A Potential winner in the Army's Mobile Combat Vehicle Tests

H

Hard Ball

New member
In May-June we had some brisk discussions about the equipment tests for the Arm's new Mobile Combat Brigades, 35 types of vehicles were tested at Fort Benning.
An Italian 8-wheeled AFV, the Centauro B1 tank destroyer did very well in the tests and is one of the finalists in the competition to be selected as the Mobile Gun System. The Italians are loaning the US Army 16 Centauro's for training ang further testing.
the Centauros are 26,000 pound 8-wheeld armored vehicles whoch mount a 105mm gun in a rotating turret. It has a maximum road speed of 62 mph and has a crew of four. The
Italian Abmy operates 400 of them.
Prototype armored personnel vehicle and 155mm artillery support versions have been built but are not in production.
The competition for the Cetauro is the US XM8 Armored Gun System, a tracked vehicle which also mounts 105mm gun. Six XM8s are currently in test.
 
Freeman:
Although I dont know for sure, I would assume the US Government would equip these things with run-flat tires, as they do the humvee.
Personally, I think the wheeled route is the way to go; I hate breaking track myself.
 
G. Freeman.

Yes, that's it. If we were to adopt it for our army I think we would produce a US version in the United States. We would probably instal a US engine and American electronics, but it would look just like the pictures you found.
 
Isn't 105mm is bit light to be an effective tank destroyer nowadays? I always thought that the idea behind a TD was a big gun on a light chassis, so that the TD could nail tanks at ranges beyond the main gun of the intended victim. Can a 13 ton chassis handle the recoil from our 125mm gun?

Also, aren't tires vulnerable to ignition by Molotov cocktails? In the urban OOTW environment, it seems like there'd be a big risk of some half-trained partisan setting the tires on fire, and any vehicle which is immobilized is eventually goners.

I'm all for wheeled vehicles when we are going into a no-combat situation and we want to use paved roads without chewing up the infrastructure, but I hope we develop a family of medium tracked vehicles so our rapid response forces have better survivability.
 
Too light to fight, too heavy to run!!

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"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." H.L. Mencken
 
Germans tried tank killers half track chasses
and just succeded in getting a lot of there own troops killed.They are too slow,too lightly armored and too small a main gun to do a good job.M 72 law will take this thing apart and so will many other hand held weapons.My opinion a waste of money and resorces.

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Bob--- Age and deceit will overcome youth and speed.
I'm old and deceitful.
 
105mm is just dandy, especially if you are firing depleted uranium.

Put it like this - there were Bradley's making kills on T-80's during Desert Storm with their "measely" 25mm guns - a 105mm will punch nice holes through most tanks.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
www.bladeforums.com
 
These tires on Mil type vehicles are very cocktail resistant... Also bullet resistant as well. So the wheel/track issue is moot in my opinion. Wheeled vehicles can go faster - easier. Keeping it running is a lot easier to. Ever try to fix a thrown track? I havent - but I have watched tankers do it... looked like a hell of a job to do!

105 mm gun is questionable - but only due to range considerations 105 vs 120 is kinda like .308 vs 30.06 - Both will take down a deer... you get my drift.
The gun will have to be super super accurate and the balistic computer super reliable.

I'ld rather see further use of the Bradly chassis - it's good. It could be reconfigured for a gun role and save a lot of weight keeping it air mobile in smaller aircraft than the C-17. That big italian brute is dang near pointless IMO.

The us army's Sheridan is a nifty little fighting unit that is always overlooked - but is always ready for a tussle.
 
The 105mm gun on the Centauro can fire all standard 105mm rounds including APFSDS with tungsten carbide cobalt or depleted uranium penetrators. Actual combat experience indicates that they can penetrate the armor pf modern Russian MBTs including the T64, T72m and the T80.
 
