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2018-12-02
Land 400 IFVs to Revolutionise Australian Army
The year 2018 has seen Australian Defence take a coordinated and programmatic approach to the Army’s biggest project ever. The multi-billion-dollar project to replace Australian Army’s M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers has now taken another step forward in issuing a formal Request for Tender for LAND 400 Phase 3–Mounted Close Combat Capability.
LAND 400 has four discrete phases:
• LAND 400 Phase 1 – Project Definition Study (completed).
• LAND 400 Phase 2 – Mounted Combat Reconnaissance Capability, primarily enabled by the Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle (CRV) mission system (the ASLAV replacement). Rheinmetall has signed contracts with the Commonwealth to deliver Australia’s new Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle, the Boxer 8x8 CRV, for LAND 400 Phase 2 Mounted Combat Reconnaissance Capability.
• LAND 400 Phase 3 – Mounted Close Combat Capability, primarily enabled by the Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) (the M113 APC replacement) and MSV mission systems.
• LAND 400 Phase 4 – Integrated Training System.
When fully delivered, the LAND 400 programme will act as part of a joint force to enable the Army to sustain mounted close combat operations successfully against emerging and future threats.
The AUD10-15 billion Land 400 Phase 3 project has proven to be the biggest and most expensive acquisition project in Australian Army’s history. The programme will see the acquisition of up to 450 modern infantry fighting vehicles and 17 manoeuvre support vehicles.
Hence, three main industry manufacturers are bidding for Phase 3: BAE Systems’ CV90 MklV, Hanwha Defence Systems’ AS21 Redback and Rheinmetall’s KF41. In the following sections, Nation Shield will examine the three formidable offerings vying for the contract.
BAE’s CV90 MkIV
The new MkIV offers increased drive train capabilities and active damping technology to improve battlefield speeds and handling. Aside from its capability upgrades, the new vehicle also features the latest NATO standard Electronic Architecture to meet customer demand for sensor integration and the implementation of autonomous systems.
Engine Capability
The most recent generation of the CV90 vehicle, the CV90 IFV, has been developed by BAE Systems’ Swedish business BAE Systems Hägglunds to be modern, adaptable and combat-proven, with 1,280 vehicles now produced in 15 variants. Currently under delivery for the Norwegian Army, it is now being sold to seven nations, including four NATO allies and has proven to be one of the most modern IFVs in production. The CV90 MkIV includes a new Scania engine with up to 1,000 horsepower and an upgraded X300 heavy-duty transmission. The Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVW-R) has increased from 35 to 37 tonnes, enabling users to benefit from two tonnes of extra payload without a decrease in vehicle agility.
Key CV90 MkIV features:
D-series Turrets
The new CV90MkIV D-series turrets have a modular design offering 30/40-, 35/50 and 120 mm main guns alongside weapon pods for integrated Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and machine guns. The turrets are designed to support a more extensive sensor suite integration utilising BAE Systems’ revolutionary new iFighting concept and enabling the MkIV generation to be the first Western IFV with a qualified Active Protection System.
IFighting Concept
IFighting Concept
IFighting technology is designed to optimise vehicle and crew performance by harnessing data to enable faster decision-making in combat. The iFighting concept fuses together data from different systems within the vehicle to filter through and prioritise the most critical information. This allows the crew to make quicker and more effective decisions to improve overall performance on the battlefield.
"As we roll out new technology, we know that adding displays and panels to combat vehicles could potentially distract crews in an already-complex combat environment. The key was finding a way to help improve situational awareness and combat efficiency without adding to the crews’ cognitive workload, and we believe we have done that with iFighting," said Tommy Gustafsson-Rask, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems’ Hägglunds business, which designed and built the new CV90 MkIV. "iFighting is not a product or a system. It is the core of system integration for the future armoured vehicle,” Gustafsson-Rask added.
