M10 Booker Combat Vehicle / Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF)

[Christopher Wang]

If the US Army had adopted a tracked vehicle such as the Bionix or MTVL instead of the wheeled LAV III for its Interim Armored Vehicle or IAV in the early 2000s, the M10 Booker could have found its place as the Mobile Gun System for the Medium (i.e. Stryker) Brigade Combat Teams.

 

[Josh_TN]

Unless you're saying combined arms is out of the game, no the mission is still there. Booker was made to supplement Abrams attachments in leg infantry. The justification was that it would be able to do the same for far less money. Now that has been proven untrue.

IMO, if they wanted a platform for fire support, a breach loading 120mm gun/mortar with a Bradley level of protection (not necessarily based on that hull) was the better option. I do not know why the U.S. has always insisted on high velocity tank guns for this roll; they did not even used make a 105mm HE (did they start for MGS?), just HEAT. A 105mm HeAT round is a poor support weapon and a high velocity gun is an unneeded amount of vehicle weight. A low velocity gun/mortar would be lighter and have the virtue of operating as indirect fire when ever not needed for direct fire support.

 

[Josh_TN]

Not for less money, for less weight.
Which was true, but broken development process ensured that it somehow became insufficiently less, and until last moment everyone pretended that it's something to be proud of.

It became a medium tank adopted for the fire support role, with Abrams being the heavy. People do not want to call it a tank, but it’s doing everything tank, just a bit less so. A fire support vehicle does not need an HV tank gun if it’s role is actually fire support.

 

[Josh_TN]

If the US Army had adopted a tracked vehicle such as the Bionix or MTVL instead of the wheeled LAV III for its Interim Armored Vehicle or IAV in the early 2000s, the M10 Booker could have found its place as the Mobile Gun System for the Medium (i.e. Stryker) Brigade Combat Teams.

The mediums were always going to be wheeled; there were too many maintenance and operational mobility advantages.

 

[Ainen]

It became a medium tank adopted for the fire support role, with Abrams being the heavy. People do not want to call it a tank, but it’s doing everything tank, just a bit less so. A fire support vehicle does not need an HV tank gun if it’s role is actually fire support.

I personally have no problems with medium tank.
As for HV gun...well, yes. But the whole world's armored thinking for 80 years is driven by Fulda fantoms.
One of major selling points of M10 was that through 105mm gun it kept excellent ready ammo storage.

 

[Desertfox]

There's tons of OTS wheeled options out there. Go and buy one. Heck the 9 ton Panhard ERC can do like 90% of the job

 

[isayyo2]

If the US Army had adopted a tracked vehicle such as the Bionix or MTVL instead of the wheeled LAV III for its Interim Armored Vehicle or IAV in the early 2000s, the M10 Booker could have found its place as the Mobile Gun System for the Medium (i.e. Stryker) Brigade Combat Teams.

No, the M8 was coupled with the MTVL as part of United Defense’s initial bid for the IAV program. United Defense latter offered a 90mm and 105mm turret solution on the MTVL to drive up platform commonality.

Interim Armored Vehicle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If the Army adopted a tracked platform for the IAV, why would they decided to buy a platform 20 years later with zero commonality to the MTVL or Bionix? The IAV and MPF requirements have very little in common - may you please explain your speculation in more detail?

 

[shin_getter]

Here comes a new challenger!

Combat Proven as a infantry support vehicle, well known to crews
Compact design, can fit many within tight volumes however still have good crew space.
Only 32tons, good growth margin
105mm gun with plentiful 66 rounds

*raid your local museum today*

But Javelins are really damn expensive to use to blow up a bunker, while a 105mm HEP or HEAT shell is cheap.

Missiles can be very cheap if one stop goldplating it with even more pen-aids since no bunker is going to have APS + complex armor + Ewar system. Something like Navair spike or laser guided rocket with thermobaric warhead would do most of the job. I mean there is laser guided carl gustav too, and FPV easily cut below 1k and not more than 5k with fiber.

The real problem is that munitions are new and orphaned, while new vehicles seems to drive procurement crazy. Its like how long range precision fires drove FCS while FOGM just gets forgotten.

Unless you're saying combined arms is out of the game, no the mission is still there.

We all know combined arms involves spearman core, flanking cavalry and archer backline like how warfare have worked for thousand of years.... oh wait

It isn't that a single arm can do everything, but which arms are you combining here?

