T-92 Light Tank

Blast from the Past:

T-92 Light Tank

Second half of 1950's saw the development effort for an Air Mobile Light Tank to replace the M41 Walker Bulldog light tank.

The result was the T92 Light Tank:

The T92 is a very unique design which emphasized smallness. Weighing a little over 18 tons and armed with the same 76 mm gun of the M41 and has a crew of four.

The 375 hp engine of the T92 would allow it to be very mobile. 

The 76 mm gun was located in a cleft turret which allowed for -10 degrees of comfy depression. The T92 was equipped with a semiautomatic loader. This would fire 1 round at a time and did not have any sort of drum. Each round would be put into the semiautomatic loader one at a time. After the round is fire the shell is automatically ejected. Protection is effectively the same as the M41 but lighter weight materials such as aluminum were used to protect parts of the T92.

T92 with its predecessor M41 Walker Bulldog

The first T92 arrived at Aberdeen in 1956, the second arrived the next year. Both proved capable machines but there were problems found, in all 50 changes were to take place and ranged from problems with the tracks to problems with the shell case ejector.

T92 had very low profile turret with three weapons. Along with the 76mm main gun, there were a 12.7mm heavy machine gun and a 7.62mm machine gun on two smaller turrets! These turrets can be used as independent turrets or can be locked to the main turret to be used as coaxial guns.

The main gun's rate of fire was 12 RPM and carried 60 rounds for the 76mm gun. It could be elevated to -10/+20 degrees and had a semi-automatic loading system.

T92 was very close to being put into production which was planned in 1962. In 1957, before the 2nd pilot T92 arrived at Aberdeen, Congress found out about Soviet PT-76 and its amphibious capabilities. The T92 was unable be modified to become amphibious due to the design of the vehicle. In 1958 the T92 was cancelled.

The vehicle that replaced the T92 concept was the M551 Sheridan with its amphibious capability albeit by flotation screen.

References:

• http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/02/16/us-t92-light-tank-tier-8/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T92_Light_Tank

UDES XX20 TANK DESTROYER

Blast from the Past:

UDES XX20

Light Tank

In the beginning of 80's, Swedish Defence Materiel Administration - FMV's Research Group for Direct Fire Combat Vehicles (UDES) began a research/prototype effort for an Articulated Tank Destroyer Light Tank (Thank you Svesen!).

The task of UDES was to collect, process, coordinate and present  feasibility studies in the field of combat vehicle systems.

The articulated design allows two separate armored hulls connected with shafts. The front hull houses the 3 crew members and the unmanned 120mm turret.

The rear hull contains the ammunition for the main gun, fuel and powerpack.

The main gun is a 44 caliber Rheinmetall smoothbore 120mm with a Bofors muzzle brake for low recoil.

Engine was a Detroit Diesel with 600HP

The mobility trials showed that 20 tons combat weight is not good for mobility in soft terrain conditions for an articulated vehicle.

References:

• http://www.ointres.se/udes.htm
• http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?13279-The-never-realized-supertanks
• http://strangernn.livejournal.com/860041.html
• http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,935.0.html

US Special Forces Pandur 6x6

Delta Force & 75th Rangers'

Multi-Wheeled Ride

Pandur 6x6 

or

Armored Ground Mobility System

I was watching a YouTube video about the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta, aka Delta Force. In that video I've seen some nice footage about the US Special Forces 6x6 Pandur vehicles, with the complex name of AGMS.

The Armored Ground Mobility System (AGMS) is a 6x6 armored personnel carrier in service with Delta Force and in limited use by the 75th Ranger Regiment.

In March 1999, following an international competition, AV Technology was awarded a contract by the US Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) for the Armored Ground Mobility System (AGMS).

This is a Firm Fixed Price Indefinite Quantities contract and covered the supply of up to 50 vehicles, including the first batch for the Production Qualification Test (PQT), for delivery over a five-year period, with a value of US$51 million.

The AGMS is based on the Austrian Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG & Co KG Pandur (6 × 6) Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) which has been manufactured by the company for the Kuwait National Guard

Production of these AGMS vehicles was undertaken at the new AV Technology facility at Shelby Township, Michigan, with the assistance of General Dynamics Land Systems and Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG & Co KG. First vehicles were delivered to the US Army in March 2000. Recent information has revealed that the US Army will not procure the full batch of 50 vehicles and production has now ceased. It is believed that the first batch consisted of 10 vehicles. 

