M10 Booker Combat Vehicle / Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF)

[Ainen]

The MGS turret was designed for an airborne application so it's hardly heavy. It would weigh less than the M10 did.

The only serious solution for IBCTs would be an M1 tank company since that's what the Army really wants anyway.

MGS has a rather elaborate system of reloading(feeding the ready rack). For that, you're changing AMPV hull as much as or more than was done for M10. At which point you may as well look at cutting unnecessary height...and here we are again.
With that, you're doing the same job, heavier, with lower ammo count of unsafely stored shells, and with still noticeable complication for battlefield observation.
It is anything but a simple good solution.

M1 is certainly nice, but state of the art combat-ready M1 takes full C-17 just by itself, and it will take all the proper armored div logistics tail to support. When we came here, you may as well deploy ABCT.
A lot of problems for more or less the same quality of fire support.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Plenty of available options for the US to choose from, at a wide range of risks and costs.

As a lot of the news about program cancellations are really just about stopping to rethink them, I'm sure the MPF program isn't completely dead and could even result in a more optimal solution.

Take for example this article:

Army to cancel planned Robotic Combat Vehicle award, pause howitzer competition: Sources - Breaking Defense

A day after the service unveiled a massive shake up, a two-star general’s email sheds light on additional ground combat vehicle cuts and plans to accelerate work on a Bradley replacement and future Abrams tank.

breakingdefense.com

They say in the headline that RCV and howitzer programs are being cancelled. What does the article actually say? That they're reopening the competition for RCV after a single vendor was downselected, and that they're pushing back decision on a howitzer competition to FY26.
Intentional Delay =/= Cancellation.

 

[Dragonlady]

Plenty of available options for the US to choose from, at a wide range of risks and costs.

As a lot of the news about program cancellations are really just about stopping to rethink them, I'm sure the MPF program isn't completely dead and could even result in a more optimal solution.

Take for example this article:

Army to cancel planned Robotic Combat Vehicle award, pause howitzer competition: Sources - Breaking Defense

A day after the service unveiled a massive shake up, a two-star general’s email sheds light on additional ground combat vehicle cuts and plans to accelerate work on a Bradley replacement and future Abrams tank.

breakingdefense.com

They say in the headline that RCV and howitzer programs are being cancelled. What does the article actually say? That they're reopening the competition for RCV after a single vendor was downselected, and that they're pushing back decision on a howitzer competition to FY26.
Intentional Delay =/= Cancellation.

Restructuring RCV is a blatant gift to Anduril & the other defense VC techbros. There’s nothing to suggest any fundamental flaws with Textron’s entry.

And delaying the howitzer competition (along with cutting AMPV to the bone, cancelling JLTV-A2, & divesting AH-64D without replacement) are pants on head retarded decisions.

Driscoll, Colby, Hegseth et al don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. This unholy combo of defense VC grift & “cult of the operator” worship is gonna get a lot of people killed when the Indo-Pacific goes hot.

 

[EmoBirb]

Restructuring RCV is a blatant gift to Anduril & the other defense VC techbros

Seems to be running theme with the new administration, clearly favoring tech bro businesses like Anduril or SpaceX.

 

[Josh_TN]

It is a pay to play administration.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It is anything but a simple good solution.

M10 wasn't canceled because it was a simple vehicle. It was canceled because it's overweight. AMPV had a hot production line and the Mobile Gun Systems are already being scrapped, but if you cut a big hole in the AMPV you could easily fit the MGS turret and have a vehicle that's 30mm protected at around 35 tons.

That said it seems the entire NGCV family is at risk at the moment to hit that 8% year-over-year budget cut target. XM30 will probably last until next March-April or whenever the admin decides to release their FY27 budget. I suspect the NGH is actually dead but maybe DA can spin deciding to not follow through with that next year to save XM30.

M1 is certainly nice, but state of the art combat-ready M1 takes full C-17 just by itself

So does the M10. Which is why it was canceled.

The mobility and logistics requirements of a 40 ton medium tank are essentially no different than a 55-ton main battle tank. What's an extra M978 when you already have tank transporters and Hercules recovery vehicles? The IBCTs would lose nothing and gain everything by simply having M1A1SAs organized into a separate tank company instead.

 

[Cjc]

M10 wasn't canceled because it was a simple vehicle. It was canceled because it's overweight. AMPV had a hot production line and the Mobile Gun Systems are already being scrapped, but if you cut a big hole in the AMPV you could easily fit the MGS turret and have a vehicle that's 30mm protected at around 35 tons.

