Army shuns system to combat RPGs

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14686871/

<snip>

Sixteen months ago, commanders in Iraq began asking the Pentagon for a new system to counter RPGs and other anti-tank weapons.

Last year, a special Pentagon unit thought it found a solution in Israel — a high-tech system that shoots RPGs out of the sky. But in a five-month exclusive investigation, NBC News has learned from Pentagon sources that that help for U.S. troops is now in serious jeopardy.

The system is called “Trophy,” and it is designed to fit on top of tanks and other armored vehicles like the Stryker now in use in Iraq.

<snip>

An official involved with those tests told NBC that Trophy “worked in every case. The only anomaly was that in one test, the Trophy round hit the RPG’s tail instead of its head. But according to our test criteria, the system was 30 for 30.”

<snip>

(OFT planned to buy the system to test) That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.

The $70 million contract for that program had been awarded to an Army favorite, Raytheon.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. sniff. if it ain't our idea, it won't work. PERIOD. GOT THAT, shithead!!?!

how DARE anyone come up with an idea that we missed? Huh? HUH?
treasonous shitheads, all.

[zreosumgame]

14. nah that's not it at all

the idea is it does not matter who produced it, as long as some officer can walk out of the Army into a cushy job as a pay-off for these contracts. If the system does not meet that criteria, it is a 'problem'...

[grytpype]

2. Welcome to the military/INDUSTRIAL complex...

... emphasis on INDUSTRIAL. The military works for the defense industry, not the other way around.

[54anickel]

26. Yup, lots of money to be made in creating a new one from scratch.

[muesa]

3. Same Mindset As The "Big Three"

"If we didn't invent (Fill in the blank _______ (Hybrid, plug in hybrid, electric car) -- screw it - make them go to Japan for it."

[BushOut06]

4. Whose district is Raytheon located in?

I'd be willing to bet that some Congressman put an awful lot of pressure on the Pentagon to give that project to his district.

[happyslug]

23. Most Defense Contractors spread they business over a lot of Districts

So to get the most Support for their product within Congress. If you ever look at what part in a Air Force Plane come from what district you will be amazed.

[daleo]

5. The Canadian military was talking about purchasing this system

As I understand it, when an RPG is detected a bunch of pellets shoot off the armor, and hit the RPG disabling it. Supposedly it can handle two RPGs. Questions:
- how far do the pellets go, and in what direction. What happens to anyone in the vicinity not in the armored vehicle?
- what happens after the second RPG?

"Trophy works by scanning all directions and automatically detecting when an RPG is launched. The system then fires an interceptor — traveling hundreds of miles a minute — that destroys the RPG safely away from the vehicle."

It sounds like another "wonder weapon". Those usually promise more than they deliver.

On edit - Here's an interesting take on this:

"UPDATE 1:09 PM: Alabama National Guard LT and missile defense engineer Jimmy Wu says some of the Army's hesitancy is legit. But only some.

The cloud of projectiles from the active protection system is bound to hit people in addition to its target RPG. In addition, in an urban fight, the RPG gunners will try to get inside the minimum range of a Trophy system such that it does not have the time to shoot down the RPG.

On the other hand, there are situations where the Trophy is useful. For example, during the approach march , where everyone is under armor, the Trophy will minimize losses from an RPG ambush.

Both sides have merit. However, if I was deciding, I would deploy the Trophy. By adding an off switch, the Trophy operator can turn off the system when there are many people outside the vehicle. Training is not a big factor because the small fleet deployed is too small to cause future training problems. Supply should not be an issue either because of the small fleet. We need to encourage experimentation on the battlefield instead of quashing initiatives like the Sheriff."

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002361.html

[heliarc]

6. Wow...

The Sheriff looks like it gets horrible MPG on the freeway...

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002133.html

Looks kinda top heavy to me. I wonder if the insurgents shouldn't just run up and push the damn thing over.

[Nihil]

8. Sounds super (for the salesman's commission fund anyway)

> when an RPG is detected a bunch of pellets shoot off the armor,
> and hit the RPG disabling it. Supposedly it can handle two RPGs.
> Questions:
> - how far do the pellets go, and in what direction. What happens
> to anyone in the vicinity not in the armored vehicle?