AGMS can transport up to 7 troops plus its commander and driver. Features of the Delta Force AGMS include:

•     Shielded weapons mount on the roof for .50 M2     machine gun or 40mm grenade launcher
•     6-cylinder, 6.6 liter engine
•     Shielded driver's compartment
•     Custom up-armor kit
•     Electronic anti-IED countermeasures
•     Provisions for secure radio communications
•     Range of 404 miles

It is understood that there was an initial purchase of 12 AGMS vehicles by USSOCOM in 2000. A further 11 vehicles were ordered in 2006.

It can be speculated that Delta Force's experience of urban combat in thin-skinned vehicles during the battle of Mogadishu in 1993 had highlighted the need for an in-house fleet of armored vehicles. Delta had used the AGMS during the initial stages of the war in Iraq. It also used light-skinned vehicles such as the Pinzgauer and GMV. Such vehicles, with their limited armor would not fair so well in post-invasion Iraq. Delta Force's campaign against Iraqi insurgents and Al Qaeda would involve moving and fighting in built-up urban areas such as Baghdad, with an increasing threat of IEDs. While Delta would often use vehicles such as SUVs and locally-sourced saloons when on covert ops in the city, the AGMS would more likely be used on overt direct action missions.

From Operational Detachment Delta Promotional Video

The 75th Ranger Regiment has also employed light armor, including limited use of the Pandur AGMS in addition to a number of M1126 Stryker ICVs that the regiment acquired for use in Afghanistan.

Sources: 

• www.americanspecialops.com 
• www.army-guide.com

DARPA's EXACTO Programme

DARPA's EXACTO Programme aims at:

Guided 12.7mm/.50cal Rounds

DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program recently conducted the first successful live-fire tests demonstrating in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets.  EXACTO’s specially designed ammunition and real-time optical guidance system help track and direct projectiles to their targets by compensating for weather, wind, target movement and other factors that could impede successful hits.

The EXACTO program is developing new approaches and advanced capabilities to improve the range and accuracy of sniper systems beyond the current state of the art.

The bullets independently maneuver through the air after being fired and they successfully hit targets that were over a mile away.

The rounds changed their path in-flight, striking targets that were not lined up with the sniper rifles' original aim. The .50 caliber rounds utilize optical sighting technology and a real-time guidance system, allowing them to be used anytime during the day and night.

DARPA explains the importance of the bullets noting, "It is critical that snipers be able to engage targets faster, and with better accuracy, since any shot that doesn't hit a target also risks the safety of troops by indicating their presence and potentially exposing their location." 


The ammunition will also be extremely helpful when windy weather or moving targets make accurate shots far more difficult. The entire system is still in the prototype stage and will need to be further tested, but the smart rounds certainly have the potential to revolutionize rifle precision.

Textron's Scorpion and its record development timeframe

Scorpion Attack Aircraft from Textron:

The plane that caught World War II Development Timeframe

f

The Scorpion Attack Aircraft might be a very good versatile aircraft or it may not...

However I am not to discuss the aircraft specifics, rather the time it took the develop the plane. Two and a half years ago Scorpion was just a concept on a PowerPoint slide . But in July this year, it flew from Kansas to Hampshire in UK for the Farnborough Airshow.

It is quite impressive given the time it takes to develop modern aircraft these days...

Look at F35: Development Contract signed Nov. 1996, System Development & Demonstration on 2001. First Flight 2006. It's already 2014 and the plane still not fully in service.

F15 Eagle: First Flight in 1972, entered service 1976.

Fast Rewind >> 1930s. Lockheed awarded contract for P38 June 1937. First Flight January 1939. Total time from Contract to First Flight 18 Months!

The tools and technology that helps engineers advances vastly. In 1930s there wasnt even a calculator, only drawing boards and slide rulers. Now we have Computer Aided Design tools, Product Lifecycle Management Tools, Computer Aided Analysis Tools, FEA, Computational Fluid Dynamics, even software that analyzes ans simulates Radar Cross-sections. Computational capabilities are multiplying

Yet the development durations are increasing dramatically in spite of all the tools and computational capabilities...

I can see future 4x4s with these tyres

Michelin's X Tweel Tyres

Gun Stabilization as Explained in 1944

Gun Stabilization

as explained in

September 1944 

edition of 

Popular Science

Quite an interesting article from September 1944 issue of the Popular Science magazine. 

It explains in great detail how the gun stabilization is performed in US tanks in 2nd World War.

The brains behind the gyro stabilization was Clinton R. Hanna from Westinghouse.

Read the rest of this interesting article below:

Resources:

- G. V. Sanders, Popular Science, Sept. 1944. via Google Books.

Lockheed's Brand New 30mm Two-Men and Hellfire Turrets for Qatar

Lockheed's Brand New

30mm 2-Men IFV
&
Dedicated Hellfire (LRSAV) Turrets
Aimed for Qatar

I've got some more information the turret's potential customer. It is most probably for Qatar Armed Forces. The turret has been specifically designed for Qatar for a possible number of 200+ turrets.

