Javelin does things differently. Because it uses an intelligent imaging-infrared seeker, the new missile combines precision guidance with fire-and-forget operation. In effect, the missile software "remembers" the thermal signature of the target it locked onto when it was launched. It also "knows" how to follow a moving target, and how to perform tricky maneuvers during its last few milliseconds of "life." The missile performs a climb and dive to strike the top of the target, where the armor is thinnest. If the target is inside a building, or under some kind of top-cover, the gunner can select a direct flight path.
The Javelin system has two components: the missile round in a disposable launch tube, and the reusable 14-lb/6.4-kg Command Launch Unit (CLU), which looks rather like a big box camera with trigger-grip handles. The CLU snaps into a connector on the launch tube, and the gunner hoists the entire 49-lb/22.4-kg weapon up onto either shoulder, activates the replaceable battery (which powers the system for up to four hours), and looks through the eyepiece. In daylight, this functions as a four-power telescopic sight; and at night, or in blowing sand, smoke, fog, or other obscured conditions, it functions as a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) viewer, presenting a green-and-black thermal image of the battlefield, with a 4-power wide field of view or a 9-power narrow field.
A pair of infantry men launch a "fire-and-forget" Texas Instruments/Lockheed Martin Javelin anti-tank missile. This man-portable system will come into service with the Marines in several years.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
Javelin can be fired safely inside an enclosure, since there is no back-blast per se. A small kick motor, which burns for only a 1/10 of a second, ejects the missile from the launch tube to a safe distance before the main rocket motor ignites. Maximum range is over 2,000 m/1.25 mi. Javelin uses a "tandem warhead" to defeat spaced armor or explosive-reactive protection systems. A small shaped charge detonates first to strip away any outer layers; then, microseconds later, the main shaped charge detonates to penetrate and destroy the target. It is effective and deadly, as well as being the first of a new generation of "brilliant" guided weapons to enter U.S. service. So excited is the Marine Corps about this system that even before it is fielded, the Corps is thinking about using it as the primary anti-armor system on the new AAAV amphibious tractor. Keep your eye on this one, folks. It's going to be a winner!
The Future: Lockheed Marine Loral Aeronutronic Predator
For all of its shortcomings, the Marines generally miss the old M72 LAW. Light and compact, it gave them the ability to hit and destroy, albeit at short ranges, almost anything short of a heavy tank. In addition, it could be (and was) carried by every Marine in a rifle squad, meaning that a unit had a bunch of them to use in combat. Unfortunately, by the late 1970s the LAW was going out of service and was being replaced by heavier and more specialized systems like the AT-4. Nevertheless, the Marines have always wanted another "wooden round" heavy weapon like LAW, and they began a program to give them a 21st century version. Originally known as SRAW (Short-Range Assault Weapon), Predator has been under development since the 1980s, and will enter service around the year 2000. Weighing only 19 1b/8.6 kg, and measuring 35 in./89 cm in length, the missile and its disposable launch tube will be issued like a round of ammunition that any rifleman can carry and fire. Like Javelin, Predator has a "soft launch" motor that allows it to be fired safely from inside an enclosure.
A cutaway view of the new Predator anti-tank missile being developed for the Marine Corps by Lockheed Martin Loral Missile Systems. The launcher is shown to the right.
JACK RYAN ENTREPRISES, LTD., BY LAURA ALPHER
System costs are kept low (about $5,000.00 per unit in FY-96) by dispensing with costly precision guidance and thermal-imaging components. For the required maximum range of 600 m/1,970 ft, it is sufficient to have a few microchips and mechanical components that function as an "inertial autopilot." Against a stationary target, this automatically compensates for crosswinds, uneven terrain, and variations in thrust as the rocket motor burns out. Against a moving target (up to speeds of 22 mph/35.4 kph), the missile's autopilot senses the slew (crossing) rate as the gunner tracks the target for about a second before launch, and then automatically computes the correct lead angle for target intercept. All the gunner has to do is keep the crosshairs of the 2.5 power telescopic sight on the center of the target and pull the trigger. The Predator does the rest.
