APCs e IFVs

[nemesis]

atolo?

[Marechal-do-ar]

Não sei se é uma boa idéia colocar veículos cheios de infantes para combater (sozinho ou apoiado), um simples RPG-7 por tras e tudo que é infante morre... Acho que veículos de infantaria servem apenas para transportar tropas, por isso uma blindagem básica é suficiente.

[Guerra]

atolo?

Vixxxiii... e a culpa é sempre do coitado do motocarro o chefe ainda faz pose...

[Guerra]

Marechal,

Sobre o Merkava eu achei que era ao contrário! mas tudo bem... Sobre os IFVs, APCs e MBTs, eu acho que a vantagem dos IFVs é que eles podem operar de forma autônoma... já que tem bastante proteção e potencial ofensivo. Já os APCs precisam sempre estar bem escoltados, já que tem baixa proteção e potencial ofensivo

ZeRo4, a diferença entre IFV's e APC's não está propriamente ligada à necesssidade de escolta ou ao nível de protecção. O principal factor distintivo é a doutrina de emprego e o armamento (não a blindagem).

Os APC's foram concebidos para levar tropas para o campo de batalha, com um razoável nível de protecção (inicialmente, até metralhadoras de 7,62mm ou 12,7mm, conforme os modelos). Chegando aí, as tropas embarcadas desmontavam, e combatiam apeadas. O APC tinha apenas armamento para auto-defesa, como metralhadoras pesadas

Num IFV, a doutrina é diferente. O objectivo que presidiu à criação dos IFV's foi a Guerra Fria, e um potencial conflito entre a NATO e o Pacto de Varsóvia na Europa. Aqui, pela grande predominância de carros de combate no campo de batalha, os blindados encarrregues do transporte de tropas necessitavam de melhor armamento. Daí, a colocação de canhões de 20, 25, 30 ou mesmo 40mm. Alguns modelos foram mesmo equipados com mísseis anti-carro (como os Bradley). Com o crescimento do armamento, o IFV passou a ser utilizado como plataforma de apoio à infantaria desmontada, e mesmo como a principal plataforma de combate (a infantaria só desmontava em caso de necessidade). Por outro lado, a difusão de armamento anti-carro portátil implicou a necessidade de proteger os carros de combate. Para isso, os agora denominados IFV necessitavam de:
- mobilidade táctica igual à dos carros de combate
- maior blindagem, pois o ambiente em que iriam operar era mais perigoso (contra metralhadoras de 14,5mm, RPG's, e em alguns casos, contra canhões de 20 ou 30mm)
- mais armamento, capaz de enfrentar outros IFV's e mesmo carros de combate

Tudo isto implicou aumento de peso, de complexidade e de custo, e uma redução do número de soldados transportados. No caso dos russos, as exigências de aerotransportabilidade e/ou de capacidade anfíbia fizeram com que o aumento de blindagem não fosse tão substancial.

No entanto, nos dias de hoje, a ameaça mecanizada é menor, o que torna algo inútil o transporte de mísseis anti-carro na torre de um IFV. A principal ameaça é a de infantaria desmontada, equipada com armamento anti-tanque potente, desenrolando-se os combates na proximidade ou dentro de cidades, e raramente a distâncias superiores a 500m. Aqui, ter um nível de protecção equivalente ao de um carro de combate é mais importante do que ter uma torre equipada com armamento que lhe permita enfrentar todo o tipo de ameaças a vários quilómetros de distância.

Por isso, os israelitas não operam nada equivalente ao Bradley, Warrior, Pizarro/ASCOD, etc. O seu equipamento de eleição sempre foi o M-113, com sucessivos upgrades, sendo o mais eficaz para este tipo de cenário o Zelda 2. Com a evolução da capacidade dos mísseis anti-tanque, tornou-se necessário criar os chamados HAPC (veículos de transporte de tropas pesados). Neste campo, o Achzarit, derivado do T-55, e as diversas conversões dos Centurion, foram os pioneiros. Actualmente, a conversão do Merkava 1 (inicialmente denominada Nemerah e agora Namer ou Nemer... ) é talvez a melhor de todas. Existem equipamentos semelhantes de origem jordana e russa.

Portanto, um IFV não é implicitamente melhor do que um APC, e vice-versa. Cada um tem os seus méritos, as suas vantagens e desvantagens. Para apurar qual é o melhor, é preciso fazer uma análise casuística do país e unidade que os vai usar, do tipo de terreno, do inimigo, sua doutrina e armamento.

