M10 Booker Combat Vehicle / Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF)

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aonestudio

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHiVtwLHhg

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LRIP MPF2.jpg
LRIP MPF1.jpg
The model of LRIP configuration of GDLS MPF.#AUSA2022
The modifications on LRIP will include:
▪️using quick-release pins instead of bolts for skirts;
▪️a large stowage box to replace water can racks;
▪️improvements to armor coverage;
▪️fixing overheating problems of suspension.
 
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General Dynamics to begin building US Army’s new light tank next month

GDLS will initially deliver 26 vehicles, but the contract allows the Army to buy 70 more.
www.defensenews.com
Oct 11, 03:00 AM
General Dynamics Land Systems will start manufacturing in November the U.S. Army’s Mobile Protected Firepower system, the first new combat vehicle to enter the force in nearly four decades.

The system features a new chassis design, while drawing from other GDLS programs to reduce risk, Kevin Vernagus, company program director for the MPF system, told Defense News. The turret is also “largely new and with different materials than normal” he added, but “we still retain the interior look, feel and controls similar to an Abrams” main battle tank.

With the initial vehicles set to take shape on the production line this fall, the first low-rate initial production MPF will head to the service by the end of fiscal 2023, Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the Army’s program executive officer for ground combat systems, told Defense News.

GDLS will initially deliver 26 vehicles, but the contract allows the Army to buy 70 more over the course of low-rate initial production for a total of $1.14 billion. At least eight of the 12 prototypes used during competitive evaluation will be retrofitted for fielding to the force.

The first unit will receive a battalion’s worth of MPF systems — 42 vehicles — by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. The Army plans to enter full-rate production in calendar 2025.
Click to expand...
 
it's not built to be impressive. it's built to fill an absense of capability US army used to have. It's not supposed to be next gen tank or IFV where a leap in capabilities are essential to justify the development process
 
donnage99 said:
it's not built to be impressive. it's built to fill an absense of capability US army used to have. It's not supposed to be next gen tank or IFV where a leap in capabilities are essential to justify the development process
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Which capability? It's additional firepower for cavalry and Stryker units but it doesn't replace the role the M551 Sheridan filled for the 82nd Airborne.

Every design decision has drawbacks but an autoloader would have allowed for the vehicle to be smaller and lighter which is supposed to be one of the selling points of this vehicle. I wonder if a 120mm gun would have been a better choice too considering that lightweight 120mm guns have been demonstrated on several vehicles in a similar weight class. The 105mm made a lot more sense when there was a huge reserve of 105mm ammo left over but I imagine most of that is gone now. On the plus side it means more main gun ammunition can be carried.
 
Colonial-Marine said:
Which capability? It's additional firepower for cavalry and Stryker units but it doesn't replace the role the M551 Sheridan filled for the 82nd Airborne.
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Actually since the Paradrop ability of the M551 was rarely use, as are paradrops in general. With the general plan expected being able to either at a capture field or be the first ones in by dint of being the fastest to move to the neariest friendly location. Like every "Combat" Paradrop in the last 40 years been basically onto friendly or already caught territory.

So it does bring back the ability to toss an Armor Company around the world within a few hours if need that we lost with the Sheridan.

Like 2 to a C17 and four to a C5 is nothing to scoff at. Especially since the thing is FAR more armored then a Stryker ever could.

Throw in the fact it can go into far tighter places then the Abrams?

It be a well waited piece of gear.

Especally since you can pull an Abrams crewmember and toss them in it with no problems. Which is a large reason why theres no Autoloader. The Army wanted to Streamline the training with the Abrams as much as possible so you can basically play the old trade crew and maintainers around game. Putting an autoloader fucks that up royalty that it basically destroys it upsides. Cause now not only do the crew needs to learn how to work around it, but you also need to train the maintainers to maintain it, which is the big one and what killed the MGS basically.
 

M8-AGS with troop compartment

The Thunderbolt also has a ramp door in the rear that lowers for the Engine/Transmission power train to be rolled out for easy maintenance. With the conversion to Hybrid Electric Drive and the flexibility of positioning drive train and suspension...
www.defencetalk.com

As BAE MPF is based on the the M8 AGS which has a troop compartment modification capability. That capability should be considered as IFV for air landed forces. the ETC gun, which was tested, can come later ;}
 
aonestudio said:

Army working to fix Mobile Protected Firepower toxic fume issue - Breaking Defense

The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester recently revealed that when soldiers fire the main gun, “high levels of toxic fumes” fill the vehicle.
breakingdefense.com
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Huh. Guess that the fume extractor can't pull enough fumes from the casings before they clear the breach. Not a problem with 120mm stubs of course, but something specific to casings. And safety and hazard rules being tighter than before, perhaps.
 
