Some unrelated recent military procurment storiess since I am getting bored of Ukraine

[Adar]

So in other words get ready to spread your cheeks really wide again for Uncle Lockheed in a few years when he's managed to convince everyone that we need "6th gen" to fend off the Sino-Russian bogeyman hordes.

I think Bill Sweetman has already trademarketed "6th gen" for Gripen.

[Condottiere 40K]

More likely it's a Tiger, the question being Two or Shark.

[conon394]

In thinking about tanks and looking the top MBTs for a bit a couple thoughts:

Many MBTS Lepard 2 and the Challenger jump out here seem to have a pretty light set of secondary guns and ammo vs say the MIA1 or the Merkava. Is that doctrine or just the US is willing to build a real heavy (weight) tank and can than afford the crew and capacity to toss in more runs and rounds for example?

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Second thought we are getting a long way away time from any fleet of any scale with small blip of the Falklands war. The US via the Gerald ford Class and via letting its surface anti ship missile capacity sort of wilt clearly decided that the super CV was it primary platform for power projection. So may questions is does anyone know if the US did any testing with the decommissioned Kittyhawk CVs - which make a decent stand in for current US CVs to see how say a CV can really stand up to a saturation cruise missile attack? That being the Surface Attack strategy of many of the advisories of the US. Thus while can fine individual test and games and small stuff I can't See anything like bolting the all the current defense gear to the CV and say a 2 decommissioned Spruance Class ship's rig them all to auto and or remote and than fire essential endless amounts of missiles at the robot fleet and see what the result is. We tons of aircraft in the Bone yard thrown some of them all drone-ed up to with the latest IFF to see how many get killed by their own side

Expensive I'm sure but it would be a real data point of use. It just seems to me the US and other western navies might be slipping into real MK14 terretoriory here a wonder torpedo validated in isolated testing but completely flawed in real war. Also since it seems many commanders don't even want to turn on their defense systems (Stark and Hanit) or when they do they use it is difficult to make the right call (downed Iranian civilian Jet). On Balace it seems the whole US fleet defense system for CVs for the most likely kid of fleet action has never really been put to the test.

[Pielstick]

I think Bill Sweetman has already trademarketed "6th gen" for Gripen.

I'll only call it 6th Gen if like all the greatest Swedish exports it comes flat packed

In thinking about tanks and looking the top MBTs for a bit a couple thoughts:

Oooh lots if interesting thoughts here....

Many MBTS Lepard 2 and the Challenger jump out here seem to have a pretty light set of secondary guns and ammo vs say the MIA1 or the Merkava. Is that doctrine or just the US is willing to build a real heavy (weight) tank and can than afford the crew and capacity to toss in more runs and rounds for example?

I'm not as up to speed with AFVs as I am with aircraft, but my understanding is that of the current crop of high end MBTs the latter model Leopard 2s have the best gun and sighting system, whilst the Challenger 2 is the best protected. The M1A2 is somewhere in between the two (i.e. better gun than Chally 2 but not quite as good armour, better armour than Leo 2 but not quite as good gun/sighting). I think Merkava was always a different type of MBT to Abrams/Chally/Leo that was more optimised for urban warfare. I may be completely wrong though, if anybody wants to enlighten me please feel free.

As for making heavy tanks..... again my reading is that the modern concept of the MBT came from the experience in WW2 where the medium tanks were too squishy, but the heavy tanks were, well... to heavy. The MBT is supposed to be a compromise (or rather perfect balance) between a traditional medium and heavy tank concept.

So may questions is does anyone know if the US did any testing with the decommissioned Kittyhawk CVs - which make a decent stand in for current US CVs to see how say a CV can really stand up to a saturation cruise missile attack?

I think USS America ended up being used for this very purpose... to see how hard it is to sink a carrier. However, I think they used torpedoes instead of missiles. If I recall correctly it took a lot of torpedoes and many hours for it to sink. You're absolutely right about the modern CVBG defences being pretty much unproven. It's a very interesting question that hopefully we will never find out the answer to.


Now this has given me an opportunity to point you in the direction of something veeeewy intewesting I found a day or two ago:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98681027/20.pdf

This describes the "Global War Game" run by the US Navy back in the 80's and plays out a strictly conventional conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the 1984-88 era. It's a long read (150+ pages) and I've only skimmed the conclusions, but it looks like one helluva interesting read. I'll spoil the ending for you and say it looks like the Warsaw Pact were victorious in the central European land war, but NATO beat the WP everywhere else. One very interesting thing they mention is the effect the war had on agriculture in the Soviet Union.... i.e. due to the mobilisation and turning over of all infrastructure to the war effort the Soviets would end up being unable to feed their population if the war dragged on for too long. It also mentions the war causing civil and political unrest in some eastern European WP members like Poland and Hungary, which would have destabilised the WP alliance.

[Love Mountain]

I still want to know how the Navy convinces the country that we need trillions of dollars worth of procurement every year. 10 Supercarriers and almost a hundred Destroyers( that are pretty much guided missile cruisers)? Who in the right mind needs that much weaponry for policing the world?

