Let’s call things with their name,
first of all. The “Strike Brigade” is a mechanized infantry brigade with a
budget and planning-induced identity crisis. It is a manifestation of the
famous “medium weight” force concept that has been doing the rounds for many
years. The MIV, Mechanised Infantry Vehicle, is FRES Utility Vehicle given yet
another acronym.
With the names corrected and put
into context, we can move on to the real questions about this whole enterprise.
Is the Medium Brigade a valid concept? Where does it fit in the force
structure? Is the British Strike
brigade worth the cuts the army is expected to take elsewhere in order to fund
MIV?
The “Medium Weight”force
There is medium and medium. The US Medium Brigade is the Stryker
brigade, originally born to employ 19-tons 8x8 vehicles designed within very
demanding constraints in terms of volume and weight because the whole brigade
had to be compatible with C-130 air transport. There was a price to pay for
such an approach, and it was paid in protection and payload. The flat-bottomed
Stryker proved to be too vulnerable to IEDs and mines, and it also suffered
from limitations to its mobility on the difficult terrain of southern
Afghanistan. To be fair, the terrain was atrocious for pretty much any vehicle
and some restraints were not necessarily the Stryker’s fault, but the first
deployment, in summer 2009, proved very controversial and very expensive. The
vehicles were kept in use in Afghanistan under that, but when a second Stryker
brigade was ordered into theatre, it was instructed to leave its vehicles
behind and use MRAPs and M-ATVs instead.
Meanwhile, a programme was launched
for developing a Double V Hull modification that increases underbelly
protection. The dream of airlifting entire brigades of armoured vehicles using
the Air Force’s C-130s was over, the reality of war had dawned.
In the meanwhile, though, a lot of
money had been expended pursuing a concept of operations that was scarcely
realistic, and the selection of such a light platform had introduced issues
that could have easily been avoided. Among these, the failure of the Mobile Gun
System variant, a Stryker with an automated 105mm gun on top, meant to provide
intimate fire support to the Stryker infantry battalions. The production of
this variant was eventually discontinued, leaving the Stryker brigades
considerably weaker in terms of firepower.
More recently, the US Army has launched
an emergency programme for partially fixing the firepower problem. With the IFV
variant equipped just with a RWS with a .50 HMG, the Stryker brigade is too
lightly armed to face a symmetric or hybrid fight against comparable vehicles,
which in Russia and China tend to always come with a big gun on top. A new
programme has been started to fit a large Remote Weapon Station with a 30mm gun
on top of the IFV variant. C-130 compatibility is completely out of the window
now, but at long last the heavier, much modified Stryker will have a wider
usefulness. The original one had behaved well in Iraq, doing well on roads, in
urban scenarios and in benign desert conditions, but it had performed badly in
Afghanistan and would have been at a terrible disadvantage in any hybrid /
symmetric warfare scenario.
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| Stryker, before and after coming to grip with the idea that the enemy will fire back. |
The US Stryker brigade is made up by
3 infantry battalions mounted on Stryker IFVs, supported by a Fires regiment
with 155mm M777 towed howitzers and by a Recce Cavalry squadron also mounted in
Strykers.
It is a wholly wheeled brigade
structure, and with DVH and 30mm gun it is a potent formation, useful in a wide
range of scenarios.
There is still a problem left to
fix, however, which is the insufficient number of fault-prone Mobile Gun System
vehicles. The US Army today is considering a new Mobile Protected Firepower
requirement which calls for an armoured, light and highly deployable vehicle
able to provide fire support to the infantry, destroying enemy tanks, bunkers
and strongholds.
The requirements have not yet been
fixed into stone, and the US Army is basically letting industry put its ideas forward:
BAE is offering a modernized M8 Buford, which was originally developed years
ago as a very light tank, capable of being air-dropped, to serve as a
replacement for Sheridan. The programme eventually was killed off, leaving the American
paratroopers without air-droppable armour and firepower, a gap that remains
very much a concern for the airborne divisions.
