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Close Area Suppression Weapon (was Company Area Suppression Weapon)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marc22
  • Start date Start date
I'm curious if during the evaluation between the number of rounds on target to achieve desired effects took into consideration some of the advancements that is going on with respect to 60mm mortar munitions.
The M224 mortar (which the Marine Corps is obtaining new ultra-lightweight 10lbs tubes and lightweight baseplates for) has a multi-option fuse; M720A1 HE mortar bomb with the M734 Multioption Fuze which allows for airburst, giving the mortar more lethality than just surface impact bombs.
JUNGHANS Feinwerktechnik GmbH & Co. KG have available the Optical Mortar Proximity Fuze PX581 which allows for airburst capability, again increasing lethality of the 60mm mortar platform. 
Additionally, DARPA and BAE Systems are developing an Optically Directed Advanced Munition (ODAM), which can provide a high degree of first round accuracy, whether fired line of sight and guided by the firing party, or guided through forward observers.  As well as the precision guided capability, the program is hoping to achieve much larger terminal effects (comparable to 105mm HE artillery shells) than what the current 60mm bomb provides.  Wow... a 60mm that packs the wollop of a 105mm?  Talk about 'more bang for the buck'.  Given that we're reliant on airlifting everything to the current theatre of operations, that sounds like a logisticians dream in terms of lessening the supply train.
This to me seems like it would greatly reduce ammunition expenditures needed for the 60mm to achieve effects on target (making it competitive with CASW in terms of ammunition expenditures), as well as have excellent potential to tie into future programs such as Integrated Soldier System Platform to provide effective indirect fires, with a much lighter weight platform (viably manportable in both light and mech infantry contexts) than a 40mm AGL/GMG CASW.
 
Arius, thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions in detail.  Some thoughts on the responses:

Arius said:
Without the strategists – political or military – painting us a decent picture of the battlefield where they will commit us 10 years down the road it is impossible for the doctrine people to come up with the requirements for the hardware.  We then have the equipment people trying to meet needs or replace stuff without a clear long term vision.  That’s why we have 3 types of RWS in service, unsustainable vehicles in theatre and fast-tracking of tanks and airplanes.  Over-simplified a bit but not far from the truth.  There is no hard doctrine for the AGL but there is enough of a consensus in favour of its potential to keep moving it forward.  Your post and the discussion we have here are probably the seeds of that doctrinal employment.

Ack - agreed.

If this is not available, I would like to have my dreamland 120mm mortars from battalion (Nevermind the CASW/60mm polemic – I believe in the need for integral, modern, fast-firing, high lethality, PGM-enabled, heavy mortars in infantry units).

Ack - vehicle mounted like the AMOS?  Perhaps - the Marine Corps "Triad of Fires" seems to be a solid artillery concept.  However, this is above the level of discussion we are looking at; this stuff may not always be available to a company or platoon needing some suppressive "hip pocket" support.

Would a CASW deploy as fast as a handheld light mortar?  Of course not but bringing the target under constant effective fire is the key here - Constant fire with a handheld is difficult.  Against a light mortar with bipod and baseplate that need one or two bedding shots?  The CASW will deploy and pepper the target effectively faster.  Second scenario is no contest I believe as I see it as a cut-off or support weapon on a known target.  The direct, airburst, high angle, IR observation combination almost nullifies the concept of cover and dead ground.  But it needs to be a deliberate well thought out deployment of the weapon.

Ack - not a man-packed weapon system and one that requires deliberate well thought-out employment.  Nothing wrong with this per se (you could give this definition to a M777) but do we want to lose a man-packable, platoon level system to get it when, as you said earlier, higher-level assets like arty could deliver the effects of deliberate, well thought-out employment?  I am going out on a limb here in assuming that a CASW, like most other platoon/company weapons in the vault, should be something that can be employed quite quickly.

No.  In fact, I don’t want anybody to carry anything that deliver an effect on the target that can be achieved from another remote/long-range weapon system.  Be it close air support or long range artillery.  The current infantryman is grossly overloaded even with just his basic load.  I humped 105lbs of kit at 5000m altitude in 35 degree heat without carrying any crew served ammo – It is demented.  We lose guys from dehydration before getting to the start line these days.  I cringe whenever we talk about new personal kit with improved armor or that require batteries.

Agreed, especially with your last sentence.  But would it not be prudent to maintain a suppressive capability that can be packed - preferably a lighter, modern one as Matt Fisher alluded to above?  Stripping a small unit of something because we have remote/long-range weapon systems on hand seems awfully dangerous - reminds me of Anaconda and those American's pinned down for lack of their inorganic support.

For the last sentence we could flip it around a bit and ask ourselves:  Is a 60mm as versatile as a CASW and CG84 with new AB/Smoke/Illum?  Because that’s what the financial offset of the light mortar buys.  Vesatility+effect on the target may not be in favour of the 60mm at the moment.

