NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: I picked Close-In Combat Vehicle as the name instead of Urban Combat Vehicle or Urban Armoured Vehicle because the acronyms could easily be confused with existing vehicles. This vehicle is going to be designed with urban combat in mind.

Since I'm relatively inexperienced with designing army combat vehicles and the vehicle I'm trying to design seems to be bedeviling even the U.S. Army, I'm very interested in getting feedback and perhaps working with someone to improve this before I officially go live with this.]

Background: With the defeat of the Incorporated Sarzonian Army in Inkana fresh in the minds of designers, the Incorporated Ordnance Company has been hard at work developing and conceptualising an urban combat vehicle to allow for the protection of infantry in the close confines of urban areas. The use of Rocket Propelled Grenades and roadside bombs against armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and lightly armoured vehicles designed to convoy personnel led to IOC's attempts to design vehicles that would serve both as effective combat vehicles for use in an urban environment and as troop transports to provide greater protection against RPGs and roadside bombs. The result is the Z-39 'Pit Bull' Close-In Combat Vehicle (CICV).

Armament: To facilitate its anti-personnel capabilities and to give the Pit Bull a main weapon that combined killing power within a light framework, the CICV has been armed with a 70 mm smoothbore main gun capable of firing both standard shells and HEAT rounds. The smoothbore chambre has been designed to allow the weapon of choice to be launched at an accelerated rate due to its 58 calibre gun. Secondary armament includes one 30 mm autocannon and a FU BRG-15 machine gun which sits atop the turret to provide anti-personnel fire.

Protection: Protecting the vehicle, in both its pure combatant variant and in its armoured transport variant, was a high priority of the IOC. Toward that end, the outermost layer of armour for the Pit Bull is a slat system similar to the bar armour currently in use on the Stills-class fast littoral combat vessel. The second layer is of non-explosive reactive armour (NxRA) that helps to neutralise the effect of HEAT rounds. The third layer, of a Chobaham armour scheme, provides general protection against weaponry, and the vehicle is built on a titanium honeycomb frame. A fourth layer of ballistic ceramics provides limited protection against kinetic weapons. The combination provides a RHA protection of 650 mm front; 460 mm top; 515 mm side; and 445 mm rear. The Pit Bull can be painted with a coat of radar absorbant paint to impair detection. The front of the CICV is sloped to deflect incoming rounds fired from the ground.

Sensors: The Pit Bull makes use of advanced electronics such as a millimetric radar system and a LADAR/LIDAR system tied into a new Panorama electronics suite, a modernised Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV) with third generation thermal imager; commander's display for digital colour terrain maps; third generation GEN III TIS thermal imaging gunner’s sight with increased range; driver's integrated display and thermal management system including an eyesafe laser rangefinder, north-finding module and precision lightweight global positioning receiver which provide targeting solutions for the Far Target Locate (FTL) function. FTL gives accurate targeting data to a range of 9,500 metres with a CEP (Circular Error of Probability) of less than 20 metres. The system allows a complete view of the surrounding area and assesses targets and prioritises based on potential threat.

Propulsion A lighter-duty version of the Windham and Green Secretariat turbo diesel-electric hybrid engine known as the Alydar powers the CICV at 1,200 hp, allowing the Jaguar to travel at speeds of up to 70 km per hour on the road and 45 km/hr. cross country. The engine is designed to allow the Pit Bull to have an effective range of 550 km.

Specifications
Length (combat variant): 6.7 m (hull); 9.2 m (including gun)
Personnel Carrier variant): 8.0 m (hull); 9.5 m (including gun)
Width: 3.6 m
Height: 2.2 m
Ground Clearance: 0.6 m
Weight: 41,000 kg
Crew: Two (Driver and Gunner) for combat variant; 2 + 6 for personnel carrier variant.
Main armament: 1 x 70 mm/58 cal. smoothbore gun
Ammunition Storage: 40 rounds
Secondary Armament: 1 x 30 mm autocannon; 1 x FU BRG-15 machine gun; 2 x DREAD tank CIWS.
Ammunition Storage: 700 15 mm rounds; 550 30 mm rounds
Engine: 1 x Windham & Green Alydar turbo diesel-electric hybrid engine
Theoretical Speed: 70 km/hr. (road); 45 km/hr. (cross-country)
Operational Range: 550 km
Price: $4.5 million
Purchase Limit: 500 per customer per order.

[OOC: I've done some revisions to the original design based on feedback. I didn't add a tank roof to it because in an urban environment, it could cause problems with travelling under bridges and the like.]

[OOC EDIT: Oops, sorry, Sarz, didn't read the OOC at the beginning closely enough. Disregard the following until you go live with this.]

The Democratic Imperium of Halberdgardia is most impressed with this CICV, and wishes that the order cap of 500 was lifted so that we could adopt this vehicle as the main APC/UCV of our mechanized forces. However, the cap does exist, and so we will instead order 500 of these vehicles, 250 of the personnel-carrier variant, and 250 of the combat variant. The price comes out to $750,000,000. Payment will be wired upon confirmation. We would also like to inquire as to the possibility of acquiring production rights of this vehicle.

