![]() In the author’s experience in the field, a routine maintenance issue rarely slows a tank down for more than an hour or two at most if the part is on-hand. All tankers ought to be, and generally are, masters of crew-level maintenance. Maintenance is primarily a crew-level issue. The design-related roots of MBT maintenance issues, on the other hand, are much easier to overlook and much harder to fix after decisions have been made. Both the logistical and leadership sides of the maintenance problem are known issues, however, and they have improved noticeably with the US Army’s renewed focus on the decisive action training environment. Likewise, the flow of repair parts from national to unit levels could always be improved. Leaders of tank platoons and companies must have more than just a cursory knowledge of their platform – they must be technical experts. Of course tackling MBT maintenance is not merely a design issue. Maintenance drives all other components of MBT lethality because the world’s most deadly broken tank is still just a broken tank. This way of understanding maintenance design makes logistics calculations much simpler (that is, if the MBT weighs less, it is more rapidly deployable, has a longer range and breaks down less frequently), but it does not do justice to the importance of considering maintainability in the problem definition and solution design phases. The maintenance factor is typically either considered a subset of mobility, or ease of maintenance is assumed to be inversely proportionate to vehicle weight. ![]() MBT design is conventionally focused on maximising the interconnected battlefield domains of firepower, mobility and protection. When establishing criteria and generating prototypes for the US Army’s next MBT, contractors and officials should keep in mind two key considerations from the operator perspective: the pre-eminence of maintainability in solution design and the unanticipated friction inherent in modular and incremental improvements. In other words, those who have the most first-hand, day-to-day experience maintaining and manoeuvring tanks get little input until decision-makers have already chosen a new design from a group of alternatives and no fundamental decisions remain. ![]() For combat platform design programmes, operator-level input is most commonly solicited in the decision-making and solution implementation phases. Military acquisitions processes can be broadly understood by applying the steps of a systems engineering framework known as the systems decision-making process: problem definition solution design decision-making and solution implementation. The author has recently completed a month-long rotation to the US National Training Centre as the culmination of over 18 months as a tank platoon leader deployed and in garrison, so is well positioned to provide operator commentary on the complex challenges of future armoured combat platforms. One simple suggestion as these upgrade and acquisition processes begin: seek input and feedback from the operators early. Likewise, the UK is set to deal with a slew of Challenger 2 modernisation issues under austere army budget constraints. The US Army’s Future Capabilities Command will make a decision by 2023 on whether a new tank is necessary and how to proceed with its development. As the US Army shifts from years of counterinsurgency operations to a ‘new focus on large-scale ground combat operations,’ continuing to upgrade and develop armoured platforms ought to be a top priority and retaining a comparative MBT advantage is essential to that effort. Tasked with delivering effective firepower and manoeuvre, the MBT is the central platform of the US Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT). The US Army’s M1A2 Abrams main battle tank (MBT) is designed to last into the 2030s with sustained upgrades, and a RAND study on peer capabilities assessed that the Abrams ‘is still the best tank in the world given its degree of armour protection and antiarmor capabilities.’ Still the M1A2 System Enhancement Package Version 2, the most widely fielded current variant, is ageing rapidly and the final two planned lifecycle enhancements will only provide marginal improvements.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |