Stryker/C-130 Pics

"Kevin Brooks" wrote
"Paul Austin" wrote

You've waived away logistics loads in using SBCTs far from
litterals.
Can you support that?

No, I have not. But, unlike you, I realize that the SBCT is not the
*only* force structure design that requires log support. In order
for
the current LI force to acheive the same mobility on/over the ground
that Stryker offers, you have to either send in a boatload of soft,
less useful trucks to haul them around in, or helos--care to guess
how
much POL those helos will burn? The difference between the two
forces,
if you force both to acheive significant ground mobility, will be
insignificant in terms of log requirements. The *only* way the
current
force wins in this regard is if you send them in with *no* transport
capability--in which case congrats, you just forced us back to the
same rate of movement that we enjoyed during the Civil War (if that
much, since those poor grunts are going to be carrying about five
times the load that their 1860's counterparts were burdened with).

Now, one more time--given that urban combat scenario that you
snipped,
do you want to go in as a naked grunt, or with light armor support?
You *really* don't want to answer that question, do you???

I agree that light infantry needs heavier support. My dislike of the
Stryker concept comes from the concept's origins: Clintonian notions
that the primary use for US arms in the future would be constabulary
operations and peace keeping. The only force that combines strategic
manueverability and enough weight to operate against enemy mech
formations right now is the Marines and if you get too far from the
water's edge, they have to leave a lot of equipment on the boat. We
need strategic airlift that can insert and support forces with
something like the tonnage of a MEU a thousand miles for water and we
have no count them none under development to do that. The SBCT is in
fact better than nothing but does not serve our needs. We need
something heavier than SFOR. We_know_what happens when you use forces
too light for the mission. Just look at (former) Yugoslavia.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ...
In message , Kevin
Brooks writes
"Paul Austin" wrote in message
. ..
Britain has done development on large capacitor banks that pass very
large currents through shaped charge jets hitting an armored vehicle,
melting the jet before it can hit the inner armo(u)r. They say that
scaled up versions might be able to do the same to long-rod
penetrators.

"Melt the jet"? OFCS, that jet is already at extremely high
temperature, courtesy of its being shoved inside out and pushed into a
"jet" moving at thousands of meters per second. "Melting" it does
nothing to change its mass, and it is the combination of that mass and
attendant velocity that makes a shaped charge (read up on the Munroe
Effect) work.

It's an electrical effect. Dump a lot of electricity into the copper
jet, and you have current and motion: which produces a powerful magnetic
field, so the jet repels itself and flies apart. Or that's the way my
physics says it ought to work.

Works quite nicely in a carefully-controlled experiment. Might even be
useful in a fielded vehicle eventually. Won't arrive tomorrow, though.

http://www.dstl.gov.uk/pr/press/pr2002/01-07-02.htm

Using an EM field to distort/dissipate the jet I can buy; I was taking
exception to the idea of "melting" it (it is pretty much "melted" at
the point the liner is inverted by the explosive filler, and in fact
behaves as a liquid at this point). God only knows what the effect of
that kind of EM field will have on the crew, much less all of that
nifty solid-state equipment, not to mention the difficulty in
discharging the capacitors at *exactly* the right instant (I'd guess
the tolerence would be measured in much less than a millisecond, as
that jet will cover what, at least 5 or so meters in that MS?).

Brooks

(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On 22 Sep 2003 08:49:13 -0700, Kevin Brooks wrote:

No, the "digital battlefield electronics", as you call it, is NOT an
interim solution awaiting the fielding of FCS. Instead, FCS is merely
a concept of an entire family of new equipment that will more
completely integrate the evolving digital, ISR,

What's ISR?

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.


As usual with military affairs, there's no panacea and the guy you're
trying to kill has powerful incentives to circumvent your advantages.

And just as usual, the accuracy of computer simulations of tactical
ground fights is strongly suspect.

Garbage in, garbage out.

