Dstl say it is working with the British Army, DE&S and industry partners to create the next generation of protection from armoured vehicles and other threats.
Known as Battle Group Organic Anti-Armour (BGOAA), the work covers 4 areas:
- Close-In Self Defence (CISD): portable light weight munitions carried by Infantry sections
- Mounted Close Combat Overwatch (MCCO): a long range system providing anti-armour coverage to the battle group, with concepts carrying multiple missiles weighing up to 50kg with a range of up to 10km or more
- Close Combat Anti-Armour Weapons (CCAAW): Mounted and Dismounted, capable of destroying armoured vehicles even if hidden from view
The Land Weapons project aims to increase combat effectiveness by modernising the Army’s Guided Weapons that have been in service for over a decade.
“Using technology that can be launched at a greater distances and with increased force both outranging and overmatching the threat. A significant objective is to increase commonality and interchangeability between different platforms, providing greater flexibility and lower costs.”
MBDA’s concept for a ground-launched Brimstone missile mounted on Boxer to provide a precision fires capability is one of the most interesting and important things I’ve seen this year. Mixed with L/52 155mm howitzer batteries, such a system would do much to upgrade UK artillery. pic.twitter.com/rpS9yD2P9Z
— Nicholas Drummond (@nicholadrummond) October 3, 2018
Dstl also say it is also exploring how such modular systems might enable launchers and missiles to be mounted across different trucks and armoured vehicles.
The new systems will incorporate a range of advanced technologies such as:
- Non line-of-sight capability
- Third-party/remote targeting and control
- New sensors to overcome ‘active protection systems’ and defeat the enemy’s electronic or electro-magnetic defences
The current focus is the development of the MCCO capability. Dstl is leading work with support from industry partners including Lockheed Martin, MBDA and Thales, generated through Dstl’s weapons sector framework contract.
The long-range system will be capable of engaging targets up to 10km away with missiles weighing up to 50kg.
Who defends the missiles that are there to defend the anti armour missiles.
Indeed why not just miss out the middle man and just have the anti armour missiles and the anti anti armour missiles.
I wonder if they can adapt the navel marlet launcher to work on the army wildcats and switch to brimstone to give they an extra punch.
No problem with Martlet on Army Wildcats, but they would need the wing.
No-one will moot putting Brimstone on either Wildcat until Apace E is fully in service…no-one wants the Treasury getting a bright idea.
That’s what worries me, MOD being more concerned about cuts, than getting value for money capability. Marlet was tested against land targets, but I have no idea if we brought that capability. Ultimately wildcat can’t replace Apache but considering the low numbers could fill in some gaps.
Martlet is really small (and not particularly cheap). No hope for a decent warhead. It makes sense for the RN. But adding a APKWS or CRV7 precision guided rocket would make more sense for expense, warhead size and commonality. Apache E could really use a cheaper guided munition than Hellfire (and eventually Brimstone). The ideal would be CRV7 with the APKWS kit fitted.
Guided rockets would be a good option but for whatever reason the MOD has decided against buying them, which ruled out using the rocket pods in afgan/Iraq, due to their inaccuracy.
Apparently APKWS is a real possibility for Apache E in UK service. Which is good…but…a missed opportiunity as CRV7 has real advantages over the APKWS in its present form.
I’d like to see a Boxer variant replace Stormer HVM, fitted with remote 40cta gun, ADADs, a LIDAR sensor and 8x Starstreak/Martlets.
Orimarily air defence against UAVs and helos plus, but able to be used in anti-surface role also to broaden its value – hence Martlet capability. Might not fare against MBTs but if we are firing them at patrol boats, then a Martlet will make a mess of most vehicles
speaking of air defence does any know what happened to the sky sabre system? have they abandoned it? or is it’s introduction delayed by the pandemic (official intro i heard rumours of few being delivered).
Its getting introduced as planned. Rapier units did their last firing camp recently, after that they’lll be steadily switched over.