I found some infornation on the VBC 8x8 APC version of th Centauro. In the Italian prototype version it has a crew of four, Vehicle commander. gunner, driver, and infantry squad leader (Who rides in the turret.) Seven fully equipped infantrymen ride in the hull. When the situation calls for it the squad leader and the seven infantry men dismount and fight on foot supported by the vehicles weapons. The turret can mount an automatic cannon 25mm or 30mm, a .50 caliber machinegun, and two antitank missles in a dual launcher, either US TOW2s or the French HOT. Its fighting power would be about the same as the US Bradley,

[This message has been edited by Hard Ball (edited September 07, 2000).]
 
The German and US experience with TDs underscores my beef with using a 105. While a modern 105 can defeat many modern tanks, the trick is to do so while outside the range of the tank's main gun. Sometimes the TD can shoot from defilade, or attack in numbers, but those are special cases. For an "expeditionary force" we have to assume our guys will be the maneuvering force and the OPFOR will be dug-in, not vice versa.

Only rarely has a bigger, longer-ranged gun been used on TDs, thus they have been doomed to failure by design, not by nature. When Germans used their 88s as non-mobile anti-tank guns, they had plenty of success against the Sherman. Had the Germans built a fast, fully-tracked TD using the 88, they would have had a lot more success.

There is no reason to make a TD big, slow, and undergunned. Its simply that the military often takes the worst of available choices. An analogy is the coastal defenses of the 17th and 18th centuries. While ships of the line were mounting 18 and 24 pounders in large numbers, coastal defenses, even in harbors, were usually only 12 pounders or smaller. This was the triumph of tradition over common sense, and resulted in the loss of various important islands and coastal cities. Incredibly stupid, but it doesn't imply those harbors were indefensible. The German defenses at Normandy had smaller, less accurate guns than the ships of the invasion force. Duh!
 
At least this doesn't sound like the movie
"The Pentagon Wars" starring Carey Elwes and Kelsey Grammer. That movie was all about the development of the Bradley and all the money the Pentagon spent on it.

As a tank destroyer, I agree the wheeled v. track may not be an issue. Wheeled vehicles can usually go faster, and tracked sometimes handles difficult terrain better. The Centauro looks viable.

The "small and fast" round versus the "large and slow" round debate apparently carries on even at exaggerated sizes like 105 mm.

I can speak a little for the Bradley, we had them in my scout platoon when I first got to Ft Hood. Fun to drive. The 25mm was fun to shoot. Improved armor made them even better.

To me, they were way too noisy for a recon platform. The tracks cracked and creaked. Huge exhaust signature. High maintenance. Expensive to operate.
We switched to HumVees.


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"Any world that I'm welcome to.....Is better than the one I come from"

[This message has been edited by tatters (edited September 07, 2000).]
 
So is this thing suposed to replace the Bradley....or is this something else to enhance Combat Mobility?
 
Tank destroyer??? I thought that was a job for other tanks??? This whole thing reeks of another Bradley Fighting Vehicle cluster F. If we are going to replace the guts of this thing with American parts, ie engine, electronics... why the hell would we want to buy it from the Italians; so we can pay someone some roylaty fees??? More globalist BS. My thought are upgrade the humvee or have a US design of similar size and shape that can go faster and is smaller. Equip it with a good anti tank missle system. Cheaper, more maneuverable, faster and does not give the driver and shooter the false sense that they can actually engage another tank. The thought of going head to head with an MBT in one of those is ridiculous. We need something that can shoot and scoot incredibly fast, not some lumbering small tank that can be lit up like a Christmas tree.

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"Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes."
-R.A. Heinlein
 
This sounds like a fairly good compromise vehicle. Wheeled is better than tracked for most purposes, drivability and range are better as is durability. Any thing under about 40 tons isn't going to have enough armour on it to stop APFSDS anyway. So 10tons or 20 tons, might as well be the same thing. 105mm is still more than good enough for the work that is intended, we just fielded the XM935 series 105mm sabot rounds and they should be effective for a while yet.

