1967 US MICV mock up in Janes Weapons Systems

[uk 75]

I wonder if anyone with a first or second edition copy of Janes Weapons Systems (1969 or 70) could help
me track down an image showing a Marder like mock up of a US MICV design for the 1967 MICV competition.
I photocopied it some years back from a Library copy (now no longer available) and wanted to post it here.

JWS showed a number of otherwise unpublished MICV designs as did the Austrian reference book by
Friedrich Wiener ARMEEN DER NATO STAATEN in the 70s. Again, I had a photocopy but cannot find it.

 

[Pioneer]

Sounds interesting!
Good luck with your endeavour!

Regards
Pioneer

 

[John21]

I'll see what I can do. I've got the first edition of Janes Weapon Systems and I'll see if I can get a pic of it for you.

Edit: Just checked my 1969-1970 edition and I could not find an image of the MICV you mentioned. Do you by chance have a copy of Hunnicutts Bradley? It may be in there. I've got a copy and could check for you.

 

[BB1984]

This one? It's the MICV-65 program's XM701 vehicle. It was based on the chassis for the M107/M110 self propelled guns.

There's a little about the program and another picture on wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MICV-65

 

[uk 75]

Thanks all.
I have Hunnicutt and cannot find the mock up there. I was pretty sure that it came from Jane's and was referee to as 1967 micv.
It was not the Xm 701.

 

[Rickshaw]

How about the XM734?

Or it's successors:

Problem is, apart from the XM701, you really only have, in physical form, the XM734. The XM734 suffered from amphibious stability problems (most weight forward) and mobility problems. The XM701 suffered from being too much based on the M113. Revolutionary versus evolutionary development.

 

[Pioneer]

Possibly already common knowledge, but the MICV-65 apparently exceeded the dimensions (width I think it was) of the USAF's premier transporter - The C-141A, which negated its strategic mobility/lift......

 

[uk 75]

Sorry, no, the thing I remember was a wooden mockup with a
Cannon mount like the German Madder and a crude Bradley style body

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

So not the XM723 mockup then?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Or the MICV TBAT-II mockup?

Both pics from Bradley by Hunnicutt.

 

[uk 75]

Paul

The wooden, emphasise wooden, mockup was very crude and had a hull
which was a cross between the XM723 and a German HS30, with the
gun mounting of an early Marder and was said to date from 1967.

I thought I had put my photocopy in Hunnicut but cannot find it. As
I say it came from either Janes Weapons Systems (pre 1974) or
Wiener Streitkraefte der NATO Staaten, though this was only a
very small version.

I will keep looking, it must be somewhere..

 

[skylancer-3441]

Something like this?

btw, using GoogleBooks version of Jane's Weapons Systems 1972, which is unfortuntelly available only in "snippet view" mode (like all the other Jane's books and magazines) so most of the pictures (all of them in this particular case) are removed, i was able to get text of their article on XM-723

==280==
5055.102
XM 723 MECHANISED INFANTRY COMBAT VEHICLE (MICV)
Description:
Based on the experience of Vietnam, the US Army issued in 1967 a specification for an armoured personnel carrier to succeed M113. The specification called for a vehicle capable of being used for a mounted attack by mechanised infantry, and with a very refined environmental control capsule to protect the crew from chemical, biological and radiological hazards as well as providing good protection against conventional gunfire. Learning from the experience with MBT 70, a very rigorous costing exercise was done on this specification before it was committed to development. As a result, the 1967 specification was withdrawn and a new 'austere' MICV defined.
The US Army's specifications call for a vehicle weighing from 35,000 to 38,000 pounds and having a forward speed of 40 to 45 mph and a reverse speed of 5 to 10 mph. Its cruising range will be 300 to 350 miles. With the addition of a special kit, the vehicle
• The experimental version of MICV put forward in 1965 by the Pacific Car and Foundry Co to test their proposals and to assist with defining the US Army specification (US Army photograph)
==281==
will have a water speed of 6 mph at the minimum. The vehicle will have a ground clearance of 18 to 22 inches and will be able to clear dikes and other vertical obstacles up to 36 inches in height.
Primary armament will be a single-barrel automatic gun weighing approximately 68 kg and having a variable rate of fire up to 550 rounds/min with selectable (dual feed) ammunition. It has been named the Bushmaster. The vehicle will have a twelve man crew and will be air transportable.
Official Requests for Proposals for the system have been expected to be issued for some time and are currently said to be due for issue during 1972. This will be followed by the issue of a cost-plus-incentive fee contract for engineering development, with the contractor being required to fabricate and deliver three prototype vehicles for design testing.
Requests for proposals for the Bushmaster gun were issued in December 1971 and bids were received from four firms. Three of these firms — AAI Corporation, General Electric Company and Philco Ford Corporation — have been awarded contracts for work on the validation phase.
• The XM 765 experimental vehicle based on the M113 APC, but carrying a 20 mm Hispano Suiza cannon, put forward by tht FMC Corporation as a contender for the 'austere' MICV requirement
• Official US Army picture of proposed MICV design