The CV90 MkIV will also have the fourth generation Electronic Architecture compatible with NATO-standard Generic Vehicle Architecture (NGVA), which allows crews to manage large amounts of live-stream data and is interoperable within the NATO Alliance. This step change will enable the introduction of autonomous crew support, machine-learning algorithms — including artificial intelligence capabilities — and augmented reality with the support of 3D map data to enable future adoption and growth.
Active Damping
These active vehicle dynamics give the end user a more stable platform to facilitate increased speed across all terrains. Included as part of the base offering for the chassis, active damping also reduces life support costs significantly.
NGVA Architecture
The fourth generation of NGVA Standard Electronic Architecture makes sensor data fusion more effective to give a sizeable increase to real-time parallel data processing. In supporting machine-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence capabilities, including autonomous crew support, this upgrade also enables Augmented Reality and 3D map data for future adoption and growth.
Combat-Proven Experience
The CV90 family offers exceptional performance in the 20-37 tonne carrier class, with its unique advantages developed to facilitate additional roles through a flexible build-up of the chassis and its assigned sub-systems. Moreover, the CV90 MkIV will be several tonnes lighter than contemporary Western IFVs while maintaining the same protection level (Stanag 4569), with an additional GVW-R of 37 tonnes promising to enhance growth potential further.
The CV90 is in use today in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Dan Lindell, CV90 Platform Manager at BAE Systems Hägglunds, refers to the clear vision they have for the CV90 design, creating a vehicle of high tactical and strategic mobility with superior firepower, high survivability and all-terrain or tactical environment protection: “We are committed to constantly evolving and thanks to continuous feedback and challenging requirements from our wide user group, CV90 is the most technologically advanced and proven IFV platform in operation today. This mindset, combined with a leading growth potential, uniquely positions CV90 in the global defence market.”
Lynx IFV Debut
Armed to the teeth with a 35mm Wotan cannon, a Main Sensor Slaved Armament/MSSA with 360° view, antitank guided missiles and counter strike with ADS and ROSY, Rheinmetall took the opportunity to present its new Lynx KF41 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) for the first time at Eurosatory 2018. A next-generation combat vehicle designed to confront the challenges of the future battlefield like no other, the international public in Paris encountered this highly survivable IFV, adaptable to diverse environments, extremely agile, hard hitting and with huge payload reserves.
The Lynx KF41 offers exact orientation of the weapon stations and superior field awareness, but can also detect specific threats instantaneously. Hence, it is more than just a highly advanced vehicle, but the ultimate future-proof platform blending unsurpassed protection with massive firepower and unbeatable mobility in a uniquely modular concept.
Adaptability and Affordability
The Lynx KF41 is a complete family of vehicles utilising a common drive module and a flexible mission kit arrangement to enable configuration of any base vehicle as an IFV, an armoured personnel carrier, a command vehicle, a recovery vehicle or an ambulance.
It only takes eight hours maximum to change the Lynx from one configuration to another, while the base vehicle commonality ensures significant total lifecycle cost savings because customers can adjust force structures or develop new capabilities in an affordable and timely manner.
The sub-systems of the Lynx KF41 are highly modular and adaptable to enhance the vehicle’s flexibility, while its digital backbone has a generic open architecture enabling easy integration of new mission system. The entire survivability system is modular and upgradable to allow the vehicle to cope with the highly adaptive threats faced on the battlefield.
The Lynx KF41 can adapt to diverse environments across the full spectrum of operational challenges, with a range of survivability kits available for peacekeeping situations, counter-insurgency operations in urban terrain and mounted combat against a peer.
Highly Mobile Configuration
The Lynx KF41’s 850 kW (1140hp) Liebherr engine and proven Renk transmission offers the latest generation of propulsion technology, while the flexible suspension system developed by Supashock, an Australian company, enables configuration of the Lynx to carry various mission kits and survivability packages without compromising mobility.