Very good :) Impressive. It all looks good. What I would think for an UCV would be that it would be fast, have strong armor, and not have potent weakness area that is big enough for the enemy to take advantage of yet have firepower. You accomplished that basically. Good job.

OOC:Looks a lot like a tankita (A concept I've been thinking about building, darn you for getting there first!) but mine is going to have a bigger gun and not be optimized for urban combat. I think its wonderful, you might want to de rifle your gun though because in urban combat sittuations, even for HEAT rounds you'll be close enough not to need it and sabots (Espescially the fearsome APFSDS) wear terribly on rifled barrels which could adversly affect combat life. Just a thought

OOC: Well, I've gotten another comment on the Pit Bull from Soviet Bloc that said the same thing about having a smoothbore versus a rifled gun, so it looks like I'll change that. I might consider a couple of other minor changes to the vehicle, but it looks pretty close to being ready to go live with it.

OOC: Looks good, but maybe a 75mm or a 90mm gun instead of a 70mm, 70mm just seems odd, maybe it's just me...

(It's probably me and the fact that the 75mm and the 90mm were both standard US tank rounds...)

OOC: Well, if I increase the calibre at all, it would only go up to about 75 mm. It won't be a drastic increase. I wanted a smaller gun that can still be lethal in the role I'm intending for it to fill. Unless it turns out that no other army in the world uses 70 mm, I'm not going to base my army on the U.S. Army just because it's the U.S. The U.S. Army couldn't last one week in NS warfare.

I will take 500 of them.

OOC: Well, if I increase the calibre at all, it would only go up to about 75 mm. It won't be a drastic increase. I wanted a smaller gun that can still be lethal in the role I'm intending for it to fill. Unless it turns out that no other army in the world uses 70 mm, I'm not going to base my army on the U.S. Army just because it's the U.S. The U.S. Army couldn't last one week in NS warfare.

So true, so true :)

Overall, this is a nice vehicle. I do have a few suggestions though:

1) Dont bother actually issuing your tanks with sabot rounds for a 70mm gun. There's no point. Anything that can be killed by a 70mm sabot round can also be killed by a HEAT round or the 30mm autocannon, but the HEAT round / autocannon can do other stuff as well.

2) Get rid of the ERA. This is a "Close in Combat Vehicle" and ERA will shred nearby infantry. Replace it with NxRA or MEXAS.

3) As far as Im aware, DREAD has a number of problems which the designer (who, incidentely, is trying to sell it) has failed to answer, and there hasnt be any public demonstration of the technology as yet. Some people accept it I suppose... so whatever.

4) You have very heavy top armour... heavier than the side in fact, but considering the overall light-ish armour for the weight it's ok. Add a tank roof.

*bump*

Revisions to come.

Sarzonia:

Here's a link that I think you might find interesting for your vehicle. Its called the TROPHY active protection system. You could use this or develop your own system based on the TROPHY:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TROPHY_Active_Protection_System

OOC:Too bad you didn't have a few of these in Georgestown and Waterston :)

Nice work. And did you get the idea for a 70mm gun on this from my IFV in Inkana? Just curious, plus I know you like to put back stories in all your designs.

Prae, the thing about the DREAD CIWS is that is just flings a shitload of metal in an arc, making sure that the missile gets nailed. The thing people were complaining about with DREAD, if I remember correctly, was accuracy and velocity. You need niether for the roll it's being used in.

This is why me and SB use DREAD for our CIWS.

Oh, BTW, Sarz, I'll try and get a post up in Ink this week.

At any kind of range, accuracy matters, especially when you take into account the fairly limited ammo storage capacity you have with the vehicle loaded up with other weapons and passengers. And velocity, when attacking metal projectiles moving at speed, is important.

Thanks for the comments.

Doom, I wasn't consciously thinking of your IFV when I decided on the 70 mm calibre. It's possible that it played a role subconsciously, but I wasn't specifically thinking of that. I was thinking of trying to come up with a calibre that would be nasty to deal with but wasn't so enormous that it would make the vehicle impossible to move. And, Georgestown and Waterston were both playing heavily on my mind as I came up with the idea for this vehicle. That and the RL situation in Iraq.

As for the DREAD CIWS, I like to think of it as being a version of having redundant systems for computers or anything electronic. The aim is to make absolutely sure that a missile does not hit and firing massive quantities of shells is a way to ensure that missile doesn't hit.

1) Dont bother actually issuing your tanks with sabot rounds for a 70mm gun. There's no point. Anything that can be killed by a 70mm sabot round can also be killed by a HEAT round or the 30mm autocannon, but the HEAT round / autocannon can do other stuff as well.

More to the point:

FROM 200 TO 1,000 METERS ALONG THE LINE OF FIRE, ON A FRONTAGE OF ABOUT 400 METERS, DISMOUNTED INFANTRY MUST BE AWARE OF THE DANGER FROM DISCARDING SABOT PETALS, WHICH CAN KILL OR SERIOUSLY INJURE PERSONNEL.

[Yes, it's allcaps there too]

If you're taking off ERA because it can kill people, ditching the sabots is probably for the best.

Thanks for the suggestions again. :)

*several revisions made*