That said it seems the entire NGCV family is at risk at the moment to hit that 8% year-over-year budget cut target. XM30 will probably last until next March-April or whenever the admin decides to release their FY27 budget. I suspect the NGH is actually dead but maybe DA can spin deciding to not follow through with that next year to save XM30.



So does the M10. Which is why it was canceled.

The mobility and logistics requirements of a 40 ton medium tank are essentially no different than a 55-ton main battle tank. What's an extra M978 when you already have tank transporters and Hercules recovery vehicles? The IBCTs would lose nothing and gain everything by simply having M1A1SAs organized into a separate tank company instead.

Well if we are going back to ww2 then it would be a tank battalion actually, unfortunately I think we would need to build a lot more tanks for that kind of organization.

 

[Ainen]

M10 wasn't canceled because it was a simple vehicle. It was canceled because it's overweight. AMPV had a hot production line and the Mobile Gun Systems are already being scrapped, but if you cut a big hole in the AMPV you could easily fit the MGS turret and have a vehicle that's 30mm protected at around 35 tons.

But how can wew ensure that a by default larger AMPV will be lighter? It's not Lego(m10 also was way lighter at that point, too). It would certainly take large changes(read: weight) and adaptation, however, which contradicts your point of it being a better way. The end result will still be APC with gun. And those things are not popular for a reason.
Also, both production lines are not that different in their hotness (timeline difference is small), and both got canned.

The mobility and logistics requirements of a 40 ton medium tank are essentially no different than a 55-ton main battle tank.

M1 last was a 55-ton tank 30 years ago.
Right now it's a 70t tank base.
For practical purposes(same that limit M10 to 1/plane; b/c you still can fly with two per se, as it is regulation, not physical overgrowth over 50% capacity), that means C17 doesn't carry anything else in this sortie, and that sortie is an overloaded one. Airfield restrictions, refuelling requirements, all are here.

While C17 can't now take more than one booker(which killed it), you're bringing a still much worse vehicle.

What's an extra M978 when you already have tank transporters and Hercules recovery vehicles?

Well, several more c17 sorties for minimum recovery detachment.
Add in refueling sorties, because you're again carrying most of payload with just 1 heavy vehicle. Add in airfield restrictions(c-17 with half payload can be quite austere-capable, but not when close to full payload capacity). M10 and XM1308 justified it by sending in 2/3 vehicles with lighter final footprint; here it is not justified, you're deploying the heaviest element of ABCT.

And "several c17 sorties" is something that brings entire IBCT to theater in the first place; it's a light formation, which skipped even it's transport for that reason. M10 was supposed to just about bring its fighting capability to peer fighting level, for reasonable increase in formation weight.
Now you're proposing using the number we began with for recovery detachment of tank detachment to the deployed detachment of infantry brigade.
Maybe consider entire infantry division at this point?

 

[Scott Kenny]

IBCTs should have just got a AMPV with a MGS turret (it can take the weight) and Airborne gets the 1302.

Too bad the MGS turret does not work. Has not EVER worked. It's also got one of the most clusterfucked ways of reloading the thing, a 10rd revolver in the hull feeding an 8rd revolver in the turret, and then rounds being pulled backwards out of the 8rd to be loaded into the breech.

To reload the thing you have to feed rounds into the 8rd and have the 8rd then feed the 10rd. And all of that must be done outside what little armor an MGS has...

The mobility and logistics requirements of a 40 ton medium tank are essentially no different than a 55-ton main battle tank. What's an extra M978 when you already have tank transporters and Hercules recovery vehicles? The IBCTs would lose nothing and gain everything by simply having M1A1SAs organized into a separate tank company instead.

Except that Infantry Brigades/Divisions don't have HETs and M88 Hercules. Or AVLBs. Or all the other engineering support an Abrams requires.

Having a 40ton tank means that they don't need HETs or Hercs, the HEMTT Wreckers are capable of recovering the tank. And the Infantry Brigade already has bridges etc sized for 40 ton vehicles, because a loaded HEMTT is 40 tons.

The problem with the M10 is that someone forgot to allow ~15-20% weight growth from proposal to 20-40 years from now in the M10A2 variant. C17 cargo load is 170klbs, 2x MPFs per C17 means that the weight growth version needs to weigh no more than 85klbs, let's say 20% weight growth allowance which brings us down to a proposal max weight of 70,000lbs. That's how heavy the M10 should have been at introduction.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Restructuring RCV is a blatant gift to Anduril & the other defense VC techbros. There’s nothing to suggest any fundamental flaws with Textron’s entry.