 

[yeetmahboi]

Not for less money, for less weight.
Which was true, but broken development process ensured that it somehow became insufficiently less, and until last moment everyone pretended that it's something to be proud of.

40 tons v 70 tons on paper but there's nothing in between so the 70 tons uses the exact same transporter and ARV as the 70 ton. The weight difference isn't that impactful.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

We all know combined arms involves spearman core, flanking cavalry and archer backline like how warfare have worked for thousand of years.... oh wait

We’ll also conveniently ignore the transportation issues of deploying a meaningful number of M10s. Let’s not get caught up in details when we’re going to deploy armor by air! Yahoooooo!

 

[yeetmahboi]

It isn't that a single arm can do everything, but which arms are you combining here?

Armour and leg infantry, as the precedent.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It seems to me this mission could be met with UAVs/loitering munitions with far more operational/strategic mobility and less cost. 105mm is a lot cheaper that a switchblade 600, but the M10 itself is a pricey object. The new UAV/sniper/ATGW companies the Army is putting together seem like a better match for a light formation.

Also in an era of drop GPS guided kits for 155mm, I question how much added value a much more vulnerable direct fire platform brings to a light formation.

There's a doctrinal and operational need for direct fire HE in support of leg infantry operations.

Remember that the cost of UAVs etc adds up quickly. Let's say that the Booker costs $10mil. If the UAVs are $100k each, that means that only 100 UAV shots equal the cost of one Booker. ~1 day in combat, going by WW2 standards. Not sure how that lines up with Russo-Ukrainian war, I'm going to guess that it's slowed down a little.

That's less than 3 combat loads of ammo in a Booker, 5 loads in the M8.

 

[jsport]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1661003235774320641

View: https://x.com/ronkainen7k15/status/1661003235774320641?s=19


Personally, an M8er but...

 

[shin_getter]

There's a doctrinal and operational need for direct fire HE in support of leg infantry operations.

Remember that the cost of UAVs etc adds up quickly. Let's say that the Booker costs $10mil.

This is a valid form of argument and a good one at 1990, but not with munition costs at 2025.

A PGK 155mm guidance package is like $15k, plus the ammo probably <$18k. A improvised FPV is <$1k (workable if you have anti-radiation or that opponent don't have broadband EW) and a fiber optics guided drone-missile is also <5k. A NAVAIR Spike missile is also in the $5k region and I'm sure you can look up other cheap infantry missiles by other venders.

So for the cost of booker you can get something on the order of 2000 rounds of cheap infantry missiles, or more than 40 tank loads. Now the tank, its ammo, fuel, support and other logistics is not free so it is not like you are gaining if you fired more than 40 full loads.

It is not impossible to imagine a conflict where 40 full loads can be shot, but it is also easy to see that in other conflict the life expectancy is not even one full load, like pushing up the Ukraine-Russian front in 2025. Conversely, in low intensity conflict the average tank might not face enough opponents to shoot a full load for the entire duration of the conflict.

What is extremely unlikely however, is a conflict which rapid air deployment is required and large ammo loads is needed and ammo cost efficiency is important. A 42ton vehicle is itself can translate to a thousand round of infantry missiles and packing that into an airlifter is providing massively more firepower faster. If rapid action is necessary than ammo cost efficiency is not a major issue since the expected duration of conflict is short and thus affordable.

The kind of conflict which I think tanks are "optimal" is against low end threats like Gaza/Syria (both lacking in AT weapons) in urban warfare where entire cities are demolished room by room by direct fire since tanks can indeed fire more than 40 loads in a campaign and tank shells are indeed very cheap and efficient for the role. I do not think these kind of conflict are fast enough for air deployment.

 

[Ainen]

I don't think it's about price. At least not about price of engagement.

Pgk(fpv, whatever) is used against discovered position. Fpv, of course, can search, but hide'n'seek is still quite easy to win (for humans). Especially humans with their own technical means of observation.

In too many cases in ground warfare, position is discovered(and valid) only when it fires.

Engaging it minutes later will only result in casualties and broken pace of attack, and there's no guarantee that enemy will even still be in that window and won't change position.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Exactly.