 

[skylancer-3441]

or may be something like this?

 

[skylancer-3441]

btw, Hunnicutt's book has (on page 274) a drawing and a diagram of some early XM-701 - with different frontal part which lacks built-in flotation device -
well - there is another drawing of the same vehicle

 

[Pioneer]

or may be something like this?

What a nice looking design - especially the Glacis plate design and angle, when compared to the odd flat-nosed arrangement of the MICV-65/XM701 vehicle's design!!

Hopefully we'll find more on this design!!

Regards
Pioneer

 

[skylancer-3441]

another depiction of MICV, which somewhat reminds me of last pic in this post on previous page,
and which was accompanied by this text:

Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) (Figure 4)
We are preparing to enter engineering development of a successor to the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. It is called the MICV - for Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.
It is a new type vehicle to the US Army, and results from the Infantry's decision in 1963 to change Its doctrine to allow comnanders the option to fight from within their personnel carriers.
Studies showed that upgrading or product improving the M113 could not provide a key essential, sufficient mobility, to allow the carrier to accompany the future Main Battle Tank across country. The technique to achieve this will probably be a tube over bar suspension system that permits greater torsion and greater wheel travel than conventional systems. It is a proven component.
We have received authority (and we believe the necessary funds in the FY73 appropriation) to begin building the first prototype vehicles early next calendar year. A special board evaluated bids from the three potential contractors: FMC, Chrysler, and Pacific Car and Foundry. The contract was awarded to FMC. A single contractor was selected rather than several competitive contractors since the components to be used on MICV, with the exception of the gun, are already proven components.
The gun is to be the BUSHMASTER - a new stabilized automatic weapon now undergoing a competitive development effort by several contractors. It will be in the caliber range of 20-30mm and considerably more effective and store armor penetrating than current guns.
The shock and vibration problems of the MICV are similar to the Main Battle Tank and there will be unique problems associated with the 20-30mm automatic weapons. Combat vehicles In general have been described by some as having a built-in self-destruct capability. This is a very apt description. Wherever a threaded fastener is used on these vehicles - be they on wheeled or to a certain extent tracked vehicles - there is an almost certainty that over a period of time they will work loose. This problem can be attacked in two ways. One is to design the springs and tires so that the vibration body is damped and the energy absorbed at these points. The other is to use self-locking threaded fasteners, or those with fine threads, which are expensive solutions and which complicates the maintenance function. The XM746, Heavy Equipment Transporter is a good example. Much design effort and testing has been devoted to improving the springs, tires and shock absorbers to dampen the vibration and absorb road shock energy. Fasteners have been working loose in the axle cover plates, axle carriers, wheel lugs, door striker - you name it - and there has been a problem. On our M60 series tanks there has been trouble with both welded and bolted brackets and locks for the driver hatch. A great deal of assistance is still needed in these areas for the design of future vehicles and the improvement of current ones.

btw, Infantry 1971-Jan-Feb has Ogorkiewicz's article on ICVs - which is illustrated with another drawing of MICV

/damn. accidentally uploaded same image twice and did not noticed that untill ~15 hours later/

 

[uk 75]

Skylancer
Thank you for the drawings and text.
One of them is like the one in Jane's. I wish someone with a copy would post here

 

[skylancer-3441]

I've tried to ask some Ebay sellers about photo of those pages from their JWS editions,

and so far it turned out that 1973-74 edition has 3 pictures of MICV which I've already seen
and that if 1969-70 edition actually has an article on MICV, illustrated with pictures, - it's NOT on page 280 or on some pages around it.

