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I think that in the LAV OPV there is a lot of space in the turret taken up by the 25 and the coax and their feed mechanism which wouldn't be necessary if a sole .50 system went in there for self defence. The space is a minor matter however. My aim is to simplify the training for the FOO and leave her free to concentrate on the indirect fire fight while leaving the local defence fight and manoeuvring the vehicle to the driver and NCO crew commander.
I FOOed from a Leo 1 once on a Black Bear battle run. Even without the need - or for that matter any training at all - to fight the Leo it is very difficult to do the normal procedures involved in having the FOO, the tech and sig work as a team because you are separated by the hatches with only an IC to tie you together. In fact I had none of those. There was a German crew commanding and all I took along was a sig to sit in the hull and keep the sigs log. The double checks that you normally have to ensure rounds are safe are weakened. Even in the M113 it becomes tricky if the FOO is crew commanding to communicate with your det who are in the crew hatch - unless you're fully buttoned up which is a whole different problem. Crew commanding - especially when the range becomes a two-way one - takes a FOOs focus off your primary job. JTACing gets even more complex.
Yeah. I always wonder how they manage to do that. I know they have a great advantage in that field because the FSO stream is separate from the gun and CP streams. In other words their NCMs go directly from BCT (i.e. recruit) to AIT (i.e. advanced individual training) as fire support team members and officers to FSO positions immediately their Field Artillery Officer Basic course without going through the gun line first. It speeds up and simplifies training but narrows their focus and experience.
I can't recall the timing involved for the Canadian OPV training now. I just remember when I was told what the training was a few years back, I said "holly crap." It was not what you could expect to teach your average ResF lt with a job and just a few weeks off in the summer unless stretched over far too many years.
Again, this is a valid consideration for discussion on this thread.
We've really upped the requirements for FOO dets in the regiment from 4 or 6 to 9. You yourself know how hard it is for the regiment to not only force generate trained FOO dets but to career stream enough lts to qualify for FOO vacancies. It becomes an interesting question then when a C3 replacement is decided on as to what extent there needs to be an adjustment to the rest of the gun batteries structure. As it is, ARes regiments do not have the OP Battery structure that RegF ones do. In my model 30/70 regt, there is a full 100/0 gun battery (no FSCC or FOOs) and a 50/50 to 70/30 Tac bty which has a high ratio of RegF FSCCs and FOO dets and a high ResF STA component (I'm grouping radars and UAVs with FSCCs and FOOs in the Tac Bty and merging the separate OP and STA batteries)
I think any discussion as to replacing the gun, must be had within the framework of the organization and functioning of the total system.
Continuing to play the fool here:
Are Directed Energy Weapons Artillery?
Are photons particles or waves?
Where do lasers fit?
I am still having problems fitting 1916 stovepipes within a unified field theory where everything, to my eyes, seems to be related to everything else and the grey areas all overlap.
We can reach every part of the planet with a very large bomb.
I suggest we are equally able to reach any part of the planet with a single, small calibre, intelligent bullet without having to deploy a sniper.
We used to discuss the impact on history of a single sniper and Hitler or Stalin.
Israel just demonstrated an equivalent capability on HAMAS, without the need for a SEAL raid on a bedroom.
Our wars are all about Armies. Those armies are raised from civilian populations. But suppose you can't find the time or the space to mass an army. Suppose you can't find the weapons to train and equip them.
But suppose you don't need to raise an army when you can call up flash mobs in the enemy's towns, behind the enemy's borders any time you like.
I will continue to argue that the nature of the game is changing very rapidly. The reason I seem to find myself continually drawn back to this C3 thread is largely for all the reasons listed by @GR66 upthread.
The equipping of the artillery reserve, its establishment, weapons and roles, should be the basis for the nation's war fighting plans.
Not an afterthought dependent on which theater the government of the day is going to engage.
The C3 can trace its lineage back to the era of the Boer and Franco-Prussian wars.