Agree. The anti-air capability of CTA40 seems to be overlooked when considering the weapon and Thales claims up to anti-APC capability for Martlet. Perhaps in a future of proliferating UAVs and attempted saturation attacks we’ll see a Stormer replacement networked with other CTA40 equipped Boxers for scaling up SHORAD, although that might compromise the flexibility of carrying other rounds if still limited to two natures.
again bad leadership. i have no idea why any good leaders aren’t popping up! i mean Wallace was an ex soldier but he ain’t doing so good. in my opinion.
South Korea has added Spike NLOS to its Wildcat, so that could give AAC Wildcat a 32km stand off capability.
Thats true, but they have a specific target set in mind. It’s very expensive and in truth its guidance method for the last 16km of its flight (by RF link as the Fibre only goes out to c16km) is questionable in a full Peer-on-Peer war (jamming would have a serious effect on its utility).
True, and it’s a capability that the US Army has tested on Apache too. But I’d be interested in knowing the launch profile of that 32 km test, I think they launched from quite high up against a surface target. That would be incredibly risky in a non-permissive enviornment against a peer enemy, especially for a non-stealthy platform like a helicopter. But I would say that Sea Venom (which is qualified for Wildcat) may be the better option. As far as I’m aware Spike NLOS is just a longer range ATGM, with a warhead to match. Sea Venom has a… Read more »
Martlet doesn’t have the tandem HEAT warhead that Brimstone uses to defeat MBTs with ERA, so it will probably only achieve a mobility kill rather than an outright kill. I’m not sure it has a programmable top attack capability? Brimstone now being a multi-role missile that can program its warhead to be directional is a more useful weapon than Martlet.
Right now the army wildcats only have machine guns, so anything would be a capability upgrade. Same with the RM Merlin’s, they could do with a fire power upgrade to better support the marines.
Very true. Could never understand the Navy’s approach on weapon fits on the ASW dedicated Merlins. The Italian equivalents can lob loads more and they still use smaller helicopters for general maritime strike and surveillance etc. If your ship only has the one helicopter, then why not make the best possible use of it. Therefore, they should be able to fire both Martlet and Sea Venom.
First off…whatever is built it needs to be UK developed made, where possible. We did used to make our own anti-armour weapons, they’re a growth area in arms sales so we need to do this locally, MBDA’s involvement is good but there should be scope to open up to other non-traditional suppliers. The rot set in with MILAN and TOW and has continued with Javelin, Hellfire and NLAW. This is an opportunity to reset that. CISD – Clearly a NLAW replacement, we used to make LAW80 so no reason why we can’t do so again. MCCO – The 50kg limit… Read more »
What is the issue with mbda? Their Bolton plant makes asraam, brimstone, camm, meteor and spear 3, and employs over 700. Fits in with the strategic review for jobs in the northern provinces.
Nothing wrong with MBDA on the missiles front but keeping them honest is a good idea.. In addition they’ve shown scant interest in loitering munitions. They got £200m from the taxpayer to develop Fireshadow 10 years ago, they did it, then it got shelved and they’ve done nothing since, not even tried marketing it abroad. BAE, Thales, Westlands and MBDA have rinsed the taxpayer for decades on UAV development to the tune of billions. The net result? We now field US Reaper, soon the US Protector, a badly rehashed Israeli UAV (Watchkeeper), US Puma and Deserthawk, Norwegian Black Hornet, US… Read more »
It got shelved as in the conflict we were fighting the rules of engagement didnt work with a loitering munition. That hasnt really changed.
BAe has tried- Herti/Fury, Mantis, Taranis but the MoD didnt want to spend the money to take them to full development and it wanted American now.
What have Westlands done on UAVs?