Desculpe a curiosidade JNSA, você é militar?

[JNSA]

Não, SGT GUERRA, sou estudante de Direito (o que, espantosamente, não é assim tão diferente... ). Por que pergunta?

[JNSA]

Desculpe lá, mas não percebi patavina...

Apenas o cumprimentei, mas esqueci que o amigo é de Portugal e acabei utilizando gíria! Desculpa ae...

Não tem problema, agora já está explicado... Nada que uma pequena tradução não tivesse resolvido...

Só como curiosidade, você tem conhecimento de algum projeto de HAPC que tenha sido construído desde a base como HAPC e não adaptações como Achzarit, Nemer, Nagmashot, Nakpadon e etc ?!

De momento, não me lembro de nenhum... Os modelos russo e jordano também são conversões de MBT's...

E no fundo, percebe-se porquê - só na última década, década e meia, é que se compreendeu a necessidade de aumentar a protecção dos APC's face às mais recentes armas ligeiras anti-carro e aos novos cenários de batalha (as zonas urbanas); este período coincidiu, na maior parte dos países, com uma diminuição dos investimentos em equipamento militar (o que tem sido a regra, desde o fim da Guerra Fria). Assim, como a maior parte destes países referidos já tinham frotas de APC's e/ou IFV's, bem como grandes frotas de MBT's, que agora pareciam redundantes, era mais simples (e mais barato) convertê-los, em vez de fazer HAPC's de raiz.

[Guerra]

Não, SGT GUERRA, sou estudante de Direito (o que, espantosamente, não é assim tão diferente... ). Por que pergunta?

Pela qualidade do texto. Parabéns.

[VICTOR]

Concordo, acrescente os meus parabéns aí.

[ZeRo4]

Pra quem acha que APC's leves ainda são "válidos" os Americanos desceram o pau no Stryker...

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Leaked Report: Stryker Armored Vehicle


(Source: Project On Government Oversight (POGO); issued March 31, 2005)


An internal Army report, marked “For Official Use Only,” reveals that the Stryker Interim Armored Vehicle has been only 50 percent effective overall against Rocket Propelled Grenades during combat in Iraq, much less effective than what the Pentagon has publicly claimed.

According to the report: “Soldiers were briefed that slat armor would protect them against eight out of eleven strikes against Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attacks…In the field, soldiers say the slat armor is effective against half of the RPG attacks.”

The December, 2004 report was published by the Center for Army Lessons Learned (http://call.army.mil) based on a study conducted in Iraq from September 22 to October 19, 2004. The report, which was obtained by POGO earlier this year, can be viewed here: http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-StrykerBrigade-12212004.pdf.

The report said that the 5,000-pound improvised “slat” armor attached to the Stryker is failing to defend against two of the three types of RPG attacks that have been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- primarily strikes by anti-personnel RPGs and anti-tank RPGs. When these two types of RPGs hit the vehicle, “the shrapnel continues to move through the slat and hits exposed personnel,” the report says.

Today’s Washington Post features a front-page story on the report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Mar30.html). In recent days, Inside the Army and CNN (see http://www.douglasmacgregor.com/cnnstry ... 902005.wmv)
have reported on the document.

Some of the other conclusions of the study include:

--The high-tech Stryker’s computer software is slowing and overheating in the extreme temperatures of Iraq. As a result, the Center said the vehicles need to be air-conditioned. The Army has approved adding air-conditioning to the vehicles, but funding has not yet been approved.

-- Stryker operators are not, but should be, trained before going to Iraq because the addition of the 5,000-pound “slat” armor to the vehicle significantly increases the circumference and weight of the Stryker, changing its performance. The slat armor also has reduced the vehicle’s off-road capabilities.

-- The Stryker’s primary offensive weapon system, a grenade launcher, does not hit targets when the vehicle is moving.

--The slat armor’s extra weight is causing problems with the vehicle’s automatic tire pressure system, requiring crews to check tire pressure three times a day.

--The Stryker brigade’s tires were designed primarily for off-road surfaces, but are often being driven on hard road surfaces. As a result, the brigade has been replacing tires at a rate of nine-per-day.

The Stryker, a $4 million-a-copy, eight-wheeled, 19-ton armored Army vehicle, was deployed in Mosul, Iraq beginning in late 2003, despite warnings by the Pentagon’s top independent tester, Thomas Christie, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), that it was not thoroughly tested against RPGs. (see http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-stryker-DOTE-2004.pdf)

In January 2004, POGO revealed that Christie warned the Secretary of Defense that the vehicle should not be deployed in Iraq because it is vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades (see http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/da-040101-stryker.html). At that time, POGO also raised questions about the January 2000 hiring of former Army Lt. General David K. Heebner by General Dynamics Corp., and the subsequent award 11 months later of the $4 billion contract to General Dynamics to build the Stryker.

