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To finish this lengthy sequence of posts, some dialogue factors on helicopter transportable automobiles and tools.
Can the British Military and Royal Marines Align?
Who would use these kind of automobiles and tools?
Joking apart, the probably person group will embrace the Royal Marines, 16 Air Assault Brigade, Particular Forces, and the Military Particular Operations Brigade.
Wherever doable, this group ought to actively search out alternatives to take advantage of frequent necessities with frequent tools however commonality for its personal sake shouldn’t be pursued.
Each helicopters can function from ships (though Merlin is significantly better on this), and each helicopters can be utilized by any group, however the chances are the Royal Marines will use Merlin greater than Chinook, and the Military, the inverse.
Aside from this, necessities could diverge to a degree the place commonality works towards goals.
Military customers may even see A400M/C17 density and heavier shops as extra essential than having the ability to function from a Littoral Strike Ship or plane service.
Whether or not accidentally or design, most person teams appear to be shifting to twelve-person groups.
Sustaining these groups for 12 days at 200 nautical miles from the ship or working base is one other related and customary aim
Aggregating these groups, six per squadron/firm, with three squadron/corporations per battlegroup, joined by help and HQ squadron/firm generates a battlegroup of roughly 350 to 400 personnel, relying on how heavy the help and HQ operate is. These could be rotated at readiness, and sustainable.
Organisational design tends to floor alternatives for commonality so regardless of every person group having their necessities and a few current programme momentum, we could find yourself with tools that can be utilized by all.
I reside in hope.
The Magic Quantity, Past 1.6m Large
As you push out past 1.6m large for a single car two issues occur.
First; Loading and unloading turns into slower, this exposes the helicopter when it’s on the bottom and means these doing the loading and unloading may discover it tough to exit the car safely. Tie-down additionally turns into tougher, all the things simply will get tougher and slower, much less operable.
Second; Automobiles turn out to be dangerously shut (from a price range and programme perspective) to basic utility sorts. If we’re changing Land Rover with a pickup-derived design, and they’re about 1.8m large, what position do specialist automobiles on the identical width have? Can we justify a car with such a distinct segment position when it’s inside inches (actually) of the car that will probably be bought by the thousand?
I can see the Royal Marine’s rationale for buying MRZR, it neatly avoids these two pitfalls.
This is the reason I don’t suppose there may be a lot mileage in pursuing automobiles except they’re a part of a wider programme, e.g. Land Rover substitute, except they’ve distinctive qualities akin to very excessive ranges of mobility, are slim on the hips, or have specialist roles like towing a GMLRS trailer.
The extra a car appears to be like like a future Land Rover substitute, the much less justification it has to attract on the scarce defence price range.
Threat Acceptance
How a lot danger is defence keen to simply accept?
In an age of armed FPVs, guided missiles and pervasive surveillance, is it acceptable to convey into service automobiles with out lively or passive safety?
One of many apparent trade-offs pressured by small dimension and decrease weights is that almost all of automobiles described are with none technique of armour, lively defensive programs, and even ECM.
Small dimension, terrain accessibility, pace and low signatures additionally contribute to safety however this solely goes to date and there must be acknowledgement of the elevated danger in comparison with the extremes of CR3 and Mastiff.
Not entering into fights with enemy automobiles on their turf can be the best contribution to car and crew security, because of this I don’t like the concept of mounting computerized weapons on them.
I are inclined to see these automobiles purely as transport, not combating or patrol automobiles, bereft of armour and armaments, the folks they carry are what makes a distinction.
Threat acceptable can be a consider particular points of car design and choice, seating particularly.
It’d seem to be a philosophical query however we have now to resolve what a seat is!
These are seats.
And so are these
Lots of the automobiles within the earlier posts make use of bench seating with easy lap belts, and these could also be completely acceptable at low speeds and in a civilian context, however are they acceptable for a standards-compliant navy car? #
This issues lots when you find yourself coping with dimensional constraints and attempting to maximise seating density, and that’s earlier than we even get into the topic of passenger-carrying trailers.