In its nose Predator carries a highly sensitive "target detection device" that combines a tiny range-finding laser, angled downward and forward to sense the edge of the target, and a magnetometer that senses the mass of the target. When the software concludes that the missile is directly over the target, it detonates the 5-lb/2.25-kg warhead, which projects an explosively formed heavy metal penetrator (like that of the TOW-2B) at almost Mach 5 down through the thin roof of the target. In tests on old M-48 tanks, the projectile even continued downward to blow a hole through the hull floor! Loral has also proposed a "direct attack" version for the Army, with a simple, massive high-explosive or incendiary warhead. Minimum range, determined mainly by the safe arming distance for the warhead, is only 56 ft/17 m, making this an ideal weapon for ambushes in urban or wooded terrain. Maximum velocity of the missile is 984 fps/300 m/s, and the time of flight to 500 m/1,640 ft is only 2.25 seconds. While its size and weight will probably mean that only one Predator per Marine will be carried, it will give a rifle squad back its lethal-ity against armor and other heavy targets. In addition, the growth potential of Predator, as well as the Javelin system, means that these systems will be in service well into the 21 st century.
An M1A1 Abrams main battle tank assigned to BLT 2/6 in the well deck of the USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41). Note the openings on the left rear and aft deck for the air inlet and exhaust stacks.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
Armored Fighting Vehicles
The Marine Corps today has a small but vital force of armor, which is designed to provide support to the rifle units that are at the core of its being. It is a force focused on supporting Marines in the field and helping them accomplish their missions. Amphibious tractors are used to deliver troops to the shore under armor. The wheeled force of Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs) is used to provide screening and reconnaissance, as well as an under-armor anti-tank system. And the small force of main battle tanks (MBTs) provides a hard edge to the rest of the force, both in offensive and defensive operations. All of these vehicles are part of the TO&E of the Corps because they are needed on a modern battlefield, not because they are easy to support and move around. That perhaps is why the Corps is asking the question about whether or not MBTs and other armored vehicles will actually be needed in the future. This question is part of the ongoing Sea Dragon project at the Commandant's Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico, Virginia, and will be under study for some time to come. Meanwhile, armored vehicles will remain part of the Corps.
General Dynamics M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank
The Marines acquired their first tanks during World War II as hand-me-downs from the U.S. Army. Though tanks have seen action with the Corps in virtually all of their combat actions since that time, they never have been the center of the Marine combat force. Always used to support rifle units, they have mostly been deployed in small units like platoons or companies. From the 1960s to the Gulf Crisis in 1990, the armored fist of the Marine Corps was based around the M48 and M60-series Patton tanks. These were the last U.S. MBTs that utilized cast-hull-and-turret construction, and served with honor for almost three decades. But by 1990, they were badly dated in terms of mobility, firepower, and protection. This is not to say that they were not a welcome addition to the forces that served in the Persian Gulf. On the contrary, when the M60 tanks of the First Marine Expeditionary Force's (I MEF) 3rd Tank Battalion rolled off of the ships of Maritime Preposition Squadron Three (MPSRON 3), they represented the first heavy armor to arrive in support of Operation Desert Shield (in August 1990). Equipped with reactive armor, they held the line until the M1A1 Abram
s MBTs of then-Major General Barry McCaffrey's 24th Mechanized Infantry Division arrived in September.
While other Army armored units arrived in the fall of 1990, the Marines continued to use their elderly M60s. Still, the limitations of the old Pattons were not lost on the leadership at Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters. For this reason, the British 7th Armored Brigade (the "Desert Rats"), and later the 2nd Armored Division's "Tiger" Brigade, augmented I MEF with their more modern tanks and armored fighting vehicles. As the run-up to Desert Storm started, the leadership of the Marine Corps decided to do something about the shortcomings of the MBT force, and decided to request an early introduction of the M1A1 Abrams into service.