MihoshiK said:
aonestudio said:

Army working to fix Mobile Protected Firepower toxic fume issue - Breaking Defense

The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester recently revealed that when soldiers fire the main gun, “high levels of toxic fumes” fill the vehicle.
breakingdefense.com
Click to expand...
Huh. Guess that the fume extractor can't pull enough fumes from the casings before they clear the breach. Not a problem with 120mm stubs of course, but something specific to casings. And safety and hazard rules being tighter than before, perhaps.
Click to expand...

It's not like this is a particularly new concern, and the M68 fume extractor should be well understood by now. Maybe they changed the standard, but seriously, this should not be hard to get right.
 
Moose said:
Might get more volunteers for MPF duty if they don't think they're in for a lingering, painful death from lung cancer post-service.
Click to expand...
"Do you want to go to war with or without it?" "Well, it might give me lung cancer if I'm fortunate enough to fire off 10,000 rounds in training so, no I'd rather bleed if we go to war."
 
bobbymike said:
While the health of the tankers is important why do I think the air quality regs were rewritten by a DC bureaucrat to some ridiculous standard?

I imagine a future battlefield:
“Enemy to our front fire!”
“Sorry sir the fume detection system won’t let us until we’ve reached 1 part per trillion of toxins”
Bureaucrat reading about tank losses in the Washington Post, “at least they died with healthy lungs”
Click to expand...
this is the kind of thinking that kill a military. The biggest threat to the army today is recruitment shortfall. Imagine some general caught on mic saying what you just said. Discharging him and send him away to the north pole wouldn't make up for the damage to recruitment
 
donnage99 said:
bobbymike said:
While the health of the tankers is important why do I think the air quality regs were rewritten by a DC bureaucrat to some ridiculous standard?

I imagine a future battlefield:
“Enemy to our front fire!”
“Sorry sir the fume detection system won’t let us until we’ve reached 1 part per trillion of toxins”
Bureaucrat reading about tank losses in the Washington Post, “at least they died with healthy lungs”
Click to expand...
this is the kind of thinking that kill a military. The biggest threat to the army today is recruitment shortfall. Imagine some general caught on mic saying what you just said. Discharging him and send him away to the north pole wouldn't make up for the damage to recruitment
Click to expand...
Besides being tongue in cheek not sure what you mean? I think you misunderstood my post. I guess by your thinking recruiting would be great we just indicate to the recruits they will never face a threat and their lives will never be put in danger?
 
Has anyone actually seen the regs or confirm that they have been re-written, and understand how the prototype fell short? Why would the Army requirements process not account for actual SME inputs into the process and why would those SMEs not care about ensuring proper standards for things like that directly impact those that operate the system? It is perfectly reasonable for the Army to have several things it wants changed, improved or addressed from the industry delivered prototypes. That there's a process for soldier touchpoints, user evaluations and a formal operational testing process goes to the very heart of the system meeting specifications, and being operationally effective.
 
bring_it_on said:
Has anyone actually seen the regs or confirm that they have been re-written, and understand how the prototype fell short? Why would the Army requirements process not account for actual SME inputs into the process and why would those SMEs not care about ensuring proper standards for things like that directly impact those that operate the system? It is perfectly reasonable for the Army to have several things it wants changed, improved or addressed from the industry delivered prototypes. That there's a process for soldier touchpoints, user evaluations and a formal operational testing process goes to the very heart of the system meeting specifications, and being operationally effective.
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Yes I am speculating but given I’ve not read stories like this before leads me to believe there are new regulations. I mean are we to believe a modern system is worse than M48s, M60s, early M1s, etc. Maybe I guess it could be.
 
bobbymike said:
donnage99 said:
bobbymike said:
While the health of the tankers is important why do I think the air quality regs were rewritten by a DC bureaucrat to some ridiculous standard?

I imagine a future battlefield:
“Enemy to our front fire!”
“Sorry sir the fume detection system won’t let us until we’ve reached 1 part per trillion of toxins”
Bureaucrat reading about tank losses in the Washington Post, “at least they died with healthy lungs”
Click to expand...
this is the kind of thinking that kill a military. The biggest threat to the army today is recruitment shortfall. Imagine some general caught on mic saying what you just said. Discharging him and send him away to the north pole wouldn't make up for the damage to recruitment
Click to expand...
Besides being tongue in cheek not sure what you mean? I think you misunderstood my post. I guess by your thinking recruiting would be great we just indicate to the recruits they will never face a threat and their lives will never be put in danger?
Click to expand...
you telling me you do not see the difference between dying in combat for your country vs dying in peace time because leadership doesn't care enough for your health and safety standards? If so why on earth would you infer that from what I said?
 
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donnage99 said:
bobbymike said:
donnage99 said:
bobbymike said:
While the health of the tankers is important why do I think the air quality regs were rewritten by a DC bureaucrat to some ridiculous standard?