The people outside the armoured vehicle die.

> - what happens after the second RPG?

The people inside the armoured vehicle die.

See? It's quite fair really ... it only costs three RPGs to take
out an armoured vehicle and a trained crew. Everything in the
neocon world has a price and that's the price set on a tank crew.
Pure chickenfeed compared to the fortune that the neocons make
from i) the armoured vehicle and ii) the "defence system".
(Edit: and probably iii) the RPG itself.)

> The system then fires an interceptor — traveling hundreds of miles
> a minute — that destroys the RPG safely away from the vehicle.

Sounds like just the sort of thing to use in the street fighting
where most of the US losses have been taken (rather than in the
wide open battlefields for which the US Army is designed).

If only the CEOs and lobbyists were sent into the danger zone to
prove how effective and reliable their products are instead of
leaving it to some poor squaddie.

[Sherman A1]

7. I recall that during WWII there was a system to defeat

shoulder fired rocket propelled grenades (bazooka, panzerfaust, etc) - it was called Spaced Armor ( a think sheet of armor ringing the vehicle to set off the warhead away from the main body) . I am sure that RPG's have improved since that time, however they are still small weapons and should be able to be defeated with passive systems.

[Nihil]

9. The best solution is to keep the troops out of range ...

... like several thousand miles out of range, in their own country ...

Not only the most effective in terms of lives saved but the cheapest
option too ... a real win-win proposal!

[daleo]

10. I think modern RPGs have two charges

One that takes out the passive armor, and a second shaped charge that follows closely behind to penetrate the armor.

[Xithras]

18. Yep. Modern RPG's are designed to defeat passive armor.

Charge 1 blasts a hole in the passive armor and drives charge 2 in towards the inner hull. Charge two drives the explosive fragments through the inner hull, killing the people inside. There was a short lived technological race to add more armor to tanks to defeat even this, but the added weight simply bogs the tanks down and makes them unuseable offroad.

[Whatsamatteryouhey]

11. I recall during WW 1 and WW 11.

Our soldiers had inferior equipment ,for example that horrible French machine gun in WW1.Instead of the (Bar).Lets see our Navy had defective torpedoes,our tank drivers had the Shermans,which they called Shermans coffins.Vietnam had the M-16 jamming and melting problems.Now we had a lack of body armour,then badly put together body armour,a reliance on Humvees,never meant for a urban environment.RPGs like IEDs are cheap an plentiful,kinda like Somalia,with a couple thousand bucs of RPGs,they took out a couple of our Million or so dollar Choppers that shouldnt have been stationary targets in the 1st place.The solace I take away from this is knowing our soldiers adapt an improvise on their own as it seems they always must.

[Barrett808]

13. Welcome to DU, Whatsamatteryouhey!

:hi:

[daleo]

19. I believe the Shermans were also called "Ronsons"

Ronson being a popular cigarette lighter of the day. It was because the Sherman lit up so easily.

On edit:
"Ronson!" The First Modifications

The first major modifications to the Sherman were brought about by the need to improve its crew safety features. Having earned the sobriquet "Ronson" (light first time) from Allied crews and "Tommy Cooker|" from the Germans because of its tendency to catch fire very quickly when hit, a study of damaged tanks and test shooting of examples to determine why this occurred was undertaken.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Article.asp?ArticleID=265

[happyslug]

22. The US used the Sherman for two good Reasons

First, the US had a limit of 26 tons when it came to transporting items from the US. Now some heaver items could be shipped but these were rare and special shipping, loading and unloading had to be done (Reserved for Railroad engines and other items needed to establish supply lines to the troops as opposed to weapons for the Troops). Thus only in 1945 was the M26 Pershing Tank with its 90mm Gun fielded. It was still half the weight of the German Tigers and even lighter than the German Panther Tank.

