a north-finder unit. This data is shared so the crew can view locations of nearby friendly units. Relevant information about status of the tank is also displayed to the crew on the internal monitors.

ARMOR
Actual armor composition and configuration is classified, and details have been removed by the War Office’s Directorate of Secrets Protection. Here’s what they’re willing to let us share. The armor structure has been designed to be fully modular around the turret and hull front. These modules can be easily removed (with a convenient crane) for replacement of damaged modules in the field or simplified upgrades of armor in the most important areas. The turret face armor is a massive 1.3 meters thick, and side armor is approximately 50 centimeters thick. Armor modules on the turret face include depleted uranium. Other materials used include titanium diboride, titanium-aluminum alloys, triple-hardness steel, and nano-crystalline ceramics. In order to allow for a turret face built like the Rock of Gibraltar but not put the Thunderbolt into the realm of stupid-heavy tanks like the Maus, we’ll also need to make some effort to reduce weight. A critical part of this effort is the widescale replacement of RHA steel with titanium aluminum alloys in structural components of both the turret and the hull. This will provide very significant weight savings for no loss in structural strength or protection.

OTHER PROTECTION
A few other protective systems are of note. First, as is almost obligatory for a modern tank (or a modern refit of an older tank), the Thunderbolt has a spall liner to protect the crew from fragments of hull knocked loose by a hit. There’s the usual modern Halon-gas based fire suppression system for the engine compartment to put out flames as well. Finally, the GALIX system of smoke grenade/decoy launchers have been liberally placed about the turret. These can fire smoke to obscure the tank (and it’s IR signature) from an enemy or incoming missile. These can be fired manually by the crew, or automatically from the laser warning system or missile approach warning system. Finally, the Thunderbolt is also equipped with Rafael’s Trophy Active Protection system. This uses a series of small radars mounted around the turret (also used for missile approach warning notifications for the crew or GALIX cueing) to detect an incoming missile, which is then neutralized by a shotgun-like blast. This provides added defense against large ATGMs.

ENGINE
This took me quite a while to work out. Gas turbines have come a ways since the AGT-1500, and there’s also the French hyperbar V8X to consider. And then there’s everyone’s default choice, the relatively compact MTU MB 883 V-12 diesel. We’re going to go with that V8X. The V8X is basically a hybrid engine that starts life as a rather overbuilt V8 diesel engine, and then went in search of more power. An ordinary diesel engine designer would add one or more turbochargers at this point, but not SACM. Instead, they hooked a mini gas turbine up to the blowers rather than using a tap on the exhaust. Et voila! Massive amounts of extra pressure in the cylinders (a whopping 32.1 bar mean effective pressure). All the power one needs to drive his tank of choice (1,500 hp), along with great torque. Plus, unlike a conventional turbocharger, there is no turbo lag. The massive boost pressure is available immediately, even at idle. The little gas turbine engine can also function as an integrated APU, saving most of the space and weight of a separate installation. Additionally, the V8X has no trouble starting in the cold, unlike conventional diesels. The V8X has somewhat increased fuel consumption, especially at idle, due to the little gas turbine, but it is not as bad as a regular gas turbine. Also, since it does not require the big recuperator or the additional reduction gearing, the V8X powerpack is smaller than the gas turbine powerpack.

SUSPENSION
The Thunderbolt is designed with an advanced hydropneumatic suspension system. This was chosen because of reduced weight compared to a conventional torsion bar suspension, plus the ability to reduce hull height over a torsion-bar-equipped hull. Hydropneumatic in-arm units are also somewhat easier to replace than torsion bars. Furthermore, the suspension is centrally controlled, allowing the tank’s crew to adjust ride height, or provide additional incline/decline to the main gun. This will allow them to use the terrain more effectively.

VITAL FIGURES
Crew: 3 (Driver, Commander, Gunner)
Weight: 65 Tonnes
Cost: $14.2M

A Question of Procurement 4B: They Bought the Farm

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Let’s start to whittle this field down some. First to go is the MiG. The MiG-35 is a much improved version of that old terror of the late-80s, the MiG-29. It has much improved avionics, and maintains the type’s famed agility. However, no one has actually bought the MiG-35, so parts availability may be a concern. While the avionics are better, they’re still not as good as what comes standard in Western types. Plus, even with the new electrics and polish, it’s fundamentally a short range fighter, with relatively few hardpoints and small gas tanks. Also, being Russian, it’s harder and more expensive to maintain. So it’s really unsuited to our needs.

Next down is the Su-35S. On paper, it looks like a phenomenal fighter, with a big, powerful radar, great agility, tons of hardpoints, and long range. However, it’s doesn’t really have much in the way of ground attack capability with guided weapons when compared to western types. It can’t actually haul that much weight, especially for it’s size–it only carries about as much as the significantly smaller Super Hornet. Plus, being a really big Russian fighter, it promises to be an expensive maintenance nightmare, with high life cycle costs. As Fishbreath pointed out, it’s limited to Russian missiles currently. While western weapons could be integrated, we’d have to foot the bill, which probably will murder the highly competitive unit cost. And did I mention political pressure from other NATO members? So this one is out.