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| Light and mean, the modernized M8 is a good candidate for MPF. Its ability to be airdropped is bound to awaken interest in the Airborne divisions |
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| The russians have never lost sight of the importance of firepower. All their units, including paratroopers, are heavily mechanized and supported by a lot of direct and indirect fires. The Sprut is an air-droppable light tank with a 125mm smoothbore punch. Airdroppable APCs, IFVs, mortar and SAM carriers also are part of the russian para's arsenal. |
While the current Mobile Protected
Firepower is aimed first of all at the Infantry Brigades, BAE clearly believes
that the “new” Buford could kill two birds with one stone by gaining the
interest of the airborne commanders as well.
And the birds could become 3 if the
US Army decided to replace the troubled Stryker Mobile Gun System with the new
MPF.
Interestingly, General Dynamics’s
own entry for the MPF contest is the Griffin, a vehicle in the 28 to 32 tons
range, not air-droppable, armed with a light derivative of the M1 Abrams gun
turret and with the british Ascod SV / Ajax chassis as hull.
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| The very first appearance of the GD Griffin, a light tank based on the Ascod SV / Ajax hull armed with the american low-recoil force 120mm gun originally developed as part of the abortive Future Combat System programme, Armerica's own FRES nightmare. Photo courtesy of Army Recognition |
The Italian medium brigade is in many ways the most impressive in the
western world. It is meant to be equipped with 3 infantry battalions mounted on
the Freccia IFV, which comes with a turret and a 25mm gun. In the 30 tons
region, offering good protection and firepower, the Freccia is an excellent
platform. The Italian army also wants to give the medium infantry battalions a
lot of firepower, with medium-range vehicle mounted anti-tank missiles at the
Company level and long-range missiles at Battalion level. Similarly, the
battalion has vehicle-mounted 120mm mortars, while the companies are due to get
81mm mortars of their own. That’s a lot of firepower. Unfortunately for Italy,
procurement of the Freccia is progressing relatively slowly, and while one
brigade is mostly outfitted, the second one will only be ready years into the
future, while a third brigade set, once planned, will almost certainly never be
funded.
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| The Centauro 2 brings a 120/45 smoothbore gun to the fight. |
The strength of the Italian brigade
is its Cavalry element, which includes a squadron of 105mm- armed Centauro 8x8
tank destroyers, with a new generation Centauro 2 in development, armed with a
120/45 smoothbore gun and much improved V-hull and protection. The other two
squadrons of the Cavalry regiment are meant to be equipped with the Freccia
Scout variant, in two sub-variants: Far and Close.
The “Far” sub-variant comes with the
Horus mini-uav in launch tubes on the flanks of the turret. A mast-mounted Lyra
radar and long range EO/IR sensor complete the variant’s equipment.
The “Close” variant is equipped with
Spike anti-tank missiles in place of Horus UAVs, and is meant to carry an
Unmanned Ground Vehicle in the back.
If all vehicles will be funded,
procured and put into service, the resulting capability will be very complete
and will set a new standard.
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| The Freccia Scout "Far". The Horus UAV is fitted, while the Lyra radar is shown dismounted. |
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| The Horus launcher is virtually identical to the Spike ATGW launch box that equips the Freccia Close, leaving the enemy wondering. |
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| A reconnaissance UGV is carried by the Freccia Close |
Currently, the Italian Army is
struggling with the provision of artillery to the medium brigades. Industry has
proposed an ambitious self-propelled 155mm howitzer on 8x8 chassis, but for now
there is not a real plan because of lack of money.
If this gap will be properly
filled, the Italian medium brigade will be a truly potent force.
The French medium brigade, under the latest “Au Contact!” force
structure plan, will be a large brigade with two cavalry and 3 infantry
formations. Its primary platforms, however, will not be 8x8 but 6x6 vehicles:
the new Jaguar cavalry scout and the Griffon APC.
The French have of course the VBCI,
a large 8x8 IFV, but unlike Italy, Germany and the UK, they have procured it first
of all to replace their tracked IFVs, rather than as a complementary
capability.
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| EBRC Jaguar |
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| Griffon |
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| One lesson of Mali (and Afghanistan too) was that insurgents make a large use of high caliber russian weaponry, from 14.5mm machine guns to the ZSU-23 23mm guns. Having big guns to reply is important, and when tanks begin to be part of the scenario, the medium force needs the means to respond if it has to have real ability to move quickly, fight and win. |
Ironically, the French operations in
Mali which are the main inspiration behind the British Army’s renewed craving
of 8x8s were carried out in large part with 6x6 and 4x4 vehicles: the AMX-10RC
with its 105mm gun; the Sagaie with its 90mm, and then the 4x4 VAB APC. The
VBCI, of course, was also deployed and did well, but it was just a small
component of the combined task groups fielded in the country.
