The following idea evolved from discussions with Peter Tecks on systems for “back-scratching”. The final idea is very different to Peter's original suggestion, but I'm grateful to him for sending me down this thread. Ralph Zumbro also contributed to this concept, including the very useful information that the XM214 is about to re-enter production.
Many years ago I came across an article in International Defence Review about defending tanks from missiles. One illustration had a small robot turret that was mounted on the turret bustle and armed with two M2 .50 Browning machine guns. Essentially a CIWS for tanks.
I think this idea was along the right lines –it was just that the choice of weapons that was wrong. Each M2 weighs 84lbs, and has a cyclic rate of 550rpm. The weapon that the Tank-CIWS should have is the General Dynamics XM214 5.56mm Gatling.
Ralph Zumbro: General Dynamics used to manufacture a 5.56mm version of the minigun........Cute little sucker, about the size of a man's thigh. The rep at AUSA sez that they will be back in manufacture in a year or so. Consider the following:
GenDy also makes the goal keeper, the 20mm gatling that shoots down incoming missiles for ships. I asked could he make one for tanks, in 5.56mm and put it on a stalk on the turret roof and feed the ammo in through the stalk. He thought for a long minute and said "Sure, no problem."
NOW comes the nasty part. Link the weapon's travel-evation drive to the TCs helmet and he can kill anybody he sees. Need to have that vision rig ("Virtual Transparent Armour") though.
The XM214 is sometimes referred to as a "mini-minigun" or "microgun", and has been described as a weapon looking for a job rather than one designed to do one.
The XM214 will be familiar to anyone that has seen the movie Predator. It is the weapon that Jesse Ventura's character Blain carries. The US Special Forces actually tried this, though the weight and bulk of the batteries proved impractical for light infantry use.
GE (as it then was) offered a system they called the "Six-Pak" which was composed of a XM-214, two 500rd cassettes and a 24V 0.8hp NiCad power source. Battery charge was sufficient for 3,000rds. Total weight was 85lb (38.6kg) and could be moved as two equal loads. Weight of the XM214 alone is given as 27lb (12.25kg), although a more recent source says ca 10.5kg (23lb) -about the same as a GPMG.
Ralph: This subject is gonna get hot, in the next few years. GD says that they can acquire and shoot down an incoming 5" shell. That's in 20mm, of course. In a rifle caliber you could expect to wreck any incoming missile, unless it was stealth coated, but if the scanning device is FLIR, it'd just home in on the rocket exhaust......Same result.
In one of Hunnicutt's books PATTON, he shows a directed explosive line that mounts on the fender, and blows any incoming missile up (as in vertical). He was a bit fuzzy about the sensing mechanism.(PW: The attack direction sensing system described here might be a good start)
I see all this high tech lightening the tanks of the future, at least the Tankita class, because we'll be talking about defended zones, not brute force armor.
The 5.56x45mm round is a low bulk, flat shooting high velocity bullet that has ample anti-material effects for targets such as ATGMs and RPGs. An XM214 with batteries and a 500rd cassette weighs 45lb. A second cassette can be fitted (another 14lb) and weapon will automatically switch to the second when the first is emptied. Cyclic rate can be anything from 180-10,000rpm. Some sources also claim that the weapon has a burst counter like the 10rd burst mode of the GAU-19, although they differ on the exact number of rounds fired, varying from 6 to 30 rounds. Possibly this can be varied too.
In the anti-missile role the Tank-CIWS (“tank-see-whizz”) will probably be aimed by a millimetric radar system. This will be supplemented by an Infra-red system to detect rocket exhausts and LIDAR (put simply, LIDAR is radar using a laser beam instead of radio-waves. The inclusion of LIDAR and IR systems counters the prospect of future missiles being “stealthed” with radar absorbent materials (RAM).
The main role of the Tank-CIWS is to detect and destroy anti-tank missiles and other weapons such as rocket propelled grenades. In this application the XM214 will probably be fired at a rate of 2000-4000rpm.
The Tank-CIWS will also have an anti-personnel role and in this mode it is likely to be fired at a rate of 450-900rpm. The weapon may have several rates of fire.
The Tank-CIWS also has an important role as a close in defensive system capable of “back-scratching”. A convincing case can be made for more powerful tank secondary armament, but one drawback of this is that the tank has fewer systems that can kill infantry in close proximity to friendly vehicles. Hosing down a friendly lightly armoured vehicle with a .50 calibre machine gun or 30mm ASP cannon is more likely to destroy it than protect it. Such treatment is also likely to damage many of the more sensitive systems of a MBT. 5.56mm rounds are less likely to cause damage to vehicles yet still prove effective against infantry, even those in body armour.
On this page it is pointed out that concentrated machine gun fire can chew through light armour. When desired the XM214 can be set to a very high rate of fire to penetrate enemy APCs or Armoured Helicopters. Concentrated XM214 fire can also eat through walls or be used to chop down trees
Mounting.
The Tank-CIWS turret will probably be mounted on the bustle of MBTs or on the roof or turret of IFVs and APCs. If a vehicle has “Virtual Transparent Armour” the weapon may be linked to a system similar to that already in use in helicopter gunships, allowing the controller to aim just by looking at the target. Targeting against missiles is likely to be automatic, however.
Tanks may have a second Tank-CIWS mounted on the bow of the vehicle to provide additional missile defence in the forward arc and to also serve as a bow machine gun.
An active defence system that can protect a tank against incoming ATGWs and/or RPGs have already been fielded by the Former-Soviet Union.
