In the last couple of months I read that the 105s are undergoing a major rebuild in Australia to give them a couple more decades of service life.
Volk,
Happy to be corrected but my unerstanding of Jav is that whilst it is fire and forget, its also lock on before launch, meaning it IS actually los. Top attack is not really nlos, its just a means of attacking the thinner upper armour.
And which Spike variant are you talking about? the dismounted version (Spike MR) Im referring to which has the same or very near to the capability of Jav which our School of Infantry investigated as well as Jav ie max range 2500m and a weight of 14kg or are you referring to the Spike LR/ER/NLOS Helo/vehicle mounted with a range of 25km at 70 Kgs which does not make Spike NLOS a man portable ATGM.
Well I'm talking about NLOS spike, which is the variant specifically mentioned by KiE, where he was talking about broadening the options available to the nz army...as you say spike mr would not do this, but spike nlos would. Didn't see where KiE specified use by dismounts, but an 8 cell launcher for spike Blois can be truck mounted according to Rafael. EO sighting system is part of the missile so the 25km is achievable in conjunction with an observer..I think an MBT might struggle with this.....
Here's a youtube link to the capabilities I was thinking of. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZVqUeA1FhQ"]Spike missiles - YouTube[/nomedia]
But here the rub,
Mate it would work if NZ had brought Swingfire or TOW in the early 70's or 80's because we would of had Doctrine, training & logistics models of our own to modify for Spike NLOS, don't get me wrong its a very good system but if you have a look at NZLAV we tried for ten years to make it work and guess what happened we sent all the LAV back under command of QAMR.
Correct Volk this is why 1RNZIR has rerolled back to Light Infantry, its core skills had degraded to the point of non existence JNCO/SNCO could not navigate in open or close country with a map & compass, they couldn't live away from the vehicle for extended periods ie beyond 72 hours it took ten years for those up top to realise the experiment was a failure all goes back to a flawed doctrine.
Look sorry guys, when I posed the question I was framing it in my own mind in the context of a rapidly changed geo-strategic scene. As in the likelihood of our forces being engaged in high intensity, high tempo combat but still within the boundaries of an allied coalition so likely integrated within an allied battlegroup or larger formation with armour, artillery and air. But this was more of the mind to provide improved lethality in rushed movement to contact where a full battlefield picture has not been developed to our forces and perhaps to alleviate some reliance on allied support or fighting out of ambush. This was a contingency scenario exploration rather than a call to re-prioritise given current realities faced by the rest of NZDF.
NZ wont be rushing to advance to or in contact we would be either behind the vanguard or off to a flank looking for a weakness with the enemy to exploit you cannot get away from having to rely on your allies we haven't got the means to form a Division anymore our biggest force to deploy will be a enhanced Infantry Battalion.
It would be more cost effective IMO to purchase AH1Z gunships than try an integrate something on the A109 but unfortunately there is no Corporate knowledge left in RNZAF to assist with the integration of a zuni pod onto the A109 let along work out how to operate it in support of land operations better to buy from scratch and bring the whole capability in from doctrine, training & logistics than use the No 8 wire mentality again.
The only thing I don't like about the AH1Z is its undercart, skids vs wheels. If we had such a capability we would want the ability to fly it from our ships and manoeuvring a helo with skids around a flight deck, on something like Canterbury wouldn't be fun in anything other than calm seas. I know the US Marines fly them off flight decks, but their flight decks a somewhat larger.
Seconded. Sadly I fear that any wisdom you could pass on would be lost on those at the big end of town that get to make a lot of the decisions. You're input here at DT is appreciated though, especially by those that don't have insider knowledge.
A109's are already integrated with an armaments package, including rocket and gun pods, targetting / combat systems and various sensor packages. Actual aircraft integration is a non-issue. The Philippine airforce for instance has just purchased a squadron of 8 A109 aircraft so equipped.
And further to this, Javelin itself has a series of Product Improvement upgrades planned.
Correct AD which we are very interested in its further development (caution this does not mean NZ Army will purchase this version) esp with the increase of extended range out to 8km unfortunately our model still has the basic 2.5km range.