(it seems to me that in order to bother seller as little as possible, it's better to ask about photo of particular page, instead of asking them to spend some time searching something they are not interested in, in books which is some 500-700 pages long. Unfortunatelly it's rather hard to find on the internet that page number in 1969-70 edition, given that it's not available on GoogleBooks even in snippet view mode,
and given that i have no idea whether this edition has an proper index of some sort, like later editions of JWS, or - even if it has - where this index is located inside the book /in order to ask seller to find page on MICV in that index, and then make a photo/)


>>and so far it turned out that 1973-74 edition has 3 pictures of MICV which I've already seen
I've posted earlier 1 of those - from Shock and vibration bulletin Vol. 43 p.1 (1973-06) in my previous message,
and another one is a photo of early XM-723 wooden mockup, presumably full-scale - which was a mockup of not-yet-simplified version of XM-723 (with what looks like large sight on top of the turret, which was replaced later with some smaller and simpler sight, apparently in order to reduce cost) - which was also published in Army 1973-10 - attached to this post, and also available
there https://books.google.ru/books?id=AUREAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA130
there https://books.google.ru/books?id=rQAsvTQQMu0C&pg=PA130
and there https://books.google.ru/books?id=VLVyFLeuO1EC&pg=PT456
and last one was widely available b/w photo of XM-701 - for example https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.d0001604859;view=1up;seq=274

BTW, on Ebay I've stumbled across another photo of XM-701

 

[uk 75]

Thank you all for helping try and pin down these images.
What is clear from them is that the accounts in all the published sources, notably Hunnicut, are woefully incomplete and there were some very interesting designs being looked at by the US Army.

 

[Rickshaw]

You might want to consider that what you are assuming was a working vehicle was actually a wooden mockup with the actual vehicle which was developed looking rather different to it...

 

[skylancer-3441]

What is clear from them is that the accounts in all the published sources, notably Hunnicut, are woefully incomplete and there were some very interesting designs being looked at by the US Army.

It seems to me that there are books out there, which probably were not seen by any military vehicles enthusiast, or by anyone else, for years - like this one for example http://library.mit.edu/item/000195603 (and the only reason i've heard about it - is because now-almost-20-years-old "Bradley and How it got that way" mentioned it)


...and another one on that topic - Bruce R. Pirme, From Half-Track to Bradley: Evolution Of the Infantry Fighting Vehicle, CMH, 1987.

 

[Rickshaw]

What is clear from them is that the accounts in all the published sources, notably Hunnicut, are woefully incomplete and there were some very interesting designs being looked at by the US Army.

It seems to me that there are books out there, which probably were not seen by any military vehicles enthusiast, or by anyone else, for years - like this one for example http://library.mit.edu/item/000195603 (and the only reason i've heard about it - is because now-almost-20-years-old "Bradley and How it got that way" mentioned it)

Not surprising that it really hasn't been seen - it's a university thesis. Few if any of them are worth reading and fewer are worth publishing...

 

[uk 75]

I think this is a most fascinating what-if period.
If the US had not been involved in Vietnam and had had more money and resources to devote to its forces in West Germany. Although only paper and wood, some of the deigns shown in these publications are really exciting. The Spz Neu Marder might have had US competition a lot earlier!

 

[skylancer-3441]

One could find more than he has bargained for. Eventually some people even started to question whether Marder-alike/BMP-alike vehicle was actually suited for modern battlefield at all. For the first time - as early as 1968, with some proposals (entirely on paper) from then-called-ATAC (what is now TACOM) on much more protected vehicles like this one https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/us-afv-concepts-no-5/ and this one https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/19/us-afv-concepts-no-9-armored-combat-carrier/ (btw, it reminds me of soviet proposals from late 80s), and this one https://fromtheswedisharchives.word...s-afv-concepts-no-8-armored-infantry-carrier/
and there was also this one https://fromtheswedisharchives.word...-concepts-no-10-infantry-carrier-low-profile/ moderately protected but with very very low hull

>>For the first time - as early as 1968
at least I have not found anything about earlier US proposals on such vehicles, on the internet, so far. Btw, that Heavy IFV idea back than was unnoticed, and died, and reappeared again only later, after war of 1973, although this time it became more prominent and in 1977-1978 some people had to outright lie to US Senate in order to save IFV (Bradley) instead of starting development all over again (this time with HIFV).

