Mine resistant scout and convoy protection vehicles WE CAN DO BETTER show us your ideas for better v

I guess I've heard different things from people in the field than you have... Now what I have heard could be wrong... but in other respects it's a moot point.

I am fairly confident by using modern materials to replicate the fangrost roof of the l'orient sub pens as applique armor I could mitigate deep penetrations from even newer RPG rounds. The israeli Zelda APC's as well as britian's warrior APC boast applique armor that can and WILL stop multiple RPG hits.

It's not impossible or even all that hard. What it is is HEAVY! This is why I've reduced my vehicle's overall Cubic volume to enable concentration of protection well beyond what a conventional vehicle would have. In addition it's insides will house bulkheads with blast channels to direct blasts away from the core of the vehicle.

Will it stop ALL threats? No but it will stop quite a few... and that's good enough when combined with a tactical operating procedure that mitigates the number of explosives placed and pays attention to a myriad of other factors that will make the environment more permissive for ground vehicle operation.

Also i'd just like to note that it's really easy to poke holes in something while it's much more difficult to offer solutions to issues you may see with my idea. I'd love to see your idea that factors in the things you know personally about mine resistant vehicle design or vehicle design in general. Or I'd love yo hear your workarounds for the issues you have brought up....

Personally I'm still researching solutions to some of the issues I know a vehicle used in the modern military environment will encounter.

reply to post by roguetechie


Well I'm not an engineer but I have a background in physics. I take an interest in military technology but I root for the underdog, in this case the afghanis/iraqis.

I may be able to come up with workarounds to the solutions I proposed, but I chose to refrain from participating in a project that may have the potential to inflict death upon an already oppressed people (the iraqi/afghani).

I understand that you are trying to design a newer ied resistant vehicle, but the enemy is very adaptive. Their are people many many times smarter than i am who could think up of ways to defeat faraday cages, but due to personal opinion I must refrain from such a "technology transfer" lol.

That is not to say I will enjoy discussing this thread because I love armor vs attacker debates and technology discussion.

I plan on taking it slow in this design... I'm actually working my way through the very early stages of a mechanical engineering degree right now and this is going to be one of my go to projects. It's more an intellectual exercise than anything at this point.

This project is right behind my more doable firearms projects in line for time and resources. I've got several of those going which will hopefully provide funds to help me develop this more resource intensive project.

My biggest concern though is the wheels... wheels are just so easy to destroy even with my wheel sheathing idea I don't know that they would survive even a moderate blast.

reply to post by roguetechie


Yes wheels are the most vulnerable part...of course you could do away with it all with a hovercraft like vehicle, but It wont have any armor..

The roller idea that another person mentioned was not useful because the IEDs are command wired so, thats out of the bucket..

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL


No they can't make it bigger than it is. Thats using too much resources and time. Hence why many insurgents have been caught and killed cause they have to keep digging more because explosives are bigger and bulkier and riskier. They don't want that. And insurgents always wants to kill, thats their intent when you watch their videso and all those dumb red icons that shows American soldiers killed like we are gonna miss that. If all they wanted to do was disrupt then just put some explosives and watch them stop and cause traffic jams.


Back then it was simple for the insurgents, not any more.

In this video this guy keeps moving back and forth cause he was scared he would get caught, but he need to get back to digging. If you can't destroy and MRAP with 1 artillery round you have to use 3 rounds, or maybe even 4. Which means more time exposed.

They need so much time that they even resort to having a tent on the road! As well as a child to hide their cover.

Like many have said...

With things like Rivet Joint and the IED task force it's not so easy to plant the monster 10 155mm Artillery shell bombs that used to ravage even tanks.

As the professional points out command detonated EFP's are still an issue although again the various jammers and intel craft are getting wicked good at sniffing out command detonation points from even wired mines from what I'm hearing.

Which brings us back to having to survive stuff up to about rpg 27 / AT mine level which my vehicle would be easily able to be armored to survive. ....

Now throw in my vehicle to vector in and come down fast and hard on the emplacers and oyu have much safer convoys. Not to mention in large wars you'd have a fast agile scout vehicle that is cheap enough to buy LOTS of. This is why I spec'ed the vehicle out the way I did.

reply to post by deltaboy


Well I guess they can't make it bigger but they can use stronger explosives maybe? If they are using gunpowder they might start moving it up to RDX and stuff. Not only that, they do it in such open space it is asking for a fail. They need to be looking for that apache with a set of 10 dollar binoculars, could save their life. Are these FLIR caps at night or daytime?

All the stupid ones are dead. Ones that left are constantly adapting to our TTPs. Armor is like butter, while EFP is a hot knife, you do the math. HME is the next big thing. Just depends how lucky you are, and how big HME/IED is.
US Mil buys shi* from the lowest bidder. It doesn't have to be the safest vehicle, the company that makes the cheapest one, and has more friends that are higher up the food chain is gonna win. .50 Minigun on a vehicle is too much. Not gonna be able to carry as much ammo. A 7,62 mm gun, something like M134 (sf vehicles) with a cyclic rate of ~2000-4000 rpm and a lot more ammo as opposed to .50, supported by slower firing M2/M3 or 240B/G CROWS equipped vehicles for firefights lasting more than 10 minutes would be a better idea.