I imagine a future battlefield:
“Enemy to our front fire!”
“Sorry sir the fume detection system won’t let us until we’ve reached 1 part per trillion of toxins”
Bureaucrat reading about tank losses in the Washington Post, “at least they died with healthy lungs”
Click to expand...
this is the kind of thinking that kill a military. The biggest threat to the army today is recruitment shortfall. Imagine some general caught on mic saying what you just said. Discharging him and send him away to the north pole wouldn't make up for the damage to recruitment
Click to expand...
Besides being tongue in cheek not sure what you mean? I think you misunderstood my post. I guess by your thinking recruiting would be great we just indicate to the recruits they will never face a threat and their lives will never be put in danger?
Click to expand...
you telling me you do not see the difference between dying in combat for your country vs dying in peace time because leadership doesn't care enough for your health and safety standards? If so why on earth would you infer that from what I said?
Click to expand...
Have no idea of the point you’re making. If you make “peacetime” so “safe” you can’t fight a war then a lot more will die in war correct? You’ve heard of “train like you fight” that obviously comes with very high risk over civilian life.

Obviously there are risk/danger trade offs that get made everyday in the military and I’m sure if you made peacetime like living in a holiday resort you’d recruit more people at the cost of fighting effectiveness.
 
Hey folks, can you triim your quotes or something? I keep getting notifications that I'm being quoted in this thread but I'm really not. It's all hidden in the markup.
 
TomS said:
Hey folks, can you triim your quotes or something? I keep getting notifications that I'm being quoted in this thread but I'm really not. It's all hidden in the markup.
Click to expand...
Ditto here. I had four empty notifications.
 
bobbymike said:
Have no idea of the point you’re making. If you make “peacetime” so “safe” you can’t fight a war then a lot more will die in war correct? You’ve heard of “train like you fight” that obviously comes with very high risk over civilian life.

Obviously there are risk/danger trade offs that get made everyday in the military and I’m sure if you made peacetime like living in a holiday resort you’d recruit more people at the cost of fighting effectiveness.
Click to expand...
you're bringing it to the extreme for the sake of argument. this is about eliminating toxic fume, not providing accomodation equivalent to living in a resort.
 
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@donnage99

But my thinking will “kill a military” according to your first response.

Seems you’re the extreme lead off hitter to this thread.

Have a nice day
 
QUOTE="donnage99, post: 594879, member: 1717"]
QUOTE="bobbymike, post: 594863, member: 2901"]
QUOTE="donnage99, post: 594859, member: 1717"]
QUOTE="bobbymike, post: 594820, member: 2901"]
QUOTE="donnage99, post: 594800, member: 1717"]
QUOTE="bobbymike, post: 580392, member: 2901"]
QUOTE="TomS, post: 580390, member: 1484"]
QUOTE="MihoshiK, post: 580339, member: 412"]
QUOTE="aonestudio, post: 580302, member: 12511"]
@bobbymike @donnage99 The root of your problem. Fix it. Please.
 
1683050339069.png
@bobbymike Tick <Toggle BB> code and all hidden quotes become visible.
 
bobbymike said:
@donnage99

But my thinking will “kill a military” according to your first response.

Seems you’re the extreme lead off hitter to this thread.

Have a nice day
Click to expand...
I apologize if I came off offensive. I do not mean that you have a disregard for soldier's lives but it doesn't matter if you have a complex view and your intention comes from a good place. What matters is optics - how your words are perceived.

Recruitment has direct tie to perception of the general populace toward the military. Plenty of examples of soldiers' health (f-22 helmets, burn pit exposures) being compromised due to negligence or ignorance of leadership have caused enough damage to recruitment already. The kind of talk you suggested, again regardless of what your intention is, does negatively impact that because it reinforce already established negative view of the military among the populace. And with the severity of recruitment shortfalls, yes, I do stick by my original statement that it would kill a military.
 
donnage99 said:
bobbymike said:
@donnage99

But my thinking will “kill a military” according to your first response.

Seems you’re the extreme lead off hitter to this thread.

Have a nice day
Click to expand...
I apologize if I came off offensive. I do not mean that you have a disregard for soldier's lives but it doesn't matter if you have a complex view and your intention comes from a good place. What matters is optics - how your words are perceived.

Recruitment has direct tie to perception of the general populace toward the military. Plenty of examples of soldiers' health (f-22 helmets, burn pit exposures) being compromised due to negligence or ignorance of leadership have caused enough damage to recruitment already. The kind of talk you suggested, again regardless of what your intention is, does negatively impact that because it reinforce already established negative view of the military among the populace. And with the severity of recruitment shortfalls, yes, I do stick by my original statement that it would kill a military.
Click to expand...
Sure go back to Agent Orange in SE Asia and DU in the Gulf, yet the extent of the current recruitment issues seems far, far deeper than these types of issues seem to portend historically.