The French Medium Brigade appears to
me to be headed towards a Stryker-like firepower deficit. The Griffon comes
with just a RWS, and the EBRC will be armed with a 40mm CTA gun and MMP
anti-tank missiles. The 105 and 90 mm guns that so well did in Mali, being
highly mobile and able to hit hard and at long range, will not be there once
the AMX and the Sagaie have been replaced by the EBRC.
For a while, France has worked on a
low-recoil 120 mm gun that was to be used as part of the effort to replace the
AMX and Sagaie, but the plan seems to have been shelved, and this might one day
prove to be a big issue.
Artillery-wise, the French brigades
will be supported by the CAESAR autocannon, a 155mm howitzer mounted on the
back of a truck. The CAESAR is not a proper self-propelled system (the gun crew
has to dismount; the gun has a very limited traverse and can basically only
fire forward over the truck’s cab), but it is a more than reasonable solution
in most scenarios.
The British strike brigade is still, in many ways, a floating question
mark. It will probably be January 2017 before the Army announces anything
substantial about its new force structure decisions and its new doctrine, that
general Carter named “Integrated Action”.
The chief of staff has however
anticipated that they are looking at brigades including two infantry battalions
mounted on MIV and two battalions equipped with Ajax, with the Ajax acting as
the “medium armour” element.
This anticipation is very worrying
and raises a number of points right away:
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The
Ajax fleet is now expected to form 4 rather than 3 regiments, without an
increase to the number of vehicles purchased. This suggests that the two
Armoured Brigades could lose their cavalry reconnaissance regiment.
-
Ajax
is built as a Scout, with just a 40mm gun, because as soon as 2010 its role was
reaffirmed as reconnaissance for armoured and mechanized formations. General
Carter was Chief of Staff already.
-
A
Medium Armour variant of the FRES SV / Ajax was originally part of the plan. It
had to have a 120 mm gun. Remember the Griffin that GD is offering the US Army?
Bingo. Of course, Medium Armour was cancelled from the british plan. Now the
Scout variant looks set to be forced into Medium Armour role, without truly
having the firepower for doing it.
-
Just
two MIV-mounted infantry battalions per brigade, when the binary structure for
combat formation has again and again proven to be a failure, being abandoned
once more by the US Army in recent times after years of Brigade Combat Teams
with just two battalions each.
-
4
battalions of MIV means just 1 more than was planned under Army 2020, when one
Mechanized Infantry battalion mounted on Mastiff was included inside each of
the armoured infantry brigades.
-
Is
the British Army seriously going to deprive itself of one armoured brigade in
order to gain just one “extra” mechanized battalion and slightly better
vehicles for them? Seems like a spectacularly negative trade.
-
Reportedly,
the MIV will be an APC with a RWS with a .50 HMG. Like the Stryker originally
was. Like the French Griffon. Like the polish Rosomak APC variant. But we
should not forget that the US Army is now correcting that decision, as is
Poland which is retrofitting unmanned turrets with 30mm gun and Spike AT
missiles to its Rosomak APC.
The british Strike Brigade,
according to the little that has been revealed so far, sounds like a cut more
than an upgrade. My fear is that the army is about to mutilate itself in order
to, basically, make some 8x8 manufacturer happy by filling its pockets with
cash.
In order to release some manpower
for fixing some of the greatest problems with the Strike Brigades formation,
the army is also going to turn five infantry battalions into “Defence
Engagement” formations numbering as few as 350 men each. We might learn which
battalions are chosen as early as next month.
But the real bad news haven’t yet
emerged. Thinking about the lines Carter has given, it is clear to me that the
conversion of one of the three armoured brigades into a Strike brigade is
pretty much certainly going to entail further reductions to the number of AS90
artillery pieces, which are tracked, bulky and too heavy to fit into these
wonderful “highly mobile” and “self deployable” Strike thingies.
