Ask An Expert- LAND Forces.

[Albany Rifles]

AH-64 proposals sought in 1972

M1 Abrams, specifications for the XM815 (renamed M1 Abrams) 1971

M270 MLRS, army issued design requirements in 1975

M2/M3 proposals issued in 1972 and FMC won with the XM723

See the pattern? So what programs did Carter start? I doubt you can find two, I doubt you can find one cold war impacting technology initiated by Carter.

No, those programs were not started under the Carter Administration....but one could argue that the Bradley actually started under MG Casey as PEO when the XM723 got going in 1968 in the Johnson Administration.

You can find ties for all of the Big 5 well into the 1960s. The point several of us have been trying to make to you is the Carter Administration continued to fund those programs until they were ready for production. None of these programs sprung out of the air in January 1981. None of these programs were ready for full fielding until the Reagan Administration. Several of these systems had their first several years of production runs funded with the FY 78, 79 and 80 Carter Defense Budgets.

The Thread title is "Ask an Expert".....I have been doing US Army Acquisition since 1988, I am a DAWIA Level 2 certified in Acquisition Logistics and Program Management and currently attending the Defense Acquisition University for Level 3. I do believe I qualify as an Expert in this area and have sufficient knowledge of the Defense Acquisition System over the past 40 years to comment on this subject.

The absolute bottomline is ALL of the weapon systems used by the US military in the 1980s and 1990s were developed based on funding within the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations. If anything, Nixon and Ford underfunded R&D for conventional forces which Carter made up for.

[Gun Grape]

Most of the programs being given to carter have beginnings even earlier. Did Carter expand the army and navy? NO Did Reagen? Yes

Wrong.

All but 5 of the Sprucan DDs were commissioned during the Carter years.

Carter authorized the building the Tico Cruisers. Those that came on line the first 5 years of the Reagan Administration were because of Carter.

Carter's DoD initiated the design of the Burke Class DDs.

What Reagan did, for the most part was reclassify ship classes. And bring old obsolete ships back in service to bump up numbers.

The majority of the ships commissioned during the Reagan years were authorized during the Carter years.

[zraver]

AR, I never denied carter spent money on R&D...

GG, I stand corrected on at last part of the Navy side the equation.

[gunnut]

Questions for the tankers:

Is there a lot of lighting inside the tank once it's "buttoned up?"

Do you get a lot of bruises from bumping into stuff inside the tank? I know the helmet is there for a reason.

[zraver]

Questions for the tankers:

Is there a lot of lighting inside the tank once it's "buttoned up?"

No, tactical lights in the field, white light is poison if you have to unbutton and risks revealing the tank because the preffered state for the commander is unbuttoned.

Do you get a lot of bruises from bumping into stuff inside the tank? I know the helmet is there for a reason.

Depends on the tank and the driver. A bad driver is a gunner and TC's worst nightmare. Gunners are at risk for black eyes and broken noses (gun sight) and TC's are at risk for smashed faces (off the 50 mount) and broken ribs (hatch ring). Loaders risk the ribs too if they are riding up on air guard.

[tankie]

No, tactical lights in the field, white light is poison if you have to unbutton and risks revealing the tank because the preffered state for the commander is unbuttoned.



Depends on the tank and the driver. A bad driver is a gunner and TC's worst nightmare. Gunners are at risk for black eyes and broken noses (gun sight) and TC's are at risk for smashed faces (off the 50 mount) and broken ribs (hatch ring). Loaders risk the ribs too if they are riding up on air guard.

That about covers it .

[bigross86]

Merkava 4's used to have blue and white low-power light bulbs with dimmer switches, but they were all switched over to LED lights that save power and give off more light when you do need it. The default EVERY time you leave the tank is to make sure the switches are dimmed before leaving, and it's worth a weekend on base instead of at home to forget

[bigross86]

As for the bruising, I had a driver that was so bad that he bounced my head around like a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing off the side of the hull, the cannon, my TC's knee and the gunsight in the process (Thankfully my helmet absorbed most of it). My loader at one point wound up flying, holding on to his ceiling grips with his hands and with his feet resting on the cannon and on the wiring on the inside of the hull. My TC was the best, though. We were in the middle of an "attack" on the range, so he was shooting his 7.62 MaG at targets of availability. Suddenly he was launched forward into the gun mount, and the MaG starts spinning around like mad (the leader always took good care to grease the gun mounts properly, make them nice and smooth), and as the TC recovers from the massive jolt he realizes that not only has a loaded MaG been aimed at nearly anyone and everyone within range as it spun through 360 degrees 3 or 4 times, but is now also aimed at him. He immediately ducked into the tank, safed the gun, pointed it back downrange and called a stop to the exercise.

The really worst part? The driver didn't feel anything, he had no idea what he did to the rest of us

[zraver]

As for the bruising, I had a driver that was so bad that he bounced my head around like a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing off the side of the hull, the cannon, my TC's knee and the gunsight in the process (Thankfully my helmet absorbed most of it). My loader at one point wound up flying, holding on to his ceiling grips with his hands and with his feet resting on the cannon and on the wiring on the inside of the hull. My TC was the best, though. We were in the middle of an "attack" on the range, so he was shooting his 7.62 MaG at targets of availability. Suddenly he was launched forward into the gun mount, and the MaG starts spinning around like mad (the leader always took good care to grease the gun mounts properly, make them nice and smooth), and as the TC recovers from the massive jolt he realizes that not only has a loaded MaG been aimed at nearly anyone and everyone within range as it spun through 360 degrees 3 or 4 times, but is now also aimed at him. He immediately ducked into the tank, safed the gun, pointed it back downrange and called a stop to the exercise.