When configured for mounted combat operations with the Lance 2.0 turret and a survivability package for peer-on-peer combat, the Lynx KF41 weighs approximately 44 tonnes and provides class leading mobility thanks to its high power-to-weight ratio of 26 hp/t, with a remaining six tonnes of reserve payload available for future growth.
Optimal Lance Survivability
The Lynx’s modular survivability systems provide unprecedented flexibility for customers facing a wide variety of threats across the spectrum of conflict.
The ballistic and mine protection packages can be easily exchanged in the field to confront the full spectrum of threats, including roof protection against cluster munitions.
Hence, the Lance 2.0 has not only been designed for the passive and reactive systems like the Lynx KF41, it is also an active protection system to defeat rocket-propelled grenades and antitank guided missiles.
Hard-Hitting Next-Generation Turret
To improve its suitability for an IFV, the Lance 2.0 turret has various enhancements to provide a troop of Lynx KF41 vehicles with a very high level of organic capability and enable them to have a disproportionate effect on the battlefield. The new Lance turret also features enhanced protection for critical subsystems against kinetic and fragmentation threats, so improving system survivability during close combat.
The enhanced 2.0 turret then benefits from the integration of the new Wotan 35 electrically-driven cannon that fires Rheinmetall’s proven, in-service 35 x 228 mm ammunition family. Finally, two flexible mission pods fitted to the left and right of the Lance 2.0 turret allow installation of a variety of sub-systems to give the turret a specialist capability to integrate customer-selectable mission pods, such as dual Rafael Spike LR2 ATGMs, non-line-of-sight strike loitering munitions, UAVs or an electronic warfare package.
Hanwha’s AS21 Redback
South Korea’s Hanwha Defense Systems was established in 1937 to provide comprehensive defence solutions encompassing infantry fighting vehicles, air defence weapons, guided weapons, launching systems, high-precision navigation and laser weapons. In this sense, the AS21 Redback will be developed based on the K21 tracked armoured IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) currently in service for the South Korea army, with Hanwha building three vehicles for the Risk Mitigation Activity expected to start in 2020.
The K21 features an armour blending military grade aluminium, ceramic tiles and fibreglass intended to withstand armour-piercing rounds from the BMP-3’s 30-millimetre autocannon. What is more, the vehicle’s sides are capable of stopping rounds from 14.5-millimetre Russian heavy machine guns.
The K21’s Samsung Thales turret is uniquely characterised by advanced fire control electronics and gun stabilisation technologies thanks to a co-venture between Samsung and France’s Thales. Not only does the autocannon exceed Bradley’s rate of fire (200 versus 300 rounds per minute), but the auto loading configuration enables 24 ready rounds to be reloaded quickly from a carousel at the bottom of the vehicle capable of storing 600 total rounds.
The AS21 Redback will be an enhanced version of the standard K21, offering more protection against current ballistic and mine threats. Weighing 40 tonnes, the vehicle will have a larger internal volume enabling the accommodation of 8 dismount troops and a crew of three soldiers including driver, commander and gunner.
Much like the original K21 IFV, the AS21 Redback can be armed with one 40mm automatic cannon, one 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and one 12.7mm machine gun mounted on the top of the turret. It also includes a .50 cal remote weapon station, while the back side of the roof turret seems to be fitted with launchers for an anti-tank guided missile. The K21 fires armour-piercing rounds capable of punching through 220 millimetres of steel and so, in theory, giving the K21 enough firepower to engage lighter tanks.
According to Hanwha Defense Systems, the vehicle will be fitted with a new generation of APS (Active Protection System) designed to prevent line-of-sight guided anti-tank missiles/projectiles from acquiring and/or destroying a target. However, while it shares the K21 chassis, the new AS21 is not amphibious, entailing that Hanwha will either build a new turret for the REDBACK or select an existing turret for installation on the vehicle from companies such as Rheinmetall or Rafael.
Reference Text/Photo:
https://images.army.gov.au
www.baesystems.com
www.rheinmetall.com, www. hanwha.com
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