No, not so much GIGO as it is a matter of the goals of the simulation,
which is usually to stress the side being exercised. That retired USMC
GO who ran the JFC exercise last year was whining about how he could
not conduct true "free play", and that certain actions of his were
rescinded by the exercise controllers, but that ignored the fact that
the game had for one of its primary goals, for example, the validation
of the IBCT/SBCT as a tool for the JTF commander--sliming the APOD
that was to serve that unit might be a "real world" thing to consider,
but it is stupid to spend beaucoup millions of bucks on a massive
exercise like that and then see one of your exercise objectives
disappear before it can even get into the game and be evaluated at
*any* level (likewise, had he sent a nuke at the JTF command post on
day one and wiped it out, it would have been rather stupid to say,
"hey, I guess the exercise is over; sorry we wasted all of those unds
and resources..."). We saw the same thing at NTC during force-on-force
exercises; when I was with the OPFOR we got away with things that the
Bluefor could not hope to do, but the objective was to stress the
Bluefor, so some leniency in our direction was allowed as long as it
served that goal. The key is to remember that these large scale sims
are great at taking on the "big picture", just not-so-great at
modeling the action at the lower levels (we once ran a corps level WFX
that was classified at the time because we were using the actual "into
Iraq" CONPLAN then under development--we basicly got our clocks
cleaned by the OPFOR, which was unrealistic, but served the purpose of
stressing the staff and the plan).

Brooks

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 20:07:59 -0400, Paul Austin wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 14:06:30 -0400, Paul Austin

So what data rate will FCS run at? Consider a unit such as a Brigade
- will the data links be radio, or something else (laser beams?
fiber optic? ethernet?) or a mixture?

The first Brigade XXI exercises were run using 64Kbps links over HF
radios. Not suprisingly, trials proved that slow a data fabric
completely inadequate.

Presumably because all the nodes were trying to talk at the same
time. What if there were fewer nodes on the network, say 200 instead
of 1000?

There are advantages to HF links but VHF, UHF
and higher frequencies will be used. The Navy is planning EHF links.

Higher frequencies mean more banfdwidth, I assume. What are the
advantages of lower frequencies - range?

Iv wonder if there are any plans to civilianise this technology; it
might complement WiFi quite well.

Comms equipment is giving out radio signals; if these can be
pinpointed and targeted, the unit is ****ed. Imagine a swarm of
cheap cruise missiles[1] homing in on radio signals from the nodes
on the tactical internet.

Not nearly as easy as it seems, since everything is spread spectrum,
fast hopping and anti-jam.

The signal must be such that the extended receiver can hear it. So
others can too, in principle. (Though detecting the signal and
knowing where it's from aren't the same thing). I'm not a radio
engineer but I can imagine a few ways how direction-finding might
work; for example place two (or 3) detectors a few meters apart
and calculate the time delay between each one receiving the signal.

If your comms are degraded badly enough, you'll lose whether you
have light forces or tanks; even the best MBTs don't have perfect
protection against ATGMs, etc.

MBTs are nearly immune to ATGMs now. About the best that can be hoped
for by man-portable systems is a mobility kill.

Oh? I was under the impression the Russian Kornet was pretty good.

Heavier ATGMs have
some hope of doing more than blowing a track but not along the frontal
arc.

ATGMs don't have to hit the front; they could be designed to hit the
top, for example. And making the warhead bigger is not a problem to
do, if the missile vis carried by a vehicle.

Does this work? It sounds nice, but I'm not sure if it's practical.
What if the capacitors short out? That would release large amounts
of enery, if it's enough to melt a solid piece of metal.

Success is a matter of sufficient development I find the notion of
melting a 10-20mm thick rod of refractory metal in microseconds
literally incredible.

I'm a bit dubious too.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia

"Thomas Schoene" wrote
"phil hunt" wrote in message

On 22 Sep 2003 08:49:13 -0700, Kevin Brooks
wrote:

No, the "digital battlefield electronics", as you call it, is
NOT an
interim solution awaiting the fielding of FCS. Instead, FCS is
merely a concept of an entire family of new equipment that will
more
completely integrate the evolving digital, ISR,

What's ISR?