As a top assistant to Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki, Heebner played a significant role in drumming up procurement funding and support for Shinseki's plan to transform the Army, which included the Stryker. In October 1999, only three months before Heebner retired, Shinseki's "Army Vision" statement called for an interim armored brigade: "We are prepared to move to an all-wheel formation as soon as technology permits." General Dynamics' primary competitor and an unsuccessful bidder for the Stryker contract, United Defense, primarily manufactures tracked, rather than wheeled, armored vehicles.

In meetings and conference calls with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Steve Cambone, and then Department of Defense Comptroller Dov Zackheim, attended by POGO staff, Rumsfeld and the others made it clear they were not interested in buying more than four brigades of Strykers. However, the Army and Congress were pushing twice that number – eight brigades, they said.

“The Army should not put inadequately tested equipment in the field, as it creates a false impression that the troops are properly equipped to fight in combat. The Army should speed up the process of deploying the proven M113’s armored personnel carriers that are sitting out of harm’s way while the Stryker is being showcased in Iraq,” said Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller.

The Project On Government Oversight investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. Founded in 1981, POGO is a politically-independent, nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that is accountable to the citizenry.

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Análises ?!

[ZeRo4]

Mais uma decepção com o Stryker...

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Study Faults Army Vehicle

Use of Transport in Iraq Puts Troops
at Risk, Internal Report Says


By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Researchers Bob Lyford and
Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.


The Army has deployed a new troop transport vehicle in Iraq with many defects, putting troops there at unexpected risk from rocket-propelled grenades and raising questions about the vehicle's development and $11 billion cost, according to a detailed critique in a classified Army study obtained by The Washington Post.

The vehicle is known as the Stryker, and 311 of the lightly armored, wheeled vehicles have been ferrying U.S. soldiers around northern Iraq since October 2003. The Army has been ebullient about the vehicle's success there, with Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, telling the House Armed Services Committee last month that "we're absolutely enthusiastic about what the Stryker has done."

But the Army's Dec. 21 report, drawn from confidential interviews with operators of the vehicle in Iraq in the last quarter of 2004, lists a catalogue of complaints about the vehicle, including design flaws, inoperable gear and maintenance problems that are "getting worse not better." Although many soldiers in the field say they like the vehicle, the Army document, titled "Initial Impressions Report -- Operations in Mosul, Iraq," makes clear that the vehicle's military performance has fallen short.

The internal criticism of the vehicle appears likely to fuel new controversy over the Pentagon's decision in 2003 to deploy the Stryker brigade in Iraq just a few months after the end of major combat operations, before the vehicle had been rigorously tested for use across a full spectrum of combat.

The report states, for example, that an armoring shield installed on Stryker vehicles to protect against unanticipated attacks by Iraqi insurgents using low-tech weapons works against half the grenades used to assault it. The shield, installed at a base in Kuwait, is so heavy that tire pressure must be checked three times daily. Nine tires a day are changed after failing, the report says; the Army told The Post the current figure is "11 tire and wheel assemblies daily."

"The additional weight significantly impacts the handling and performance during the rainy season," says the report, which was prepared for the Center for Army Lessons Learned in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Mud appeared to cause strain on the engine, the drive shaft and the differentials," none of which was designed to carry the added armor.

Commanders' displays aboard the vehicles are poorly designed and do not work; none of the 100 display units in Iraq are being used because of "design and functionality shortfalls," the report states. The vehicle's computers are too slow and overheat in desert temperatures or freeze up at critical moments, such as "when large units are moving at high speeds simultaneously" and overwhelm its sensors.

The main weapon system, a $157,000 grenade launcher, fails to hit targets when the vehicle is moving, contrary to its design, the report states. Its laser designator, zoom, sensors, stabilizer and rotating speed all need redesign; it does not work at night; and its console display is in black and white although "a typical warning is to watch for a certain color automobile," the report says. Some crews removed part of the launchers because they can swivel dangerously toward the squad leader's position.

The vehicle's seat belts cannot be readily latched when troops are in their armored gear, a circumstance that contributed to the deaths of three soldiers in rollover accidents, according to the report. On the vehicle's outside, some crews have put sand-filled tin cans around a gunner's hatch that the report says is ill-protected.