[Farnan]

I still want to know how the Navy convinces the country that we need trillions of dollars worth of procurement every year. 10 Supercarriers and almost a hundred Destroyers( that are pretty much guided missile cruisers)? Who in the right mind needs that much weaponry for policing the world?

Not all those carriers can be out at once. They go through a maintenance/mobilization cycle.

Conon: Something you have to keep in mind is stand off. The Carrier Group can attack ships with surface to surface missiles at a much greater range than they can attack. The P-700 naval missile has a range of only 500 km while the F/A 18 has a combat radius of 700 km and can fire a Harpoon at about 250 km. Thats a 450 km advantage in range or about 8 hours for a Kirov.

[Condottiere 40K]

The Pentagon needs to be reminded that they don't have an unqualified right to a bottomless budget, and need to be good stewards of tax payer monies, and defence contractors that profits can't come at the expense of the national interest.

[Love Mountain]

Farnan, how does that justify the need for 10 carriers? At most, 5.

[Shneckie]

In thinking about tanks and looking the top MBTs for a bit a couple thoughts:

Many MBTS Lepard 2 and the Challenger jump out here seem to have a pretty light set of secondary guns and ammo vs say the MIA1 or the Merkava. Is that doctrine or just the US is willing to build a real heavy (weight) tank and can than afford the crew and capacity to toss in more runs and rounds for example?

How do you mean by secondary guns? As in coax machine guns? The Chally 2 has a 7.62 coax which, afaik, is standard for pretty much all modern MBT's. I know the yanks like to stick a HMG on top of their commanders hatch. This is more down to doctrine than anything. I'm not sure what the Americans reasoning for having it is, but a tank commander has a load on his plate as it is without being expected to get some rounds down. A commander should have his hatch closed unless absolutely necessary anyway.

I'm not as up to speed with AFVs as I am with aircraft, but my understanding is that of the current crop of high end MBTs the latter model Leopard 2s have the best gun and sighting system, whilst the Challenger 2 is the best protected. The M1A2 is somewhere in between the two (i.e. better gun than Chally 2 but not quite as good armour, better armour than Leo 2 but not quite as good gun/sighting). I think Merkava was always a different type of MBT to Abrams/Chally/Leo that was more optimised for urban warfare. I may be completely wrong though, if anybody wants to enlighten me please feel free.

As for making heavy tanks..... again my reading is that the modern concept of the MBT came from the experience in WW2 where the medium tanks were too squishy, but the heavy tanks were, well... to heavy. The MBT is supposed to be a compromise (or rather perfect balance) between a traditional medium and heavy tank concept.

It seems to be a common misconception that the Challenger 2 has an inferior gun to other modern MBT's. That is not the case. Because the UK is the only NATO country to equip it's MBT's with rifled guns rather than smoothbore, the rounds we use are not compatible with smoothbore guns and vice versa. It's entirely a case of UK rifled DU rounds being inferior to standard NATO tungsten based rounds. There was a program to replace the rifled gun with a German smoothbore because A) Production lines of DU rounds in the UK have closed and ammunition stores are running dry after Iraq and B) Tungsten rounds are superior. However last I heard, the replacement program was scrapped because the MoD found a production line outside of the UK to produce tungsten rounds compatible with the rifled gun. I'm no longer up to date however since my unit converted from Heavy Armour to Light Cav.

[Stavroforos]

I think it's important to remember that while we're always trying to figure out which one of the modern MBTs is the best, we can all agree that they're all very good, even the Leclerc. It's all down to crews and training, which is why I'd put my money on a US Abrams even though it might not be as good a tank as the Leopard 2A6.

Also Schneckie, I think US Abrams have the top .50 wired up for remote control firing, so the commander doesn't need to stick his head out.

[Pielstick]

It seems to be a common misconception that the Challenger 2 has an inferior gun to other modern MBT's.

I've read something about the rifled gun on the Challenger versus smoothbore on everything else. Would I be right in saying the smoothbore has a higher muzzle velocity?

What's interesting is if the Challenger's armament is inferior..... I understand the Chally 1 holds the record for the longest range tank on tank kill ever (over 3 miles), and I seem to remember reading about one action where a Chally 1 put the same round through two Iraqi T-54s, both in GW1.

I've also read a few times about the Abrams' gas turbine engine gives it tremendous power, but it guzzles prodigious amounts of fuel. I think in GW1 Gen Schwarzkopf had to get the US armoured divisions to slow down because they were advancing too fast for their logistics to keep up and were in danger of running out of fuel.

[Condottiere 40K]

It's combined arms, especially as the ratio of MBTs declines.

I think that only the Russians, Americans, Chinese and Indians can mass their tanks.

[Stavroforos]

I've read something about the rifled gun on the Challenger versus smoothbore on everything else. Would I be right in saying the smoothbore has a higher muzzle velocity?

What's interesting is if the Challenger's armament is inferior..... I understand the Chally 1 holds the record for the longest range tank on tank kill ever (over 3 miles), and I seem to remember reading about one action where a Chally 1 put the same round through two Iraqi T-54s, both in GW1.