Intelligence, Surveillence, and Reconaissance. Often seen as C4ISR
(command, control, communications, computers, intelligence,
surveillence,
and reconaissance).

Want to speculate how long before someone thinks up a fifth "C"? C3
was bad enough. Adding "Computers" was pretty stupid.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Kevin
Brooks writes
"Paul Austin" wrote in message
. ..
Britain has done development on large capacitor banks that pass very
large currents through shaped charge jets hitting an armored vehicle,
melting the jet before it can hit the inner armo(u)r. They say that
scaled up versions might be able to do the same to long-rod
penetrators.

"Melt the jet"? OFCS, that jet is already at extremely high
temperature, courtesy of its being shoved inside out and pushed into a
"jet" moving at thousands of meters per second. "Melting" it does
nothing to change its mass, and it is the combination of that mass and
attendant velocity that makes a shaped charge (read up on the Munroe
Effect) work.

Well, the last I heard there were still people disputing the state of
matter the copper was at: something about etched patterns still existing
in the mass recovered after the blast...

It's an electrical effect. Dump a lot of electricity into the copper
jet, and you have current and motion: which produces a powerful magnetic
field, so the jet repels itself and flies apart. Or that's the way my
physics says it ought to work.

Heck, throw that kind of charge into the thing and electro-static
repulsion might be enough.

"Paul Austin" wrote in message . ..
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
m...
"Paul Austin" wrote in message
.. .
"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 06:44:11 -0400, Paul Austin
wrote:

"Tony Williams" wrote

I understand that basic Stryker is right on the size/weight
carrying
limits of the C-130. Any info on how the Herc will cope with
the
bigger versions, like the one carrying a 105mm gun?

By buying A400Ms?

Seriously, the Stryker (idiot spelling) sacrifices too much for
C-130
compatibility, particularly in the area of protection. The
MagicTech
remote sensing/remote fires stuff

What's this? Is it related to the "battlefield Internet" I've
head
about?

FCS if the ultimate MagicTech, consisting of ground and airborne
recon
platforms, data networks, robotic fire and logistics vehicles and
incidentally, replacements for the current generation mechanized
vehicles for troop carriers, fire support, C&C and direct fire
combat.

Where does this term "MagicTech" come from? First I have ever heard
of
it...

It's a term science fiction readers use to describe overwhelming
technological advantages that make the plot come out the way the
author intents. US forces combine superb training (often overlooked by
people who focus on equipment too much), doctrine and systems that
seem like MagicTech to our opponents.



In the interim, "digital battlefield" electronics, wide
distribution
of ubiquitous and persistent recon imagery and analysis and
precision
fires from airborne and ground systems help a lot. The USMC
completed
a wargame about 6 months ago using all of this stuff and a light
Marine Blue Force did very well against a conventional mech OPFOR.
They also discovered that the Red Force could compensate for the
advantages these technologies give US forces by targeting
communications and fire support elements. If they can be degraded,
then light forces lose the means to stand up to enemy mechanized
forces and are often defeated.

No, the "digital battlefield electronics", as you call it, is NOT an
interim solution awaiting the fielding of FCS. Instead, FCS is
merely
a concept of an entire family of new equipment that will more
completely integrate the evolving digital, ISR, targeting, and C3
developments that we have already instituted. And be careful of
citing
these battle simulations as "evidence"; as we saw last year during
that JFC simulation, these exercises are designed and managed to
acheive very specific goals, and even then are subject to anomalies;
having seen a mechanized engineer battalion (minus) (one still
mounted
in the M113 battle taxis to boot) destroy the better part of an
OPFOR
mechanized brigade during a combined division/corps WFX (and this
occured while the engineer unit was fleeing an overrun situation,
for
gosh sakes), I can tell you that trying to draw finite tactical
conclusions is risky at best. Add in the fact that the usual process
is to weight things a bit towards the OPFOR, since the objective is
usually to stress the Bluefor, and you can see where this is
anything
but a clean and neat process.