The second biggest problem with the Sherman was its use of Gasoline for fuel. Russian and Italian tanks had reputations for NOT catching on fire as quick as the Sherman, the reason was both equipped their tanks with Diesel Engines (Diesel Fuel does not catch on fire as quickly as Gasoline). The US avoided Diesels (Through some Diesel Light Tanks were used in the South Pacific) for the US Army wanted to minimized its supply system. For that reason the US Army said its fuel of Choice was going to be Gasoline. Thus US Tanks were Gasoline till the M60 Tank was adopted in 1959 (The M48 Tank had been originally Gasoline but many were rebuilt to M48A5 standards which included a Diesel Engines in the 1980s just before the M1 Tanks series replaced both M48s and M60s in US Service).

Thus the problem with the Sherman was its use of Gasoline as a fuel, but that decision eased the US supply lines which made it easier for the US to defeat Germany. Remember better equipment does NOT always win the day, more often than not the winner of a battle is the side with the best supply system or access to supplies (Which is How we defeated Germany during WWII, the US, the UK and the USSR had free access to all the fuel they could use, Germany after December 1941 NEVER had the fuel it needed to fight, to save fuel for the Air Force and Armor Units Infantry Divisions had to make do with only 10% of the fuel they used in Peacetime operations. The lack of fuel is what defeated Germany more than any other factor.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. The problem with the Sherman was...

a Panzer could take out four or five Shermans before it would be taken out.

Some dipshit in the war department figured that faster lightly armed and armored tanks would be the wave of the future.

[happyslug]

28. It was the 26 ton rule that limited the size of the Sherman

And the need to get something in production ASAP.

People tend to forget the #1 tank in NUMBERS in the German Army, as late as 1945 was the Panzer III Series of Tanks, NOT the Tiger or even the Panther. In actual tanks (Excluding tank destroyer variations, by 1945 the Number # 1 Tank was the Panzer IV). The Germans were still using the Panzer III as a Tank in 1945 and its number exceeded the Tigers both in units and in Production (Through production of Panzer III Tanks ended in 1943, the Tank Destroyer variations continued till the end of the War) Both the Panzer III and the Panzer IV were inferior to the Sherman (Through the Up-gunned Panzer IVs of the later war years had a more powerful gun than the Sherman).

TOTAL German tank production for WWII was only 50,439 units (and that includes Panzer Is, Panzer IIs and T-38 light tanks). Russian T-34 production alone exceed this number (Total T-34 produced during WWII 57,339). M-4 Shermans and its Tank Destroyer Cousins exceeded this number (Total Sherman produced 48,966 with an additional 9030 Tank Destroyers produced). If you take out of the German Production the Panzer 1s, and IIs and the T-34 Light Tank, total German Tank Production was only 38,515 and this included tanks MADE before the war and destroyed in the years before D-day.

My point is even in France the chances of a Sherman meeting a Tiger was slim (Over half the tanks in France by 1944 were Panthers, the Panzer IIIs and IVs were in Russia, the Panthers ended up in France do to the nearest of France to the Panther Factory in Germany). The Panther could knock out a Sherman why before a Sherman could knock out a Panther, but once in range the Panther could be destroyed by the 75mm gun of the Sherman. The Tiger was another story, the 75mm Sherman gun could NOT penetrate the Tiger's armor, thus against the Tiger the Sherman losses were huge. The problem as the Germans had a problem getting the Tiger to the battlefields. The Tiger could NOT go on standard trains for it was to wide (The Panther was design to fit into any railroad tunnel, the Tiger could not). Once at the battlefield the Tiger was to heavy for most bridges which restricted their movements compared to the Shermans and Panthers. Last the Tiger ate up fuel compared to the Sherman and Panthers, fuel the Germans did not have to spare.

Thus the Sherman, with its limitations, became supreme in the battlefields of France in 1944. The Sherman ease of maintenance, lighter use of Fuel and ability to be transported on most of the bridges and tunnels of France permitted it to go anywhere it wanted to go. The Panther was its greatest threat, but a Tank the Sherman could knock out (If equipped with the 76mm anti-tank gun, which over 1/2 of all Shermans in France in 1944 had). The Tiger's lack of speed, reliability, and numbers made it a minor factor on the Battlefield. The Tiger's limitations were to great for its assets of a great gun and heavy Armor to overcome.