I guess a question of versatility is "where can I employ it?"  We've acknowledged above that the 40mm AGL CASW is largely static and requires prep time and somewhat of a heavier logistics tail to support it (a vehicle to move the hard case and the 40-pound ammo bags around).  What good is rate of fire and time onto target if you can't get the thing where it needs to be ASAP?

95% RAMD/14 days per weapon system is the minimum requirement.  It is as reliable as it gets.  Optics and computer have no moving parts.  The actuator that keeps the sight on target is the only moving part outside the weapon.  If all of those fail you can still go for reflex/iron sights.  Murphy is most likely hiding in forgetting to change the batteries and its not a weapon issue.

That's what the guy who sold us the PLGR said....

Why don't we consider a new 60mm mortar?

Because a modern option was considered and lost out against the CASW/CG84 combo.  Why not consider a new 120mm mortar instead and sort out the doctrine for the infantry?

Doctrine is another matter, but I guess this is a small attempt to "sort it out" by trying to figure out if this bugger is going to be versatile enough for a company to be more than a fancy "we use it sometimes" kind of thing.  As for larger mortars, they are rather irrelevant, because I can't supply the manpower at the platoon/company level to hump those - they are heavy.

As for the modern option that lost out - right now I'm looking at the Statement of Operational Requirement, the Confirmation of CDR Compliance, and the Limited Objective Experiment 0201 and, as far as I read it, all comparisons use the poor, tired old M19 as opposed to something snazzy like the M224 that Matt Fisher mentioned above.  Am I missing something?

I would be less likely to support the CASW if we had solid data for the 60mm.  Anecdotal evidence are ok as a starting point but they cannot be used to justify doctrine or spending.  For each anecdote where we praise the 60mm you get the other one where a ranged 60mm failed to get that guy in the open and he ran away scratch free after 15 rounds around him.  If we had smelted the little guy in the 70s I’m not sure we would miss it today.  As for the very specific scenarios, where we would patrol the jungles of Burma 50km from a fire base and require mortar support, we can go and UOR something.  I’m not crazy about the 60mm because I feel it’s underpowered.  The very least I would lconsider would be a portable 81mm at company level with some PGM.  I don’t think there is a anti-60 conspiracy.  It just too hard to sell atm.

Roger.  I'm still leery about this.  Anecdotal evidence aside (we can find tons for both a 40mm AGL and a 60mm mortar) I really wish this "either/or" situation never came about.  The CASW looks like something we should have had 10 years ago - it is a snazzy piece of kit that can provide excellent suppressive fire in some situations - you highlighted the difficulties with portability and speed of employment above.  I would be game for it if I also saw the PASW project, which replaced M19's with M224's and gave the platoon and company commanders that hip-pocket ability when the CASW was packed in it's expensive box in the CQ's truck or down because, of all things, that 95% RAMD/14 days decided to crap out when we needed it.

If this military can get C17's, I'm sure a PASW shouldn't be an problem....

Anyways, good info and discussion.

Cheers.
 
The enemy has mortars and use them to engage coalition forces beyond the range of an AGL. If the infantry company no longer has its mortar section then they must rely on CAS or artillery - if available.
CASW should be shelved and the money for that program should be used to buy modern 60mm or 81mm mortars.
 
T6't be

I may be wrong again but I believe we already own 81mms.  We used to. I just don't know what condition the ones we have in stock are in.  The problem seems to be a lack of bodies to man them.

But attaching a 2-3 tube det of 81s to each company, giving a 4-5 km umbrella, as Arius has also suggested, couldn't be a bad idea.  Could it?
 
When you're PY starved every "little" demand adds up.  Three tubes per coy?  Three men per tube?  Three coys per bn?  Nine Reg F bns?  That will run you 243 PYs, please.  Where do you want to take them from?  The Pioneer platoons?  Already traded those in.  Cut back the engineers?  Slice the artillery?  Eliminate the echelon?
 
Kirkhill said:
T6't be

I may be wrong again but I believe we already own 81mms.  We used to. I just don't know what condition the ones we have in stock are in.  The problem seems to be a lack of bodies to man them.

But attaching a 2-3 tube det of 81s to each company, giving a 4-5 km umbrella, as Arius has also suggested, couldn't be a bad idea.  Could it?

We used to do that alot in 1 PARA. We had a 2 tube det with us most of the time as an SOP, man packed, and all of us simple rifle company mules would carry our two 'greenies' per man. 18 lbs of mortar ammo per person was never too much when you get the firepower 2 x 81s can provide. The MFC stayed with me at all times in Coy HQ too, unlike FOOs and FACs, who could come and go depending on what the  priority was at the time. As a result, our MFC became our main 'go to' guy for most fire planning.
 