“It got shelved as in the conflict we were fighting the rules of engagement didnt work with a loitering munition. That hasnt really changed.” How does that sound today? After the Nagorno Karabakh War and Ukraine? We spent £200m on a system, then chopped it as it didn’t work with the ROE in a conflict we weren’t going to be involved in for ever… Westlands did the Wisp and Wideye. Shorts were involved (the SkySpy, 40 years later the V-Bat is doing something similar…). A whole host of missed opportuinities. Some of the reasons are down to MoD, but a… Read more »
Well, we are where we are 🙂 Interesting on Westlands, having been both sides of the fence, I can well understand industry reluctance to spend their own money as the MoD is about the worst customer out there. Can never, ever, make up its mind what it wants, starts re-writing a contract the moment its signed and its financial managment resembles a mad persons defecation! It’ll happily spend a year deciding something or arguing for a cost reduction whilst in the meantime either oaying people to do nothing or losing them and so on. The process and admin would make… Read more »
So very true. Having worked for DE&S in the past. I have seen how difficult it is to progress a project, when the higher ups are looking to save money. You try your best to get the product delivered, but due to the pressures of trying to save some money, parts of the contract get cut, such as training or spares. As it seems its best to deliver something new and shiny, even if you have to wait 2 to 3 years before you can actually use it. It was so frustrating!
It is not ground launched I know, but spear 3 does loiter.
It will loiter, but only for 10-15 minutes max. Push it out to 80km from the launcher and it would loiter for no more than 5 mins. After that its out of fuel.
Although thats ‘loitering’ its not really a loitering missiles. Fireshadow would loiter for 6 hours….
Thanks for the info regarding spear 3 loitering.
6 hrs on station for foreshadow seems impressive.
Am I right in assuming loitering munitions would be beat used when you are searching for single high priority target, but that other weapons would be more use when faced with massed opposition ie GMLRS or brimstone-like munitions.
The Americans are looking at long range artillery/rockets, so, would the Spear 3 long range (100km) version of Brimstone be a better choice?
Spear would need a booster added to get it up to speed where the turbofan could take over. It’s range would be in the order of 150km+ at that point. Minimum range would be affected as a result. Spear promises to be very expensive as well…. To be able to use that sort of range you’d need sensors to be q’ing the missile into its radar engagement zone given the length of time it would take to arrive on target and the distance a target could move. At that point there would be better options (i.e. if the target was… Read more »
That’s where Spear’s loitering capability comes in. Once it reaches a target area it can do a search looking for the targets. It would be better to have a dedicated loitering munition like Fireshadow for the job!
The new USArmy long range rockets will reach out to 499km so that is a totally different capability than what is mentioned here.
Yes and the Precision Strike Missile has a minimum range of about 80km because of its ballistic flight path and it also will initially only be capable of hitting stationary targets, They cant hit mobile targets (e.g. vehicles) at the tactical ranges the system in the article is describing though they are considering an anti-radiation seeker for naval use that would be able to hit moving targets.
That’s a big and expensive weapon (described to me as a Brimstone having shagged a Storm Shadow!), the Army will struggle to target that and it overlaps with GMLRS surely?
Brimstone on its own seems the best option, in stocks, capable anti-armour and can be used on other targets too.
Do the entire thing on Boxer (Brimstone, MLRS & 155mm). It has to be cheaper to use one standard vehicle and it also means the Logs become easier.
The chasis is the cheapest part of the weapon system and boxer is the most expensive there is. Archer would he much cheaper mounted on a truck chasis, Rheinmetall has also developed their own 155mm truck mounted alternative. Same for MLRS, the current chasis being refurbed cost a fraction of the Boxer. If it means more units it is better to stick with truck platforms for artilary.
when warrior first came out they were supposed to make a variant for mortar platoon but the 81mm mortar kept damaging the warrior chassis so much, in the end they cancelled the idea altogether and left them using the old 432,s, so you would have a company of warrior with a 432 medical vehicle along with another few 432,s with mortars and anti tank, but yet when we deployed to Bosnia anti tank got new warriors from storage even though they were still using Milan, but as options for change and cutbacks had started in the early 1990,s it was… Read more »
Never knew they’d tried the mortar with Warrior – prototype without turret and an openable roof I assume?