Perhaps I expressed myself badly. The "Digital Battlefield" systems
are in no way temporary and stopgap but_are_here and now. FCS is
intended to fully exploit the advantages of enhanced battlefield
digitization by making recon ubiquitous and every present and by
extending the logic of automated systems to all levels of the
battlefield. The remarkable thing about FCS is what a small part the
replacements for current Bradley, Abrams and artillery system are
within the complete FCS.

I agree with you about the perils of simulations but there are lessons
to be learned from them. In the case I cited, the Marines demonstrated
an obvious counter to the FCS approach.


As usual with military affairs, there's no panacea and the guy
you're
trying to kill has powerful incentives to circumvent your
advantages.

And just as usual, the accuracy of computer simulations of tactical
ground fights is strongly suspect.



isn't ready yet, never mind
"electric armor"

And this?

Britain has done development on large capacitor banks that pass
very
large currents through shaped charge jets hitting an armored
vehicle,
melting the jet before it can hit the inner armo(u)r. They say
that
scaled up versions might be able to do the same to long-rod
penetrators.

"Melt the jet"? OFCS, that jet is already at extremely high
temperature, courtesy of its being shoved inside out and pushed into
a
"jet" moving at thousands of meters per second. "Melting" it does
nothing to change its mass, and it is the combination of that mass
and
attendant velocity that makes a shaped charge (read up on the Munroe
Effect) work.

Read more closely about the physics of shaped charges. The jet in a
shaped charge is actually composed of a stream of solid particles. The
article in IDR describing the "electric armor" didn't go into details
about mechanism but a shaped charge's jet doesn't have anything like
the penetrating power if the jet is turned into a liquid. In this
case, liquid copper.

Some references go so far as to label it a "plasma jet", and yes, it
really is, for all intents and purposes, a fluid (it even behaves IAW
the rules governing fluid dynamics, IIRC). The detonation of the
filler behind the cone inverts it under extremes of both temperature
and pressure (mostly the latter), forming the jet. As another poster
has noted, you seem to have the defeat mechanism a bit off; it
involves distorting the jet through the use of strong EM fields, *not*
"melting" it (if the latter were the case, what would it do to the
surrounding armor...?). Think of it as another system using the same
concept as current spaced armor and ceramic composites, which also
hinge upon diffusing the jet over a larger area, a;beit one with
extremely fine tolerances for successful initiation.

The "electric armor" notion, still unproven in
the field is that a jet shorts out two plates of a very high value
capacitor and the resulting current melts the jet before it can travel
into the armor array proper. Actually building such a vehicle
encompassing capacitor in such a way that it 1. doesn't electrocute
the crew or the attending infantry and 2. can be recharged reasonably
quickly is left as an exercise for the development engineers.

Again, you seem to have the defeat mechanism wrong, from the way I
read it. And pray tell what this wonderful system does to a shaped
charge using a non-conducting liner (glass (which is a liquid in its
customary "solid" state, as we know it...) is a not uncommon alternate
liner in place of the usual copper)? As you said before, panaceas are
hard to come by...

Brooks





that's needed to make what amounts to a LAV mounted
army viable. If the Army is to be both rapidly deployable and
as
effective on the ground as it currently is, then much more
capable
airlift is required. In fact, A300M is too small

ITYM A400M.

Yup. The A300M is obviously the two-engined version intented to
replace the G.222

Mehopes that was offered tongue in cheek, as the G.222 is being
replaced by the C-27J, and IIRC the A300 was a commercial design
development...

Yup.

Brooks

"Paul Austin" wrote in message . ..
"Kevin Brooks" wrote
"Paul Austin" wrote

You've waived away logistics loads in using SBCTs far from
litterals.
Can you support that?

No, I have not. But, unlike you, I realize that the SBCT is not the
*only* force structure design that requires log support. In order
for
the current LI force to acheive the same mobility on/over the ground
that Stryker offers, you have to either send in a boatload of soft,
less useful trucks to haul them around in, or helos--care to guess
how
much POL those helos will burn? The difference between the two
forces,
if you force both to acheive significant ground mobility, will be
insignificant in terms of log requirements. The *only* way the
current
force wins in this regard is if you send them in with *no* transport
capability--in which case congrats, you just forced us back to the
same rate of movement that we enjoyed during the Civil War (if that
much, since those poor grunts are going to be carrying about five
times the load that their 1860's counterparts were burdened with).