My point was staying with the Sherman, with its limitation was a good decision on part of the US. I wish the US Armor Corps would have put on the 17 pounder British Anti-Tank gun that the British did instead of the 75 and than 76mm gun that the Sherman came equipped with. The failure to adopt a powerful Anti-tank Gun was the result of another Mistake of the US Army, the US Army Adoption of the "Tank Destroyer concept" that said Tanks do not engage Tanks, Tank Destroyer engaged Tanks (Someone in the US Army forgot to tell the Germans of that rule who engaged Shermans with their tanks). Had these mistakes NOT been made a lot of Americans would not have been killed, but at the same time the price of the mistake was small given the lack of Fuel and Tanks available to the Germans.

Lets look at some numbers:
Total Tiger Series Tanks produced: 1,937
Total Panther Series Tanks Produced: 6,557
Total Panzer IV Series Tanks Produced: 13,522
Total Panzer III Series Tanks Produced: 16,409

T-34 Production:
34,780 with the 76mm Gun
22,559 with the improved 85mm Turret and gun
57,339 TOTAL T-34 produced

US Tank Production M4 Sherman only:
33403
10883 with 76mm Gun
4680 with short barrel 105mm Howitzer
48966 M$ Sherman produced during WWII with an additional 9030 Tank Destroyers produced.

German Tank production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_production_during_World_War_II

Soviet Tank Production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

US tank production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

[daleo]

30. Another site said Shermans were quite reliable

Much more so than German tanks, in general, and inferior tanks at the battlefront beat superior tanks at the mechanic yard.

[happyslug]

32. That was my understanding of the Sherman

Reports I have heard was the Israeli loved the Sherman for it was a reliable and easy to maintain tank. The Russian T-54/55s they Israelis picked up in the 1967 war were the only thing easier to maintain. On the other hand the German tanks were always difficult to maintain and in some ways the reason the Panther ended up in France was not only was France nearer to the Panther Factory in Germany, many of the German Armor Units in Russia wanted to keep using their more reliable Panzer IIIs and IVs. Some Panzer IVs were used in the 1967 War by Syria, the last report of a Panther was in Vietnam under the French in the early 1950s and it broke down. The Panther was imported to Vietnam sometime in the early 1950s as a defense against any Red Chinese Armor that might cross the Chinese Border into then French Southeast Asia.

Now I did visit a site that said the problem with the Sherman was NOT its Gasoline fuel, but the placement of both the Gas Tanks and ammo bunkers in the early models. By Normandy these had been addressed (Not completely corrected but the newer tanks had shifted both to more secure locations in the Tanks and added "wet" storage around the ammo so that the water would help prevent the Ammo from catching on Fire.

[Strelnikov_]

12. If It Is So Good, Why Were The Tank Losses In Lebanon So High?

Sounds like another 'Scud Buster' to me.

[Posteritatis]

15. This is a fairly new thing

Chances are if the IDF's adopting it, they haven't refit all their equipment yet; something like that would take quite some time. Armed forces can be notoriously conservative on matters of equipment, and not without good reason.

Also, Israeli tanks are actually, to a point, designed to go down somewhat more easily than their western equivalents - their engines are in the front rather than the rear, for instance, so that the crew can have another few meters of Stuff in between them and most hostiles. Tanks are cheap; tank crews aren't.

Countries like the US and Russia have a lot more resources and manpower, so it makes more sense for them to put as much work as possible into making both tank and crew as close to totally safe as possible. Israel doesn't have that luxury and has to choose between the tanks and their crews. Say what you will about the rest of their policies, but they made the right choice in this particular case.

[daleo]

20. So U.S. tank crews are considered cheap?

That seems like the logical inference here.

[Posteritatis]

25. The potential crew pool is *vastly* larger, anyway

Which means that going out of your way to protect each individual one is not nearly as paramount as it would be for a country with one-fiftieth the population of the United States, or one-twenty-fifth the population of Russia. That isn't to say that US tank crews are "cheap" (much as I appreciate the spin attempt), but you can't deny that the US army losing a tank crew is something it can recover from much more readily than the IDF or other really small armed forces could.