The story of the M1A1 coming into service with the Marines started in the late 1980s, when they ran compatibility trials with the Abrams. Marine Corps requirements had not really been considered when the Ml was being designed and developed by the Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) in Warren, Michigan. In fact, the Marines have usually had very little to say when it came to the design of MBTs, and the M 1 was no exception. This is not to say that the M 1 was in no way compatible with Marine requirements. It was. But the Abrams was developed to be transported in the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster heavy transport aircraft, without any particular eye to future use in the Corps. By the late 1980s, though, the obsolescence of the M60 was obvious to the Corps leadership, and moves were begun to bring the Abrams into Marine service.
The major additions and changes to accommodate the Marine mission involved the addition of a fording kit, which provided the M1's gas turbine engine with a steady supply of water-free air. This involved the addition of several tall stacks that are installed whenever the Abrams is involved in crossing streams or other water hazards, or emerging in the surf-line from a landing craft. Plans went forth to begin procurement of a small force (about four hundred) of the Mls to upgrade the Marine MBT force in the early 1990s. The 1990 crisis in the Persian Gulf short-circuited these plans. When it became clear in November that an offensive to evict Iraq from occupied Kuwait would be required, and not wanting his Marines to fight in obsolete MBTs, General Al Gray (the Commandant at the time) requested that TACOM send the Marines in the Gulf an allotment of M1A1 MBTs to flesh out one tank battalion (the 2nd) of I MEF. The 2nd Tank Battalion fought their way through the flaming hell of the Kuwaiti oilfields in February of 1991. Since that time, every tank battalion in the Marine Corps has received the M1. Meanwhile, the Marines procured enough extra tanks to flesh out the embarked tank battalions aboard the ships of the three MPSRONs stationed around the world. The last of these did not come easily, since they were diverted from U.S. Army stocks of the tank. The Army's position was that they needed all of the big iron beasts that they could get, though the diversion of several hundred to meet the needs of the Marines seems a small inconvenience for the Army. In any case, the money for the Marine Abrams program went right back into producing new state-of-the-art M 1A2s, which are much more advanced than the A1 models handed over to the Corps.
The M1A1 model lacks the advanced digital data links and electronics of the later M1A2s, but it has the same heavy depleted uranium armor, special M829 "silver bullet" ammunition, and engines as its more modern brethren in Army service. For the Marines, this is hardly a problem, since they tend to use their tanks in four-tank platoons, and are not in need of the extra command-and-control systems designed into the M 1A2. This is not to say that they may not desire to have some of the more modern versions later on. They might. The new AAAV is planned to have the same kinds of interconnects into the so-called "digital battlefield" planned for the 21st century, so don't be surprised if the Marines don't have General Dynamics Land Systems remanufacture their M1A1s into A2s sometime down the road.
One of the more interesting M1A1 developments has been the first deployment of M1s with the 26th MEU (SOC) in August 1995. This is the first tank deployment with an afloat amphibious unit in almost five years, and represents a new acceptance of the MBT by those who practice amphibious operations. The unit's commander, Colonel Jim Battaglini (whom we will meet later), wanted the edge that a platoon of four M1A1s might give his unit, especially if they were required to operate in the Balkans. This request was based on a careful evaluation of the Abrams's different assets and detriments. On the plus side was the incredible armor, firepower, and mobility that four such vehicles would give him. With its highly accurate and powerful 120mm smoothbore gun, the four tanks would have more gun firepower than a pair of Aegis cruisers with their twin 5-in./127mm guns. After the incredible reduction in supporting firepower that has occurred over the last five years, this is an important reason for taking the 67-ton steel monsters along. The downside of this has to do with the weight issue. That is, each one of the M1A1s weighs so much that a Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC) can carry only one M1, while a conventional Landing Craft, Utility (LCU) can carry two. Furthermore, both types of landing craft are limited to delivering them in fairly calm seas and surfs. Finally, the M1A1 has a big logistics tail, requiring regular refueling (it gets about 1 mi/1.6 km for every two gallons/7.6 liters of diesel fuel/JP-8 burned), lots of spare parts, and an M88 recovery vehicle. All this is a significant addition to the load carried by an amphibious ready group. Despite the problems, Colonel Battaglini felt the gains were worth the price, and the first deployment with the tanks has been completed successfully. There will be more to follow. For now, though, plan on seeing the M1A1 in Marine service well into the 21st century.