Now, one more time--given that urban combat scenario that you
snipped,
do you want to go in as a naked grunt, or with light armor support?
You *really* don't want to answer that question, do you???

I agree that light infantry needs heavier support. My dislike of the
Stryker concept comes from the concept's origins: Clintonian notions
that the primary use for US arms in the future would be constabulary
operations and peace keeping.

I believe you are reading a bit too much into it. Yes, they will be
valuable in such roles. But the real reason the Army decided to shift
in the IBCT direction was recognition of the fact that we are usually
not going to be able to depend upon our old Cold War-era "forward
deployed" strategy that dovetailed quite nicely with a really heavy
force, nor could we always count on having tremendous port and support
facilities easily available as we had during ODS (note the 4th ID's
difficulty in getting into a port during this last conflict). So we
were moving from a forward deployed stance to a force projection mode,
where early-entry/forced-entry forces assume an even more important
role, and where deployability becomes critical. What force structure
did we have to address this new paradigm? Why, the old light infantry
on one end, and the heavy armor at the other end--with pretty much
nothing in-between. Even the old M551 was now history, since the last
Sheridan battalion deactivated during the early 90's. That the LAV
became the best interim choice for a new "medium" force is little
surprise; all of the Rand studies put together have less value than
the opinion of those armored troopers at FT Bragg who begged to get
LAV's back when the Sheridan went away (and especially after the XM-8
AGS went kaput) (little known is the fact that the 82nd evaluated the
LAV back in the 90's, using USMC vehicles IIRC).

The only force that combines strategic
manueverability and enough weight to operate against enemy mech
formations right now is the Marines and if you get too far from the
water's edge, they have to leave a lot of equipment on the boat. We
need strategic airlift that can insert and support forces with
something like the tonnage of a MEU a thousand miles for water and we
have no count them none under development to do that. The SBCT is in
fact better than nothing but does not serve our needs.

Yes, it *does* serve our needs, those needs being the ability to get
*some* kind of armor protected/decently mobile/upgunned force into
those distant theaters while we are putzing around trying to get
permission to use ports (or clear those that the bad guys trash, like
they did in Iraq), the need for a force better equipped for urban
combat than the typical LI force (and which in reality will augment
that LI force in the urban fight), and the need to lighten up such an
early deploying force in terms of its teeth-to-tail ratio, accepting
some log risk in return for being able to get it into the fight
earlier.

We need
something heavier than SFOR.

SFOR? For gosh sakes, IFOR/SFOR was originally structured around
predominantly mech/armored units! You want something heavier than
*that*?

We_know_what happens when you use forces
too light for the mission. Just look at (former) Yugoslavia.

And we don't *want* to know what happens when we can't get anything
but LI rapidly into the A/O, which is why the SBCT does indeed fill a
critical niche in the Army. I believe the last I heard, the plan is to
field only five SBCT's, with one of them being an ARNG unit; given a
total of some 73 brigade combat teams in the total force (34 in the
AC, 39 in the RC), I can't see where anyone should have serious
heartburn over converting 5 of them to SBCT's. As an aside, some of us
engineer types tried to lobby for an even more widespread fielding of
the LAV, hoping to get them for some of our combat engineer units,
since the original system swims quite nicely, and we are losing our
M113's as time goes by; the LAV would not only provide us with an
ability to conduct armored assault river crossings (the M2 is a really
lousy swimmer, despite the nifty pictures you sometimes see of it in
that role), but would be a super vehicle for corps-level combat
engineers performing rear area security (route
sweep/clearance/maintenance) duty. Unfortunately, in a dumb move on
the Army's part (IMO), they decided to delete the swimming requirement
for the Stryker, and the Engineer School is committed to deploying
engineer versions of the Bradley (complete with 25mm chain gun, for
what reason I have no idea; though they have at last apparently
belatedly bought into developing a breaching round for the onboard
TOW, something they initially scoffed at when the concept was
presented to them a couple of years ago--Afghanistan seems to have
changed their mind...)