 

[Rickshaw]

I note that none of the designs just posted allow the passengers to enbus/debus to the rear of the vehicle. This would make them exceedingly dangerous to the passengers if anybody was shooting at them.

 

[uk 75]

Thanks for the fascinating new material.
I suspect the influence on the US designs not having a drop down rear door was the German early infantry combat vehicle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%BCtzenpanzer_Lang_HS.30

which discouraged its infantry from dismounting by having them exit over the side. By 1971 it was being replaced by the Marder (Spz Neu) which did have a rear ramp.

Because of Vietnam USAREUR had to wait until the 80s to get such a vehicle. The West Germans of course also used M113s.

The British (who manufactured some of the HS30s) were completely unconvinced and used wheeled Saracens and then tracked FV432s in BAOR until Warriors arrive in the 80s.

 

[skylancer-3441]

btw, International Defence Review 1975-06 has a pic of antiaircraft vehicle based on MICV components

 

[skylancer-3441]

And and also there is a pic of another antiaircraft vehicle in IDR 1977-01

 

[skylancer-3441]

I wonder if anyone with a first or second edition copy of Janes Weapons Systems (1969 or 70) could help
me track down an image showing a Marder like mock up of a US MICV design

 

[uk 75]

Many thanks I think this is the mockup I had in mind

 

[skylancer-3441]

>>and so far it turned out that 1973-74 edition has 3 pictures of MICV which I've already seen
I've posted earlier 1 of those - from Shock and vibration bulletin Vol. 43 p.1 (1973-06) in my previous message,
and another one is a photo of early XM-723 wooden mockup, presumably full-scale - which was a mockup of not-yet-simplified version of XM-723 (with what looks like large sight on top of the turret, which was replaced later with some smaller and simpler sight, apparently in order to reduce cost) - which was also published in Army 1973-10

I have also found this 1973-74 edition of JWS in the same library as 1970-71 edition, and made photos of those pages

 

[Grey Havoc]

Some interesting information circa 1968 on caseless ammo based proposals for the associated VRFWS-S, or Vehicle Rapid-Fire Weapons System-Successor program, also known as the Successor Vehicle Rapid Fire Weapon System (as well as some of the lesser known background to the program). Originally begun as part of the MICV-65 program, VRFWS-S was carried through into the MICV-70 program, with the intention for it to equip both the cavalry version of the XM701 MICV and the XM800 ARSV.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/844887.pdf

Here is a taster or two:

Secondly, the staffing of the Qualitative Materiel Requirements
(QMR) for the Successor Vehicle Rapid Fire Weapon System (VRFWS-S) reached
a decision point within the Department of the Army, One of the requirements
cited was that the ammunition be of the caseless type. This matter
was considered by the Materiel Requirements Review Committee in September,
1966. This review led to the decision that there would be a dual approach
for the system - a conventional cased ammunition development and a
Parallel Exploratory Development Program to demonstrate the feasibility
of a caseless ammunition/weapon combination. Based upon this decision, a
plan for the exploratory development effort was submitted on 19 September,
1966, for a total of three million dollars over three years. The initial
increment of this program- $745,000 was released by the U.S. Army
Materiel Command to the field commands in October, 1966.

The Army Caseless Ammunition program is being conducted by a joint
U.S. Army Weapons Command- U.S. Army Munitions Command Project Team
composed of personnel at Rock Island Arsenal and Frankford Arsenal,
Management guidance and periodic review is furnished by a Joint Command
Review Board having membership from WECOM, MUCOM, and AMCRD-W.