The MPF needed to fit within the existing IBCT logistics/engineering support. Needed to be recoverable from a HEMTT Wrecker, uses the same bridges as the HEMTT PLS, etc. It can probably be supported off a HEMTT workshop vehicle, or maybe the M113-based wrenchmobile (I guess it'd be an AMPV-based wrenchmobile now).

Fitter vehicles aren't budgeted for, unfortunately.

For some reason it also needed to be "protected," and the chassis they chose was really volume inefficient, which meant high mass. An M8 AGS with reactive armor would have been lighter for the same protection. Could probably have a baseline protection level of 14.5mm or 30mm APCBC, and addon armor of PG-29, without breaching 25 tons. So not much heavier than an -A2 Bradley.

US were involved in counter insurgency wars.
The problem at hand is that deployable infantry brigades are weak against peers. Tank company gives them weight in defense, and at least some field offensive&ground maneuver capability.

Shipment of abrams over via sea to, i don't know, Philippines, should the need for land operations there arise, will already be accepted by a PLA liason officer.

IBCTs would be working fine in Ukraine. ABCTs not so much, because tanks cannot survive in a battlefield saturated with anti-tank weapons, as is consistently hammered home by the only LSCO in the world. Tanks in Ukraine are used as ersatz howitzers or infantry guns, firing from several kilometers, and IFVs similarly. Actual attacks are done dismounted or with light armor vehicles or trucks like MRAPs. Strykers might be a good middle ground, if they were cheap, but they're not.

That is the standard by which America should be thinking about a war with the PRC. It's two near-peer states clobbering each other. Unfortunately America is thinking in terms of Cold War fights, when really it should be thinking more European, and purchasing IMVs built on FMTV and MRAPs for the IBCTs.

It became a medium tank adopted for the fire support role, with Abrams being the heavy. People do not want to call it a tank, but it’s doing everything tank, just a bit less so. A fire support vehicle does not need an HV tank gun if it’s role is actually fire support.

The actual problem is that a 40+ tonner and a 60+ tonner have functionally zero difference in logistics requirements and strategic mobility, which was ostensibly the main reason behind the MPF, because just giving an IBCT an M1 tank company is "silly" or something. You might need an extra fueler or two to support an Abrams company compared to a diesel Booker company I guess? Have fun with the Hercules section, the contact trucks, and the HETs.

At that point you might as well just use an Abrams anyway since you can only bring one Booker by Globemasters anyway.

Meanwhile AGS was already designed exactly for this job, air drops aside, because it was the intended fire support vehicle of the original BCTs from 9th MTZ going back to the 1970s. A nice, compact, relatively mobile vehicle under 25-tons, with protection from 30mm fire and PG-7VL, and you could get PG-29/PG-7VR protection with modern armor schemes for a similar mass. Unfortunately, AGS is cursed to wander the Earth forever.

Whoever let Booker go through instead of XM1302 should be fired.

 

[Josh_TN]

There's a doctrinal and operational need for direct fire HE in support of leg infantry operations.

Remember that the cost of UAVs etc adds up quickly. Let's say that the Booker costs $10mil. If the UAVs are $100k each, that means that only 100 UAV shots equal the cost of one Booker. ~1 day in combat, going by WW2 standards. Not sure how that lines up with Russo-Ukrainian war, I'm going to guess that it's slowed down a little.

That's less than 3 combat loads of ammo in a Booker, 5 loads in the M8.

Now add in all the logistics of an M10 on top of that, and factor in how it all gets there. How many Switchblade 600s can I fit on a C-17? Because we know its only one M10.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

It's two near-peer states clobbering each other. Unfortunately America is thinking in terms of Cold War fights,

Gobbledygook.

What is different in “two near-peer…” vs “Cold War fights?”

 

[Kat Tsun]

Gobbledygook.

What is different in “two near-peer…” vs “Cold War fights?”

A Cold War era formation, or equipment set built around heavy mechanized formations, wouldn't last a year in Ukraine.

This is evidenced by the fact that it did not, in fact, last a year in Ukraine. By March 2023, the Russians were using Chechen War-era assault detachments with about 20-40 dismounts for a company sized formation. This resembles more WW1 than WW2, because the drone problem is essentially unsolvable under combat conditions, and produces lethal reconnaissance-fires complexes at the company level.

