tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post5072698766472103396..comments2024-02-29T11:45:01.870+01:00Comments on UK Armed Forces Commentary: RUSI tries to fix STRIKE, but can it be fixed? Gabrielehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01623558391676151582noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-44614971458806468172019-12-12T11:11:54.805+01:002019-12-12T11:11:54.805+01:00Hi Gabriele, about tube artillery vs MLRS.
1) tube...Hi Gabriele, about tube artillery vs MLRS.<br />1) tube artillery could be reserved for (non precision)saturation fires in urban areas against ISIS ... etc.<br />2) precision MLRS would be the best option against mobile armoured peers - because of the greater payload and range, and anyway such a fight would not last very long so the cost / efficiency would be better than shellsUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09527771313066236385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-20336891344490745172019-06-28T20:32:08.624+02:002019-06-28T20:32:08.624+02:00Is it possible that the army is simply too large f...Is it possible that the army is simply too large for its budget? Would we be better off building the army around two armoured divisions and just dealing with the idea that the British Aarmy is simply not going to be a day 0 force? J deBacquahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09607272562333406686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-31184100387696121772019-06-28T20:17:42.661+02:002019-06-28T20:17:42.661+02:00From Paul Sergeant
My thinking is around battle g...From Paul Sergeant<br /><br />My thinking is around battle groups. A "medium tank" Ajax regiment and 2 MI Boxer battalions should form 3 Strike Battlegroups each with 1 Ajax squadron and 2 Boxer companies. The 3 Strike Battlegroups operate with the 3 squadrons of the recce Ajax regiment and in a widely dispersed operation ther may be little opportunity to vary the battlegroups - although internally they should be flexible. The battlegroup view does not remove the weakness of the Stike Brigade when facing MBTs. The battlegroup formed on the Ajax regiment HQ is weakest because it does not have the support company of the infantry battalions.<br /><br />I have looked at removing the the weak battlegroup and 1 recce squadron and adding a battlegroup based on an MBT regiment with an Ajax recce troop and attached infantry with Boxer. The wheels may cause some to say this is not a real armoured battlegroup so I just use the name Main Battlegroup. Similarly, as this has grown out of a Strike Brigade, I call it a Strike+ Brigade. Others cam give it other names.<br /><br />I could remove another Ajax Squadron, reducing the brigade to 3 squadrons and keeping 4 regiments (from the current order) and potentially 4 brigades. I find those brigades rather bare, for budgetary reasons. With 3 Strike+ Brigades I can afford more MBTs, stronger support companies, and some turrets on Boxers.<br /><br />This is just an exercise by a non-expert individual.PaulSergeanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668398532455852427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-10295756240744900472019-06-28T14:27:29.854+02:002019-06-28T14:27:29.854+02:00DavidNiven
Good article Gabriele which seems to r...DavidNiven<br /><br />Good article Gabriele which seems to raise more questions about the Strike concept.<br /><br />The RUSI piece in my opinion has fallen into the same trap that the army has, in that it's more of a case of manning the equipment rather than equiping the man.<br /><br />As a concept Strike is dead. <br /><br />Without proper funding and an innovative approach it is going nowhere. The genesis of which was changing the pririty from FRES UV to Scout in which time the vehicle budget had been skewed in favour of the least needed platform at a pretty substantial cost.<br /><br />Cancelling Warrior (if the rumours about the hulls are true) in favour of the money being invested in MIV seems the only way to go.<br /><br />I doubt we could buy the required numbers of Ajax IFV for even close to the budget of the Warrior programme and to be honest when it's compared to what is getting offered in the Australian programme I don't thik it is that good a vehicle.<br /><br />Considering the orinal MRAV project was to use what would become Boxer to replace the 432, Saxon and some CVRT roles throughout the army maybe we should just dust off the old plans and go from there while including Warrior this time round.<br /><br />A few other points in regard to what the RUSI paper alluded to in the article piqued my interest as well. If the Strike formations are to work in dispersed mnner alonq with sidpersed logistics (I assume) why the fixation with 155mm by the Army? surely 105mm would be a better option in terms of logistics and a much more versatile capability than 120mm mortar. If we are to spend scarce funds on a new mortar system, would'nt a completely fresh look at the rquirements of strike come up with a different solution? The US Army trialled the 105mm Denel on a LAV chasis and possibly go unconventional and trial the Otto Malara 76mm Draco (long range and precision in a small package).<br /><br />The other was in relation to the CS/CSS units. From your article it seems that these units are to be mounted on Mastiff, MAN etc. This would impact on the overall mobility of the formations in quite a substantial way, for one the Mastiff and MAN could not traverse the sam terrain as either MIV or Ajaax and where the rougher terrain can be crossed by Mastiff it would be at a much slower pace than the manouver units they need to follow.