DAP

I take your point. In fact I believe I stipulated that I believed that our problem was not a lack of kit but a lack of the necessary personnel.

Cheers.
 
Kirkhill:  ACK on that.  But there are two distinct issues in fact:  Lack of positions to hold people against, and lack of people.  Or, as has been dubbed in various working groups, chairs, and asses in chairs.  The force structure lays out the chairs; the recruiting and training system gets asses into chairs.  Hopefully the right asses.  Right now we have too many empty chairs, and a large number of asses either standing up or parked in the wrong chairs.
 
"243 PYs" - This number is a little thin.  I am currently working on the issues from a different angle.  I know the costs and have had the back-breif the Mor issues (giving a couple of tubes per Coy).  Cost in 3 guys per tube is a direct fire weapon only, LOS I can see'em and hit them.  Anything more needs to have more pieces, group comd, MFC Line NCO to ensure that every thing is as safe as we can make it, this means the addition of another 6 PY/Coy.

Guess what, 3 tubes is now 15 PYs/Coy x 3 Coy x 9 Bn = 405.  All Infantrymen.  In a LAV Bn there are 390 Infantrymen in three Coys (not including the PRes Augmentation who will not be able to do Mortars) this means that we need another Bn worth of Infantry to man a couple of tubes per Coy.

The CF is capped at 68,000 Reg Force, of which the Inf Bns are capped at 5607 (623 x 9) and we are not there yet.  Even if we had all the PYs for the 623 (which we don't yet) we do not have "asses in chairs".  Evey little position in the Institutional Army (Inf Sch, HQs, RSS, Special tasks, augmentation to Foreign nations, ETC) takes Sgts, WO, MWOs, Capt, Maj, LCols out of the units, leaving holes that need to be filled.  On the bright side, once the 5607 is met in PYs, we will be gin looking at the IA rationalization.
 
Light infantry companies have a 2 tube mortar section and the battalion mortar platoon has 6 81mm mortars.The stryker infantry company has a 2 tube 120mm mortar section.So if you were pressed for manpower you could stand up a battlion level mortar platoon with 6 tubes and attach as necessary to the rifle companies or hold them in general support.
 
Arius said:
Maybe but we now get back to the discussion about total weight per fire mission…
On this I've asked but still don't have an answer yet: How many fire missions are required/recommended at the platoon and company level?  I recognize this difference impacts on things such as re-supply (especially when talking helicopters where weight can be more a factor than bulk).  However, it really becomes an issue for the end user that must haul a basic load (either in tactical vehicles or on human backs).  So, what it the basic load (by # fire msn)?
 
As always I will caveat by saying that I am not infantry, although I have gone on exchange with a mortar platoon (81mm) and a heavy guns platoon (Mk19s and HMGs). 

The capability that I see the 60mm mortar giving is the quick and simple provision of suppressive fire support to a platoon during the initial stages of a fire fight.  The intent is not to provide destructive fires that obliterate the enemy.  Those fires will come, but those tend to take some time.  A 60mm mortar lets the platoon commander put down some suppressive fire at relatively close range over obstacles such as walls and high crops while he manoeuvres into place to further define the enemy for more destructive fires later on.

If a group of bad guys are flushed out of a compound by a 60mm mortar and then engaged by other systems where does the 60mm fit into the "metrics" of hard data?  The mortar may not have killed anybody, but it may have been one of the horns of the dilemma created by the platoon commander for the enemy to face.

I would find that the 120mm at battalion level would "compete" with M777 and other high-end fire support pieces.  I don't see the 60mm at platoon level competing with assets that all need higher levels of control and clearance to employ.
 
MCG said:
On this I've asked but still don't have an answer yet: How many fire missions are required/recommended at the platoon and company level?  I recognize this difference impacts on things such as re-supply (especially when talking helicopters where weight can be more a factor than bulk).  However, it really becomes an issue for the end user that must haul a basic load (either in tactical vehicles or on human backs).  So, what it the basic load (by # fire msn)?

Basic load would be 3 boxes per guns for a total of 96 rounds.  Fire missions data is trickier and I'm not sure fo what you are asking exactly.  Suppression of platoon on offense would be 24 rounds at 1000m for exemple but at 500m you could put a single round in a guy's chest.  HEDP rounds will punch through 50mm of steel so do you put 5 rounds through that brick wall or use 3 airburst over it to hit the guy behind?  There is a test where 3 normal rounds where fired at a wall and I would have expected good fragmentation on the metal witness plate behind to represent incapacitation but the plate was actually cut in half - Bit of an overkill.  I want to find a good answer but there is no such thing as a standard load per fire mission.     
 
