In WWII, we did a lot with Tank Destroyers, and the Germans with their Jadpanzers. I wonder what a modern re-imaging of that would look like?
Something with a vertical launch cell for switchblade type kill drone? Take out the turret with its height and complexity. M1A1 has what, 40 main gun rounds? Also, that Irish Armor guy says that the real ‘main gun’ is the co-ax machine gun because it can tear up most stuff, and the 100mm+ gun is just to take out near peers. Plus, Switchblades would give you some anti-air capability.
Given modern armor and main gun tech, (and the fact that I’m not a Tanker), I can’t really envision what a modern TD would look like, but I can definitely envision a light tank. Something that maybe can’t face off against MBTs in the open with equal numbers, but could be used to provide Infantry support. But, I dunno, perhaps the Brad is already good enough for that role. Maybe AFVs with autocannons are the modern light tank. But perhaps we could still use a medium one with like a 105 on it.
what would the modern equivalent of the jagdpanzer look like?
The striker with the big gun that never really got deployed is pretty close, allthough wheeled. Or that same gun on a bradley?
I’m thinking Bradleys do fill some of that role (tank killer) now.
They even got a surprising number of kills with their cannon in the Gulf war against older Soviet era tanks.
But you’d really need the big gun to be a true equivalent of the jagdpanzer. But the JP only had gun over match over the other German armor early on in ww2, later German tanks had the same 75mm (panther) or the 88 (tiger).
Nominally the panther had the best penetration of all the world war II era tanks, even more than the Jagdpanzer due to its longer barrel.
But but you could look at it in other way, the jagdpanzer brought roughly the same 75 mm in the cheaper/older panzer IV chassis rather than the panther. So make sense in that regard.
Personally, I think modern atgm capability has largely eliminated the justification for a dedicated tank killer.
But I also see some merit in the main gun striker, and a theoretical equivalent on bradley’s. My understanding from reading older articles regarding the striker main gun variant is the Bradley’s still don’t have the power capability to handle the turret of the main gun from the striker.
We did actually field some of those Strikers with the tank gun on them. No idea how many. I remember the first time I saw them overseas; I didn’t know they were a thing before that. I was like “holy shit, what is that crazy thing”. I think airdrop problems are why we haven’t gone all-in on it.
I think during the Gulf War, the Brads had 25mm cannons, not 30mm. Still a pretty badass gun. We got support from them in ar Ramadi, and they bring the hurt, although the vehicle itself was undewhelming. We were using speed for security, and had to slow down when those dudes got loaned to us. In retrospect thats probably a good thing. It actually has more max elevation than the tank-with-autocannons vehicles the ruskies developed for urban combat, and it, too can select ammo types on the fly.
I remember reading about a project to upgrade the Brads to Bushmaster II 30mm cannons, but I don’t remember what happened with that. The Bushmaster II is a bad MFer, utilizing the same round as the GAU-8 on the A10. It can be equipped on a variety of vehicles, including Strykers, boats, and aircraft. It can also use a 40x180 (or 173?) round to bring more payload to the party. I think that requires only a barrel change.
Northrup-Grumman has unveiled the XM913 50mm Bushmaster at this year’s AUSA (Association of the United States Army) trade show and conference. The XM193 is based on the proven Bushmaster III 35/50 design and is intended to provide increased capability against Russian infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) designs along with counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems).
The XM913 was designed expressly for the US Army’s original Next Generation Combat Vehicle programme seeking to replace the Bradley IFV currently under the guise of the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) programme. The OMFV has been reduced to just one contender with the General Dynamics Griffin III as previously reported by Overt Defense. The Griffin will mount the XM193 in an unmanned, remote control turret.
I was not sure, I had just read something when researching strikers a while back that they had not been officially deployed. Context being they were not in wide use. Cool that some units actually got them!
The rationale behind the strikers made a lot of sense to me pre-IED war. Even with the upgraded survivability stuff now making them non-air portable they still seem to be useful as an IFV, especially in more urban environments where raw speed is more important than tracked off-road capability.
Even just a third of the way through the 2nd Gulf war I saw a report that strikers had patrolled more than a million miles in iraq. Something that never could have been done with tracked vehicles.
The key is for leaders to understand that they are not light tanks (also a concern with bradleys), it’s really more along the Russian model of motorized infantry.
They can still be air deployed in a pinch, it’s just not the original roll off and fight concept.
I think during the Gulf War, the Brads had 25mm cannons, not 30mm. Still a pretty badass gun.
I misspoke, they still have 25 mm. It would be cool if they got the a-10 gun though.
