from Defense-Aerospace.Com:

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Hell no it doesn't look like a Bradley hull.

 

You'd think even the US Army personnel could get it right. At least, surely someone at Rodriguez could've provided them with proper info.

 

This is the M1064 series mortar carrier:

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Hey doggtag, it gets better...

I'm holding in my hand an official Army pub, and in the entry for the Bradley, the pic is actually of British Warriors...d'oh!

 

How cool would a mortar turret (capable of direct and indirect fire) on a Bradley chassis be??? It would be outstanding, in my opinion.

I doubt that it would ever be practical. Many similar things had been tried, and failed. M551 and BMP-2/3 are just prominent examples. Direct fire support is just different from indirect fire support. If someone brings in a mortar-gun carrier into combat, then he'll discover that cute vehicle is the first thing to be knocked out by enemy anti-tank weapons. Why buy a mortar-gun carrier when you will use them almost exclusively as mortar carrier?

Russians tried those gun-missile systems on their BMPs, but it just doesn't sound great. It looks formidable on paper, but all of them are the results of poorly executed projects. What will you use to destroy an enemy fortified concrete building? Fire continuous bursts of 30mm cannon, or several shots of 100mm HE shell? Both will work, but the choice will be complicated had enemy tanks might appear.

 

 

Several examples of improved M113s exist with 6 road wheels per side instead of 5,

United Defense's (BAe Systems') own MTVL variant:

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I found it hard for Armies other than Swedish and Norwegian to justify purchase of AMOS or NEMO. First, it doesn't use ordinary 120mm mortar rounds. To be able to take the role of direct fire support, the mortar-gun must have higher muzzle velocity, and new types of mortar rounds must be designed to cope with this requirement. Second, starndard mortar shells are stored in cans with their propellants. Fire missions of different ranges use different propellant sets, and unused propellants are sealed back into the can. Safe. Of course it can be done in a mortar-gun system with auto-loading mechanism, as long as money is poured in. Third, there are just as many types of 120mm mortar rounds as there are for 155mm howitzer. Of course, it can be solved in mortar-gun system, when more money is poured in. Besides, why do you need AMOS when you have M395?

I can't disagree more, Yelli.

What is the additional expense of a mortar on a turret, capable of direct fire? (I'm sure that the NEMO, et al., are quite expensive, but I'm also certain that it could be done "on the cheap" for alot less.) Compared to what it costs for the basic vehicle (which can be the same for turnstile or turret mountings) crew, training, ammo, etc, it is probably only a few percentage points more expensive. If I only ever use it for indirect fire, then that's fine. Compared to the price of one F-22, it's nothing at all. But there are definitely times when a target is best serviced by a direct-fire 120mm round, and given how eager so many people are to get rid of the heavy force and its M1 tanks, a direct fire mortar is the only place that they could possibly get it. While it pains me to use Iraq as an example, there are several combat vingettes where a tank used its 120mm, then, and only then, did the insurgents break and run away - they didn't want to face precisely aimed rounds from a big gun. Meanwhile, how often would that same mortar get to fire indirect? From the redlegs and mortarmen that I've spoken with, hardly ever. (Forgetting for a second about the Stryker MGS.)

 

True, its not heavily armored like an M1, but then again nothing else is. Sure, it will draw fire. Armored vehicles tend to do that. There are plenty of scenarios where the enemy doesn't have an effective anti-tank capability, or does and can't bring it to bear due to the conditions of the battlefield. At least a commander would have the capability if he needed it. Otherwise, his biggest weapons are 50 cal's and 40mm grenades.

There are plenty of ways of direct fire support. I remember Germans even put a 105mm howitzer on M113 chasis for that purpose. A mortar-gun, however, is not a mortar. It is a self-propelled mortar-gun, and it has its use, but only when there is no tanks or SPHs around. If tanks work well, then why not just bring in tanks? Even if there are some mortar-gun carriers (MGCs) around, they will be in battallion fire support company rather than mobile infantry company. In the end, the CO still has to wait for those MGCs come down to provide more punishment than his .50 Cals and 40mms.

 

Norwegian, Swedish and French made these system for some reason, but they don't solve the intrinsic problem of inaccuracy of fin-stab smooth bore mortar shells. AMOS is better suited as an areal suppression weapon rather than point-strike fire support unit. These things also have minimum engagement distance which they won't tell you in commercial, but the effectiveness of mortar-gun in direct firing mission is limited by both maximum effective rage (in direct mode) and minimum range. It is better to build an auto mortar to be just a mortar.