One Challenger 2 regiment is also
very much at risk. It could end up converted into the fourth Ajax-mounted
formation, with the number of tanks in the british army dropping below 200 and
with just two regular regiments of tanks left in total. There is a (unlikely,
if you ask me) possibility that the cavalry regiments re-organization could
instead re-role current Light formations, but it is hard not to fear a further
Challenger 2 reduction. With no extra manpower on the way, either Jackals or
Challenger 2s (or both) will have to take the hit in order to shift resources
elsewhere.
As we said, it is hard to imagine
how Ajax can be expected to provide 4 regiments for the Strike Brigades and
still deliver recce to the two armoured brigades as well, so this could be yet
another blow to the heavier portion of the army. If I were the optimist type, I’d
dare suggesting that the Army might want to form two “hybrid” reconnaissance
regiments using a few Ajax and the Challenger 2s from the regiment of the
brigade that converts, but the MOD’s often completely absurd decisions have
destroyed my optimism years ago.
The number of armoured infantry
battalions also remain uncertain. Technically, there are six, but with just 245
Warrior IFVs expected to be upgraded that number could drop to four, or anyway
generate two “virtual” battalions effectively devoid of vehicles.
All this, for mounting 2800 men into
lightly armed wheeled APCs…?
General Carter says that he thinks
of the “Strike Brigade” as a “new concept” based on greater “mobility and reach”.
He is enamored of the French columns racing back and forth through Mali routing
insurgents, but the Strike Brigades he is proposing are a mix and match of
tracks (Ajax, Terrier) and wheels (MIV) and lack the tools the French had in
Mali, firepower first of all. It is also highly questionable whether the Mali
experience is applicable anywhere else. In the “2 Ajax, 2 MIV” structure that
has been mentioned so far, these brigades are also quite pointless in any
hybrid / symmetric scenario. Purchasing 300 MIVs will cost billions of pounds,
partly funded through cuts to what the Army already has, and I really can’t see
a single good reason for going down this path.
“Reach” has to include firepower, and
this goes from the weapons installed on the MIV itself up to artillery, passing
from the battalions’ mortars.
The Royal Artillery is aware of the
need for firepower and has reportedly launched (more precisely, resurrected) a number
of requirements meant to finally modernize the army’s Fires. But it is not
clear how many (if any) of these programmes have any real funding line
available.
How to make it even worse: selecting Boxer
The Times has written an article
during last week saying that the British Army intends to purchase the german
Boxer as MIV solution. Best way to make the whole thing even more painful. The
Boxer is the end result of the Multirole Armoured Vehicle (MRAV) multi-national
programme that the UK abandoned in the early 2000s, with the loss of 48 million
pounds already expended, and selecting it now would look considerably stupid,
especially since the world is full of viable alternatives, several of which
also happen to be cheaper.
Boxer is very heavy and quite
complex. The modules in the back can be swapped out, but this adds complexity
and weight that are not really compensated by any real gain. It is an expensive
beast, and while a turreted IFV variant has been proposed by industry, the
first vehicle in such a configuration has yet to be built and tested, needlessly
complicating the path to a true wheeled IFV purchase if the army ever decides
to fix the firepower problem.
And finally, the UK is about to
enter two years of complex negotiations with the EU to determine the terms of
Brexit. The EU is already behaving with hostility and chancellor Merkel herself
made sure to, basically, declare economic war on the UK, causing a sharp drop
in the value of the pound. Does the army really wish to spend the next bunch of
years pouring billions into the pockets of a country that can be expected to
build obstacles on the UK’s way at each and every chance it gets?
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| British Army and the Boxer: a love-hate relationship...? |
It would be immensely stupid. I’m
still hoping that The Times got that one wrong.
Should the UK even procure a MIV at all?
Medium Brigades have their uses, and
an army structure on two heavy and two medium brigades is not a mistake in itself.
All depends on the cost. How much is the rest of the army going to suffer to
make the MIV purchase possible? For all I can see so far, way too much.
I’d very much avoid those
self-inflicted cuts, and spend the little money available on fixing what is
already available. The Strike Brigades could still be formed, but equipped with
the likes of Mastiff, Ridgback and Foxhound, at least for the near future. An
8x8 is clearly better, under many points of view, than Mastiff, but if the MIV
turns out being just a lightly armed wheeled APC, it is too little of an
upgrade to justify such cuts.