The U.S. Army would do better to break apart all but maybe six to eight ABCTs, and distribute their armor among IBCTs, as separate companies and fire support groups. Equip the IBCTs with MRAPs and IMVs that can be protected against light mortar splinter and medium machine guns. Get rid of most of the self-propelled guns in favor of towed pieces, or at least CAESAR-likes, and train the infantry to attack on foot in very small groups.

That's the only way to fight a modern war at present. The lethality and low cost of lightweight drone systems makes anything less impossible. The actual thing that will happen is the U.S. Army either won't do anything in the next war or it will take immense casualties before adopting something similar to what the Ukrainians have: light motorized formations in MRAPs and IMVs backed by the occasional tank platoon per company.

The really funny part is this would look a lot like the U.S. Marines in Fallujah when they were being followed by the Iraqi police.

 

[Ainen]

IBCTs would be working fine in Ukraine. ABCTs not so much, because tanks cannot survive in a battlefield saturated with anti-tank weapons, as is consistently hammered home by the only LSCO in the world. Strykers might be a good middle ground, if they were cheap, but they're not because apparently an armored truck is a wheelbase too far.

IBCT needs counterattack capabilities.
In Ukraine, both sides hold front not with just drones and firepower, but above all with counterattacks which dislodge weakened attacker. This action faces all the same problems as attack, just against softer enemy with somewhat lesser rotary firepower(further away from his initial point). This needs proper armor.
Any offensive capability(which will at least force opponent to pay attention to one) requires the same. Ability to maneuver in terra nulis (say, Philippines after initial redfor ambphbious/airborne landings) requires the same, as initial Kursk operations shown very well. Column of JLTVs can be utterly devastated by as much as an APC with automatic gun.


IBCT without counterattack capability (counterattacking on foot across the field or in JLTVs?) will collapse very soon.

 

[Josh_TN]

A Cold War era formation, or equipment set built around heavy mechanized formations, wouldn't last a year in Ukraine.

This is evidenced by the fact that it did not, in fact, last a year in Ukraine. By March 2023, the Russians were using Chechen War-era assault detachments with about 20-40 dismounts for a company sized formation. This resembles more WW1 than WW2, because the drone problem is essentially unsolvable under combat conditions, and produces lethal reconnaissance-fires complexes at the company level.

The U.S. Army would do better to break apart all but maybe six to eight ABCTs, and distribute their armor among IBCTs, as separate companies and fire support groups. Equip the IBCTs with MRAPs and IMVs that can be protected against light mortar splinter and medium machine guns. Get rid of most of the self-propelled guns in favor of towed pieces, or at least CAESAR-likes, and train the infantry to attack on foot in very small groups.

That's the only way to fight a modern war at present. The lethality and low cost of lightweight drone systems makes anything less impossible. The actual thing that will happen is the U.S. Army either won't do anything in the next war or it will take immense casualties before adopting something similar to what the Ukrainians have: light motorized formations in MRAPs and IMVs backed by the occasional tank platoon per company.

The really funny part is this would look a lot like the U.S. Marines in Fallujah when they were being followed by the Iraqi police.

While UAVs are a new development that will force some changes, I think it is dangerous to assume the current conflict is a template for U.S. operations against a peer, and almost certainly not against a less than peer which is more likely for IBCTs.

It also is not remotely true that Russia BTGs at the beginning of conflict resembled anything like Soviet formations, outside equipment types.

 

[Kat Tsun]

While UAVs are a new development that will force some changes, I think it is dangerous to assume the current conflict is a template for U.S. operations against a peer, and almost certainly not against a less than peer which is more likely for IBCTs.

It also is not remotely true that Russia BTGs at the beginning of conflict resembled anything like Soviet formations, outside equipment types.

The equipment types are the issue, actually. The U.S. Army doesn't really have much of an improvement in force protection as Ukraine does. The ones it does have are the wrong investments. Instead of buying Bookers it probably should have just bought AGS for the Airborne divisions and the SBCTs. The IBCTs could get a separate tank company instead, because Booker was quite heavy, and any logistics requirements would be identical to M1.

As to how to actually solve the issue of the $1,000 Javelin missile, well, there probably isn't much to solve. It seems to be asking how do you attack in line formation against a nuclear bomb. You don't. You disperse across wider areas, and attack in much smaller groups, supported by longer range guns. Which doesn't seem to be what the U.S. Army is doing much of.

Ironically there are a lot of things FCS got right and the need for little independent battlegroups connected by OTH comms was one of them.