I don’t remark both approach, besides to look at that density and carriage will probably be greater with easy seating and lap belts than with three-point harnesses, crashworthy seating and glued rollover safety.
UK Industrial Issues
Typically, I’m all the time going to favour British trade, and I make no apologies for this.
Lots of the automobiles we appear to be taking a look at are on the finish of US, Canadian and German provide chains.
I get the method that drives this, and I get that the big defence primes will all the time have a bonus, but when the Land Industrial Technique is extra than simply phrases, I merely don’t settle for the logic of paying German or US primes to develop Canadian automobiles when we have now UK SMEs like AVT, DCE, and Supacat.
The ‘course of’ is likely to be a legitimate motive however it’s not an appropriate excuse and we have to do higher with hard-earned public funds.
The Enormous Potential of UGVs
RANG-R isn’t a civilian car conversion, it has been designed from the outset with defence customers in thoughts.
It’s effectively protected and resilient, and scaled for a spread of payloads that go approach past fundamental load carriage akin to EOD and route clearance, together with people who want hydraulics.
Viking can be designed from the bottom up, they usually each have a flat load mattress that’s suited to adaptability for carrying sensor and weapon payloads.
RANG-R can even have extra ballistic and mine safety added, and each Viking and RANG-R have probably shorter provide chains and better UK industrial participation than others.
They each have utility throughout 1 DIV and three DIV and with some coordination, throughout the Royal Marines and different customers.
I’m much less satisfied of their worth for a easy platoon or crew load carrying, their payload-to-kerb weight ratio tends to be decrease and provides quite a lot of price and complexity to what could be delivered with easy and low-cost crewed automobiles.
The place they’ve huge potential is precisely this situation, not having any personnel on the bottom concerned in any respect.
State of affairs 1
4 Merlin helicopters fly from the deck of a Future Littoral Strike Ship over the horizon to a distant location. After touchdown, they disembark 4 IDV Vikings, every with a Trakkon RWS, 30mm AEI Venom cannon. A small crew conducts checks and arms the cannon, returning to the Strike Ship with the helicopters.
The automobiles transfer silently to their ultimate areas out of earshot and radar detection of the helicopter touchdown web site, some 100km away.
Three taking over positions 2km away, overlooking a street choke level they go into overwatch mode, ready for a ground-launched ballistic missile convoy that intelligence sources had indicated would go by within the subsequent 48 hours.
The opposite exploits the terrain to keep away from detection and stays as a reserve.
When the convoy does arrive, placing it merely, it will get detected and brassed up by three 30mm cannons, and that was that for the convoy.
State of affairs 2
A second situation sees 4 Chinook take off from a ahead working base, every loaded with Aardvark RANG-R UGVs. Their mission is to organize a helicopter touchdown web site close to an open-cast coal mine for a multinational air cellular drive arriving inside 48 hours.
Touchdown on an entry street some 20km away, the primary Chinook has three RANG-R with floor clearance blades and manipulator arms. Upon leaving the plane they transfer to mine and start clearing obstacles and unexploded ordnance left over from a latest battle.
The second and third Chinook every have two RANG-R, every carrying two 1,000L IBC containers of pre-diluted Envirotec ‘Rhino Snot’ mud stabilisation resolution and a sprig head. They arrive on the cleared web site and start spraying the world, in preparation for the touchdown drive.
The final of the 4 Chinooks has two RANG-R, one geared up with a tethered UAS and the opposite a C-UAS package deal of radar and a 30mm computerized cannon. The tethered UAS deploys and relays situational consciousness data to HQ while the Rhino Snot is curing, the C-UAS supplies overwatch.
Two days later the advance drive arrives.
