I was taken aback by a photograph of the latest generation of M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles, the M2A4E1. I've closed in on the turret in this picture, cutting out most of the body. Click the image for a larger view.
That's an awfully cluttered turret, isn't it? It's got stuff hanging off it every which way you look. I'm sure they're all valuable and useful items, but they're not under the protection of the armor plate in the vehicle's hull and turret. They're stuck out in the open, exposed.
When I was shooting at the Other Side, way back when, we were delighted to see enemy vehicles with that sort of improvised, hodge-podge installation of equipment, precisely because it was so easy to damage. One burst from a machine-gun, or one or two air-burst artillery rounds, or even a collision with a low-hanging tree branch (common in the African bush warfare environment), and that equipment would be at best damaged, at worst destroyed. It was simply too fragile for a combat environment.
I'm sure the Army has done its best to protect all those exposed systems, putting them in armored boxes, leading as much as possible of the wiring inside and under cover, and so on. Nevertheless, stuck out there like that, they're inevitably more vulnerable to damage or destruction than they should have been. In a battlefield environment that depends as much as ours do today on latest-generation systems and networking, that's dangerous. Can the vehicle, or those inside it, continue to fight effectively if their systems are blinded or shut down?
In the Army's shoes, I'd have insisted on an all-new turret design, putting all those tools behind armor and giving them a lot more protection. Perhaps that would have been too expensive. Nevertheless, I'd be very unhappy about having my critical combat systems exposed like that. There's too much that can be damaged too easily. What say you, veteran readers?
Peter
19 comments:
Some, if not most, of that is either optical or RF sensing, so under-armor is a no-go...
"War Is a Racket" - Smedley D. Butler
@Anonymous at 12:35PM: Agreed, but the bulk of the sensor can be protected behind armor, and the sensors themselves can be raised and lowered through the armor so that they're protected when they're not actually in use. If they stick up all the time, they're vulnerable all the time.
Not a vet but armor up-high raises the center of gravity and makes vehicles handle like pigs and turn-turtle in water.
I spent six years in the Army Infantry as a 11C. What I got out of that is as follows. 1. SNAFU 2. BOHICA 3. FUBAR 4. Murphy's Law reigns supreme.
The Pentagon Wars was far more documentary and far less dark comedy than most people want to admit.
That said, there's no room inside the Bradley now.
Unless you go without infantry at all, which kind of obviates the need for it in the first place.
TANSTAAFL.
And that's before folks perfected arming COTS drones with RPG warheads &c. for pure vertical attacks.
Look at an M-113 or anybody else's APC for comparison, and get back to us.
As Fleet Liaison I got a call one night from a Mobile Unit that their Mobile Sensor Platform had been used to drop off some people and stuff at a local hotel and in driving under the portico they had wiped out the radar and thermal imagining systems and what could I do to help. As a fire control officer I remember a NAVSEA tech wailing about waveguides that only got a little ballistic protection from some kevlar he was applying and I laughed and told him only the parts outside the very thin skin of the ship were getting kevlar. All the internal waveguides were still totally naked to ballistic damage. Oddly enough, my dad was the PM for the Bradley when it first rolled out.
there's absolutely no room left inside the turret. even sadder, its become so complicated with gadgets the average joe can't operate it all at much above rudimentary levels.another case of the .mil wanting to do all things at all times with only one toy. just don't work. i retired as a senior armament repair tech, and i can't even identify some of that crap, much less repair it.
Yeah, they exhaustively researched designs, and without building a whole new vehicle, it wasn't workable. And many of those sensors are scanning for threats constantly, so they can almost never be under armor, and certainly not in combat, when they'd be most vulnerable anyway. In other words, there'd be no point in making them "deployable" but concealed the rest of the time, because they'd have to be deployed during the time they were likeliest to be attacked anyway. There's no simple solution.
@riverrider: I feel your pain. In an African bush environment, another major hazard was the dust, dirt and mud thrown up just by moving. If that landed on the lens of something critical, it was out of action until someone got out of the vehicle and cleaned it - and that would have to be done every few minutes in some environments. In the middle of action, telling someone to get out and clean the instruments while the vehicle was under fire led to some... interesting... responses, such as telling the vehicle commander where to put his orders. Yikes!
Those boxen are jammers and sensors, they have to go outside. They are also necessary but likely insufficient to protect the vehicle against drone attacks.
How do we know this? look at the bodge jobs seen in Ukraine on both sides. And how even MBTs like the M1A1 have generally fared poorly when attacking because of the constant drone threat
Clearly, the good idea fairy paid a visit... with her relatives.
I see lots and lots of shot traps.
One good 'shotgun' round and they're blind... And agree, no room in the 'inn' for any of those sensors due to the utilization requirements.
I am reminded of a quote from Commander Montgomery Scott..."The more they overtake the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the works".
I believe a lot of that mess is sensors for the anti-anti-armor weapons system, meant to knock out incoming RPGs and ATGMs fired at the vehicle. The Isreali system is about 75% effective, from reports in media. Part of the bulk is modern lense cleaning mechanisms built in - they do learn things from field use, apparently..., the US system is more bulky than the IMI units....
All the Gee-Whizz-Bag Coolio gadgets don't work.
It's the MIC at work... trust me.
I had to count ALL the slagged Brads in Kuwait on a nightly basis (for whatever reason the DotMil insisted on counting the Corpse Vehicles... they're still at Arifjan on Lot 50)
Brads Melt
ALOT
I've poasted pics at my haus... the body, if the fuel cell ruptures, is an Aluminum-magnesium Alloy that melts very hot and fast once it starts going. The turret usually settles down into the hull
Only good news is -usually- the crew can get out if it's only an IED or RPG... anything heavier, and we would have to count the pieces parts on Air Force Pallets, and hope they got all the body parts out as occasionally they didn't which is why I had Graves Registration on my Speed Dial (flies swarming the wreckage was the giveaway usually)
The Bradley has struggled with heat from the first. All the electronics inside a small space makes a very tidy toaster oven indeed.
Looks like a mall Ninja's AR-15 with every accessory know to nerds.
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