5/3/2002 [EXTRA]: Crusader Self-Propelled Howitzer

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy

What idiot claimed that?

tw said " Accurately noted is that Crusader is a weapon for armored warfare. That type of war ended with the Gulf."

Nobody disputes the need for a heavy main battle tank like Abrams.

Good, 'cause we used them already, and once you drive them off the lot, you can't return them.

No... the alternative is to ditch Crusader now and rely on MLRS, HIMARS and Paladin until a truly useful self-propelled artillery system can be developed and deployed. (One that actually meets the mobility and deployability criteria of the Army's FCS program, maybe? Hmmmm??)

The first Paladins went out the door in Chambersburg in 1994.

"The envisioned [FCS] Objective Force must provide the Army with a significant combat overmatch against all foreseeable enemies extending through the 2025 timeframe... [T]he program will select a single contractor team to build and test an FCS demonstrator. The information gained through this demonstration and experimentation effort will allow the Army to make a decision regarding Engineering and Manufacturing Development in fiscal 2006, with the first system fielding in 2012."

So...for FCS to provide a Paladin replacement, we're talking about a minimum 18 year service life for Paladin <i>if FCS delivers systems on schedule</i>. FCS is a pretty ambitious high-concept program, and talks about a lot of nifty things. Do *you* think it will deliver a (robotic?) mobile artillery piece on that schedule? If it slips, how close will we be to asking Paladin to serve as sucessfully as the B-52 has? (Bear in mind that B-52 is the most successful of the last *four* heavy bomber programs, including B-70, B-1 and B-2.)

I haven't heard much bad said about MLRS, and HIMARS looks like "MLRS lite" in a lot of ways. But to somebody who's an aviator and a software engineer rather than an artilleryman, they look like they do a somewhat different mission than Crusader and Paladin do.