Brooks

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
om
Think of it as another system using the same
concept as current spaced armor and ceramic composites, which also
hinge upon diffusing the jet over a larger area, a;beit one with
extremely fine tolerances for successful initiation.

As I understand it, the system actually self-initiates -- the plasma jet
actually bridged the gap and shorts out the capacitor on impact. No timing
mechanism required.

Again, you seem to have the defeat mechanism wrong, from the way I
read it. And pray tell what this wonderful system does to a shaped
charge using a non-conducting liner (glass (which is a liquid in its
customary "solid" state, as we know it...) is a not uncommon alternate
liner in place of the usual copper)?

In the very heated, very compressed sonditions of a shaped charge plasma
jet, I suspect you'll find that even glass is conductive.


--�
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 20:07:59 -0400, Paul Austin wrote:

"phil hunt" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 14:06:30 -0400, Paul Austin

So what data rate will FCS run at? Consider a unit such as a Brigade
- will the data links be radio, or something else (laser beams?
fiber optic? ethernet?) or a mixture?

The first Brigade XXI exercises were run using 64Kbps links over HF
radios. Not suprisingly, trials proved that slow a data fabric
completely inadequate.

Presumably because all the nodes were trying to talk at the same
time. What if there were fewer nodes on the network, say 200 instead
of 1000?

There are advantages to HF links but VHF, UHF
and higher frequencies will be used. The Navy is planning EHF links.

Higher frequencies mean more banfdwidth, I assume. What are the
advantages of lower frequencies - range?

Iv wonder if there are any plans to civilianise this technology; it
might complement WiFi quite well.

Comms equipment is giving out radio signals; if these can be
pinpointed and targeted, the unit is ****ed. Imagine a swarm of
cheap cruise missiles[1] homing in on radio signals from the nodes
on the tactical internet.

Not nearly as easy as it seems, since everything is spread spectrum,
fast hopping and anti-jam.

The signal must be such that the extended receiver can hear it. So
others can too, in principle. (Though detecting the signal and
knowing where it's from aren't the same thing). I'm not a radio
engineer but I can imagine a few ways how direction-finding might
work; for example place two (or 3) detectors a few meters apart
and calculate the time delay between each one receiving the signal.

No. Paul is correct, DF'ing a "frequency agile" (or "hopping")
transmitter is no easy task. For example, the standard US SINCGARS
radio changes frequencies about one hundred times per *second*, over a
pretty wide band of freq's (this is why synchronization of the radios
on a time basis is critical to succesful operation of the net). It is
hard enough for the average "rest of the world" intel unit to DF an
old fashioned non-hopping transmitter if the radio operator uses good
RTO procedures--trying to pluck enough of these random
fractional-second bursts out of the ether to determine a direction is
more difficult by a few orders of magnitude.


If your comms are degraded badly enough, you'll lose whether you
have light forces or tanks; even the best MBTs don't have perfect
protection against ATGMs, etc.

MBTs are nearly immune to ATGMs now. About the best that can be hoped
for by man-portable systems is a mobility kill.

Oh? I was under the impression the Russian Kornet was pretty good.

Heavier ATGMs have
some hope of doing more than blowing a track but not along the frontal
arc.

ATGMs don't have to hit the front; they could be designed to hit the
top, for example. And making the warhead bigger is not a problem to
do, if the missile vis carried by a vehicle.

The fact that most anti-armor development programs seem to be headed
in the kinetic penetrator direction seems to support the idea that the
chemical energy approach is waning.

Brooks


Does this work? It sounds nice, but I'm not sure if it's practical.
What if the capacitors short out? That would release large amounts
of enery, if it's enough to melt a solid piece of metal.

Success is a matter of sufficient development I find the notion of
melting a 10-20mm thick rod of refractory metal in microseconds
literally incredible.

I'm a bit dubious too.