[daleo]

31. The demographic point is valid

Another good example - the Israelis withdrew from a losing proposition (Lebanon) after about 100 military dead. The U.S. is still in Iraq at nearly 3000 dead (about a factor of 30), with no end in sight. In fact, Bush is seriously intent on another war whose American losses would probably dwarf the Iraq losses.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. "shoots RPGs out of the sky."

Yeah, right. Some bean counter at the Pentagon grew a conscience and decided they weren't going to buy a multi-million dollar bullshit system that doesn't work. SO what does the military-industrial complex do? Claim the pentagon isn't protecting the troops.

[Xithras]

17. It does work.

It's just a computer operated targeting system mated to a computer controlled large caliber rifle. A microradar array detects the incoming projectile, the computer computes its course in a handful of milliseconds, spins the computer controlled rifle around, and fires an intercepting round to meet it. The system detects the threat and shoots it down before the people inside even know what's happening.

This kind of thing has been worked on for a long time, but computers have only become fast enough to make it feasible over the past few years. Since most RPG's are only airborn a second or two before impact, the system needs to be FAST. Other than the speed hurdle, the technology for this is fairly straightforward.

[happyslug]

21. And easily defeated by two simple methods:

1. By getting as close to the Tank as possible so that the system does NOT have time to react (and this seems to have been the policy of both the Resistance in Iraq AND Hezbollah in Lebanon).

2. Fire Multiple RPGs. RPGs are dirt cheap, the round costs about $50 - $100 each. In Iraq, Lebanon and Iran they are almost as common as AK-47s. Thus all you have to do is fire multiple RPGs at a target and the system may take out the first two but the third and fourth will hit the target.

One last Comment, most of the targets attacked by RPGs are NOT Tanks, Armored Personal Carriers (APCs) or Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicles (MICVs), but trucks and other vehicles used to SUPPORT the Tanks, APCs and MICVs NOT Tanks, APCs and MICVs. While it would be cost effective to have such a system on a Tank, APC or MICV since all of them costs Millions of Dollars (The Cheapest is the American M113 which only costs about $100,000 each, the M1 tank costs about $2 million a Piece) to put such devices on every truck in the US Army would cost to much even for the US Army).

Furthermore the most common version of the RPG is the RPG-7 first fielded in the late 1960s. The RPG-14 has improved speed and a double in tandem warhead.

As other people have said, a nice system but will it improve survivability? I have my questions.

One last comment, unlike some other antitank weapons RPGs can be fire and forget, i.e. launched and the firer can then get out of the way of any response (i.e. out of the way of the defensive shot). RPGs have limited accuracy and thus best used when close in with Tanks, thus the system has some promise but it will not drive the RPG from the battlefield.

[Xithras]

27. You can only get so close...

...before you get caught in your own blast. Sure there are suicide bombers, but firing an RPG at point blank range is a terribly inefficient way to do it. As for your second point, more RPG's requires more people, more pre-planning, and more training. If you significantly increase the "cost" of these attacks, the numbers will go down.

Good point on the $$ cost though. It's not economical to mount a $500k anti-RPG device on a $100k HMMV.

As to the last point. Any computer capable of tracking an RPG midflight and shooting it down is ALSO capable of backtracking its origination point and putting a second shot there. Combined with a thermal imager, the Israeli system could not only shoot down the RPG, but theoretically identify and kill the person who fired it as well. That's a bit too terminatorish for my tastes, but it's technically possible.

[happyslug]

29. That is why Military Doctrine has been to fire and move

During Vietnam the Viet Cong adopted the Doctrine know as "Grab the Belt" literally the Viet Cong wanted to be so close to any US forces it engaged that the US forces could NOT call it either Air Support or Artillery on the Viet Cong. This seems to be the same doctrine being used in Iraq and Lebanon, leave the tanks come as close as possible and only engage within 100-200 feet (if not less). This is what the Viet Cong did in Vietnam and it worked then and will work again.