Also Lockheed has been working on a dedicated Hellfire and DAGR missile turret which is probably also aimed for Qatar for Artillery Corps.

The video below shows a test fire of the Hellfire ATGM from the ATGM turret defining a system called Long Range Surveillance & Attack Vehicle dubbed LRSAV.

Rumor's have been circulating around for sometime that Lockheed Martin UK has been working on a new Two-Men IFV turret with ATK 30mm Bushmaster gun as the main armament.

This video released on July 10th from Lockheed Martin explains:

"On March 31, the Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill team successfully fired a Javelin missile from a turret at Cranfield Ordnance Test & Evaluation Center (COTEC) firing range on Salisbury Plain near Wiltshire, England. The missile hit the target successfully."

The most interesting thing in the video beside the turret is the vehicle being a Boxer 8x8.

We have accustomed to seeing Boxer armed with either Rheinmetall's Lance Two-Men Turret or even Spz Puma's remote turret.

However, there are also rumors circulating that this Lockheed turret is specifically developed to be offered to a undisclosed Middle East customer on Boxer 8x8.

We know that Boxer has participated UAE's yearly Summer trials before and offered to UAE for their 4-5 year long 8x8 acquisition programme.

However another country that comes to mind is Qatar which also is evaluating 8x8 vehicles for their 8x8 acquisition programme. 

I would bet on Qatar for the possible customer this brand new turret from Lockheed on Boxer.

Time will tell....

57mm Autocannon Turret from Russia

Russian 57mm AutoCannon Turret:

The Future Caliber or Relic from the Past?

The Franco-Russian cooperation for an IFV was recently revealed. It's an 8x8 vehicle called Atom.

One of the features that got quite a bit of attention is the 57mm main gun in the two-men turret.

The turret is called AU-220. It's been initially developed as an upgrade to the PT-76 amphibious tank to replace its 76mm main gun and old turret.

An upgraded PT-76 is shown with the 57mm AU-220 turret.

57mm Gun

The 57mm gun that's also used in Atom 8x8 is basically an Anti-Aircraft gun used in S-60 towed AA system. The gun was developed in 1950's.

In the AA configuration the gun is fed by 4 round clips. The same gun in the S60 AA mount is shown below.

The same cannon also used in ZSU-57-2 SPAAG vehicle.

The cannon uses 57x347mm semi-rimmed ammunition. The image below shows the 57mm ammunition vs the Bofors 40x365 ammunition.

The gun is recoil operated. Rate of fire is 105-120 rpm and the muzzle velocity is around 1.020 m/sec. It has a barrel length of around 4.4m.

The effective firing range against ground targets is 4km's.

AU-220 Turret

The turret is of Two Men configuration and weighs around 3.5 tons. The main armament is the 57mm rapid fire cannon.

The gun has a new automatic loading capable ammunition feed system that houses 20 ready-to-fire rounds as shown below.

The turret basket has a powered 73 round ammunition carousel that provides ammunition to the linkless feeder above.

The 57mm gun with the AP round has a penetration capability of 130mm of Steel at a range of 1.000m. I would expect the penetration would be much better for the huge 57mm caliber. 

The 35mm APFSDS round has 120mm penetration at the same range. 

This does not mean a lot at first glance, and you can think that the 57mm is still better than 35mm. 

But when you think about the 35mm round doing all this with only 22% of the mass of the 57mm, one thinks that the 57mm caliber needs new ammunition in the APFSDS type to become a serious contender in the medium caliber market.

©WarfareTechnology 2014

30mm Cannon vs 12.7mm Machinegun

US Army's "comparative" trials of

Firepower for Strykers:

30mm Autocannon 

vs

12.7mm Machinegun

US Army's Stryker 8x8's has been armed with a remote weapon station (RWS) with a .50cal (12.7mm) M2 machinegun.

Sometime ago I've heard that US Army is considering up-arming the Strykers, or at least a portion of the fleet, with a weapon system that has more bite than the .50cal.

The turret that has been selected for consideration is the Kongsberg's 30mm Remote Turret MCT30 armed with 30mm Mk44 and a 7.62mm machinegun as coax.

The following YouTube video is an excerpt from this effort.

However, it is a little bit funny to even demonstrate the capabilities of such diversely different weapons as the .50cal and 30mm.

I won't even go to the details like muzzle energy or penetration and just will post the image below. One image is worth thousand words as they say...

Here is an image with the Kongsberg turret on Styker:

Here is the video I've mentioned:

As the soldier in the video says:

"Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. That's kind of what this is... Give me a 30mm to fight and it's over!"