I've also read a few times about the Abrams' gas turbine engine gives it tremendous power, but it guzzles prodigious amounts of fuel. I think in GW1 Gen Schwarzkopf had to get the US armoured divisions to slow down because they were advancing too fast for their logistics to keep up and were in danger of running out of fuel.

I believe there are versions (export versions, I believe) which don't run on the gas turbine engine but on diesel, and that efforts were being made to find a way to get these engines into US Abrams. I am pretty sure that the future MBT of the US Army has fuel efficiency as a high priority.

[Condottiere 40K]

This is based on my experience of virtual wargaming, but when you expect military equipment to have a lifespan of days or even hours on a battlefield, fuel efficiency rates second behind performance.

Sort of when you hire mercenaries to make up the numbers, and don't care what their upkeep costs next turn, as by then they will be attritioned and/or disbanded by the time you're finished fighting.

[Pielstick]

Given the war the M1 was built to fight, they weren't expected to be driving very far

[Farnan]

Farnan, how does that justify the need for 10 carriers? At most, 5.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/20...raft-carriers/

This article is by the former captain of the USS George Washington. He can explain it better than me.

[Pielstick]

This is based on my experience of virtual wargaming, but when you expect military equipment to have a lifespan of days or even hours on a battlefield, fuel efficiency rates second behind performance.

I see your point, but then if you don't expect your forces to last very long before being heavily attrited then why pursue expensive high tech stuff like Abrams and not instead just build a much greater number of simpler and cheaper tanks?

I always though NATO realised it was going to get steamrollered by the Red Army and couldn't hope to match it in terms of sheer numbers of armoured vehicles and aircraft, so NATO instead pursued a doctrine of quality over quantity - procure and field stuff that will have a much higher kill:loss ratio over the Warsaw Pact forces in the (perhaps foolish) hope it would help balance out the numerical disadvantage.

Which in itself is a really strange path to follow given the Allies' experiences with Germany in WW2. As tough and fearsome as the Tiger and Panther were, the Allies always had a lot more Shermans on the day and could afford to absorb the casualties.

[Condottiere 40K]

It would serve three purposes, again partly based on my experiences of wargaming, both virtual and tabletop:

1. When you have a personnel bottleneck, but money is less of an issue, you equip your forces up to the limits of your budget,

2. Psychologically, you instill in your troops the belief that not only will the equipment keep them live long enough to knock out significant numbers of the enemy, they might be able to keep you alive long enough that reinforcements will relieve you. When you're young, you tend to think you're immortal, and hope springs eternal.

3. If your forces are well trained and led, it's possible that the opposing commanders, subcommanders and their troops could make a mistake under pressure, which you then have the equipment to exploit.

[Farnan]

I see your point, but then if you don't expect your forces to last very long before being heavily attrited then why pursue expensive high tech stuff like Abrams and not instead just build a much greater number of simpler and cheaper tanks?

I always though NATO realised it was going to get steamrollered by the Red Army and couldn't hope to match it in terms of sheer numbers of armoured vehicles and aircraft, so NATO instead pursued a doctrine of quality over quantity - procure and field stuff that will have a much higher kill:loss ratio over the Warsaw Pact forces in the (perhaps foolish) hope it would help balance out the numerical disadvantage.

Which in itself is a really strange path to follow given the Allies' experiences with Germany in WW2. As tough and fearsome as the Tiger and Panther were, the Allies always had a lot more Shermans on the day and could afford to absorb the casualties.

The NATO Plan was to conduct a fighting withdraw to the Eider and Rhine Rivers and Alp Mountains and halt the Warsaw Pact there or if that failed hold at the Pyrenees and Alps. As such they needed to be able to preserve their forces, and high quality equipment was needed to do so. The high quality MBTs would also by time to evacuate the West German Government and NATO Civilians.

Also, NATO knew they could afford to replace equipment a lot easier than the USSR. The USSR had, at the closest, one third of the GDP of the US, and Western Europe was far more economically strong than Eastern Europe. As such even with the more expensive MBTs they could still out produce the Warsaw Pact.

[Shneckie]

I think it's important to remember that while we're always trying to figure out which one of the modern MBTs is the best, we can all agree that they're all very good, even the Leclerc. It's all down to crews and training, which is why I'd put my money on a US Abrams even though it might not be as good a tank as the Leopard 2A6.

Also Schneckie, I think US Abrams have the top .50 wired up for remote control firing, so the commander doesn't need to stick his head out.

I got a quick eyes on the USMC's Abrams in Afghan and yeah it seemed to be remotely operated. Still, I couldn't imagine one of our commanders having the time to operate a weapon system. Off the top of my head they got to listen out to the radio and send back, map read, direct the driver, operate the LMDT and Hunter Killer systems. Maybe American crews work differently.

I've read something about the rifled gun on the Challenger versus smoothbore on everything else. Would I be right in saying the smoothbore has a higher muzzle velocity?

Yeah smoothbore would deliver higher velocities. Doesn't necessarily mean a rifled armament is inferior. British doctrine favours rifled guns for a reason.