We can also eliminate the F-15E Strike Eagle without too much trouble. It’s a big fighter with plenty of range and an impressive hauling capacity to be sure. Also, it’s got a two-man cockpit, giving the advantage of a second pair of eyes and someone to mind the guided weapons. But it’s also very, very expensive to procure and operate, and really doesn’t have the fancy built-in sensors and avionics that we’d expect in our modern fighter. Some countries have procured versions with electronics that are better than the USAF-standards, but those are a mixed bag, and bring up questions of spares availability. Plus you’re stuck paying for all of the integration and testing yourself, which really isn’t ideal, and further drives up the cost. It also invites delays. We can do better for our money, so the Strike Eagle strikes out.

Much as it pains me, we find the F-16E Viper (Block 60) to be the last eliminated in the preliminaries. The Viper is basically the benchline combat fighter of it’s generation, doing just about anything you could ask of it reasonably well. And the -E model adds a fancy AESA radar, some integrated jamming equipment, a revamped cockpit, and conformal tanks (with the added side effect of completely ruining the lines). One might think this would be a shoe-in, because it’s reasonably priced to purchase and operate? So why did it fail to make it to the final round? Simple: it’s just not a big enough improvement on the -C Viper. When you’re confronted by the prospect of S-300PMU2 and S-400 SAMs and big, new Flankers, you want something more than last year’s fighter with a few more optional extras added. Plus, while the F-16E is reasonably priced for a modern combat fighter, the bill won’t sit well when it comes time to put the budget up for a vote. Borgundy is currently an operator of F-16Cs, and while it would make sense from a spares perspective, the bill for what will be seen as a ‘glorified upgrade’ won’t sit well. They’ll want a capability gain, as will the Aviation General Staff. When it comes down to it, in the fourth dimension of fighters, politics, the F-16E is all wrong. So, unfortunately, we must eliminate one of my favorites from this competition.

On to the Final Showdown!

Comment on our procurement posts in the Procurement Games comment thread.

2014A – Alternate History Formation

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This is a setup that I’m going to use for my December 16th Special, and possibly other things if the mood strikes me. Fishbreath is welcome to it as well, if he so chooses. Anyway, we’re going to setup a bit of alternate history, because it’s fun and because I need a justification for a Secret Project. All alternate histories need a Point of Divergence, plus a bunch of consequences. Our point of divergence is August 21, 1991, when the August Putsch succeeds in toppling Gorbachev, and putting Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev in power as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union does not fall, and manages to retain most of its holdings, with the exceptions of East Germany and Poland, thanks to some rapid moves by NATO. East and West Germany are more-or-less happily reunited, and Poland is a part of the new frontline. Greatest salient ever. The Baltic states and the Ukraine are very unhappy, but not strong enough to do anything about it (yet).

But wait, there’s more chaos afoot. Efforts to (finally) protect Poland and East Germany from a returning Red Menace left NATO unprepared to intervene in the Persian Gulf, when one Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Flush with success, he gambled further, striking south again in an effort to grab some oil from those perfidious Saudis. The resulting fights for the oil fields of northern Saudi Arabia left them aflame for weeks, driving up the price of oil, and providing a handy influx of capital to the troubled Soviet Union, as well as some handy extra leverage against the Ukraine. The Iraqis have been mostly pushed out of Saudi Arabia, and by now (2014), the price of oil has stabilized at something reasonable given American shale oil and Soviet reserves. Reunification of Germany has helped with manpower reserves, but overall hurt their defense budget. Advance NATO contingents are now forward-deployed in Poland, squaring off against the Red Army.

Other fun facts: Luchtburg is a nonaligned state that has bought too much Soviet equipment for the Americans to be happy with them, and too much Swedish equipment for the Soviets to like them much more. Brazil and Argentina have formed an alliance to promote economic development and support indigenous military development1. They’re both promoting big growth through spending, and military expansion including some significant naval buildup. The Middle East is as unstable as ever, with the Saudis angry about Kuwait, the Iranians and Iraqis at each other’s throats, Syria attempting to crush a revolt, and Egypt as stable as ever (which is to say, not at all). Borgundy is a NATO member, and proud to make good old security guarantees to the Poles, even if they’re fifty-odd years late.

And now, our crisis. The current General Secretary is one Vladimir V. Putin, who is attempting to suppress an uprising in Western and Central Ukraine. NATO’s forces in Poland are on alert, and generally predisposed to the south. Meanwhile, in the Baltic states, additional forces have been deployed to pre-empt any sympathetic rebellions. To the eyes of NATO, this resembles the sort of aggressive prepositioning that the Soviets are fond of. A countermove must be made, and Borgundy’s special contribution will be in position shortly.

Join us for a special feature on December 16th, commemorating the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, as we take a closer look at this special contribution.

1. Fishbreath comments: fortunately, neither Sweden nor the Soviets are likely to stop taking my money.

Discuss at the 2014A discussion thread.