Such tactics take nerves of Steel, but if you have well trained soldiers who are committed to your cause, they will do it. You do not have to be a suicide bomber to think that way, all you have to accept is the only way to win is to get in close with the Americans with overwhelming numbers. Good Planning (such as Hexbollah seems to have done in Lebanon) can undo the technical advantages of the US and Israeli armed forces.

Thus if you are in such a situation, fire the RPG, don't look at where it went, just move and load after you have moved. Keep this up and sooner or later, if you have local superiority in numbers you will prevail (or the other side will realize they are in a hornets nest and get the hell out).

[bemildred]

33. "Fire discipline", it's called. A sign of good troops. nt

[Xithras]

35. The difference...

...is technology. In Vietnam the element of suprise was extremely valuable. When you fired a shot, you had several seconds before the enemy could even figure out what happened and where you were shooting from. Now, luckily, we have cold hard computers that can track incoming projectiles and figure out their point of origin before the guerrilla's finger is even off the trigger. Your point stands when you're dealing with human opponents, but how well does it hold up against a computerized enemy that can return fire in one second?

[happyslug]

37. THe RPG is a VERY SLOW Weapon

The reason it is slow is that the High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) works best if the projectile has little or no spin when it hits metal. Thus the RPG is both a recoilless Rifle and a Rocket. The recoilless rifle just launches the Grenade out of the launch tube. The Grenade then goes down range a few feet where the Rocket projectile kicks it sending it the rest of the way to the Target. Under both fire systems the Grenade is traveling at relatively SLOW SPEEDS. It is this Slow Speed that the System is counting on. The Greater the Distance the Greater the time the rocket has to get to the target.

In any FASTER System (like a Rifle Round) the time from launch to target is VERY SHORT, often less than a second. Thus no one is saying this system is effective against Rifle Fire or even more advance Anti-tank Missiles on the grounds that by the time such weapon is launched within a second it hits the target (And this is becoming more and more the norm for Anti-tank weapons, i.e. launch and forget type weapons locked onto the target BEFORE launch and travels as fast as possible to the Target to defeat the target).

This system relies on the RPG SLOW Speed to get the 1-2 seconds the Radar needs to detect the RPG on its way and to launch the defensive shot. If the RPG users gets to close to the Target the RPG can hit the target BEFORE THE SYSTEM DETECTS THE LAUNCH SYSTEM.

During WWII the British used the PIAT System of Antitank weapons, and all the PIAT was, was a system with a very light charge design to launch a Anti-Tank Grenade at an enemy tank at very Close range (THE US Bazooka of the same time period had superior range do it the Bazooka being a rocket propelled system as opposed to the very light recoil charge of the PIAT). While the PIAT had less range than the Bazooka, it had the advantage of being able to be used inside Buildings (No Recoil or Rocket back blast) and entrenchments. Effective range was less than 100 yards, but at that distance the PIAT could even take out a Tiger Tank under the Right Circumstances.

My point is, this system can be defeated by very easy means, In fact HOW the RPG is being used today may defeat this defensive method (i.e. NO CHANGE OR TACTICS IS NEEDED). When I was in the Guard and trained on the old LAW anti-tank rocket, the preferred way to use them was to have two men fire two Law Rockets at the same time at the same Target and to use these weapons at ranges UNDER 100 YARDS do to the better chance of hitting the target. The System would be DEFEATED by this system of firing.

One more point, the RPG rounds are DIRT CHEAP, less than $50 each (The old US LAW Rocket unit cost was $100 and that included the non-reusable rocket launcher/container. The Law was well liked and even Copied by the Soviets as the RPG-18, but it had inferior range to the RPG do to its one shot and throw away technology).

Thus the problem with this system is that it can be defeated at the cost of less than $1000 by simply making sure any Tank that is attacked is hit with 10 or more RPG rounds. Furthermore these do NOT all have to fire at once, they could work in teams. Sooner or later the system will fail under this level of assault which is what I would be doing if I was taking on Tanks.

[bemildred]

34. "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!" nt

[Supersedeas]

36. there are just a few sectors of the economy that Pubbies love more than

others