The Joint Command Review Board developed a "Management Plan for
Caseless Ammunition and Weapons Exploratory Development Program for
Small Caliber (Rifle and MG), and Large Caliber (Vehicle Rapid Fire
Weapons System- Successor) (VRFWS-S)," dated October, 1967. The
Management Plan gives the objective of the program as . . . "To achieve
a state-of-the-art capability sufficient to prove the feasibility of
three types of caseless ammunition-weapons viz., a shoulder fired rifle,
a machine gun, and an automatic vehicle-mounted rapid fire weapon. This
will include the fabrication of sufficient weapon hardware and ammunition
for demonstration."

V. PROPOSED VEHICLE RAPID FIRE WEAPON SYSTEMS (VRFWS-S)
Brief descriptions of the weapons proposed by each company visited
and the operations of the various mechanisms are given in the following order.

AAI
GE
Aeronutronics
Hughes
IITRI
Rock Island
TRW

 

[uk 75]

Thanks to everyone who helped get me these images. They help reinforce my belief that a US Army spared the Vietnam War would have fielded an MICV by the end of the 60s similar to Germany's Marder.
Just as MBT70 would still probably have been canceled in this alt US, it is possible that the MICV would have been re-designed into M723/M2

 

[skylancer-3441]

...as it turns out, another photo
of MICV mockup w/ gun pod turret known previously from 1973 Army Logistician,
was published in Automotive Industries magazine vol.143 1970-Dec-01, along with photo of weapon station mockup, illustrating article on MICV.

unfortunately 4Mb pdf available on AI magazine's website gives only very blurry pictures, and Russian State Library does not have this particular issue. So I hope to find it elsewhere.

 

[riggerrob]

Or the MICV TBAT-II mockup?

Both pics from Bradley by Hunnicutt.

While the US Army never bought that variant of M113, thousands were built for the Belgian, Dutch, Phillipines,Turkish, UAE, etc. armies because they wanted a vehicle that was lighter and less expensive than Marder or Bradley.

 

[skylancer-3441]

or may be something like this?

Another photo of that mockup, from @Andrei_bt twitter (presumably from some .pdf from arena.usahec.org)

 

[Grey Havoc]

Regarding the MICV-65 and MICV-70 programs, a few related excerpts (including a couple of associated references) from a 1987 paper:

Not only did the October War give General DePuy a chance to focus on the Army's doctrinal concepts, but it also provided him with a tailor-made opportunity to link materiel development and acquisition to the concepts he espoused. In essence, the war provided issues and ideas against which to test on-going equipment acquisition programs. For example, the Israeli experience suggested that mechanized infantry had to participate directly in the tank battle by using onboard automatic weapons to suppress the enemy's ATGMs. One could measure how well different armored infantry carriers performed this task and then decide whether the improvement in capabilities between them was worth the attendant costs. The Israelis found that their World War II-vintage M3 half-tracks were unsuitable because they were too slow. They seemed satisfied with their wartime expedient, the newer, American-made M113 armored personnel carrier. To DePuy, the best vehicle was the controversial and expensive mechanized infantry combat vehicle (MICV), which, not coincidentally, was one of the Army's top procurement priorities for fiscal year 1973. Whichever vehicle was really best, DePuy saw this closing of the gap between materiel and tactics as a major TRADOC mission, and the October War provided him with a wealth of similar issues to bring to the task.

This TRADOC organization sprang from DePuy's perception that important DOD officials believed that the Army "[doesn't] know what we need and [has] no orderly process by which to develop our needs."3 Hence, the Army was in danger of losing DOD support for the most important new items in its budget, especially the "Big Five" items identified in the Army's fiscal year 1973 budget proposal as critical to Army modernization: a new main battle tank, a mechanized infantry combat vehicle (MICV), an advanced attack helicopter, a new troop-carrying assault helicopter, and a new short-range air defense missile system.4 DePuy believed that the Army could not convince DOD or Congress that these weapons were needed unless the Army could demonstrate clearly that they would improve the Army's overall combat capabilities. Therefore, detailed analyses within one or more scenarios were required. To be effective analytical tools, these analyses had to begin with a concept of capabilities and develop into a comparative analysis of different doctrinal and materiel solutions.

