Anon

"Is 45mph on land a decent top speed for AFV's?"

Plenty, provided that's the off-road speed as well. To keep up with Abrams or Bradleys cross-country you need a 40mph top end at least.

Franco Lolan

I saw the video too (or at least I think what you're describing). They hit it with 25mm, hten they went in. One Marine killed 4 of the insurgents by himself in that house!

lemontree

Exactly . Also 100 gms of plastic around a hand grenade can go wonders?

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Anon

"Exactly . Also 100 gms of plastic around a hand grenade can go wonders?"

To be honest, i don't know that the plastique around the grenade would detonate(i've never tried).

I say that because plastic explosives are normally detonated by electrical blasting caps, as i'm sure you're aware.

lemontree

We use both types No.27 and No.33 (electrical). I'll e-mail the way we do it, 'coz I don't want some jerk to get these ideas, you can cross check it with the Colonel and verify it.

Anon

Thanx for the recipe.

I sent ya back one of my own personal faves as well.

lemontree

You are welcome and thanks for the same.

FutureTank

It is often misunderstood what an 'amphibious' vehicle is.
An amphibious vehicle is one that is able to operate fully submersed.
A vehicle that is able to propel itself on the surface of a relatively limited water orstacle is a swimmer.

The problem with naval infantry or marines, is that they are required to deploy off a naval vessel stationed off shore. A swimmer vehicle is therefore exposed for a significant distance during it's appraoch to any shore defencive anti-assault countermeasures such as guided anti-armour munitions and conventional gun systems as well as indirect weapons. Not only that, but the vessel that has to stop while deploying such swimmer vehicles is also exposed to significant risk from being attacked by anti-ship missiles and aircraft ordnance.

For this reason there have not been any significantly large 'amphibious' assaults since the Korean War.

Essentially no true amphibious fighting vehicle exists in any armed force. For such a vehicle to be designed, the approach has to include design of the naval vessel from which they are to be deployed.

The advantage of a true amphibian IFV is that it is not exposed to enemy countermeasures during approach. Such vehicles can be deployed without requiring the naval vessel to stop, and this means the enemy, even if observing the naval task force, is unable to determine the place and time of the assault.

The assaulting force itself can not only choose the time of day or night to conduct the assault by remaining submerged, but only becomes exposed to enemy observation when they emerge about 20m from the beach, significantly removing the capability of the enemy to engage the assault (particularly with ATGWs which in many cases have minimum arming distances).

So the current crop of swimmers such as BTR/BMP or the USMC's new EFV are not true amphibians, and do expose the troops to significant risk of enemy fire. For this reason the Soviet practice is to use such vehicles in small numbers on beaches that would not support large lodgements, and therefore increasing the number of possible sites to be guarded by defenders, and hopefully reducing their numbers in the process. Similarly the most often used unit of swimmers in the USMC is a platoon, and less so a company as part of the MEU to provide battalion its lift/swim.

Using purpose designed naval hull to launch true amphibians can increase these numbers to a simultaneous brigade assault focused on strategically significant objectives while retaining far larger proportion of firepower and manoeuvrability then the currently available of proposed designs.

Garry

Do you mean that amphibious are submerged completelly? I am very interested! Could you please ellaborate? I know very little about this! Do you have example of such submerging amphibian?

JCT

The definition of amphibious is something that can live or operate on land or water. There is nothing that says it must completely submerge under the water, I think you would call that a submarine.

FutureTank does raise a good point in that most naval infantry/marines come from the sea, a point not raised in the earlier posts. Should they have a true amphibous IFV that can come across the surf (with the attendant compromises & their drawbacks) or should they be transported from ship to shore via some sort of landing craft (and thereby be more optimized for land combat)? $$ and each service's philosophy will determine that. In your opinion, which is preferable?

The BTR/BMP series & LAV series vehicles are calm water vehicles, i.e., they can cross lakes and rivers where there is not a strong current. The AAV7P amtrack can cross surf zones and come over the beach, although they are limited to certain sea states and maximum wave roughness that they can endure.

The assault section in each USMC rifle company is equipped with the SMAW which has an HE warhead roughly equivalent to an AT-4. Its capable of making an entry into a building and as a bonus can shoot thermobaric rounds. The assaultmen are also trained in basic demo and have the capability of building & setting explosive charges.

gunnut

There is a new vehicle under test by the MC. A tracked vehicle similar to the AAV but with a top speed of 25 knots in water and 40mph on land. I forgot the name. Need to do more research.

__________________
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JCT

EFV - Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. It is having a lot of reliability problems in testing. I caught a segment of Future Weapons on it. They state it has a ~850hp engine that is supercharged to 3000hp for water ops. To achieve plane on the water, the tracks are retracted into the hull and plates cover them, giving the vehicle a smooth belly. Retractable tracks & a 40-45mph land speed, no wonder they are having suspension reliability problems!

I'm not sure if this is a good idea for the USMC. Three big $$ projects, all of which are technically challenging. I have my fingers crossed.

gunnut

That's my impression of the vehicle. Overly complex. It would be awesome if it works out well. But if not, it's a lot of wasted time and money chasing a mechanical perfection.

Why not seperate them into 2 vehicles? One for land operation and another one the 25 knot capable LCV that can get the EFV to the beach.

Sometimes the ideal solution is not the practical solution. Igor Sikorsky succeeded where everyone else had failed because he used a practical solution when everyone ese was trying for the ideal solution.

Gun Grape

I hate the EFV/AAAV. When I saw the first powerpoint on it 10 yrs ago, I thought they were trying to do to much.

Because you loose landing areas. A LCU can beach at about 10% of the worlds coastline. An Amtrack around 35% and an LCAC around 70%.

So it is easier for the enemy to figure out where you can land and create a better defence, if you only have LCUs.

The thought going around the Corps at the time was "If it works then it changes the way we operate." An AAv really isn't much more than a big, covered WW2 LVT.

FutureTank

Yes, as much as this may surprise many professionals, the definition of amphibious IS to have a capability to fully submerge. Whle many 'amphibious' units have crocodiles on their emblems, it seems few realize that these reptiles primarily attack from below the surface, and depend on this for element of surprise.

I have no example of a vehicle that has this capability.

Cheers