It is a very complex issue revolving around social, cultural, economic and even geostrategic issues.

It would be very interesting to poll a few thousand recruit aged males/females and ask why they would or wouldn’t enlist in today’s military.

I’m not sure “improved air quality in armored vehicles would make the list” but hey I could be wrong.
 
The excepted lifecycle of an armored vehicle is decades of crew training followed by years of low intensity combat. This historical intensity was so low, that casualty rate is lower than dangerous civilian jobs and health and safety concerns make a meaningful difference.

The united states, being a nuclear power surrounded by oceans, will not be fighting a war in defense or national survival with these vehicles. This is doubly so for vehicles developed to be lighter weight and thus air transportable.

In those expeditionary, optional conflicts, the question isn't about making sacrifices for a greater cause, it is about getting results while making no sacrifices.

In higher intensity conflict, something like MPF is marginal to begin with when stuff like nuclear strategy, air superiority, sea control, long range precision fires and such start to weight in. It is not like a slight improvement in MPF performance in any factor would change much here. I mean, T-90 or T-55, they are all steel box that go boom when on the other side of PGMs or mines.
 
shin_getter said:
The excepted lifecycle of an armored vehicle is decades of crew training followed by years of low intensity combat. This historical intensity was so low, that casualty rate is lower than dangerous civilian jobs and health and safety concerns make a meaningful difference.

The united states, being a nuclear power surrounded by oceans, will not be fighting a war in defense or national survival with these vehicles. This is doubly so for vehicles developed to be lighter weight and thus air transportable.

In those expeditionary, optional conflicts, the question isn't about making sacrifices for a greater cause, it is about getting results while making no sacrifices.

In higher intensity conflict, something like MPF is marginal to begin with when stuff like nuclear strategy, air superiority, sea control, long range precision fires and such start to weight in. It is not like a slight improvement in MPF performance in any factor would change much here. I mean, T-90 or T-55, they are all steel box that go boom when on the other side of PGMs or mines.
Click to expand...
I think it is a bit of a mistake to view armored fighting vehicles in those terms lest we start accepting subpar vehicles because of the notion that they don't matter in the bigger picture. The fact that a conventional war in Europe is even occurring proves this wrong to an extent. There is a pretty big difference between a T-90 and T-55 if they are employed properly.

As for MPF with an active protection system I think it could be useful in a conflict like this even in the context of the "limited role" it is supposed to have. If you wanted to invest more in it by up-gunning to a 120mm cannon and other improvements you could do even more with it though I'd never consider an appropriate replacement for a real MBT.\

Has MPF gotten a M-series designation yet? Shouldn't it have by now?
 
Colonial-Marine said:
Has MPF gotten a M-series designation yet? Shouldn't it have by now?
Click to expand...

Maybe XM1302. Allegedly both GDLS and BAE vehicles got the same designation with different suffixes. I can't find it in anything official, though.

View: https://twitter.com/ronkainen7k15/status/1643994381886824448
 
Colonial-Marine said:
I think it is a bit of a mistake to view armored fighting vehicles in those terms lest we start accepting subpar vehicles because of the notion that they don't matter in the bigger picture. The fact that a conventional war in Europe is even occurring proves this wrong to an extent. There is a pretty big difference between a T-90 and T-55 if they are employed properly.

As for MPF with an active protection system I think it could be useful in a conflict like this even in the context of the "limited role" it is supposed to have. If you wanted to invest more in it by up-gunning to a 120mm cannon and other improvements you could do even more with it though I'd never consider an appropriate replacement for a real MBT.
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There are weapon systems where performance advantages result in utterly decisive combat advantages, and there are those that do not. For air combat for example, a number of performance advantages enables dozen to one kill ratios easily, as advantages of speed, sensors and other characteristics enables the superior force to control the engagement.

In tank on tank warfare, the superior tank does enable very favorable exchange ratios and tactical freedom. However in combined arms conflict where tank on tank combat is rare, the wholistic system performance is more important. Everything from electronics warfare, artillery superiority, infantry performance, land-air cooperation, down to combat engineering all impact outcome more than tank performance. The fact that entire formations and forces can fight without one piece of heavy armor successfully against armor shows that this equipment is only a small part of the puzzle.

Arguments over tank performance is IMO not different from discussions on rifle design. Sure a better rifle is nice, but the difference isn't enough to win a war as rifle fire isn't the main tactical enabler. Could Imperial Japan win the war if they replace crappy 6.5mm bolt action rifles with 5.56mm assault rifles? Could Imperial Japan win the war if they had Tiger tanks or even Leopards?

The European threat is also rapidly neutralizing itself, and in any case is in a different time line than this program.

As for longer time lines, land warfare would be unrecognizable when swarms of autonomous robots fill the battlespace and even if the tank survives, it would likely require completely different design concepts to be efficient.
 
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