Each of those eventualities may take just a few leaps of know-how readiness however hopefully, you possibly can see the potential, and potential could be enhanced by ensuring any future UGVs match effectively inside our two help helicopters.
The Lengthy Arm of GMLRS*
*Different missiles can be found
We’ve got principally mentioned how for small groups we are able to lengthen the size of their legs, and within the weapons sections, I touched on extending the size of their clenched fists.
With out discounting the results that small groups can convey to bear, giving that very same crew entry to longer-range weapons brings them into the ‘strategically essential’ class.
If I had been the Royal Marines or Parachute Regiment, all the time underneath menace of disbandment or discount, I’d be considering past being the very best gentle infantry raiding and fast response forces.
The desk beneath supplies an approximate comparability.
While RM-centric, this paper from RUSI makes the case for longer-range weapons.
Integration challenges shouldn’t be underestimated however at the least bodily, there aren’t any explanation why a trailer-based single missile or pod launcher can’t be developed that makes use of in-service complicated weapons, or that that we plan to convey into service.
Even with shorter-range programs akin to Javelin, Brimstone and Exactor, a small crew might ship a disproportionate impact, particularly when utilizing non-line-of-sight weapons, an anti-armour blocking drive for instance (shades of 24 Airmobile).
Might we Stretch to Air Cellular Cavalry?
Aside from the Flyer and RANG-R, not one of many automobiles described within the sequence has any safety.
Aside from the UGVs, none of them has any sort of mounted direct-fire weapons both.
It is a good factor.
It discourages them from being seen as combating or patrol automobiles, only a technique of shifting folks and issues from A to B.
A query arises, can we stretch assets to construct a real airmobile cavalry drive to do cavalry issues?
There are few car selections, maybe just one or two.
Though now not in manufacturing, it’s nonetheless value highlighting that some Wiesel variants might match inside a Chinook.
Not a simple match, however the RAF has performed it with Chinook.
Relying on the mannequin, Wiesel 2 (with the additional roadwheel) would additionally match.
Its substitute, the Luftbeweglichen Waffenträger (Airmobile Weapon Service) or LuWa, is within the early idea and analysis stage.
One potential contender, from ACS, Valhalla and FFG, is an interesting-looking car, however at 2.11m excessive, not appropriate for inner carriage, at the least simply in Chinook and definitely not in Merlin, except the suspension permits some kind of kneeling.
LuWa is being designed for the CH-53 successor in German service, the Chinook.
So if we needed to generate an airmobile cavalry drive, a joint growth with Germany would supply a path
One to think about.
Gained’t Somebody Consider Sustainment
As an example my level, that 1m sq. pallet beneath has a complete of 9 NLAW, a couple of minutes work for a 12-person raiding crew.
The publicly launched imagery of present automobiles tends towards the combating component, it’s public relations in spite of everything.
Pallets of ammunition, stretchers and jerrycans of water and gasoline aren’t that photogenic so hardly ever get a glance in.
Everybody is aware of they can’t be ignored.
However I’d ask a query, does that data of the particular payloads required to maintain even small groups translate into necessities?
Maybe rotary or fixed-wing UAS will assist ameliorate the issue, or air despatch from fixed-wing plane, however even the heavy carry UAS being demonstrated beneath solely has a most vary of 70km and a most payload of 70kg. They’ll do a number of spherical journeys or work in parallel with others however spherical journey delay and detectability imply that they is likely to be the entire resolution.
Maybe extra essential than easy shops weight is shops quantity.
Fashionable communication tools, sensors, UAS, defence shops, and different tools are carried within the ubiquitous Peli, Zarges, and Amazon circumstances.
Advanced weapons are available in particular to contents containers that add weight and bulk to the datasheet weights.
As you possibly can most likely think about, I feel we must always concentrate on carried weights and loadbed dimension just a little extra in car choice.
Terrain Accessibility isn’t a grimy phrase
OK, it’s two phrases!
