Why? You have the Abrams tank and the new SPG entering service.
I ask the question as I’m not really clear on the role a FSV plays. Not really tank not really IFV. Neither fish nor fowl….If it was a cheaper (which is questionable ) and lighter but less protected option than a tank is there a place for it?
I am sure that @Takao or one of the others will be able to answer you question in better terms than I can. Personally I have never seen the logic in living in a hole in the ground and carrying your home around on your back, when your home can carry you around and give three hot square feeds a day.
With Abrams and the AS9, with IFVs armed with Spike, I'm not sure it's a niche worth adding a further small number of different weapons to support.
oldsig
My understanding is that they are meant to be used in specific operational conditions where they won't be required to punch above their weight.
Also; they are intended to be operated alongside other friendly assets which can play a part in mitigating whatever inherent weaknesses or limitations FSVs/light tanks have.
Back in the day we had a gun thingy on the M113's in the 1970's / 80's.
M113A1 Fire Support Vehicle by Paul D. Handel
anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com
Kind of looked cool.
Problem was you needed a mustache to be a crew member.
The challenge was Army did not order enough Mustaches and therefore the whole APC tank gun thing just did not work.
Moving forward
Our future IFV will however be a seriously effective bit of kit.
They are also mustache agnostic.
Cheers S
ps - Interestingly Indonesia are looking at a light tank
Pointless in our context. Limited to no mobility improvement either tactically or strategically. Certainly no improvement on protection, no improvement on firepower, not significantly cheaper and adding another vehicle into sustainment and training spaces…
If we’ve got more money and staff for tank-like vehicles, I cannot for the life of me think of a better way to spend it, then on more M1A2SEPV3 tanks…
Takao
The Bunker Group
Everyone has already raised most of the good points.
The theory is that it provides a big bang for lighter forces where you can't take a tank. But, like all theory, it tends to break down. The biggest problem lies in being neither fish nor fowl. It's like the tortured offspring of an IFV and a tank.
Except it can't do either.
What you have in this particular case is a light weight 120 mm (so it can't shoot the same ammo as an M1). This to use against targets that have been designed against the M256-family of cannons to the point the West is considering going to 130 mm or 140 mm. So it can't shoot as well as a tank. But the 120 mm fires slower and has a greater danger area than the 30 mm / 40 mm / 50 mm family of cannon on an IFV. And those can kill anything short of a MBT just fine. Add in some ATGM to kill the MBT, and an IFV becomes a bit nasty.
Protection wise, this thing is huge. It claims to be 30 t less than an M1, but physically its bigger. So it's an easier target. Furthermore, most of that 30 t difference is armour. So less 30 t less armour over a physically greater volume? This thing can't take the hit an M1 can. And it's bigger, so harder to hide. All for a weight that can't be lifted on a C-130 or similar, so needs a C-17 or sea lift. Which is the same for an M1.... So deployability wise, especially for us, it comes with the same bill.
Finally, the sticker price for this is more than an M1. And that's before Rheinmetall add all their extras on. So you can get 4x M1 for the price of 3x of these.
So all up, it doesn't make sense, especially as their isn't a mission for it. Now, our FSV was to provide firepower for an air-dropped force. We don't need that now, because we've twigged that air-dropping forces is silly, armour especially. Furthermore, our airlift fleet has improved immeasurably since 1965, so if for some reason I need to put tank-like thing somewhere by air, I can put a tank. Even if you ignore that, I can put an armoured BG into the field in 2028 that will have a full power 120 mm, 30/35/40 mm, ATGM and 155 mm (plus maybe 120 mm mortar) shooting. Every vehicle in the assault will be armoured at least as much as a light tank, about 1/3 to half more so. And it will all cost less.
As an aside, the vast majority of light tank proposals have remained exactly that, proposals. There have been very few translated to production. It really seems a solution looking for a problem.
T
Thankyou…. a great explanation once again!
Going to be incredibly surprised if redback doesn’t win the upcoming land 400 phase 3 decision.
Lots of jobs chatter involving and I can’t see ADF choosing to effectively be the first or 2nd major client for a EU vehicle…. I’m thinking they will want to hit the ground running and Hanwa looks to have the credibility there.
www.defenceconnect.com.au
euro-sd.com
Lots of jobs chatter involving and I can’t see ADF choosing to effectively be the first or 2nd major client for a EU vehicle…. I’m thinking they will want to hit the ground running and Hanwa looks to have the credibility there.
Hanwha eyes full-scale expansion in Australia
The South Korea-based company has expressed interest in ramping up business operations in Australia, buoyed by its recent receipt of the $1 billion LAND 8116 contract. Hanwha Group has announced it is
Hanwha Australia to Support Oshkosh OMFV Consortium - European Security & Defence
Hanwha Australia has been selected to take part in Oshkosh's offering for the US Army's OMFV programme, which is the REDBACK IFV.
euro-sd.com
MARKMILES77
Active Member
Reading the article about Avalon being the site chosen for construction of the new SPHs I am confused by the costings.Going to be incredibly surprised if redback doesn’t win the upcoming land 400 phase 3 decision.