Eric Miller, senior defense investigator at the independent Project on Government Oversight, which obtained a copy of the internal Army report several weeks ago, said the critique shows that "the Pentagon hasn't yet learned that using the battlefield as a testing ground costs lives, not just spiraling dollars."

Asked about the report, Army officials who direct the Stryker program said they are working to fix some flaws; they also said they were unaware of some of the defects identified in the critique. "We're very proud of the Stryker team," said Lt. Col. Frederick J. Gellert, chief of the Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team Integration Branch in Washington, but "it hasn't been something that's problem-divorced."

According to the latest Army figures, 17 soldiers in the Stryker combat brigade have died in Iraq in 157 bomb explosions, but no delineation is made for those who perished inside the vehicle and those who were standing outside it; an additional five soldiers have died in two rollovers. No current figure was provided for those who perished in grenade attacks, although one officer said he thought it was fewer than a handful.

Neither the lessons-learned report nor more recent Army data state how many soldiers have been wounded while inside the vehicle. The report states that in one case, a soldier was struck by shrapnel that penetrated both the vehicle's armor and his own body armor; in another case, an entire crew escaped with minor injuries after a vehicle sustained nine grenade hits.

The criticisms of the Stryker's first performance in combat seem likely to give new arguments to critics of the Army's decision in 1999 to move away from more heavily armored vehicles that move on metal tracks and embrace a generation of lighter, more comfortable vehicles operated at higher speed on rubber tires.

Senior Army officers in Iraq, like those at the Pentagon, have been surprised by the intensity of hostilities there since mid-2003, and lately some officers have said they depend on heavy armor to protect their soldiers in urban warfare, even though tanks in Iraq have also suffered unexpected damage.

But Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army's director of force development, said that when he rode in the Stryker for the first time, he "marveled at how much nicer it was" than riding in a Bradley vehicle or an older troop transport, the M113, which he likened to being inside an aluminum trash can being beaten by a hammer. He said the Stryker was "amazingly smooth" and quiet by comparison.

In a report completed at the time of deployment, the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation office rated the Stryker vehicles sent to Iraq "effective and survivable only with limitations for use in small-scale contingencies." Congressional auditors at the General Accounting Office in December 2003 said the first brigade "did not consistently demonstrate its capabilities, indicating both strengths and weaknesses."

Independent groups and a loose-knit group of retired Army officers who dislike the Stryker vehicle have alleged that the Stryker's 2003 deployment was motivated partly by the desire of the Army and the manufacturer, General Dynamics, to build congressional support for buying additional brigades. But Speakes said that was nonsense and that the brigade was deployed in Iraq simply because the Army needed it.

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[ZeRo4]

Do DefesaNet...

Parece que após o Fiasco dos Stryker e do Hummer Blindado no Iraque os Americanos também decidiram investir mais em IFVs e MBTs adaptados para combate urbano...

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By Steven Komarow


WASHINGTON -- Visitors to the Army's Web site on tank warfare won't find a single urban battle among 13 online practice scenarios. After all, for decades the Army rule for bringing tanks into cities to fight has been simple: Don't.

"In classic armored warfare, you bypass the cities," says Montgomery Meigs, retired Army general and 1991 Gulf War tank commander. Nearly invulnerable on the battlefield, tanks lose a lot of their advantage in urban fighting. "It's a completely different ballgame," Meigs says. The enemy "can get a lot closer to you, and he can get behind you and above you" to hit places where a tank's armor is thin.

But the insurgents of Iraq have forced U.S. tanks into Iraq's cities by choosing to fight there. Commanders consider the intimidation and firepower of the Abrams a crucial tool for putting down insurgents. When the Marines crushed insurgent-held Fallujah last fall, they brought in two extra brigades of Army M1 Abrams tanks.

Despite billions spent to build Stryker light armored vehicles and add armor to Humvees, "the M1 tank is still the platform of choice," says Col. Russ Gold, a former commander in Iraq and chief of staff at the U.S. Army's Armor Center in Fort Knox, Ky. Gold's brigade fought from inside the Abrams every day in central Iraq. "Primarily it was the shock effect, and it provided a lot of protection."

The tank warfare of Iraq has changed the Army's mindset, in which heavy armor increasingly was considered something from a bygone era, says Lt. Col. Michael Flanagan, an armor officer and director of a rush program to refit the Abrams for urban combat.