In my opinion, the British Army
should certainly reorganize to correct some deficiencies of Army 2020 and to
better reflect its own doctrine. For one, it should move back to a structure
based on two deployable
divisions, because it makes no sense to bang, in doctrine, on the need for
a 2 star HQ handling the strategic situation in theatre if your force structure
only has one such deployable element.
It should re-organize
heavy armour in six Combined Arms Regiments and proceed with a Challenger 2
Capability Sustainment Programme that addresses the current two-piece
ammunition problem.
It should re-organize its
reconnaissance cavalry to give it the ability to fight for information, to
screen the main force and deliver enhanced ISTAR. The cavalry regiments should
be expanded, and the Ajax should be supported by an heavier hitting vehicle,
with a 120 mm gun. In the armoured brigades, the Cavalry regiment should
include a number of Challenger 2s, while the medium weight formation should
introduce a Medium Armour variant of Ajax itself, to keep within the relevant
weight limits.
The new cavalry structure would
expand the Army 2020 regiments mounted on Ajax from 528 men to 652, with three
large sabre squadrons each with two Scout Troops (4 Ajax, 2 Ares); two Tank
troops (4 Challenger 2 / Medium Armour each); a Surveillance Troop with 2 Ajax
Joint Fires for the direction of artillery and air strikes plus 2 Ajax Ground
Based Surveillance variants with mast-mounted radar and EO/IR sensor, one ABSV
ambulance and a Support Troop with 2 ABSV mortar carriers and 2 Ares Overwatch
with anti-tank missiles.
Each squadron is a self-contained
maneuver unit, ready to be assigned to a battlegroup, easing the force
generation cycle.
This new structure would require the
return to service of a number of Challenger 2s and a change to the Ajax
production run: less Scout vehicles in exchange for a new variant (Medium
Armour) and a slight increase to the number of Joint Fires and Ground Based
Surveillance sub-variants. Four such cavalry regiments would require:
48 Challenger 2 (in two regiments)
48 Medium Armour (in two regiments)
96 Ajax
24 Ajax Joint Fires
24 Ajax Ground Based Surveillance
24 Ares Overwatch
24 ABSV mortar carriers
Obviously, more vehicles of each
type would be required for training and back-up, but currently there are 245
Ajax and sub-variants on order, and I believe that number could be maintained.
On the artillery front, my
suggestion would be to prioritize the AS90 replacement over the quest for a
wheeled artillery system for the Strike Brigades. I believe the benefit of a
wheeled self-propelled howitzer would not really justify its cost, considering
the budget difficulties the forces grapple with. A single programme could solve
both problems at once: industry offers the DONAR, an highly automated artillery
system, based on the Pzh2000, installed upon an Ascod SV / Ajax hull. Lighter
and easier to deploy than the AS90, it offers logistical commonality with the
Ajax and is in the same region in terms of mass. This makes it suitable for use
in the strike brigades even if it does not ride on wheels.
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| A 155/52 self propelled howitzer on an Ajax chassis. Decent solution to two problems at once. |
As AS90 replacement, it offers
decent protection, tracks for maximum mobility and, crucially, a 52 calibre gun
with greater reach than the AS90’s 39 cal.
A wheeled GMLRS launcher shouldn’t
even be considered, in my opinion, because it would, again, be a sub-optimal
use of money. Yes, the M270B1 is tracked. But tracks are already part of the
brigade anyway. Mass-wise, the M270B1 is lighter than both Ajax and any likely
MIV candidate, so it fits the frame without problems. Being tracked it might be
a bit trickier to move over long distances (the famous “self deploy” dream),
but it would still be the last of the issues needing solution.
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| British mechanized infantry right now: is it wise to sacrifice so much to move from these to an 8x8? I don't think so. |
In the meanwhile, the mechanized infantry
should ride on Mastiff, Ridgback and Foxhound. They are not faultless vehicles,
but they are available and paid for, and they do their job pretty well. If replacing
them with a more mobile 8x8 requires mutilating the rest of the army and still
obtain such a poor result as the currently envisioned Strike Brigade, it is
simply suicidal to pursue such replacement.
