The Armored Vehicle Thread

I mean I don't know how you'd upgrade them from beam riders to truly fire and forget but they claim that's what they've done. Emphasis on claim.

Once the missile is out there's zero input or attention required from the operator though they can manually control the missile if they want.

Supposedly.

Is the system designed for ripple fire or is that just the crew putting it to good use?

I know the Israelis have some ripple-firing ATGM launchers, and I think either the Stryker ATGM model or the Bradley did it in demos using the TOW-RF.

I don’t think the Russians have any proper fire-and-forget missiles, (weirdly they actually seem to regard ACLOS as fire-and-forget) but I’m sure they could have them if they wanted to. India and China both have them.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 22nd 2018 at 6:01:49 AM

Near as I can tell there's nothing actually stopping them from being ripple fired apart from the fact that all their actual launchers come in little packs of 2 or 4.

That’s probably more for practical reasons, vehicle mounted ATGMs pretty much always come in packs of 2 or more. Having to get out and reload your system after every shot would be less than ideal.

You have to wonder how a modern APS would handle an attack like that. We’ve seen APS take out RPGs coming in like that, but an ATGM is a whole different deal.

Edited by archonspeaks on Aug 22nd 2018 at 6:18:53 AM

Garcon: It is just an ALCOS system. The only people I have seen claiming it is a fire and forgets are Army Designation.com and Sputnik. The missiles themselves are not fire and forget weapons as they all use the beam readers in the tail and are guided by the launch system pulsing a laser along their intended flight path. All they did was automate the aiming of the launcher system after a target is selected. While it does not require operator intervention the missile still requires constant input from the launch system. Like all CLOS systems, the launch system is actively guiding the missile the whole way and needs line of sight on both missile and target.

The fire and forget missiles handle the tracking with the missile after launch, not the launcher. Weapons like Javelin, Indian made Nag, various missiles in the Israeli Spike Missile family, and the newer French Missile Moyenne Portée, for example, all use some form of targeting system that the missile carries with it to track and target the previously designated enemy and pursue them. Think of it as something akin to the IR MANPAD missiles and in fact, you would be very close as all of MANPAT FAF systems use some form of IR/Thermal targeting and tracking system to enable their fire and forget feature. Some of them can have additional supplemental guidance built in as well namely the Spike and the French missile. They both have an optional man in the loop targeting systems. I think the Nag has MMWR as well.

There is actually a limitation in how many missiles an individual launcher can handle in the air at once as the system has to juggle the command signal for both missiles every time they pass into the guiding beam during flight. Which would prevent them ripple firing every missile in the rack. Which is why they went with two separate launchers on the one vehicle so they can have as many as 4 missiles in the air at once. Even better they made sure each launcher can aim and track separately from the other.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 22nd 2018 at 8:42:27 AM

I’ve heard that a true FAF Kornet was tested in ‘99, but it never went anywhere.

Maybe it's hanging out in the same warehouse as that unmanned BTR-90 they were playing with.

That ended up in a boneyard, actually. Some urban explorers found it and took pictures with it a while back.

FAF can be tricky even using already existing IR systems. All the ones that exist now required a lot of work to adapt the tech to the need. Which is why I suspect the French and the Isralie FAF weapons have optional targeting systems alongside it.

Aw, poor BTR.

There’s only so much you can do with an abandoned armored vehicle. Stripping the internals and leaving it in a field is usually the best you can hope for.

Hopefully it's spirit lives on in all those really cute little UGVs they keep showing off at expos.

Those things are mainly for show.

I can see them being useful for internal security purposes, but not for war. At least, not yet. The technology hasn’t really advanced to a point where something like that would be useful.

They're adorable though.

Cuteness is the most important quality in a good UGV. None of this combat effectiveness nonsense.

They were doing some battlefield testing with them in Syria. It suffered repeated connectivity issues with ground stations, had suspension issues, and there were some issues with the gun and it targeting threats on the move.

I am not too surprised there were issues. Combat has a nasty habit of revealing unexpected problems. Most of that should be fixable.

I can't think of a single UGV from any country that hasn't had those problems honestly.

I'll be honest, I saw "firing on the move" and was expecting to see the thing hauling ass down a bad road jumping over ridges, not inching along at parking lot speeds.

Combat UGV's are still way too new to say one way or another but the concept definitely has some teething issues to sort out.

First BMP-3 spotted in Iraq.

Aw, no picture?

Soon, fist BMP-3 turret to exit the Iraqi airspace

Hyundai offers the K2 to Poland as a replacement for its Leopard 2 and T-72 fleet.

Baguette link: The French government just released tonnes of old tank designs.

Does any one happen to know the fuel capacity of a Sherman tank? Not the range but the capacity?

I ask because I have a design document that says the Chi-ha had one of 22 liters, which seems... stupidly low for a 15 tone metal box

I mean I can get the IJA using small fuel tanks with how paranoid they were about tank fires, but 22 liters just seems.... too small and I was wondering if a decimal was misplaced some where and wanted to compare other nations tanks to get a more accurate idea.

Immy: There is variation in some models and variants. 138–175 U.S. gallons (522–662 litres) depending upon variant