"Before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Army had one vision for the future: ... This notion that a lighter, more mobile force" would make armor obsolete. Now, the Army is recognizing that the tanks must be upgraded, he says, so their armor can be used even more effectively, especially in the cities.

The upgrades are needed because instead of facing against other tanks 2 miles away, for which the tank is well armored in front, soldiers face an enemy of foot soldiers who bury mines in the streets and fire rocket-propelled grenades from rooftops and alleyways.

"You have a threat that operates to the side and to the rear," he says. "Understandably, we've got some vulnerability."

Even during the initial invasion two years ago, the Iraqi resistance knew the weak spots on the Abrams. During the first "Thunder Runs" of U.S. armor into downtown Baghdad troops reported that Iraqi ambushers would wait for a tank to pass and then fire their rocket-propelled grenades at the tank's rear engine compartment en masse, sometimes a dozen or more at once, hoping for a disabling hit.

Today, the Abrams remains the most-prized target for insurgents, in large part because of the psychological value.

"To parade (a captured or damaged Abrams) through the streets of Baghdad would have been huge," says Col. John Shay, an Army tank developer. However, all the Abrams tanks damaged in Iraq have been recovered, he says.

"Nothing's invulnerable," Meigs says. He says the key to effective use of the Abrams is how it is used. By itself it can be hit, but it's much less likely when the Army is fighting with a combination of tanks, artillery, aircraft and infantry. "The enemy can't handle that."

The Abrams upgrade package, known as TUSK, for Tank Urban Survival Kit, includes:
• A shield for the external machine gun operated by the tank loader when the Abrams is on patrol.
• A new remote-controlled machine gun operated from inside the tank.
• A high-strength armored grate for the rear, to catch grenades and rockets and explode them before they can make a disabling hit.
• Side armor panels to better protect the treads, suspension and hydraulics.
• An external telephone so that foot soldiers working alongside the tank can talk to the crew inside.

The Army also has tested and is preparing to issue, for Iraq and Korea, a new round for the tank's main gun for close combat. Current rounds are either high explosive or armor-piercing shells. The new round turns the Abrams into a giant shotgun, blasting 1,100 tungsten pellets at a time out of its 120mm barrel.

Besides the equipment upgrades, the Armor training center at Fort Knox is emphasizing urban situations in its training, including use of the crew's machine guns and pistols against close-in enemies, Shay says.

Francisco Jardim, director of the Patton Museum, says the Abrams is a technical marvel. But there's a familiar ring to the upgrades.

The external telephone, the new side armor and the shotgun-like "canister round" all recall previous tanks and previous wars. Troops in World War II would put sandbags on their Sherman tanks to protect against Nazi infantry and their Panzerfaust anti-tank guns.

As much as the Army has desired through history to avoid them, "those cities have a pesky way of just popping up in the landscape," he says.

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[Marechal-do-ar]

zero, é lógico que vão ficar frustrados, eles estão usando essas armas de forma inadequada... Um APC NÃO deve ser usado em combate, ele serve exclusivamente para levar tropas ao combate depois disso ele deve retornar e deixar o trabalho sujo para a infantaria e para os MBTs.

[ZeRo4]

zero, é lógico que vão ficar frustrados, eles estão usando essas armas de forma inadequada... Um APC NÃO deve ser usado em combate, ele serve exclusivamente para levar tropas ao combate depois disso ele deve retornar e deixar o trabalho sujo para a infantaria e para os MBTs.

Era aonde eu queria chegar Marechal, por mais que os APCs sejam desenvolvidos para um nicho específico de batalhas, eles sempre tem suas funções desviadas... com o Stryker não iria ser diferente.

Veja nas missões de paz da ONU no Haiti, os Soldados Brasileiros estão sempre sendo acompanhados por um Urutu! pq ?! justamente pq o Urutu é um blindado que aguenta trancos de projéteis 7,62... se os Rebeldes Haitianos possuíssem RPGs ou conhecimento suficiente para produzir boas IEDs, quantos Urutus nós ja teríamos perdido ?!

O Mesmo ocorre com o Humvee...

[Marechal-do-ar]

Se eles estivessem armados com RPGs os Urutus levariam as tropas até o campo de batalha e iriam embora, os MBTs fariam o resto do trabalho.

[ZeRo4]

Se eles estivessem armados com RPGs os Urutus levariam as tropas até o campo de batalha e iriam embora, os MBTs fariam o resto do trabalho.

Será ?! O Stryker e Humvee não voltaram... e sim ajudavam a patrulhar as cidades Iraquianas.