Light Armored Vehicle (LAV)
Back in the late 1970s, the Marine Corps began to be concerned about its lack of a good, general-purpose armored reconnaissance and personnel carrier. What was required was something smaller, faster, and more agile than an MBT like the M60 or a large personnel carrier like the LVTP-7/AAV-7. Traditionally, the Marines have lacked the kind of armored cavalry units that the Army considers essential to its operations, and the coming of large Warsaw Pact armored forces in the late 1970s worried the Corps leadership. They feared that without an armored reconnaissance and screening force, MAGTFs might be overrun before they could be made ready to repel an armored assault. It was in this context that the Marines began a program to build a family of light armored vehicles to support their operations. The requirement was rigorous, because it specified that the winning design would have to be both armored and capable of dishing out enough firepower to kill an enemy armored personnel or reconnaissance vehicle. In addition, it had to be capable of being lifted by transport aircraft as small as a C-130 Hercules, or carried as a swing load by the new CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter. This meant that the new LAV could weigh no more than sixteen tons, and this almost guaranteed that it would have to be wheeled instead of tracked. Thus, the new vehicle would have to be an unusual kind of armored fighting vehicle these days, an armored car. What sets armored cars apart is that they carry fair armor and weapons, but on a chassis only half the weight of a tracked vehicle. In addition, they are very fast on roads and good terrain, though somewhat less so in poor terrain and driving conditions (snow, mud, etc.). Dating back to World War I, they have been used by reconnaissance and screening forces with great success.
A total of eight contractors submitted bids on the LAV contract, with the winner being declared in 1982. The winning team was composed of Detroit Diesel, General Motors (DDGM) of Canada--which supplied the chassis, and Delco Electronics (part of Hughes/GM)--which built and integrated the weapons turrets. The vehicle itself was based on the Swiss Piranha (designed by MOWAG), a diesel-powered, eight-wheeled vehicle which would carry an M242 25mm Bushmaster cannon and an M240G 7.62mm machine gun in the turret. Fast and agile, it would also be capable of carrying six Marines in the rear compartment, thus allowing it to act as a small armored personnel carrier. While it would not be as capable or as sophisticated as the new M2/3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) that was also just coming into service, it would do its job for about half the cost ($900,000.00 at the time). In addition, it would b
e far more deployable and mobile across a variety of conditions than the Bradley. Because the LAV was based upon an off-the-shelf design, procurement was fast and the first units were in service by the mid-1980s.
So successful was the initial version that a number of variants were procured. All of them were based upon the same basic DDGM chassis, and generally have a driver and commander, as well as gunners and other crew as required by their respective roles. The driver is located in the left front of the vehicle, where he (USMC armor personnel are currently male) steers with a conventional steering wheel. Other controls (accelerator, brakes, etc.) are also fairly conventional, and the LAV family drives very well. All versions of the LAV are armed with a single M240G 7.62mm machine gun (with two hundred ready rounds and eight hundred additional stowed) on a pintle mount and eight smoke grenade launchers (with eight ready grenades and eight stowed), and are fully amphibious (with only three minutes preparation) for crossing rivers, lakes, and other water obstacles. The LAV family is driven by a 275-hp General Motors diesel engine with all eight wheels being powered (8X8). Thus, even across broken or steep terrain, the LAV is a very quick vehicle. Speeds of up to 62 mph/99.8 kph on hard-surface roads are possible, while the LAV can swim a calm body of water at 6 mph/9.6 kph. Armor protection might be described as "basic," which means that while it can stop shell fragments and fire from heavy machine guns and light cannons, it will probably not survive a hit from an anti-tank missile or an MBT gun. On the other hand, the LAV's high mobility and maneuverability make it capable of running away from everything but an attack helicopter or aircraft.