- The U.S. Army awarded a contract to Normal Dynamics Land Techniques for the brand new Cellular Protected Firepower car.
- Cellular Protected Firepower is a light-weight armored car designed to supply direct fireplace help for gentle infantry and paratroopers.
- The brand new car is technically not a tank, having a special mission set, however positive seems and acts like one.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Army signed a contract to obtain its first gentle tanks in additional than half a century. The brand new Cellular Protected Firepower (MPF) car will go to not the heavy armored and mechanized forces, however as an alternative to the sunshine infantry, airborne, and mountain items, bolstering their firepower and mobility.
The service awarded the contract to Normal Dynamics Land Techniques, a army car producer based mostly in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Value $1.14 billion, the contract is for an preliminary batch of 96 automobiles. In keeping with Protection News, no less than eight of the 12 pre-production automobiles that the Army will use for trials might be retrofitted for energetic responsibility.
Cellular Protected Firepower seems like a tank: it has a turret and a four-person crew. The turret is armed with the M35 105-millimeter primary gun and a coaxial 7.62-millimeter machine gun. The fireplace management system is derived from the system used on the M1 Abrams primary battle tank, additionally produced by Normal Dynamics. Moreover, MPF makes use of a tracked chassis based mostly on the British Army’s Ajax reconnaissance car.
MPF is the Army’s first gentle tank for the reason that introduction of the M551 Sheridan in 1969. The Sheridan was a lightweight tank designed to function within the Army’s cavalry reconnaissance items, and was additionally deployed to Vietnam. The Sheridan was outfitted with a 152-millimeter hybrid gun/missile system that was designed to have interaction infantry and tanks at quick vary with typical tank rounds, and longer-range targets with the Shillelagh anti-tank missile.
Sadly, the Shillelagh missile by no means fairly labored properly, decreasing the Sheridan’s general effectiveness; The tank was withdrawn from most Army tank and mechanized items inside ten years. One unit the place they remained, nonetheless, was the 82nd Airborne Division, which maintained a battalion of Sheridans and the potential to drop them by way of parachute from low altitude. The 82nd retired its M551s within the early Nineteen Nineties.
MPF is mainly a alternative for the M551. Within the mid to late 2020s, the U.S. Army plans to transform its tank-less airborne, air assault, gentle infantry, and mountain divisions into new Joint Forcible Entry divisions. Every might be outfitted with a battalion of 42 Cellular Protected Firepower tanks. Nationwide Guard items might also obtain MPF automobiles, and smaller items just like the Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade may obtain a smaller contingent of about 14 automobiles. Heavy armored and mechanized items, akin to the first Cavalry Division, will in all probability not obtain any.
The Army is steadfast in its insistence that Cellular Protected Firepower is a non-tank. Though it could actually fulfill some tank missions, it lacks the armored safety to slug it out with different tanks and survive on a battlefield saturated with anti-tank guided missiles. MPF is supposed to spice up the firepower of tank-less items with out loaning them 68-ton Abrams primary battle tanks which can be heavier and trickier to deploy abroad.
Army items with MPFs would seemingly preserve them behind the entrance line, bringing them as much as take care of cussed obstacles akin to enemy bunkers, strongpoints, and light-weight armored automobiles. Though infantry have their very own M3E1 recoilless rifles and Javelin anti-tank missiles, typically you simply want an enormous gun to blow issues up. In a pinch, MPFs may fend off full-sized enemy tanks, however the lack of heavy armor makes solely defensive battles possible.
In some ways, MPF is the equal of the World Conflict II-era “assault gun,” an armored car designed to help the advance of infantry and function an anti-tank reserve. One well-known instance was the German Sturmgeschütz III, a turret-less armored car that was typically connected to infantry items. Assault weapons fell out of favor after the battle, however the brand new Cellular Protected Firepower undoubtedly bears a similarity of function.
The Army plans to have its first MPF unit in service by 2025. Finally, the service expects to purchase as much as 504 of the brand new automobiles—sufficient for 12 MPF battalions of 42 automobiles every.
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