A good example of how this union of doctrinal and materiel developments defended the Army's budget requests was communicated in General DePuy's April 1975 letter to General Weyand on the MICV, which had been in the development process since 1964.6 The Army awarded the Food Machinery Corporation of San Jose, California, a 29.2-million-dollar development contract in the fall of 1972, but production delays; deficiencies in the suspensions and transmissions of early MICV prototypes; and doubts about the vehicle's main armament, a 25-mm automatic cannon called Bushmaster, caused considerable criticism of the vehicle within DOD. In December 1974, TRADOC completed a COEA that satisfied DOD concerns about the Bushmaster, but doubts about the vehicle still lingered.7

These doubts bothered General DePuy because they indicated that "we have failed to break through a strong prejudice against MICV which doesn't seem to be susceptible to our tactical, technical or cost arguments." One argument was that the MICV was essential so the Army could adopt an armor doctrine that was similar to German doctrine and appropriate to a mechanized battlefield characterized by highly lethal modern weapons and numerical superiority of the enemy. On such a battlefield, the Army would require its infantry "to support tank-led .combat teams by: long-range suppression of enemy anti-tank weapons, or suppression of the same enemy capability while the MICV is moving cross-country with tanks ... , or delivery of a high volume of close-in overwatching suppressive fire in support of dismounting infantry ... , and [be able to] defeat the [Soviet] BMP beyond the range of [its] 73mm gun, and be able to fire an ATGM from the deck,and protect against automatic weapons fire." The Army's current armored personnel carrier, the MU3, DePuy asserted, could not do these things. The MICV would cost less than what the Germans paid for their Marder or what the Soviets paid for their BMP. "Therefore, we must win this one[because it was] one of those issues that goes to the heart of the Army's capability .... We must miss no occasion to impress upon Secretary [James]Schlesinger the direct connection between the MICV and the tactics we must adopt to fight alongside our German allies .... As you can see, I don't want to see the Army lose this one."8

General DePuy did not see the Army "lose that one," partly because by moving responsibility for FM 100-5 from Fort Leavenworth to his own headquarters at Fort Monroe, he linked the Army's development of doctrine directly to its development and analysis of weapons systems. To DePuy, such linkage was important, even critical, in bureaucratic disputes over the budget. "TRADOC ... is now changing our doctrine. .. [which is] the central issue behind the MICV," wrote General DePuy in his April letter to Weyand. If TRADOC's COEAs were the Army's most important proofs of its budget requirements and if those analyses were based on a TRADOC concept of how to fight, then that concept had to be Army doctrine, not just in TRADOC war games theaters and in the minds of TRADOC analysts but as published in manuals, taught in the schools, and used in the field. Otherwise, the whole purpose of rationalizing combat developments,training, and doctrine under a single headquarters would be lost. Because TRADOC supported Army weapons acquisitions with highly specific and technically detailed weapons systems analyses based on a concept of howto fight, General DePuy could not tolerate a nontechnical, philosophical approach to doctrine such as Major General Cushman's. Nor could DePuy afford to have the concepts that supported his analyses fail to become the published and accepted doctrine of the entire United States Army. The necessity to defend the budget drove General DePuy to codify as Army doctrine the concepts that underlay TRADOC's analyses.

First, the 1976 doctrine was a direct result of the Army's desire to compete more effectively within the Department of Defense for money. General DePuy did not set out in 1973 to seek truth about warfare but to help the Army better preserve its investment in new weapons. Similarly, TRADOC's collaboration with the Tactical Air Command reflected a concern by the Army and Air Force that they had to cooperate on the budget in order to cooperate on the battlefield. If cooperation was desirable, it also had its limits, as TAC's reluctance to endorse "Air-Land Battle" indicates.

Second, General DePuy discovered early that doctrine, rather than just concepts, was an important persuasive tool in the weapons acquisition process. ("If we teach it and we believe it, then we better buy the weapons that make it work.") The Army could make a case for the MICV, for example, if it spoke authoritatively about "how the Army fights" and could show that the MICV was essential to that concept. Speaking authoritatively about how the Army fights was the problem. General DePuy could not ground the Army's case for new weapons in a concept of "how to fight" that was not shared by the Army's field commanders, nor could he train officers and noncommissioned officers in the schools according to ideas that they would never see again in the field. If TRADOC were to perform what DePuy saw as its two most important missions, the TRADOC concepts would have to be U.S. Army doctrine. This meant that the concepts would have to enjoy consensus and appear in manuals approved by Department of the Army.