The really worst part? The driver didn't feel anything, he had no idea what he did to the rest of us

Summer of 1990, we just got our hands on the M1IP and got rid of the Pattons, time to go to the field and we acted like a bunch of kids given daddy's porche. The First sgt said the road speed was 25, but even the officers said screw it, we went down the tank trails at close to 50mph on the downhill. The MP's were pissed, but how do you give an entire company a speeding ticket?

After gunnery was over we were headed back and I forgot about a low water crossing and went sailing off of it, the Abrams was off the ground... but not for long. The low water crossing was paved and matched the angle of the Abrams front lower hull perfectly.. We went from 40mph and dropping to about 5mph and bouncing up in the blink of an eye. I sheared the bolts holding the rear exhaust covers off, exploded a case of powdered gatorade in the bustle, broke at least 1 rib of the TC, somehow the gunner managed to avoid injury, and I'm pretty sure I cracked the concrete of the low water crossing...

Luckily that is my only such story as a driver. Oh, I didn't suffer any the worst for wear, the drivers position in the Abrams is very comfortable even with big impacts. Though my dust rag did get thickly coated in gatorade powder leaving a lemony taste in my mouth.

[tankie]

As for the bruising, I had a driver that was so bad that he bounced my head around like a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing off the side of the hull, the cannon, my TC's knee and the gunsight in the process (Thankfully my helmet absorbed most of it). My loader at one point wound up flying, holding on to his ceiling grips with his hands and with his feet resting on the cannon and on the wiring on the inside of the hull. My TC was the best, though. We were in the middle of an "attack" on the range, so he was shooting his 7.62 MaG at targets of availability. Suddenly he was launched forward into the gun mount, and the MaG starts spinning around like mad (the leader always took good care to grease the gun mounts properly, make them nice and smooth), and as the TC recovers from the massive jolt he realizes that not only has a loaded MaG been aimed at nearly anyone and everyone within range as it spun through 360 degrees 3 or 4 times, but is now also aimed at him. He immediately ducked into the tank, safed the gun, pointed it back downrange and called a stop to the exercise.

The really worst part? The driver didn't feel anything, he had no idea what he did to the rest of us

When 1st joined in 1969 I was a cent dvr , the cmdr soon showed me the errors of my driving by placing the gnr in my seat and me in his ,,,,very soon I learned how to drive so crew were safe even a cup of tea would not spill off the gun breech when on stab ? however that was only peace time driving

PS interior tactical lights in cents were , RED beams .

[gunnut]

Thanks guys for the great first hand accounts of what being in a tank was like. :)

Now I have some questions for the arty guys.

How is "counter battery fire" done? I know we have radars now to detect incoming shells, and then plot the point of origin. But how about back in the good ol' days when there was no radar to detect incoming fire? How did anyone trace the incoming shell back to its source?

[kato]

By triangulating the sound or the flash the firing made. You set up multiple listening/observation posts over an arc about 10 km wide and measure the difference between when the sound impacts or the direction of the flash both of them.

Sound measuring concept introduced in Germany beginning around 1928, far more effective than previous flash observation and still used (in addition to radar). Current Bundeswehr system can track a firing gun up to 20 km away with a CEP of 1 meter using six sensor stations. Since it's completely passive and unjammable it's rather superior to radar in a high-intensity environment, hence why it's being retained. It's also cheaper btw.

Most other armies, including to my knowledge the US Army, used only flash observation (of the muzzle flash) until at least the 60s, which is a lot shorter-ranged (max 7-9 km, very weather-dependent). The US Army introduced the AN/USD-1 drone system using camera surveillance to find enemy artillery beginning in 1958, which wasn't particularly effective and replaced relatively soon by Firefinder radar 15 years later.

[S2]

A bit more than that. Intelligence and reconnaissance identify likely occupation positions. Crater analysis determines direction and calibre. Range fans worked on a back azimuth intersect likely or known occupation positions. Sound/Flash are alerted and oriented to those suspected sources of fire.

All of this was immensely difficult to execute in a lethal, fluid battlefield. Nonetheless, sound-ranging was likely the most effective counterfire system employed between W.W. II and Vietnam. There is continuing interest in these systems as evidenced by both the UTAMS system (U.S) and HALO (British). Here's a bit more-

U.S. Marines Ground Counterfire Sensor

[zraver]

Crater analysis determines direction and calibre.

Please explain if I am wrong, but to be fast enough to be useful that would involve looking into a crater that was just hit and is likely to be hit again. In fact looking down into a crater so chances are your bent over presenting your backside to the next round of enemy shells. Like a high explosive version of the scene from Braveheart... I'll stick to tanks thank you.

[gunnut]

What exactly is a "Stryker" brigade why is it powerful or better than a mechanized infantry brigade?