Arius said:
Basic load would be 3 boxes per guns for a total of 96 rounds.  Fire missions data is trickier and I'm not sure fo what you are asking exactly.  Suppression of platoon on offense would be 24 rounds at 1000m for example but at 500m you could put a single round in a guy's chest.  HEDP rounds will punch through 50mm of steel so do you put 5 rounds through that brick wall or use 3 airburst over it to hit the guy behind?  There is a test where 3 normal rounds where fired at a wall and I would have expected good fragmentation on the metal witness plate behind to represent incapacitation but the plate was actually cut in half - Bit of an overkill.  I want to find a good answer but there is no such thing as a standard load per fire mission.     

Our mortar geeks used a rule of thumb as follows, if I remember correctly:

3 -5 rounds to get bedded in and on target (varied depending on good/poor observation and bedding in drills and ground conditions)

10 - 12 rounds fire for effect to get you from the attack position to the enmy position

10 - 12 rounds in reserve for 'repeats', depth targets or other stuff

This totalled about 23 - 29 rounds, mix of smoke (WP) and HE, which can be easily carried by two sections (2 rounds per man). So each company got about one and a half to two fire missions each with the first line ammo scales carried by the company troops. Remember, Coy HQ carried ammo too.

This means you could do about three company attacks with your own resources before you had to resupply from the echelon, by which time you'd probably want to change around lead company. The echolon would then re-bomb the 'former' lead company when they went into depth.



 
Arius said:
Basic load would be 3 boxes per guns for a total of 96 rounds.   
So, a 33 kg basic load of ammo (plus link & boxes)... and how does this compare to the 60 mm?


Arius said:
I want to find a good answer but there is no such thing as a standard load per fire mission.
My question is based on a comparison from earlier:
|
M19 60mm
|
Mk 47 40mm
|
L9A1 51 mm
|
Wt Weapon
| 20.5 kg | 41 kg | 6.275 kg |
HE Proj
| M720 | M383 | ?? |
Wt HE Proj
| 1.7 kg | 0.340 kg | 0.920 kg |
Shot per fire msn
| 18 | 24 | 20-22? |
Wt Ammo per fire msn
| 30.6 kg | 8.16 kg | 18.4 kg - 20.24 kg ? |
Total Wt, 1 x fire msn
| 51.1 kg | 49.16 kg | 24.675 kg - 26.515 kg ? |
Total Wt, 2 x fire msn
| 81.7 kg | 57.32 kg | 33.075 kg - 46.755 kg ? |
 
Arius said:
Basic load would be 3 boxes per guns for a total of 96 rounds.   

What would be the usual mix of ammo natures in these 96 rounds?  One difficulty in selecting ammo for a weapon with a variety of possible rounds is the hazard that you may not have enough of the optimal one(s) for each of its various possible applications when you need them.  If the fall back position, as it often is, is to simply stick with a majority of general purpose rounds like the HEDP, then the effectiveness of the specialized rounds in real-world scenarios starts to become moot.

If the primary case for the weapon is being built on its flexibility of ammunition natures, how do you ensure they are always available to support the argument?

Without that advantage, the gap between an improved 60 and the AGL becomes less so on that particular point.
 
Random answers here, it’s late…  PGM is very expensive and wouldn’t fly with our budget as high consumption ammo.  PGM argument would give more weight to a 81-120mm proposal as you deliver more payload for a similar priced guidance system.  Some people with a black budget could probably afford it for the 60 but not the common infantry.  The numbers of 60mm rounds for a fire for effect is debatable.  I haven’t seen these kind of numbers in 3 years with the SA cell and I don’t think they would be supported by research.  The 4 criteria would influence the ammo required.

What about first shot hit at night?  There is video of a Mk47 with thermal engaging 5 targets (wrecks) between 300-700m twice (10 lase/fire engagements) and hitting 100% under a minute – And the CASW is huge leap ahead of the Mk47.  Can a 60mm do this?  Lets not lie to each other here: All engagements with the 60mm are line of sight and 90% are within 800m.  So why advertise ourselves with bedding shot or illumination?  Close Area Suppression be damned, its just an lousy acronym.  Lets take them out with the very first burst.

Most engagements will be with HEDP but if you are uncertain you can load up the AB and use it as a normal round.  The beans counters won’t be happy but so be it.  I figure one box out of 3 would be AB.  AB belts are the ones I would consider breaking.  Maybe in 5 rounds belts to accommodate the “string of pearl” firing option that detonate the 5 in a 25m line or all on the target.  Flipping in those AB would take 3 sec and you wouldn’t have to remove the main HEDP box.  Double feed is not an option on AGLs.

These are very good points to take into consideration.  There will be a user trial where a real section and the people from the infantry school will be given a week or two to hump the beast around and use it in all scenario possible to sort out what works best and what sucks for the Canadian soldier.  A good number of observations from this forum will make their way there.  I’m off to the other side of the pond for a week for related stuff.  I’ll let you know if the beast lives up to some of the expectations mentioned here.

Cheers.
 
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