<br /><br />In regard to just a dozer blade on MIV as a means of aiding mobility to the units it just relegates your so called mobile units to nothing of the sort, the ability to channel these formations due to the lack assualt engineering and Mastiff mounted CS and CSS units curtails the vaunted mobility from day one. Terrier will become the most usefull vehicle these formations posses in this regard.<br /><br />From what RUSI wrote and your article I am getting the impression that Infantry and Cavalry units within Strike are getting the attention without realising that for strike to be succesful in it's mobility and disperesed ops the CS/CSS units are the more important. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-46372450033403775942019-06-26T02:18:00.041+02:002019-06-26T02:18:00.041+02:00Another fine article. Correct me if I'm wrong ...Another fine article. Correct me if I'm wrong but Strike is meant to take on the ghosts of hybrid warfare?To take on a decently equipped armoured force then its meant to be an equivalent armoured brigade?<br />As you point out our ghosts will be watched every mile from Tidworth to the Baltics.Instead of an airborne 'Fly Light Die Early' it'll be give the opposition 20 days to prepare an ambush. The force can only deploy in a permissive environment. It can't fight its way in.<br />The French experience in Mali is worthless against the idea of Russia conducting hybrid warfare, its about as relevant as Lord Roberts marching on Kandahar in 1880. The better experience is the problem we had with dispersion in platoon houses in Afghanistan. When we have 5 or 6 platoons/combat teams/hostage parties about to collapse how are we going to support them? We haven't got the artillery or even if we had how many hamlets/villages is our Prime Minister going to level?<br />In truth you could load this force onto ships, move it anywhere in the same time frames and decant it into a port in the Baltics/ Africa/. Its 1500 miles to Estonia from Tidworth, its about 30 to Southampton. <br /> Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07812277388233600164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-69131857137023933062019-06-25T18:10:12.348+02:002019-06-25T18:10:12.348+02:00I would replace WARRIOR entirely. That would give ...I would replace WARRIOR entirely. That would give you 8 battalions on MIV, with companies using both vehicles with turrets and vehicles in APC configuration, to keep cost down. <br />I would still form 4 AJAX regiments, tasked with recce, and i would pour any saving into CHALLENGER 2 to keep the 3 regiments and indeed bring back a 4th, even by reducing the regiments back to Type 44 establishments, if necessary. That would give you 4 very good armoured infantry brigades. Gabrielehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01623558391676151582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-54054087752059396692019-06-25T18:05:35.590+02:002019-06-25T18:05:35.590+02:00From MikeW
Hi Gaby
Many thanks for your answer o...From MikeW<br /><br />Hi Gaby<br /><br />Many thanks for your answer on Combat Engineering in the Strike Brigades. I just wanted to write one final comment, which is this. If our funds for defence are still going to be extremely limited, can we really afford two Strike Brigades? Might it not be better just to go for one in the near term? <br /><br />I really do doubt whether (despite Jeremy Hunt’s statement today) we shall get anything like the funding for sufficient variants to create genuine all-arms or multi-role brigades and, unless we are going to risk the whole thing going off at half-cock because of insufficient resources, the following might be preferable. <br /><br />Keep with the idea of creating one such brigade but declare it to an experimental area until three or four years down the line, by which time most of the most of the decisions about doctrine, formations and equipment will have been decided. If the “experiment” proves successful, then by all means go ahead with the second such brigade. In the meantime use any funding released by such a decision, to make our Armoured Infantry Brigades as strong as possible. I remember reading a comment some time ago about how such formations should be made as “hard as nails” and I would go along with that. Who know, we might even be able to form three such brigades.<br /><br />The other solution, and it is an ingenious one, is to use your suggestion: “The WARRIOR CSP could be sacrificed, its turrets put on BOXERs, and the Armoured Brigades could be “STRIKE-ized”, at least in part, with a strong road-mobile infantry element, followed closely by AJAX, back in the role for which it was designed and procured, and upgraded CHALLENGER 2s riding on new, more numerous HETs.” Were you thinking of something akin to the old Mechanized Brigade formations but with much faster, better protected wheeled vehicles for the Mechanized Infantry element?<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-55576114833824917602019-06-24T19:08:24.553+02:002019-06-24T19:08:24.553+02:00The regiment will probably include some High Mobil...The regiment will probably include some High Mobility Engineer Excavators, and from earlier documents it looked like Mastiff would carry on as protected mobility for supporting personnel, so maybe there will be some engineers riding in one. <br /><br />But in general, most of the army is centered around tracked formations, so almost nothing is genuinely wheels ready. As for BOXER engineer variants, there is one, but is little more than a section vehicle for engineers and some of their kit. A "TERRIER on wheels" is not yet available. Gabrielehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01623558391676151582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-59574127747193642602019-06-24T19:04:29.361+02:002019-06-24T19:04:29.361+02:00From MikeW