My understanding from reading is probably the closest thing to a light tank capability that the US will see is the army’s proposed Mobile Protected Firepower battalion (MPF). Kind of an up armored sheridan, or like a cross between a Sheridan and an Abrams. (But the size of a Sheridan)
These would be attached to and controlled by the IBCTs. It’s not clear to me if the army’s made a final decision on this, but I know from news blurbs it was still in active discussion and testing with units as of February this year.
Why would you want to? The GAU-8 is a top attack weapon not gonna work against MBT frontal or side armor and would be a ammo waster on a ground vehicle.
The US has really neglected short range air defense the last 20 years, I think they are looking to improve now but how useful is the perfect system 10 years from now.
Like Mack said, its not very suitable. First, its huge. Second, gatling guns are great for aircraft, because their speed necessitates a hight rate of fire to get an adequate number of rounds in the killbox on one pass. For a ground vehicle, an autocannon like the Bushmaster II would make better use of its ammo and take up less space.
Its not going to pop modern tanks from the front, but a 30mm Bushy II is still a formidable weapon that can penetrate light armor, destroy thermal lenses, penetrate building walls, take out drones, kill trucks, etc. Perhaps it could penetrate a tank from the side or rear; I don’t know. As mentioned earlier, Brads got some kills in Desert Storm with their 25mm guns, but tanks have gotten better since then.
I’d think a 20mm Vulcan could do that just fine. Ships have them. I’d also think that Bushmasters could do it if automated and tied into a radar. They may not have a huge rate of fire (200rpm), but they could make helos and slower aircraft think twice about it. In a Brad, their max elevation and rate of traverse isn’t too far off of a ZSU 23-4, so I’d think that mounting a pair or four of them on some sort of vehicle with radar would be feasible using mostly tech we already have experience with. I’m way out of my expertise on this.
A Goalkeeper system is basically a CIWS on steroids–the Dutch really like it for some reason–and back around Nam we used to have the Chapparal, a quartet of Sidewinder missiles on an M113 chassis. There was also a “half Avenger,” the Pave Claw four-barrel (aka GEPOD 30) that when it was found to have too much recoil for F-16s the Marines grabbed 'em off the AF’s trash pile and mounted 'em on LCACs to create a “Gun Platform Air Cushion.”
If memory serves, track-mount Vulcan systems have been done before too.
I always thought the LAV-AD would be a decent force multiplier in some areas. As with some of the other comments, it’s not gonna take out a MBT head on, but it would wreak havoc on just about anything else, while providing short range AD as well. Of course it’s tough to flip-flop between theater and insurgency operations. If you’re set up for one, you’re caught out on the other and vice-versa.
The Army also used to have a M113 mounted M61 Vulcan back in the 70’s, not sure why they got rid of them. From the picture below it looks like they were still in use in 1988, after the fall of the USSR in late 80’s it’s like the military got to thinking we didn’t need AD any more or A-10 either.
The M163 Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS) is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) that was used by the United States Army. The M168 gun is a variant of the General Dynamics 20 mm (0.79 in) M61 Vulcan rotary cannon, the standard cannon in most U.S. combat aircraft since the 1960s, mounted on either an armored vehicle or a trailer.
General Electric’s entry in the DIVAD program (later to become the M247 Sgt York) was a GAU-8 mounted on the M48 tank chassis. Much more effective than the 20mm Vulcan, but ultimately not selected by the Army.
Don’t listen to the nay sayers, I’ll see your vision and up you to two GAU-8 guns on one chassis. One is none and two is 14 rotating barrels of “BWHATTTTTTTTTTTT-you”. 120mm M1A1, A PEA GUN. Two GAU-8’s would give you 420mm of bore…. Make them counter-rotating, you know for stability and F-U to the Coriolis effect…
Ya know, in college I wanted to do a quad-mount in the nose of a BUFF plus a fifth in the tail… The old fighter-jock prof who was working with me on the design study responded with “Um, you DO realize this thing doesn’t need to be loaded with everything up to and including a kitchen sink, right?” (The goal was taking Lee Harrell’s old concept of a B-52 Wild Weasel that inspired Dale Brown’s Old Dog, and taking the next step turning it into a “flying flak trap” to shut down large areas of airspace and air-defense along the route of an inbound strike package.)
The old fighter-jock prof who was working with me on the design study responded with “Um, you DO realize this thing doesn’t need to be loaded with everything up to and including a kitchen sink, right?” (The goal was taking Lee Harrell’s old concept of a B-52 Wild Weasel that inspired Dale Brown’s Old Dog, and taking the next step turning it into a “flying flak trap” to shut down large areas of airspace and air-defense along the route of an inbound strike package.)