7. The Army's development of the MICV can be traced by reading Jerry Max Bunyard and Jerome B. Hilmes, "MICV-UTTAS," Army 23 (July 1973):21-24; "Infantry News," Infantry 63 (January-February 1973):2-3, 62-63; Emanuel Karbeling, "MICV Update," Infantry 64 (March-April 1974):7-9; and Jeff F. Cherry, "Mounted Combat," Infantry 65 (September-October 1975):12-15. DOD's skepticism about this program is evident in U.S. Department of the Army, Center of Military History, Historical Summary, for fiscal years 1971 through 1975. For example, on page 117, the 1975 summary states that cost overruns and mechanical failures "posed a threat to the future of the program."


11. Major General Orwin C. Talbott, "The Role of Mechanized Infantry," Armor 82 (March-April 1973):9-12. This article was a none-too-subtle message to the armor community that the infantry "forms the nucleus of the Army's fighting strength around which the other arms and services are grouped" and should continue to do so. It was also a plea for the MICV. Indeed, one suspects that the force-oriented defense may have been prompted as much by these parochial concerns as by an objective assessment of how to defend Europe. These thoughts were so prominent in Talbott's article. Also, see Doughty, Tactical Doctrine, 42-43

 

[skylancer-3441]

Something like this?

btw, using GoogleBooks version of Jane's Weapons Systems 1972, which is unfortuntelly available only in "snippet view" mode (like all the other Jane's books and magazines) so most of the pictures (all of them in this particular case) are removed, i was able to get text of their article on XM-723

another depiction of MICV, which somewhat reminds me of last pic in this post on previous page,
and which was accompanied by this text:

Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) (Figure 4)
We are preparing to enter engineering development of a successor to the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. It is called the MICV - for Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.
It is a new type vehicle to the US Army, and results from the Infantry's decision in 1963 to change Its doctrine to allow comnanders the option to fight from within their personnel carriers.
Studies showed that upgrading or product improving the M113 could not provide a key essential, sufficient mobility, to allow the carrier to accompany the future Main Battle Tank across country. The technique to achieve this will probably be a tube over bar suspension system that permits greater torsion and greater wheel travel than conventional systems. It is a proven component.
We have received authority (and we believe the necessary funds in the FY73 appropriation) to begin building the first prototype vehicles early next calendar year. A special board evaluated bids from the three potential contractors: FMC, Chrysler, and Pacific Car and Foundry. The contract was awarded to FMC. A single contractor was selected rather than several competitive contractors since the components to be used on MICV, with the exception of the gun, are already proven components.
The gun is to be the BUSHMASTER - a new stabilized automatic weapon now undergoing a competitive development effort by several contractors. It will be in the caliber range of 20-30mm and considerably more effective and store armor penetrating than current guns.
The shock and vibration problems of the MICV are similar to the Main Battle Tank and there will be unique problems associated with the 20-30mm automatic weapons. Combat vehicles In general have been described by some as having a built-in self-destruct capability. This is a very apt description. Wherever a threaded fastener is used on these vehicles - be they on wheeled or to a certain extent tracked vehicles - there is an almost certainty that over a period of time they will work loose. This problem can be attacked in two ways. One is to design the springs and tires so that the vibration body is damped and the energy absorbed at these points. The other is to use self-locking threaded fasteners, or those with fine threads, which are expensive solutions and which complicates the maintenance function. The XM746, Heavy Equipment Transporter is a good example. Much design effort and testing has been devoted to improving the springs, tires and shock absorbers to dampen the vibration and absorb road shock energy. Fasteners have been working loose in the axle cover plates, axle carriers, wheel lugs, door striker - you name it - and there has been a problem. On our M60 series tanks there has been trouble with both welded and bolted brackets and locks for the driver hatch. A great deal of assistance is still needed in these areas for the design of future vehicles and the improvement of current ones.

Photo and drawing of scalemodel with similar engine deck as in these two my earlier posts,
pesumably the same location of engine -
from @Andrei_bt Telegram channel. Sometime between mid 60s and 1970.

 

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Skylancer and others. This thread must now be one of the most comprehensive sources on alternate US MICV designs.