This is what you need, a couple of these:
Image

Make sure you get the energy shield package with those, or couple RPG's to the legs and it's going down, lol

reply to post by kaskad


The GAU 19 minigun has a ROF of 1300 RPM which is double the 650 rpm of a standard M2hb according to many sources I've read. Now factor in that with some tweaking you could cut the rpm of the minigun for Anti personnel work Or even add a coaxial 7,62mm mmg for use when you don't want the heavy fire and you see why I chose the GAU 19. I spent a lot of time thinking and agonizing about M134 versus GAU 19. I came to the GAU 19 conclusion because this vehicle isn't designed to JUST fight bomb emplacers... Nor is it really meant to sit in an ambush zone and take punishment. It's designed to hit, AND HIT HARD, then (to borrow a term from my uncle the vietnam vet) Didi mao (break contact at high speed). This is also why I'd like to see it using hydra's and recoilless rifles... It's whole premise is that if it doesn't have the initiative from the jump (due to superior tactical awareness from drone feeds etc) then it has the throw weight to very quickly TAKE the initiative back through blistering highly accurate barrages.

I'll admit any time you are designing a vehicle meant to fight out of it's weight class you make trade off's. But I feel that what I have designed sure as hell beats sending out route security patrols in up armored hummvees or in crowded MRAP's (which also have very limited ability to strike back compared to the number of men in the vehicle) The idea is to mount troops like MP's and base security in two to three man vehicles based off of this so they can have more better protected individual units. I disagree with the way our military puts out force in penny packets and then wonders why the ambush is our enemy's favorite tactic. We absolutely need to more heavily arm our light vehicles to create "ambush breakers"

I have read extensively abobreakut vietnam and other low intensity conflicts and what was eventually done eventually that worked. And whether it's vietnam or Rhodesia the one thing that seems to work is arming vehicles heavily so they can put out enough fire to suppress ambushes while armoring route security vehicles that are small and cheap enough to buy LOTS OF THEM so we can patrol our routes to prevent bomb planters from getting the big bombs planted.

As far as EFP's cutting armor like butter... Yes yes they do but EFP's can be defeated (primarily through bulk and air spaces that create walls of dissimilar materials they need to punch through.) I have specced out an armor package that would "I THINK" take some of the sting out of EFP's.

I am hoping to test some of my ideas at some point in the future as this project comes further along. But I am pretty certain I am on close to the right track.

reply to post by roguetechie


upload.wikimedia.org...

They already have what you have in mind.

Deltaboy,

I'm familiar with the MRAP and it's little brother the MATV

MATV

While I think these are great... my idea is for something that has protection on par with these while retaining high mobility at high speeds. In addition though my idea is for something with heavier armament.

It is my belief that we too lightly arm our vehicles as a whole and that one day it could bite our forces HARD.

This is why I have the armament proposal set the way I do.

Now none of this is me trying to put down osh kosh and what they are doing because I think it's great... I just think for route security and scouting a purpose built two or three man vehicle with minimal cubic volume (for the purposes of armoring the volume remaining much heavier) is the way to go.

My biggest "issue" with the MRAP and MATV is they are big giant boxes... and this means they would be much heavier for a given level of protection than my idea.

reply to post by roguetechie


www.liveleak.com...

I dunno man. Look at the power of the IED. It launches a 60 ton M1A2 into the air and that is a lot heavier than the biggest MRAP. The veichle you are trying to make is much smaller. The enemy will find a way to defeat any modern system. They will develop a counter-counter measure one way or another. First it was the small Ieds ripping the hummvees, then the tanks, then they switched to MRAPs then they switched to EFPs, there have also been reports of flying IEDs. Thats right, IEDs that jump out of the ground or are launched to a predetermined height and attack a veichle. I doubt you would be able to defend an MRAP from a flying EFP.


Here is a good resource of the stories told and research:
www.washingtonpost.com...

Types of ieds:
www.washingtonpost.com...

Could you use a row of pezio electric ceramics like the LRAD but have it beam a few feet in frount of a vehicle?

Low frequencys might cause enough vibration to set off IED's before the kill zone. You might even be able to increse its effectiveness if the triggering mechanisms are composed of anything that can resonate.

As I've frequently stated I'm not really looking to create something that will take a hit from a "super IED" and keep going. As The professional points out that's pretty much not possible. What my idea boils down to is a vehicle that can be used in Super saturation type numbers (crew of 2 to 3 men per vehicle means even 60 guys gives you at least 20 vehicles manned. And with wheels instead of tracks those same 60 guys plus some of the motor pool guys can maintain them indefinitely in the field!) to patrol common routes (like the ones most of our fuel and spare parts travel down to get to afghanistan)

Now you have these vehicles running "presence patrols" at odd times and with extremely good night sight etc. This makes the job of planting heavy IED's harder! Not only that but you have them work with the ANTI IED intel networks imint and sigint guys and their persistent air coverage and you start having a WORKABLE way to prevent (notice PREVENT not STOP COMPLETELY) so many IED's from being planted. Now this will just mean that they have to accept more risk and have stuff pre built. But even that is a victory because it will mean less workable attacks.

In the real world it's not about one shot magical solutions that nullify an enemy's capability to do a given thing. Instead you try and work out a strategy which will make the enemy PAY in men, materiel, and morale for any damage they do to you. At a certain point (and that point is debatable all day) the psychological calculus of what it will cost to blow up a truck and MAYBE kill two people will become too much for the enemy to "pay". This is all I'm trying to do is weight the equation to the side of our troops.

reply to post by Wertdagf


I think you may be onto something there... by pulsing at the right modulation you could probably set off vibration type sensors designed to only trigger when something large enough passes over it. Unfortunately it would only be useful on a small subset of mines and their fuzes BUT unlike many people who want to just give up because it's a hard thing to figure out I think that could be a valuable tool in the anti IED toolbox.

Heck I think if you could get in a lab and find the resonant frequency that causes solder to pop and then loop that over and over into a continuous track you could have something pretty useful for destroying enemy capabilities using a conventional LRAD that could still be employed in it's normal manner.

Here's an interesting scientific discovery that would be very useful on this kind of system:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Also this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...