This new GCV sounds like its gonna be a lot heavier than the 20,000 lb JLTV. Somebody call TACOM; and have them use this D-o-D COTS engine to compute the size of the fuel tank to meet GCV range rqmts. Let’s say the average engine mission scenario will demand a conservative 10 miles to the gallon; with range rqmts of 400 miles. Fuel tank size solved. I don’t know the formula for the “fully burdened cost of delivered fuel”.….the JLTV bean counters are probably still working out the long division to satisfy AT&L.

There is your fuel economy over the late 70’s gas turbine in the M1 right there! D-on-D is a current commercially available off-the-shelf capability, fitting it to a engine package for a new tank is not an enormous multi-billion dollar research project.

Here we go again! A weapon system hog that gobbles up fuel and ammo? Like Rommel, we will get beat because we run out of fuel. The Army is going to spend $7BILLION on the GCV, and find a “fuel efficient” engine? Recommend they save some of the money to pay for the diesel feul. Wasn’t the JLTV Program supposed to pave the way as a fuel pilot program to use the fully burdened cost of energy to find the most “fuel efficient” engine? See USD AT&L Memo, dated 10 April 2007

Here we go again! A weapon system hog that gobbles up fuel and ammo? Like Rommel, we will get beat because we run out of fuel. The Army is going to spend $7BILLION on the GCV, and find a “fuel efficient” engine? Recommend they save some of the money to pay for the diesel feul. Wasn’t the JLTV Program supposed to pave the way as a fuel pilot program to use the fully burdened cost of energy to find the most “fuel efficient” engine? See USD AT&L Memo, dated 10 April 2007

Top attack weapons do involve a degree of technical expertise that many nations lack, plus they are quite costly compared to an old wire guided ATGM for example. Even the Russians haven’t developed top attack ATGMs. It would be unwise to dismiss the possibility of a country supplying such weapons to our enemies, but luckily anything beyond the typical RPGs and old ATGMs in Iraq and Afghanistan have been rare.

Yes there are literal tons of explosives lying around in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere but a larger IED takes more time to set up and can’t be hidden and transported so easily. So it is probably better to be in a heavily armored vehicle and risk heavy IEDs than be in a truck and risk many more light IEDs that can be equally lethal.

Yet there is no way around the issue. The best option for vehicle designers is to provide better protected AFVs with systems like IED jammers. Meanwhile those who build the IEDs must be hunted down, weapon caches destroyed, and methods to prevent IED emplacement implemented. Other technologies like unmanned surveillance systems come into play here.

There is no need to comment on the questionable loyalty of our allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as that is something no vehicle can solve.

What is the alternative to MBTs and APCs? The vehicles may change but they will still be designed with similar roles. Unless there is some breakthrough development in the field of armor, it is possible new anti-armor weapons will lead us to the concept championed by the FCS program. Vehicles with light armor relying primarily on active defense systems and situational awareness to deal with enemy ATGMs. Yet for the time being it seems a more moderate approach like GCV is our best option.

We also deal with enemies who are funded by the opium trade and by Saudi government sympathizers from the Wahabi tradition of religious radicals. Thus we cannot assume that such enemies can be denied any weapon that offers advantages to irregular infantry. Money talks. Nor can we assume that they are stupid, even though they might be certifiably crazy by our standards.

Granting that MBTs and APCs will for a while remain important as *elements* of asymmetric warfare, such vehicles are not sufficient to win the battles we face. As the Israelis learned the hard way, even MBTs can be disabled and then killed in the close fight within towns. This I would again assert that — at least so far as manned armor is concerned — the conclusive battles have already occurred, and armor lost.

A big enough IED can destroy anything, but this is rather unavoidable and dealing with this is more a strategic or tactical question. Yet the same amount of explosives will get used up much faster building large IEDs than smaller ones.

Armored vehicles have not lost the contest to anti-armor weapons. We have been hearing this since the 1960s if not earlier, and yet even with their vulnerabilities, tanks, APCs, and the like are just as important as ever. The greatest threat to a current generation MBT is probably from top-attack weapons which the enemy luckily has no access to. While it is important we keep our enemies from getting RPG-29s and such, the ones that have made it to Iraq haven’t had a huge impact.

There is always a race between a tank’s defenses and the weapons designed to destroy said vehicle. Yet with active defense systems maturing, the balance could swing back towards the defender for the time being.

And 7.62mm typically refers to 7.62x51mm NATO which is a full powered rifle cartridge. 7.62x39mm is what the AK uses and that is an intermediate assault rifle caliber.

It is difficult to get precise information on the nature of the MEXAS problems early in the Stryker’s service, but whatever they were, they have been fixed by now. MEXAS is a series of composite armor which is added to the base armor of a vehicle. Even with just the base armor the Stryker/LAV-III can deal with standard 7.62x51mm just like LAV II and LAV I variants.