Mortar still seems to be missing from plans – do AI Bns still have 432s? A Boxer turreted system would seem ideal now but no mention anywhere.
your right the mortar version had no turret, all warriors had upper roof doors anyway, good for mobile replenishment, but the mortar ones had bigger upper doors with a floor inside that could rotate so the mortar team could get the barrel the direction they needed, i only ever saw one once at Bovington when doing my DMI course just the chassis was the weak point, whether it was down to design problems or material i do not know, anti tanks were supposed to get a similar model, but it was all scrapped, as for the old 432,s i don’t… Read more »
Ah ok, so something tried but never taken forward. Cheers – interesting.
Not sure what will happen with Boxer, if WR being retained but just not upgraded for inf variant ir gone entirely.
The Army dont seem to know, but that’s been the case for decades!
As I mentioned on another post, fitting Himars onto the Rheinmetal HX army truck would probably be a better fit for the long range fires.
All this movement for putting 155, HIMARs, etc on trucks. Yes it is cheap but how survivable are trucks when it becomes a two way range? I’m seriously not in favour.
Shoot and scoot is the best plan. If you want to slug it out then you need Palladin or equivelant.
And when that plan encounters the enemy and goes to ratshit as all plans do – we just accept losing our arty? Not aimed at you – but it is maddening that the lesson of decades of warfare regarding the superioriy of self propelled guns with splinter and environmental protection for their crews; is being tossed away for what is really a fairly trivial saving. Why the fk we cant invest in AS90 or at least go for something new that is similar (Paladin, albeit ironic or PZH2000) is beyond me. We pissed away half a billion on some enhanced… Read more »
Noted, but worth remembering that HX lorries can be fitted with enhanced armour package and the missiles fired by Himars have sufficient range to make counter battery problematic. And of course I was only talking about the support for the mobile force operating Boxer. Tracked sph would be too slow for these units.
Ummm…. boxer will have to drive slower as it is now stuck with Ch3 and Ajax, so tracked GMRLS will not be an issue.
Truck based MRLS would be better for supporting our lighter BCTs.
Yes, but Boxer will have to go around the boggy field, whilst Challenger just drives straight through it.
Of challenger just drags boxer through the muddy bits
Yeah, watched a pair of Warriors rescue a platoon of Strykers in Iraq after they’d all beached themselves in the mud. Didn’t take the piss much….
Himars is basically half a GMRLS mounted on a truck, so it’s what you’re suggesting , though as I understand it, Boxer will not be operating alongside tracked vehicles.
Himars was designed with 1 pod to keep the weight low enough to be c130 transportable. Not an issue for the U.K., as these will soon be retired from the raf. The South Korean K239 Chunmoo is similar, but retains the two pods. It weights about 25T so is a400m transportable. We could go down a similar route to this. Has there been a recent change to army’s structure since the strategic review? Warrior was stated to replaced by boxer in our “armoured” brigades when it comes into service in the next few years. Boxer will therefore be operating in… Read more »
The Mexicans have been rounded up I see.
Replaced by Morphs!
It’s an improvement though.
Careful, this may get taken out of context and spread across woke Twitter to bring UKDJ into disrepute…😋
I think whats happening in the mid east should worry us
You can have the most sophisticated weapons system in the world (Iron Dome)
But just plane basic rockets fired in a swarm overwhelm it and a few get through
A lesson surly for the so called experts (of which im not i hasten to add)
Also remember that Israel depends on the American and German taxpayers to fund most of the interceptors they are using now just like the aircraft and the bombs they have been dropping on Gaza. If those funds ever dried up they will be in deep trouble. Btw, using a 50k-70k dollar missile to shoot down a $20 mortar or $100 rocket does not make economic sense.
It does make sense if yours is the civilian family underneath said mortar or rocket
Dan it makes perfect sense if that mortar bomb or rocket is about to ruin your day.
Quite, but cheaper than letting them land perhaps? and definitely cheaper than a full assault and occupation of Gaza.
What is the $20 mortar levels a house or worse kills a few people?
Or just the general drop in productivity if everyone stops working.
$50k looks cheap compared to the societal and social cost of fixing that.
