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Subject: Was Crusader worth the $11bn?
Worcester    5/3/2004 9:37:53 PM
Was Crusader that much better than existing systems? The max range with enhanced ammo at 40km+ was about that of AS90 and PzH2000 or any 155mm with a 52calbarrel. The burst capability was little better than Paladins 3 rounds per 15 secs, or the 3 rounds per 10 secs (12 rpm/1min) of both AS90 and PzH2000. Rapid firing/duration of 10 rpm/5mins for Crusader was little better than Paladin's 8rpm/5mins, AS90's 8rpm/5mins (5rpm/7mins) or 8rpm/5mins for PzH2000. Crusaders 48 round ammunition carriage gave 5 minutes rapid fire versus 60 rounds for PzH2000 and 54 for AS90BH. Perhaps Crusader's real enhancement was the autoloader vehicle. The Brits have proved that a lot can be achieved by fitting 52 cal barrels and adopting Denel's "Assegai" enhanced range propellants. M109A7 version. Thoughts please.
 
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neutralizer    RE:oh and   12/27/2004 11:48:46 PM
H'mmm. Liquid propellant has been 'under development' since the late 1940s, every decade or so someone thinks they've solved all the problems. They haven't yet. Crusader abandoned development of LP and switched to modular charges, also available from companies in at least France, Germany and South Africa (and the last are probably the best design if it weren't for the IM compliance problem). The US is very backward with its electronic multi-role fuzes for artillery, they've been in service with some armies for a couple of decades, 2nd generation models are now available. FCS, including onboard, is no great challenge. The difficult stuff was all solved and deployed in Palladin/AS90/PzH2000. The NABK architecture does the rest and the Brits developed MV prediction a dozen years ago. Barrel cooling is at least under-development in other countries and may be more than that. $11B is a lot of money for R&D that mostly re-discovers the wheel.
 
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HJ    $11B for a false start?   12/28/2004 12:40:44 AM
Sorry, if total is truly $11B, that is way too much to just have technology on the shelf. You can't just throw it togehter and have a follow-on, you have to integrate it all over again. Remember Sargent York disaster? For $11B, you should have gotten the nonrecurring engineering and a fair amount of the procurement paid for. Anyone have a precise breakout on what the $1B bought (I notice no challenges to the figure of $11B)?
 
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AussieEngineer    RE:$11B for a false start?   12/28/2004 12:45:17 AM
Is that how much all the development cost! I thought that was the figure for buying the things. If its 11bn on a vehicle that didn't even enter production then I wouldn't be asking was it worth it? I'd be asking for my money back! Surely they could have figured out whether or not they were going to buy it before spending 11bn dollars on it.
 
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HJ    RE:$11B is total system cost apparently   12/28/2004 1:09:01 AM
I've been looking around the web and although it isn't delineated precisely, it appears to me that the $11B figure is not what has been spent, but rather a projected total system cost with Crusader projected to be over $23M each after buy was lowered from over 1,000 systems to just over 400. Here's an interesting link that talks about the program dealing with failure just before it was canceled: http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/do-020308-failures-crusader.html
 
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lennard    RE:Was Crusader worth the $11bn?   1/6/2005 2:01:16 AM
This says enough I think: "Although the CBO and the General Accounting Office (GAO) have reported that there is a more cost-effective alternative in the German-made Panzerhaubitze (PzH) 2000 self-propelled howitzer--replacing the Crusader with the PzH 2000 would save taxpayers $6.7 billion--the Crusader proceeds apace with an additional $467 million." (from: (3-11-2002))
 
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Adamantine    No way Crusader need 11 billion in R&D, its a ruse   1/16/2005 2:30:54 PM
The PZH2000 is almost as good as Crusader. Yet the R&D is much smaller. I dun have the exact figure but the German probably spend less than 1.5 billion USD in R&D. There is no way you need 11 billion to develope an artillery. No way. This is Not a PLASMA cannon or star war laser !! Most of the 11 billion is probably channled to some DARK classified project.
 
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Shooter    RE:No way Crusader need 11 billion in R&D, its a ruse   2/10/2005 9:33:35 PM
Any here who thought that PZH2000 was or is in the same league as Crusader needs to do more research. The 11B price tag includes procurement of the gun and it's special ammo. Some of which no one else on the planet has or even tried to test, but that we have brought to the brink of service. Yes the money is/was worth it. The entire WS was far in advance of any other system on the planet!
 
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neutralizer    RE:Was Crusader worth the $11bn?   2/11/2005 4:54:20 AM
Of course the ammo is not special to Crusader and presumably the new projectiles coming into service were originally part of the program, with others to follow. "The shell is the weapon of artillery". And like all weapons it has to be applied to achieve the required effects on the enemy's will, cohesion and physical 'assets'. The last made some sense then the strategic objective was 'destroy the enemy's force'. Today this is not the case, it's invariabley 'destroy the enemy's forces in order that . . .', the 'in order that' makes the battlefield very different , although some soldiers (and even mores so former soldiers!) seem to be taking a while to grasp this, and realise that disproportionate force can backfire politically (which is what war is all about). As a platform you can argue about the merits of one gun to another until the cows come home. And even then it all a matter of assumptions about what matters, and this depends on the battlefield. situation/operational concepts. Currently heavy armour is out of fashion.
 
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cannoncocker    RE:Was Crusader worth the $11bn?   3/1/2005 12:44:16 PM
The money spent on Crusader was a little less than $2B...not totally wasted for a number of reasons, not the least of which was determining that you absolutely cannot achieve a real jump in cannon operational effectiveness unless you get the man out of the loop. In the future a cannon crew has to focus on the battlefield and fighting the system (the howitzer) and not have their collective brains and bodies focussed inside on cutting powder, setting fuzes, etc. One simply can't be what one needs to be as a cannoneer if you are doing the same job Redleg ancestors have been doing for over 150 years. Overall, the 'little bit' here on rate of fire and 'little bit' there on range and other things made incredibly HUGE differences in what the Artilleryman did for the maneuver folks. It is important to note that the replacement for Crusader, the NLOSC, has managed to hang onto most of the Crusader system's key contributors to that jump in effectiveness. Today's SPH's are all pretty good, but they are really all the same. Today's cannoneers are all the same also...just incredibly awesome. The absolute least any of us can do is give them the best equipment possible...sooner than later.
 
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