Latest British Army Supacat WMIK

[mutter nutter]

Latest British Army Supacat WMIK
Latest WMIK Supacat unveiled, looks like a great Wolf WMIK replacement

It looks more like a vehicle from one of Mel Gibson's Mad Max movies.



But this four-ton monster truck is the British Army's new weapon designed to take on insurgents on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan. British-made, the Supacat Weapons Mounted Installation Kit boasts awesome firepower which will be unleashed early next year. British and other Nato troops are being targeted by roadside bombs and daily firefights.


Infantry soldiers have complained existing Land Rovers provide insufficient protection from the bombers.
Now, the Ministry of Defence is buying 130 of the light-armoured beasts – which can reach a maximum 80mph – and will take delivery of the first early next year.
They will use a grenade machine gun which fires at up to 340 rounds per minute, usually in bursts of three to five rounds, at targets up to a mile away. The Supacats will also employ a 7.62mm-calibre General Purpose Machine Gun, which fires 750 rounds per minute with a range of nearly a mile


The vehicles, made at Honiton in Devon, will also have a mounted 0.5in-calibre heavy machine gun, which fires huge rounds more than a mile at a rate of 485 to 635 a minute. They are powered by a 5.9-litre turbo-diesel engine and will carry three or four crew.
One senior Army officer described the new super-truck as a "serious bit of kit", adding it would be a "huge boost to our long-range patrolling capability".
Senior defence sources say the Supacats will particularly come into their own against the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, which has no roads.
Defence Minister Lord Drayson said last night: "These vehicles are well armed, swift and agile and will boost our capability with some serious firepower. "The MoD and the Treasury have worked hard to get them to our troops in quick time, and they start going out to theatre early next year."

Link to article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1811

Attached Thumbnails



Nice

[spider pig]

That is one pimped out motor!

[mutter nutter]

[Aidan]

I'll take one!

What chassis are they based on? Interesting to see that they've the 5.9l Cummins motor again. That thing keeps turning up.

[turbocalves]

looks like a fork lift trucks love child...

[yellowjacket]

If roadside bombs are the principal threat, how is an open crew compartment a good thing?

[thebig C]

If roadside bombs are the principal threat, how is an open crew compartment a good thing?

My thoughts exactly...

[luchi]

If roadside bombs are the principal threat, how is an open crew compartment a good thing?

The idea, I assume, is much like vehicle hardning with sand bags.

If your principal threat is from mines then you need to protect from blasts from below. The weight of the vehicle is also increased to stop you from being lifted off the ground.

The open top and heavy weapons I can assume is for defence much like the old landrover bren carriers.

Together you have a moderatly agile, heavily armed mine proof defence platform. Exactly what someone needs when escourting a convoy through hostile ground

[Barry]

Together you have a moderatly agile, heavily armed mine proof defence platform. Exactly what someone needs when escourting a convoy through hostile ground

Not much use if a few daisy chained 155mm rounds are command detonated a few metres to the side, thus doing some rather nasty things to the exposed crew, though

[Aidan]

If that happens Barry, what would protect them? Apart from, maybe, an MBT.

[Barry]

True, not much will protect from something that large. But what about a nailbomb, or other device that produces a lot of shrapnel? A nice open vehicle means that the crew would be shredded.

[Aidan]

Most kinds of IED would kill or seriously injure all of the occupants of a vehicle like that - the key issue is the balance between mobility, observation, and protection.

Deciding on that balance comes down to roles - in the text its clearly mentioned that role of this thing is expected to be long range patrol - the type of role that has always, in recent years, been done by an open vehicle. Same reason why the ARW use the 350 over, say, Pandurs, Mowags or Duro. I've no expertise in the area, but I assume that those who do balance off the lack of protection against mobility, and the fact that the vehicle will generally not be using the same routes, and in the same relatively predicatable patterns, means they can get way with it.

For convoy protection/escort or recce in a more 'intensive' situation, then something like a PIII or Commando would be required obviously. But even then there is a balance between weight and protection. You have to draw the line somewhere.

[thebig C]

Most kinds of IED would kill or seriously injure all of the occupants of a vehicle like that - the key issue is the balance between mobility, observation, and protection.

Deciding on that balance comes down to roles - in the text its clearly mentioned that role of this thing is expected to be long range patrol - the type of role that has always, in recent years, been done by an open vehicle. Same reason why the ARW use the 350 over, say, Pandurs, Mowags or Duro. I've no expertise in the area, but I assume that those who do balance off the lack of protection against mobility, and the fact that the vehicle will generally not be using the same routes, and in the same relatively predicatable patterns, means they can get way with it.

For convoy protection/escort or recce in a more 'intensive' situation, then something like a PIII or Commando would be required obviously. But even then there is a balance between weight and protection. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Yes, this style of vehicle has traditionally been used for long-range patrols, usually in a desert or other very open environment. The question that occurs to me though, is what is the point of such patrols unless it is to find the enemy, and if and when you do, and they happen to see you too, you have no protection against even small arms fire.

Don't forget we're not talking about the LRDG in the Western Desert back in 1941. What can these patrols see that can't be seen from above - satellites, UAVs, JSTARS, whatever? If their aim is to locate the enemy by provoking fire, then again, the soldiers involved are very exposed - why? And one final point: there are vehicles that provide the same or better mobility than any of these open tops, but that also have armour.

[luchi]

For convoy protection/escort or recce in a more 'intensive' situation, then something like a PIII or Commando would be required obviously. But even then there is a balance between weight and protection. You have to draw the line somewhere.

That depends what you are protecting from.
I am assuming that they are currently being attacked by fairly light stuff. Bombs that may disable a truck but not destroy it. The sort of thing that might be used as a prelim to an ambush when you need to steal whats in the truck.
THis also assums that the insurgents in Iraq and Afgan have poor supply lines and would need to do such things.

At the end of the day no vehicle is ideal in every situation. And as you say deciding the balance comes down to roles.

[DeV]

I'll take one!

What chassis are they based on? Interesting to see that they've the 5.9l Cummins motor again. That thing keeps turning up.

Pinzgauer

http://www.pinzgauer.uk.com/