Ground Combat Vehicles

Planning Ahead.

A Bradley Fighting Vehicle moves into position during training at Fort Irwin, Calif., August 6, 2018. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Justin May).

The U.S. military is changing the way it will fight in the next 30 years. The rise of China as a global competitor and Russia’s increasing belligerence in the regions around the Baltic and Black seas, have U.S. military planners – especially in the Army — rethinking their procurement needs, including what kind of armored ground combat vehicles will be needed.

“Russia and China continue to assert themselves in an effort to gain dominance in key regions and are developing advanced weapons to achieve parity both strategically and in close combat,” Army Secretary Mark Esper told a Senate appropriations panel in May. The potential threat was on full display in mid-September when Russia conducted its largest military exercise since the Cold War in Eastern Siberia.  The week-long Vostok 2018 maneuvers, involved not only 300,000 Russian personnel, but 3,200 Chinese troops and 36,000 tanks and other armored ground vehicles.

But prototypes of the Army’s future ground combat vehicles are not expected to be delivered for another two or three years. So U.S. military leaders are looking for interim defensive systems that can protect tank and armored vehicle crews from advanced armor-piercing shells and missiles. The usual solution–adding more armor– isn’t feasible with 70-ton M1A Abrams tanks already too heavy for Eastern European bridges to accommodate.

The added weight of heavier armor–sometimes several tons–can slow the vehicle down, make it less maneuverable and complicates logistics from transportation to maintenance to repair. Instead, the Defense Department is looking at lightweight, off-the-shelf solutions utilizing active or passive technology. Active protection systems, or APS, use physical countermeasures, such as blast or projectiles that destroy or limit the impact of incoming fire.

In February, officials announced the Army would buy the Trophy active protection system — made by Israel’s Rafael — for more than 250 of the Abrams main battle tanks. Currently deployed with the Israeli Defense Force, Trophy is the only battle-tested APS in the Western world, although Russia has had success with its own APS in Ukraine. Trophy maintains a ring of radar around the vehicle to detect threats in all directions. Once the system detects an incoming weapon, Trophy tracks it, determines its trajectory and destroys it with a blast of metal pellets like a shotgun.

(Marines operate an assault amphibious vehicle during a simulated mechanized raid at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., on August 28, 2018. The shaped steel Enhanced Applique Armor Kit is visible on the AAV’s flank. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Private First Class Brendan Mullin).

There are also “passive” solutions of specialized armor plating that use composite materials to simply deflect or absorbs blasts and projectiles, like the EAAK (Enhanced Applique Armor Kit), developed by Rafael and installed on the U.S. Marine Corps’ ageing Assault Amphibious Vehicles. Baseline protection was increased through a shaped-steel external armor fitting. However, that forced modifications to the engine and suspension system to counter the additional weight of the EAAK installation.

A survivability upgrade that would have replaced the EAKK armor with more advanced defensive and amphibious technology was cancelled by the Marine Corps in late September, according to USNI News.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a range of composite metal foams that are lighter and stronger than the materials they are made of. The composite material offers much more protection that all other existing armor materials while lowering the weight by as much as one-third, say researchers. (Photo by Afsaneh Rabiei)

One promising composite solution is metal foam, literally metal with sponge-like holes, that combines strength, thermal shielding and both ballistic and thermal radiation detection. Developed by researchers at North Carolina State University and the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate, composite metal foam, or CMF, “offers much more protection than all other existing armor materials while lowering the weight remarkably,” according to Afsaneh Rabiei, senior author of the paper outlining CMF’s benefits. “We can provide as much protection as existing steel armor at a fraction of the weight – or provide much more protection at the same weight,” added Rabiei, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at N.C. State.

Advanced armor materials will be among the topics discussed at IDGA’s Future Ground Combat Vehicles summit in Detroit, December 5-7. Click here for more information.