Quote:
Originally Posted by IronDuke99
For myself, I worry a bit that the whole light armoured, 8x8 APC thing has become very overblown. Light armour is useful if you are fighting a second or third rate enemy, - ie, South Africa v Cuba and Angola 1987-88- especially if you can move it, in useful numbers, quickly by air. Other than that, training etc being roughly equal, it is worse, in most respects, than having heavier armour.
So given they could put a low velocity 90mm gun on a Scorpion/Scimitar CVR(T) 'light tank' export varient, why not put the excellent 40mm gun from Ajax and Warrior 2000 on something like Scimitar Mk2 rather than a big heavy Ajax that is next to non air portable?
What I suspect is it was about 'force protection', especially from IED's that ends up giving one a over large and heavy Ajax that is neither fish nor fowl and does not deliver a whole lot that Warrior 2000 does not provide, beyond the ability for it to be crewed by the Royal Armoured Corps (ie, the Cavalry and the Royal Tank Regiment)...
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It really comes down to - "Are they APCs or IFVs?"
If you try to make every vehicle an IFV of course you're going to have mass and firepower issues. The only time the USMC had an IFV was late WW II/Korea with the amphibious "tanks" made out of LVT3s and 4s, and even those didn't carry troops they only operated in close support of them.
With the current world situation of "low intensity" conflicts vs guerilla type forces IEDs have become the major casualty inflictor and thus the "need" for transports that are less vulnerable to them. But that of course means more mass and since it's now capable of withstanding mines and small arms it needs a weapon capable of taking out it's equal.
I totally agree a 40mm AGL or 25-30mm chaingun is more then adaquite to the task, I've never really seen the need for a 50/75/90mm weapon in the first place. Too small to deal with real tanks, larger then needed to deal with APC/IFVs.