The KBP Drozd (Thrush) consists of Millimetre Wave (MMW) motion sensors linked to launch tubes that fire 19kg 107mm fragmentation charges. Drozd-1 mounted eight tubes that protected against threats approaching the turret front. Drozd-2 uses eighteen tubes and provides an all-around defence for the vehicle. T-62 and T-55 tanks mounting this system were designated T-62D and T-55AD. There are also references to Drozd being mounted on T-80s.
What is really interesting about this system is that it began to enter service around 1983.
The KBM Arena is a more recent Russian system. The attack detection radar takes the form of a sort of toadstool on top of the turret and the defensive charges are arranged in a ring around the turret. Incoming threats are destroyed at 20-30m range so the system can be used when friendly infantry are in close proximity to the tank.
Despite the Russians fielding Drozd in the 80s, here in the west active protection systems are still at the drawing board or in prototype phase.
United Defense have published details of a pop-up launcher that fires fragmentation charges at missiles/rockets when they are at 10-20m range. This system is suggested for light armoured vehicles as well as MBTs.
Impressive thing about this system is that the four corner mounted detectors are claimed to weigh only 2 kg each.
Other systems are shown here:
It is clear that both the weapon and sensor systems suitable for a vehicle mounted CIWS are already in existence.
CIWS fire could be used to destroy detected attacks at a distance, with fragmentation charges being used as a close range backup.
A layered system would use the XM214 to initially attack threats, with systems such as the Thales Reactor firing fragmentation charges supplementing this if the threat gets within 75-100 metre ranges. A system such as Arena would handle rounds that got past the other systems and as a last resort the vehicle might use ERA/Claymores.
I've seen it claimed that the co-axial MG of a tank is accurate enough to bring down ATGWs in flight without the need for a radar, and that a main gun firing Canister could be used in the same way. Big flaw in this argument is that tanks tend to advance with their main guns and co-axials aimed towards an objective while ATGW teams strive to launch their missiles at the flanks and rear or tanks. Slew rate of an Abrams is 42°/sec which can put a long delay into the system.
One idea is to expand on the principle of the above systems that use fragmentation warheads but mount them in a rockets fired from an independently traversing launcher. This would enable the tank to destroy ATGWs at greater ranges than for systems such as Drozd and Reactor.
Russian doctrine places anti-aircraft vehicles such as the ZSU-23-4 a few hundred metres behind the lead tank elements of a battalion. Not only do these vehicles provide defence against attack helicopters but can bring their considerable firepower to bear against positions occupied by infantry or light vehicle ATGW teams.
Carlton Meyer expands on this idea to suggest that ADA-type vehicles mount systems to jam or destroy the actual ATGWs that are fired against the formation they are accompanying.
One of the most important features of such a vehicle would be the radar and sensor system used to detect threats. Carlton suggests that the recoil of an anti-aircraft weapon such as a 25-40mm cannon would interfere with the function of a high definition radar system but that it should be possible for the vehicle to mount one or more Mk-47 type grenade launchers firing a mixture of air-burst smoke, flare and chaff rounds. A weapon such as the XM-214 would serve for both local defence and as an anti-missile system, although since the latter role would be area defence rather than individual defence a 7.62mm minigun or .50 Gecal might be used instead. The vehicle is also likely to have Laser and Maser (Microwave) systems that can dazzle or disrupt the systems of missiles. These will have other uses such as dazzling attacking aircraft or ground units or simply acting as giant laser pointer to indicate a target for fire from other units.
Such a missile defence vehicle would work closely with more conventional ADA vehicles mounting SAMs and automatic cannon for direct attack against helicopters and more distant targets. By using a slew-to-cue (STC) system the radar of the defence vehicle could also direct the CIWS of tanks against threats.
Carlton also suggests that the vehicle mount the Shortstop system to provide protection against proximity fused artillery and mortar rounds. Similar systems have been in use for some time with the Russians. If the Shortstop system can be reduced to 25lbs as is proposed it is likely it will also be mounted on other vehicles. Given that the infantry are most vulnerable to artillery attack it is likely that some APCs and IFVs will carry these. GPS jamming systems will provide cover against some aircraft delivered weapons.
This is another close-in defensive system that is not related to Tank-CIWS, but included here for convenience.
In this interesting article the author suggests that the Krauss-Maffei Wegmann driver's backward driving system can be adapted to cover a tank's blind spots and dead zones.
My modification is simple. Near each camera box mount an armoured box containing a self-loading shotgun loaded with flechette shells. The M1014 JSCS guns would be suitable for this role, and using them up for this would allow the infantry to acquire more effective weapons with box magazines. Each M1014 can hold seven 12g shells, each loaded with twenty 1.5" long flechettes. There are also shotshells that project a cloud of burning particles. At some locations more than one shotgun may be mounted. An aiming mark on the TV screen would cover one inch of the target for each yard of range, which is the approximate spread of a shotload.
If a camera can see an enemy in close proximity to the tank then he can be fired upon. There would probably be some form of "panic button" that fires all the guns on one side. In certain situations the shotguns can be loaded with less lethal rounds that fire clouds of tear gas (OC) or rubber pellets.
By the Author of the Scrapboard : | |
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 | Attack, Avoid, Survive: Essential Principles of Self Defence Available in Handy A5 and US Trade Formats. |
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 | Crash Combat Second Edition with additional content. Epub edition Second Edition with additional content. Crash Combat Third Edition Epub edition Third Edition. |
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