Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Fair enough - wasn't sure how straightforward it would be. Sounds like a beast if doable.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
One would hope so. You'd have to think the 35mm would be more "future proof" than any of the other offerings and therefore a selling point. Then again I am sure there is much more to this than the calibre of the main armament. Looks like a two horse race to me - Boxer vs AMV35?
And therefore CV90 and Puma for Phase 3?
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
That's what I would have thought. Far from an expert on the subject though... Either one would be a massive step up for us at any rate.
Seems to have a bow wave (fording only?) screen mounted on the front glacis.
TheBoomerangKid
New Member
Given the turret commonality card played by BAE with AMV35 and CV9035; would it be more prudent for Rheinmetall to join with GD (now they are out???) and propose the Ajax/ASCOD2 which has the Lance turret and even the Ph3 playing field?
Also, Puma has only 2 variants - IFV and C2; whereas Ajax et al delivers a better range of variants - less development risk compared to Puma.
Is turret commonality, reduced logistic/training burden and lower development risk significant enough for Rheinmetall to adjust? I would think so.
Ajax PMRS with a remote 30mm turret (no hull penetration) could probably meet the 8 dismount requirement too.
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I have just read an article in an American magazine called "The Trumpet" the following...
Meanwhile, other firms are building useless weapons. For example, the Army spends around $200 million a year on M1 Abrams tanks that it doesn’t need and that go straight into storage. Why? The tank factory is in the district of the chairman of a key congressional subcommittee.
If that is true, what a fantastic opportunity to upgrade our tanks. Approach the Americans to buy some of these unwanted tanks in storage.
Meanwhile, other firms are building useless weapons. For example, the Army spends around $200 million a year on M1 Abrams tanks that it doesn’t need and that go straight into storage. Why? The tank factory is in the district of the chairman of a key congressional subcommittee.
If that is true, what a fantastic opportunity to upgrade our tanks. Approach the Americans to buy some of these unwanted tanks in storage.
That basically is what is happening, although it won't happen for a few years most likely. The tanks will need to go back to the US to be upgraded as part of Land 907 Phase 2 (likely to the M1A2 SEP V3 standard) so the extra tanks are needed at least before then, to keep fleet numbers up during the upgrade.
See the Chief of Army's speech from earlier in the year:
http://www.army.gov.au/~/media/File...dress_AustralianDefenceMagazineConference.pdf
Particularly this bit:
The reset process is little short of a new build and, similar to ship building, involves a lot of unique, highly specialized processes and skills that degrade very rapidly when not used and would take decades and a price premium in the billions to rebuild. Bizarre as it may sound US$200 million a year may actually be cheaper in the grand scheme of things, especially as new generations of tanks enter service elsewhere (Russia).
A rolling upgrade program using production facilities not only keeps the US capability bumping along, it also ensures that the reserve and prepositioned stockpiles are up to date and in the best condition, this is how it should be done. It is not without precedent either, when the Washington Naval Treaty introduced a ten year building holiday for battleships instead of the reduced rate, but still continuous build the UK had hoped for, Britains predominantly privately owned shipyards began shutting down and laying off irreplaceably skilled workers. At the time most US yards we government owned and were provided with make work projects to maintain the full range of require skills and capabilities. The results were seen leading up to WWII when the once best in the world UK shipbuilding industry struggled and was easily surpassed by the much better maintained US industry.
I believe that our Abrhams have a different armour composition to the US version, ours arnt DU based for political reasons.So buying surplus US models is out.
If I'm not mistaken our current Abrams are surplus US stock so saying further acquisitions is out doesn't make sense.
Also just to point out the DU armour isn't actually the hull its self but part of a plate made up of ceramic and DU (or Tungsten for the British) bonded to the hull and turret. Otherwise known as Chobham armour, In any case allowing for a tank to have its DU layer's stripped off and replaced with something else such as what the British use which wouldn't surprise me if Australia is using as the US and Uk are the only ones that use such armour on there tanks, If we dont have the DU then logically we would have gone with the British version rather then reinvesting in a unique armour only used by us.
On the plus side if we do buy extra tanks to make up for short falls while others are being upgraded could make a nice back door way into increasing the size of our tank fleet.
Yes the Australian Tanks are US spec bought through FMS M-1A1 SEP I believe as not all US tanks have DU armour which used to be specified by the HA or Heavy Armour identifier. Not entirely sure if it is part of the M-1A2 baseline as if I recall correctly the DU in the HA armour package is very heavy.
Then again DU armour is quite a different proposition to DU penetrators or actual nuclear weapons and I wonder if our tanks not being equipped was more of a cost or weight consideration than anything else. Looking at the numbers we acquired cost was obviously a major consideration, then there is also the fact that the M-1 is already significantly heavier than Leopard, requiring extensive upgrades to support capabilities, an extra twenty tons of armour would have had an even greater impact.
Since Chobham armour was developed in the UK & named after the place it was developed, I'm not sure that one should call the US-specific armour with a DU layer 'Chobham'. It may be conceptually derived from the original Chobham, but how much do they still have in common, considering how much separate development in the USA there has since been?
All active US tanks now have DU armour. There may be some tanks in storage without it, but all the ones in service have DU.
The reason Australia didn't buy the DU armour was purely political - the same reason we didn't buy DU penetrators. The weight isn't that big a deal - the M1 was already 20 tonnes heavier than the Leopard, and the DU would only a tonne or two more.
Ok fair enough, I was going off old memories of a section drawing of the HA applique plate for the base glacis plate that I couldn't lay my hands on now if my life depended on it. The structure was basically steel sides and filled with DU about the consistency of steel wool rather than solid plates of it being layered into the base armour.
I understand there were concerns about particles of DU, damaging to the environment and soldiers health, resulting from the use of DU penetrators and I suppose the same could be said for armour that has been impacted. I was unaware that all US service M-1s now had DU as I was under the impression the the M-1A1 SEP was a standardized US service model. I suppose they could have retired theirs but was under the impression that we were intending to maintain our vehicles at the same standard as those of the US.
meatshield
Active Member
I read this today and thought it related to the DWP line about attack choppers controlling drones for the Army.
Its an interesting read.
New drone system relays real-time target data to Apache helicopters | ExtremeTech
Its an interesting read.
New drone system relays real-time target data to Apache helicopters | ExtremeTech
The success of the Abrams acquisition makes me wonder why other in service US vehicles aren't considered for rapid acquisition:
SPH: M109A7
Breaching (often raised by raven22): M9 ACE
Particularly when looking at relatively small volumes.
Regards,
Massive