TUSKs now in Iraq.

[pdoktar]

Yeah, but the French did it better still.. And the israelis didn´t invent the concept of heavy co-ax weapon but whatever..

[Gooseman2448]

Obviously because of EXPERIENCE they didn't think they needed it.

Not too sure but, when did the French get EXPERIENCE to think they did it better???

Kind of like a LEO 2, might have been the best MBT in Europe but, darn that Cold War never happened and they have gone missing since then, Well I'll take that back, the Canadians are going to actually put some in Afganistan. (Canadians with more EXPERENCE than French )

Before you praise something, get in to something.

[pdoktar]

Well, the 50cal under main armor is better than one standing outside of it, isn´t it?

And SGTgunn had good remarks of US considering heavier coax weapons for them too, but due to room constraints or whatever, were cancelled. So the french may or may not have combat experience recently, but they probably have some other people than frenchies giving them a bit of experience in the coax matter, so you may be right that actually EXPERIENCE from these, not maybe french guys, helped their decision. And they crammed the 50cal inside the already small Leclerc.. So I´d say it´s a better system. Nothing more than that.

[pdoktar]

Oh, forgot.
http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?showtopic=23547

Finally the frenchies are getting some experience.

Edited for spelling

[pdoktar]

Oh and I think that at least Denmark has some Leo2A5DK in Afghanistan.

[Marcello]

"Not too sure but, when did the French get EXPERIENCE to think they did it better???"

You might want to take a look at the actual french involvement in armed conflicts since WW2 before making premature judgements. You might be surprised to discover they have accumulated quite a bit of experience, even AFV related (GW1, for a start).

[SGTGunn]

I don't think there would be any significant engineering problems fitting a M2 .50 cal as a co-ax on the M1. There is a fair bit of room on either side of the breech. The reducaction in ammo capacity would effectively be negligable, as the 11,000 round capacity 7.62mm ammo box is almost never filled to even a fraction of it's capacity (who wants to sit around linking 110 100 round belts and feeding them in? Not me.) It might be tight, but I think it's defintely do-able without any major re-design - but it's still money that the Army doesn't want to spend right now =)

As a former tanker my "dream" TUSK secondary armament would be:

Coax: .50 cal GAU-19/A It would give the gunner some serious fire power versus infantry, slow moving helos, light skinned vehicles and troops under cover. Using API or especially SLAP rounds and you could give most lightly armored vehicles a bad time, and literally distinigrate cover like masonry block or brick walls.

Commander: Either 25mm M307 OCWS or 40mm MK47 AGL. Either weapon mounted in an improved RWS with magnified thermal & day optics, LRF and stabilizer (perhaps slaved to the CITV) would give the commander the ability to engage and kill or suppress infantry (and espcially ATGM/RPG teams) accurately at ranges out to 2000m. Both weapon systems also have a light anit-armor capability. The loss of the commanders .50 cal's AA function is irrelevant, since against fast movers or modern heavily armored attack helos, the M2 .50 cal's effectiveness is highly limited.

Loader: Keep the M240 7.62mm w/gunshield and thermal sight as on the current TUSK variant.

I'd also like to see an active defense system (like the Isreali TROPHY system.

Adrian

[Randy]

I like the .50 cal above the main gun. I believe the Israelis have been doing his for many years. This is great for counter-sniper work.