 

For big punches in direct fire, I think Sheridan's gun is more practical than mortar-gun. However, I always think this is the best solution:

Hmmm....

I don't see demolition guns (those 165mm "stubbies" that fired dustbin-sized hole punchers and obstacle crushers) returning anytime soon,

nor the 152mm (or anything similar in 6-ish inch caliber) gun launcher similar to the Sheridan (and lesser extent, the MBT70, although Russian tank guns from 100mm up have the option of a PGM, which many still argue are marginally effective, if at all).

 

The biggest problem with the Sheridan (later models did correct most of the chassis' mechanical problems) was that the 152mm system was just too overtaxing on such a light hull lacking any level of stability other than what the hull could absorb. That, and the facts that the combustible cases for the ammo were subject to cracking/brittleness under temperature extremes and was never corrected, the vehicle could only carry a mixed payload of 30 rounds total, and the Shillelagh missile's fire control left much to be desired (at range, the MGM-51 had plenty of warhead lethality: from what I've read, it used some kind of "octol shaped charge" which could head-on kill a T-72- I don't know if "octol" here meant an eight-sided cylindrical shaped explosive charge/liner, or some kind of explosive named octol, perhaps because of some kind of molecular layout in its makeup...?)

 

For its hull weight & dimensions, the Sheridan would actually be ideal for a system such as the NEMO (Hunnicutt's book Sheridan, A History of the American Light Tank, Vol 2 has several photos and descriptions of various Sheridan expirements, with modified hulls mounting anything from 105mm howitzers, the 76mm M32 series gun (M41 tank), and later developments included the feasibilty of mounting a 75mm ARES autocannon).

 

As far as "what battlefield worth does a breech-loading gun-mortar provide, that can't be provided by tank guns or howitzers?"...

I'll remind that, currently, the US Army's proposed FCS system will incorporate not only a direct-fire capable Mounted Combat System (damn weird name for a light tank armed with a 120mm gun)

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sorry I forgot this one:

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Well, as far as I know, the Centurion AVRE 165mm  is still around in the British Army.

 

Back to the gun-mortar debate. Breech-loading mortar is good. Soviet 160mm heavy mortar and 240mm very heavy mortar are all breech-loading. Every mortar gunner hates to deal with failed shells, and breech-loading reduces the danger and all the difficulty dealing with that. Closed structure for better mortar crew protection is also great. NLOS-M might end up with a turrent, but it doesn't mean it will be used in direct fire support. It is hard to tell the future, and let's wait to see that in ten years.

 

However, from engineering point of view, gun-mortar is not really a well-thought idea. There is nothing wrong about the mortar part except it's kind of difficult to justify the spending on that particular system. We'll talk about that later. It is the gun part that make it unrealistic.

 

1. To achieve good and reasonable range, a shell must be launched in higher muzzle velocity about 400-800 m/s. Mortar shells are usually launched below the speed of sound, which will make effective rage abysmal.

 

2. To have acceptable accuracy, which is usually 1 mil at 1000m, most shells use spin stablizing. However, mortar shells are usually a big shutle-like thing followed by a spigot with fins on the tail. I really don't know how these mortar shells will fly in flat trajectory, and the result may be quite funny.

 

3. To make a gun-mortar system work well on the gun part, one needs to put 20-40lb of explosive device to at least 100m and no less than 1000m in flat trajectory. One had better have specially designed shells that can be fired at about 600m/s muzzle velocity and with some kind of stablizing method. The increase in muzzle velocity means increase in breech pressure and hence thicker barrel. It sounds me more like an improved T-55 rather than any gun-mortars.

 

Now, how will gun-mortar systems fit into existing land fighting organization? Let's say if we have 4 NEMO-Strykers of a platoon in each Styker batallion's fire support company, how will they be used? Will they be employed like sturmgeschutz or just like ordinary mortar carrier? Since they don't have start-of-the-art targeting system and unable to destroy even a T-55, they'll be mortar carriers.

 

By the way, Russians use 2S9 for airborne artillery support, which fits the category of "no tank and artillery" situation. French never actually bought MCB81 for their army. Instead, they bought wheeled gun carriers, like ERC-90, that can defeat T-55s and is C-160 transportable.

 

link for 2S9

And from online video I can find about 2S31 Vena system, I'd say that the system has a very low survival expectation for its crew. For a carriage that is heavy-machine-gun-defeatable, this is really a bad idea for propellant storage.

 

Also, from company AD on youtube: link