One of many points I can see with current approaches is mobility, particularly in snow and poor soils, the sort of terrain discovered within the Excessive North and different areas.
It isn’t past the realms of fantasy that future operations could also be performed within the Excessive North and or areas of deep snow, Muskeg/Taiga and plenty of mud.
Excessive mobility necessities would are inclined to swing choice to tracks or multi-axle skid steers however none of the present dialogue on this topic appears to pay attention to such greater mobility necessities, specializing in pace on well-found tracks and dry floor.
This isn’t a criticism however an commentary.
If the Royal Marines need to preserve considered one of their distinctive promoting factors, littoral manoeuvre, they need to be trying past MRZR and into small hovercraft, inflatable touchdown craft, over-snow and excessive mobility automobiles that not solely permit them to take advantage of their Merlin helicopter fleet, but in addition transfer throughout ice, estuaries, snow, tidal zones, and mushy floor up north.
The identical commentary applies to the 16 Air Assault Brigade, though maybe much less of the littoral, however nonetheless an commentary about mobility, particularly given the probably lack of natural mobility help.
There’s extra to life than helicopters
Though this sequence is about helicopter inner carriage and the first constraining of inner dimensions, different components is likely to be thought-about.
One of many key UK necessities for A400M was that it might settle for three Land Rover Defender 110s with trailers two abreast.
The 110 Defender is a shade underneath 1.8m large.
If you’re 16 Air Assault Brigade, that is essential, it’s particularly essential in case you are available in the market for a Defender substitute. It’s vitally essential that any Defender substitute, just like the Babcock GLV (and others), is lower than 1.8m large as a result of not solely does it permit for Chinook inner carriage it permits a dense load in an A400M.
A400M dimensional optimisation is especially essential given it is going to be (when availability is sorted) the first plane for shifting 16AAB and an Air Manoeuvre Job Power.
463L pallet and C-17 compatibility may even be a part of the choice matrix for the Military however maybe much less so for the Royal Marines.
Driving licences and coaching demand are all the time a consideration, roadworthiness and gasoline utilization, maybe even the 2m ramp width and six-tonne payload of a Touchdown Craft Automobile Personnel (LCVP) Mk5, 5.8m size and a pair of.34m width of a 20ft ISO container, the 4.9m size of a two module ATAX air despatch platform, and even the interior dimensions of a ULD container than can go in a Voyager decrease deck maintain.
Maybe even having the ability to match a car on a VRA rack is likely to be thought-about essential for deployability.
That is the sort of factor that makes discovering dimensional compatibility for a globally deployable drive so difficult.
Present Programmes and Present Selections
Some current programmes bisect any notional requirement for helicopter transportable automobiles.
The Royal Marines have been attempting a number of totally different choices in the previous couple of years, from the Polaris Dagor to the three-axle Quad ATV, and extra lately appear to have settled on the Polaris MRZR as a baseline, with a handful of Path A distant and autonomous kits thrown in.
The British Military is taking a look at choices by way of a Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) for the Low Expertise Mobility Platform (LTMP) Medium and Low Expertise Mobility Platform (LTMP) Mild necessities so it appears regardless of persevering with to reside within the hope {that a} joint requirement may emerge, that appears off the playing cards.
A bit extra element right here
There are numerous programmes investigating choices for distant and autonomous automobiles, and never simply the upper profile ones like robotic platoon automobiles, the varied spirals exploring weapons and sensors, ‘thoughts the hole’ and CBRN recce tasks, and final mile resupply.
Collectively, there may be quite a lot of funding and analysis effort going into UGVs/
Even Future Medium Helicopter could have some necessities for small car underslung hundreds.
Standouts and the Street Much less Travelled
Automobiles just like the Polaris MRZR are easy to specify, and even construct necessities round (for instance, the LTMP specifies fairly a low payload that appears suspiciously just like the MRZR) as a result of they exist in an current ecosystem and person base of NATO customers.
