An 'Anonymous Friend' of me left a recent comment on the upgunned Bradley Turret variants. Many thanks to him for the images.
The first one is the Bradley turret armed with Mk44 30mm autocannon. The 30mm Bradley has also been tested by Norway against CV90 in the 90s, but lost to CV90, which became the CV9030 Norway variant with 30mm Mk44 as the main armament.
Here are some details on the 30mm Bradley:
The more interesting Bradley Turret up-arming was the Bushmaster III 35mm main gun.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Upgunned Bradley at AUSA
fresh from demonstration
Photo: http://defense-update.com/
The Bradley that was recently demonstrated in Fort Benning meets with visitors at AUSA exhibition.
This particular M2 Bradley has a new turret that is remotely operated and armed with a 30mm autocannon instead of the traditional M242 25mm gun.
The turret is from Kongsberg and called MCT30. this particular turret is armed with XM813 30mm cannon from ATK which is a derivative of the Mk44 30mm.
Bradley with Kongsberg Remote Turret demonstrated in Fort Benning
A Bradley Fighting Vehicle mounted with an XM813 30-mm weapon system fires rounds and hits a downed helicopter from more than 1,000 meters away during a demonstration for the XM813 Sept. 10 at Fort Benning's Digital Multi-Purpose Range Complex. (Photo Credit: Markeith Horace)tion
US Army RDECOM (Army Research Institute) has been working on an initiative for researching advanced lethality and accuracy for medium caliber weapon systems.
The subject of the initiative concentrates on the XM813 30mm cannon. XM813 is a derivative of the Mk44 chaingun from ATK. XM813 can be described as the Stretch Mk44 with dual recoil mechanisms, closed bolt operation for first round select, linkless feed, integral mount and air burst munition capability.
Add caption
XM813 30mm ChainGun with Dual Buffers and Integral Mount
On September 10th, Capabilities and Development Integration Directorate organized an activity to demonstrate XM813's capabilities, integrated on the Kongsberg MCT-30Remote Turret. The same turret has been demonstrated on Stryker 8x8 sometime ago as described in this blog.
For the demonstration, the XM813 mounted Bradley Fighting Vehicle fired a series of three engagements at approximately 1,400 to 1,500 meters from the target.
Looking at the ARDEC effort and this demonstration, some remarks I want emphasize:
Is the US Army seriously evaluating upgunning Bradley?
The caliber seems to be the 30mm, not larger.
Looking at Kongsberg's marketing in US and the demonstrations, is the unmanned turret a serious candidate instead of the conventional 2-Men turret?
Polish Company Hula Stalowa Wola (HSW for those of us who are cannot spell Polish) has introduced a new remote turret in the MSPO 2014 exhibition. WB Electronics of Poland is the main subcontractor for the electronics architecture.
The turret at this point is designated as ZSSW-30 which is literally 'remote controlled turret'
There is no specific information at this point about the turret. I am not sure also if this is a functioning prototype or a full scale mockup.
In the exhibition, the turret is mounted on a Polish Rosomak 8x8 (Patria AMV).
The Polish Rosomak 8x8's are currently armed with an Oto Melara HitFist 30mm 2 men turret.
Copyright: miltechmag
ZSSW is armed with an ATK Mk44 30mm chaingun and a UKM-2000C 7.62mm machine gun on the right hand side of the turret. The gunner's sight is located to the left side of the main armament and a panoramic commander's sight can be seen on the top of the turret. The commander's sight seems to be the exact same sight used on Oto Melara's own HitFist OWS Remote Turret.
The turret has an elevation range of from -10deg to 60 degrees.
On the right hand side of the turrets ATGM missiles can be integrated mainly Spike LR missiles.
The information I was able to find says this turret will most probably arm the new Polish IFV programme.
During 1990's Norway has acquired 104 CV90 vehicles.
Those vehicles are now undergoing major modernization and some new built vehicles is being added to the fleet. At the end of the programme the Norwegian fleet will reach 144 vehicles in five different variants.
One of the new variants is the Combat Engineering Vehicle.
The vehicle can be equipped with either a front mine plough or a mine roller system.
There is a Kongsberg Remote Weapon Station RWS on top to provide protection.
One of the significant capabilities of this new vehicle is the Robotic Arm to investigate and intervene to IEDs and road side bombs.
UK company Supacat's High Mobility Transporter - HMT that was initially designed in late 1990's is now widely accepted as one of the best special purpose military vehicles. The HMT vehicles are now manufactured under license from Lockheed Martin.
HMT has 4x4 and 6x6 variants and a late eddition to the family is the Extenda variant which is convertable from 4x4 to 6x6 and vice versa.
Copyright: SUPACAT (www.supacat.com)
Extenda has an air spring suspension that offers Ride Height Control, which is a nice capability that allows the vehicle's ground clearance to be increased / decreased to adjust for terrain conditions.
Extenda 6x6 has a total length of 7 meters with 2m width. The vehicle has a combat weight of 10.5 tons in 6x6 configuration and it drops to 7.6tons in 4x4.
The vehicle can be configured with a ballistic and mine protection kit as shown below.
The variant of Extenda that is specifically designed for Australian Special Forces is called Special Operations Vehicles Commando or SOV-Cdo as short.
Australia very recently ordered 89 of these vehicles per their JP 2097 Phase 1B project that concentrates on Special Forces C4ISTAR capabilities and mobility which aims at providing a modern fleet of vehicles.
Nexter has been working on a brand new Two-Men Turret based on the Franco-British 40mm Cased Telescoped Weapon System CTWS40.
CTWS uses a rotating breech mechanism and Cased Telescoped Ammunition where the projectile is fully or partly buried inside the propellant.
The Nexter T40 turret is one of the two ongoing projects that use the CTWS40 as the main armament. The other one is Lockheed Martin UK's turret for the Warrior IFV Upgrade Programme / Warrior Capability Sustainment Programme.
Nexter has developed this turret for the French Army's new reconnaissance vehicle project to replace the 6x6 AMX-10RC and ERC-90 Sagaie platforms.
ERC90 Sagaie Reconnaissance Vehicle
T40 is a Two Men Turret with 40mm CTWS as the main armament. The turret structure is constructed from aluminum with add-on steel armor. The turret offers STANAG 4569 Level 4 protection all around that satisfies immunity against 14.5mm heavy machine gun rounds. The turret has a weight of 4.2 tonnes.
From the images it seems that the there isn't a coaxial machine gun rather a 7.62mm machine gun in a Remote Weapon Station (RWS) on the roof.
The commander is located on the left hand side of the turret, whereas the gunner sits to the right of the commander.
The main gun elevation is 45 degrees. I was unable to see a panoramic sight for the commander and this led me to believe that the commander uses the sight in the RWS as the dedicated commander's sight. There are laser warning recievers on four corners.
There is also a situational awareness system consisting of cameras providing all around vision on the sides of the turret. The commander also has a bunch of periscopes around his hatch.