They're supposed to still be in the running. RCV barely made any real progress up til now. If it's because of reluctance, I understand that. The NGCV is supposed to field a new MBT and general purpose medium platform. I think if the RCV is supposed to be optimally mated with them, it probably makes sense to wait.
Ideally they'd put out systems to start putting them through their paces but the logic is budget cuts so...

And delaying the howitzer competition (along with cutting AMPV to the bone, cancelling JLTV-A2, & divesting AH-64D without replacement) are pants on head retarded decisions.

So far I only heard about JLTV and AMPV not being bought in excess, not contract cancellations. Was any contract already cancelled or confirmed to be cancelled?

Delaying howitzers isn't a big thing IMO. It's just a competition to replace some towed ones, right? So it'll lead to net higher costs, as opposed to replacing tracked howitzers with wheels which would save a lot.

As of right now, howitzers isn't something the US is seriously behind in. A lot of missions are taken by M142/M270 and potentially other rocket and missile based systems.
Yes the L39 is suboptimal. Yes the large crews are problematic. But the M109A7 so far delivers within a multi-domain battlefield.
And for anything light and towed, I don't see a big capability gap that needs to be filled urgently.

Driscoll, Colby, Hegseth et al don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. This unholy combo of defense VC grift & “cult of the operator” worship is gonna get a lot of people killed when the Indo-Pacific goes hot.

Perhaps. I don't consider them serious people. But cutting some platform procurement to boost production capacity and ammunition procurement is a good thing IMO.

 

[totallyaverage]

Except that Infantry Brigades/Divisions don't have HETs and M88 Hercules. Or AVLBs. Or all the other engineering support an Abrams requires.

Having a 40ton tank means that they don't need HETs or Hercs, the HEMTT Wreckers are capable of recovering the tank. And the Infantry Brigade already has bridges etc sized for 40 ton vehicles, because a loaded HEMTT is 40 tons.

Except each MPF battalion maintenance company was going to be assigned M88A2s, which were the only available recovery vehicle able to handle the M10's weight. This has been known since the 2021 LCEA and had been discussed several times since that document was published:

Another item at issue is how to recover vehicles that go down. Right now, the only platform suited for the job is the M88A1 recovery vehicle, which comes in three variants.

Some of the repair parts for the older M88s are obsolete and there is not yet enough M88s to fill the light tank and heavier armor asset needs.

Proposed light tank battalion concept will require more armor crewmen

The Mobile Protected Firepower battalion will attach light tank companies to each brigade.

www.armytimes.com

Or to quote the LCEA:

The exact design of MPF units has not yet been determined. There are currently two primary options. The first approved option is to equip one Cavalry Troop within a Cavalry Squadron with 14 MPF vehicles. Support equipment including one M1075 Palletized Load System, one M978 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) fueler, two M1152A1 maintenance contract trucks, and one M88A2 recovery vehicle to replace the HEMTT wrecker would be distributed to the Cavalry Delta Troop in each Cavalry Squadron. In this option, three or fewer squadrons at any given installation would receive MPFs. The second option is currently under review for approval and would combine three MPF Companies in a single MPF Battalion. In this case, the MPF Battalion would be assigned roughly three times the support equipment mentioned, above and no more than one battalion at a given installation would receive MPFs.

This was where the main concern with bridges comes from, the mere fact that the M10 required a M88A2 meant that suddenly the division had massively increased bridging requirements. The combined weight of a M10 being towed by a M88A2 was over one hundred tons, seventy tons for a M10 on a M870 trailer which was barely sufficient to carry it. Had the M10 suffered any weight growth over its service life, the M870 would not longer be suitable. Oh, and the presence of the M88A2 de facto requires HETs to be part of the formation, because nothing else can transport it in the field.

The problem with the M10 is that someone forgot to allow ~15-20% weight growth from proposal to 20-40 years from now in the M10A2 variant. C17 cargo load is 170klbs, 2x MPFs per C17 means that the weight growth version needs to weigh no more than 85klbs, let's say 20% weight growth allowance which brings us down to a proposal max weight of 70,000lbs. That's how heavy the M10 should have been at introduction.

Yeah, this is exactly where the Army whiffed on their weight requirements. Really the vehicle should have never weighed more than thirty five tons at any point during its service life, which translates to 26-28 tons in A-kit form once you account for the weight of the B-kit, necessary features such as an APS, and a 10-20% growth margin. Sub-35 tons would mean the system could be recovered by systems like M984 or MCRS, which the divisions either already have or could be attached to them with minimal issues, unlike the M88 and HET.

Basically the Army should have held to a three A-kit MPF per C-17 requirement, not because the air mobility was that valuable, but because such a requirement would be a useful proxy for the actual requirements of the infantry division.