Hi Gaby
Many thanks for your answer t...From MikeW<br /><br />Hi Gaby<br /><br />Many thanks for your answer to my comments/question. You have given convincing reasons why doing away with the heavy tube artillery is not viable.I wanted to ask a further question, this time about combat engineering and what form the organic regiment will take. <br /><br />You say that, at least initially, it seems “very likely that it will be a largely tracked formation, since there is no Engineering variant of MIV in the planned purchase while substantial investment has gone into ARGUS (the engineer’s AJAX-family variant) and, of course, TERRIER.” I think you are right there. By far and away, the majority of the Army’s current combat engineering kit is tracked (Trojan, Titan, Terrier, Argus, etc.) and it is only items such as REBS and, perhaps in the future, the Wheeled Close Support Launch Vehicle (CLV), that are wheeled. So what does the Strike Brigade do when it encounters problems and wants Engineering support fast? Do we have a lot of catching up to do in terms of development and are wheeled variants being developed? The RUSI experts seem, at one point in their paper to be against using vehicles such as Terrier (although I can’t find the reference and I may be mistaken). I am very concerned about the cost of all this.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-90888456441926369502019-06-24T17:06:12.655+02:002019-06-24T17:06:12.655+02:00Hi Mike,
regarding artillery, no, i don't ag...Hi Mike, <br /><br />regarding artillery, no, i don't agree with RUSI. Doing away with the heavy tube artillery is not viable for multiple very good reasons, including the cost and logistics of trying to use MLRS rockets "for everything". <br /><br />As for that shape the gun will have, there actually has never been an official expression suggesting BOXER with AGM is the "favored option". The Army has never said anything of the sort and the only thing they have tested operationally is the majorly non impressive CAESAR. <br />The BOXER with AGM objectively has a sub-optimal arrangement, with that incredibly tall tower on the back, but Richard Drummond says they are working on a different, lower turret, and that will help. Regarding the impact on mobility, i suspect RUSI is overplaying that, especially since you don't necessarily need to drive the artillery EXACTLY where the frontline combat vehicles go. Besides, the artillery more than everything else needs to be able to meet with the trucks carrying the ammunition, so in some ways the mobility is shaped by MAN SV. <br />The long barrel in forests might be a factor, but seriously. You work around it. You don't do away with artillery because it might impact your turning chances between trees. That's absurd. Gabrielehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01623558391676151582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-51163243593232247892019-06-24T17:00:17.864+02:002019-06-24T17:00:17.864+02:00From MikeW
Hi Gaby
Congratulations on first-rate...From MikeW<br /><br />Hi Gaby<br /><br />Congratulations on first-rate article, one which is penetrating and remains consistent with what you have said about the “Strike” concept in the past.<br /><br />My own opinion is very similar to yours. I have grave doubts about many aspects of “Strike”, not so much about the overall concept but about the way it seems to be being put into practice in terms of planned formations and equipment. Not the least of these is the lack of compatibility between the tracked AJAX and the wheeled Boxer. Ajax seems likely to arrive in the critical areas much later than MIV and therefore to be slower into action . Such a “pairing mechanism” seems pretty impracticable to me.<br /><br />What I really wanted to confine this post/comment to, however, was the question of 155mm artillery support. For some considerable time the favourite weapon to provide heavy indirect fire support for the Strike Brigades has been the Boxer fitted with a 155mm howitzer. Now, according to the RUSI pundits, this is no longer the case. In the full version of their paper they argue that that vehicle presents challenges to mobility. It is more than 4m tall, which indicates that it would be limited “in the means by which it can cross the channel and the roads by which it can travel”. It would also suffer from additional weight (it weighs considerably more than the standard MIV), a factor which also makes it lack mobility across country. Moreover, the long barrel would make movement through the forests of Eastern Europe difficult. Furthermore, such extra weight would cause more frequent mechanical failure and wear on the brake pads and other components. Also the force of recoil after firing would inflict heavy wear on the MIV’s suspension system. Overall, they reach the conclusion that the MIV-mounted 155mm howitzer appears “a sub-optimal, and potentially non-viable solution”. Instead they recommend the use of 120mm mortars and MLRS.<br /><br />Do you go along with their arguments? It would seem to me that perhaps the Strike Brigades do need the heavy support provided by a 155mm weapon as well as such things as 120mm mortars and HIMARS.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-442909239199162925.post-44184448995778237202019-06-23T11:45:38.716+02:002019-06-23T11:45:38.716+02:00LOLS, God that was fantastic, absolutely excoriati...LOLS, God that was fantastic, absolutely excoriating (I nearly went out and got popcorn) and better in your second language than I could do in my first.<br />Completely rational, utterly informed and I finally got to use the word 'excoriating', perfect, many thanks.<br />NemoCaptain Nemohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100555532589310047noreply@blogger.com