Apparently, Iron Dome works out the trajectory of each incoming rocket (they are unguided) and its predicted impact point. If the impact point is out in the bundu, then it’s ignored. If the rocket is predicted to land in an occupied area, it is intercepted and destroyed. That way, they don’t waste missiles unncessarily. Not sure about the real success rate, though.
That is my understanding of Iron Dome as well – it has other uses too , Type 31 short of Sea Ceptor Cells – sorted https://www.defence-point.gr/news/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SAAR-5-LAHAV-IRON-DOME-2.jpg
This is why Putin critisezed the development of a nuclear missile defense shield. Even if you intercept 1 he has 1,000s of icbms so there is 0 chance of the US or EU intercepting all of them.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been lobbing unguided rockets at Israel for at least 30 years, if not longer. Iron Dome which is a short ranged missile system, was designed to counter this. Whilst David’s Sling is a medium range SAM system. However, both sides have been learning from their past experiences. Iron Dome which is now over 90% effective was not really set up to deal with massive continuous swarms of rockets. By launching large volleys they can overwhelm Iron Dome. A single battery consists of 3 to 4 launchers each holding 20 missiles. Once a battery has expended its… Read more »
MCCO is the interesting one.
Seems most likely to be Boxer with something as Ajax seems an expensive way of moving them around.
Upto 10km not massive though, Brimstone is that (fired from ground), would offer commonality with air launched stocks.
Or just a trailer as with Spike, sorry, I mean Exactor.
So here we go again … a modified APC firing off missiles that cost an absolute fortune, just to knock out a few tanks.
Money money money = even more procurement waste, ineptitude, irregular ‘dealings’ and dodgy handshakes. Come back Carl Gustaf, all is forgiven!
Bugger that, If you want to volunteer to creep up on a convoy of tanks an fire the CG at distances of 200m be my guest. The CG will only achieve a mobility kill against a MBT, so better make sure you can run faster than your buddy!
It’s going to be interesting to see if there is actually any money for this. The Chinook purchase has been delayed due to funding issues connected to covid, and it seems the light mobility project has gone back to the drawing board after the jltv had pretty much been confirmed just over a year ago, no doubt delayed to wait funds. I can’t see the treasury fixing the cash shortage caused by covid for a fair few years, so won’t be surprised if this became another Ajax/boxer purchase aka constant tendering and delays to avoid a purchase.
I worry that as DAS systems gets to 50% ability, to intercept.
we need a boxer mounted 120mm direct fire vehicle as well as just missiles
I wonder if anybody has asked Leonardo if their Hitfact turret from the centauro 2 will fit on a boxer.
It’s not a given that vehicles like the Boxer can accommodate big Gun Turrets, the US Army’s Stryker MGS are likely to be withdrawn as their Stability when Firing Broadside is marginal, it needs to be factored into the design.
You mean something like this:
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/boxer-awaits-firing-trials-with-john-cockerill-defense-c3105-turret
or this
https://johncockerill.com/en/defense-2/weapons-systems/cockerill-120-gun/
The Cockerill 105mm turret as shown by the prototype would be a good direct fire support vehicle. Whereas, the 120mm version would be even better. It will use a high velocity low recoil gun rather than the normal low velocity guns used by other vehicles in this class. The smoothbore gun also means it can use standard NATO ammo.
JLTV could be a funds issue but it might also reflect a change in thinking that sees a hybrid power train becoming more valuable from a tactical perspective for MRV-P. MOD are currently evaluating hybrid solutions in Foxhound and Jackal.
There might also be other factors. Think Defence has a recent interesting piece on whether the broader MRV-P program needs a rethink, including greater protection.
https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/rethinking-the-multi-role-vehicle-protected-programme/
Well well, chickens coming home to roost. The decision to cancel the Overwatch variant of SV back in 2010(ish), (along with the rest of the later variants) raises it’s head again. If the overwatch variant had come to pass, this would have been able to fulfill both the MCCO and CCAAW roles (dependent on the loadout), on a chassis common with SV. The other vairants would have been a long range radar, and some sort of joint fire team wagon. My guess is that the overwatch variant would have ended up looking something like the stryker shorad turret, but with… Read more »