Ivanhoe's remark about greater range for tank destroyers is off target. Modern tank guns are effectively LOS. Targeting and sighting are the problem, not power. A modern 30:1 length/diameter ratio penetrator looses roughly 40mps per 1000m traveled. And they start at roughly 5000-5500fps(1500-1650mps) so they are effective to well over 4000m. Current generation rounds, such as the M829A1 used by the M256 tank gun(120mm) penetrate 540mm RHA at 2000m at 30 degrees. There are other countries rounds that perform similarly. The French use a 55 caliber gun tube and so their guns currently penetrate the best (ours are 44cal). The Swiss have tested a 140mm gun, which is looking to be the next generation, and it penetrates over 1000mm RHA@2000m at 30 degrees with it's first generation ammo. The problem with larger weapons is that ammo becomes more difficult to handle, and you can carry less of it. Meaning you'll need a 25-50mm secondary cannon to deal with light vehicles so that you can save the main gun rounds for the big stuff.
I like the idea of the US Army buying the Centauro, it will addd a useful capability. I ABSOLUTELY don't think they should replace tanks in the inventory, tanks are survivable, Centauros(like any other LAV) are not, but they are still useful. Bet we would have loved to have them in Somalia. Semper Fi....Ken
 
Not much information is available on the 155mm artillery support version. It will carry a version of the light weight 155mm Howitzer being developed by a joint US-UK program in an armored non-rotating box. Its advantage for 5he support rule is hat 105mm guns fire 30-35 pond explosive shells while 155ms fire 95-100 pound shells whose blast effects are much greater.
 
"If we can see it, we can hit it.
If we can hit it, we can kill it."

I reiterate - Bradleys were making kills with the 25mm Bushmaster gun during Desert Storm - so the 105mm with DU munitions should do just dandy. It all comes down to who's the better gunner, and believe me, when it comes to dueling tanks, it doesn't matter if one is wheeled and one is tracked if they both have the same sighting and skilled gunners - that Sabot round is going to punch right through both sides with nary a problem.

Is this vehicle a panacea for all things? No - but it looks like it makes for a great equalizer for the light / airborne troopers, and it probably won't tear up the roads anywhere near as bad as a platoon of Bradely's / M1's will - which makes it perfect for guarding airstrips and other terrain sensitive missions.

E5M is 100% dead on regarding the LOS considerations - face it, with a good enough sight system and the DU APFSDS rounds, anything currently out there that gets in the sights is toast.

It'll probably be a lot quieter than the tracks as well...

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
www.bladeforums.com
 
Bradleys were making kills with the 25mm Bushmaster gun during Desert Storm.... that Sabot round is going to punch right through both sides with nary a problem.*********

OK, just to clarify. The 25mm sabot round is good. Performance is something like 65mm RHA @1000m at 30 degrees, and it'll kill most tanks from the rear or even side aspect. But they were generally being used against T54's and T55's in Saudi so that's not a really good example. The 25mm WILL make a mess of a tanks drive train and tracks. But frontal aspect, you better be getting hull down and switching to TOW-2. Most modern (western)MBT's are pretty well invulnerable over their frontal aspect. A tank unit in Saudi had trouble destroying an M1A1 after it broke down. There are also several cases of 125mm rounds sticking out of the armour of M1's like pins in a cushion. These are tanks, they weight 60+tons, and have lots of well sloped ceramic Chobham armour. Something that weighes 26,000lbs can't even begin to compare in protection, but it can mount a similar gun. The real advantage of these vehicles is there availablity to airbourne and quick react forces. Having a 105mm gun that can fire HE would have probably saved some guys in Somalia. It's something I'd like in support of me, if I were still a line crunchie. Something that can shrug off 23mm and 30mm rounds and sit back about 1000m and lob HE into strongpoints is nice to have around. And it's far cheaper than an MBT, you can have more of them and they are easier to deploy. Semper Fi...Ken
 
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