If the US has bought a car already, it’s a lot simpler to buy than undergo the price and energy to make sure compliance, particularly if a UK SME or organisation unfamiliar with defence is concerned.
These SMEs may additionally make a judgement that the return isn’t value the price and time to attempt to contract with the MoD, it’s notoriously tough to cope with.
We will rightly complain about this state of affairs, however defence customers need to reside inside a set of processes not of their making.
Being compliant with varied DEFSTANs and having navy person necessities comes at a price, merely evaluating an MRZR price at £40-75k versus any of the civilian UTV fashions proven within the earlier posts at £15-25k demonstrates the variations.
We’d joke about the price of a tin of inexperienced paint however it’s greater than that, defence must be interested by the price differentials, and about accepting design and functionality compromise.
The trail of least resistance may imply restricted selections, but it surely additionally leads to automobiles getting into service.
That stated, a handful of automobiles did stand out.
Rokon bikes
Not simply due to their ruggedness and terrain accessibility, but in addition due to their towing and load-carrying capacities. I additionally notably like the fast connect sidecar. It’s straightforward to dismiss this however working throughout the area and payload constraints, the mixture is definitely close to the highest for area effectivity.
I don’t doubt only a few will agree, however the numbers don’t lie, though the fundamental numbers should not the one factor that issues.
Fresia F-18
Unsure what a lot I can say about this, how a couple of slower two-seat quad with monumental carrying and towing capability, hydraulic export, and two-wheeled steering.
its dimension makes it notably environment friendly for carriage in small areas.
Bale Defence RTV from Australia
Efficiency is superb and it appears a really well-considered design, however it is just out there in a 2-seat model, which oddly, makes it much less environment friendly for filling the finite area of a helicopter. And this brings me to the fourth standout.
Polaris MRZR Alpha
The Alpha sequence is a real enchancment over the usual MRZR and can be out there in a four-seat model. They fill the area and supply significantly higher personnel and cargo carriage given a restricted variety of helicopters. If the Royal Marines had been in search of an improve, they may do lots worse.
Goldoni and Carron agricultural carriers
Chugging alongside and 30kph in what’s a glorified tractor may not look like an act of conflict however as with the Rokon, the numbers don’t lie. If we’re thinking about loadbed area for cumbersome shops, and payload capability for heavy hundreds, nothing genuinely comes shut.
It could take a courageous defence organisation to purchase just a few and check out them out, however possibly attempting them with life like hundreds may wipe the smile off the naysayer’s faces?
Alpina Sherpa
For deep snow and towing sleds, while carrying 5 folks, it appears splendid. If we might settle for folks carrying trailers/sleds, this would offer a wonderful technique of shifting personnel over important distances.
Aardvark RANG-R
As a result of its dimensions and carrying/towing capacities, along with having a hybrid energy pack and clear flat prime, it has glorious potential.
Add within the safety towards small arms, mines and fragmentation, and the flexibility to make use of hydraulic attachments, it appears to be like glorious.
For the lifetime of me, I can’t see why the Military isn’t throughout this car like a rash, oh, it’s British, perceive now.
AVT Minerva
Its load-carrying and towing capability, basic modernity, hydraulics, and glorious amphibious functionality characterise it as a successor to the still-mighty Supacat ATMP.
MTT-154
Examine it to see why, after which think about how excessive you possibly can stack them.
Closing Ideas
There aren’t any ‘greatest automobiles’, merely an limitless procession of trade-offs and compromises that all the time level to ‘what do you need to do’ arguments.
There’s potential to do extra; and spend extra, however regardless of their comparatively low numbers and small prices they might nonetheless need to compete with different defence wants in a world of finite budgets.
Increasing capabilities and including worth appears to me to be elementary to the continued existence of their probably customers, and these is likely to be considered one of many instruments they may use to do this.
And I do know you all need a type of folding mini scooters.
See you within the feedback.
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