Lots of jobs chatter involving and I can’t see ADF choosing to effectively be the first or 2nd major client for a EU vehicle…. I’m thinking they will want to hit the ground running and Hanwa looks to have the credibility there.
Hanwha eyes full-scale expansion in Australia
The South Korea-based company has expressed interest in ramping up business operations in Australia, buoyed by its recent receipt of the $1 billion LAND 8116 contract. Hanwha Group has announced it is
Hanwha Australia to Support Oshkosh OMFV Consortium - European Security & Defence
Hanwha Australia has been selected to take part in Oshkosh's offering for the US Army's OMFV programme, which is the REDBACK IFV.
An initial $1 Billion for building 30 AS9s and 15 AS10s and for building the factory ( factory construction takes $170 million of the $1 Billion).
It then says a second batch costed at up to $2.3 Billion will likely follow. This seems to indicate the second batch will be much larger in number.
Is that correct?
I hav
I have read reports…comments that we could end up with around 60 SPH and 30 loaders total but it’s possibly more.
$1bn - $170m infra spend = $830m on production / 45 hulls = $18.3m per hull
$2.3bn / $18.3m implies 125(!) hulls. This assumes no efficiency improvements in batch 2 vs batch 1 which is not the case. Say batch 2 is 20% more efficient? That gives us nearly 160 (!!) hulls.
As a layman this doesn’t feel out of whack compared to the rest of the armoured force. 1 MBT (75 in total) for each 2 SPH (say 150 in total) to 6 IFVs (450 in total). Feels balanced?
Either that or the numbers aren’t like for like. Maybe we’re buying a ton of Excalibur rounds? Or one is in constant dollars and the other is then-year dollars?
John Newman
The Bunker Group
Time for a bit more budget accuracy regarding the two batches of SPGs:
* Stage 1 has a budget allowance ‘range’ of $0.9b-$1.3b
* Stage 2 has a budget allowance ‘range’ of $1.5b-$2.3b
The ‘upper’ end budget of stage 1 is reasonably close to the ‘lower’ end budget of stage 2, true?
As to the actual manufacturing site, I assume that the infrastructure will be owned by Hanwha, not the Commonwealth (possibly there could be State or Federal funding to ‘assist’ in encouraging the infrastructure side of the project).
Anyway, back to the budget allowance/range for the two phases of project, you can’t do simple maths and just say X dollars budget, divided by Y assumed number of vehicles.
I sure don’t know what is, or isn’t, included in each batch, and we don’t know if batch 2 will be the same number of vehicles, which can also account for the large variation in the budget range.
* Stage 1 has a budget allowance ‘range’ of $0.9b-$1.3b
* Stage 2 has a budget allowance ‘range’ of $1.5b-$2.3b
The ‘upper’ end budget of stage 1 is reasonably close to the ‘lower’ end budget of stage 2, true?
As to the actual manufacturing site, I assume that the infrastructure will be owned by Hanwha, not the Commonwealth (possibly there could be State or Federal funding to ‘assist’ in encouraging the infrastructure side of the project).
Anyway, back to the budget allowance/range for the two phases of project, you can’t do simple maths and just say X dollars budget, divided by Y assumed number of vehicles.
I sure don’t know what is, or isn’t, included in each batch, and we don’t know if batch 2 will be the same number of vehicles, which can also account for the large variation in the budget range.
Rock the kasbah
Active Member
My apologies does that mean we don't own the blueprints
That's alot of coin
If evry time we build one are we giving them a kickalong
John Newman
The Bunker Group
What do you mean ‘don’t own the blueprints’?
Most, if not all manufacturers, local or overseas based, own their ‘own IP’.
Rock the kasbah
Active Member
Sorry bro
I'm just asking if we as a nation own the technology and facilities in this deal or if we order more than the original contract we are renegotiating
John Newman
The Bunker Group
I don’t understand your concern, just about everything the ADF procures is manufactured in a facility that is owned by the developer/designer/manufacturer, either here or O/S.
I don’t understand the problem.
Do you own the building your Arnott's biscuits are made in? Do you own the building your car is made in? No?
As to beyond the original AS9/AS10 contract the Commonwealth could walk away and leave Hanwha holding the bag, or we negotiate a price for a second batch.
This is normal, nothing to get hung up on either way.
That makes much more sense, thank you.
Interesting to see if it would be possible to compress some of these project time frames where possible. At this point I would assume long range fires would probably be an off the shelf purchase. Or would that potentially be another Aussie build project.