Corps 86's Chimera tank destroyer

[pbi]

When I did CACSC in 1990, we used the Corps 86 ORBAT, including the Chimera. We all understood that it was not a real vehicle (and not even a fully developed concept), but just a placeholder or "icon" to represent a capability for us to plan with.

At the time, we thought of the Leo Jagdpanzer Kanone as the model for the Chimera. I don't think any of us seriously believed that it would ever actually enter service. Like the rest of Corps 86, it was really there to stimulate thinking about capabilities, while serving in a tiny little Army. The hope was to avoid the system shock that would happen if we ever had to fight another Big One: officers would actually have already wrapped their minds around the huge challenges that sudden expansion to large scale operations brings to any Army.

Cheers

 

[ohslowpoke]

I know this is a serious necro-post but I am curious if there is anyone attached to this still about these parts.
I am trying to gather some more information on both Corp 86, and, more accurately, the Chimera. Drawings, sketches or information.

 

[vonGarvin]

I know this is a serious necro-post but I am curious if there is anyone attached to this still about these parts.
I am trying to gather some more information on both Corp 86, and, more accurately, the Chimera. Drawings, sketches or information.

 

[ohslowpoke]

I've got better.

http://i.imgur.com/ftWFTeJ.jpg

I've also got a couple of original documents related to it that I am, unfortunately, unable to share. But I'm looking to complete my collection, so to speak.

 

[Kirkhill]

Also describable as an armoured, self-propelled field gun.

 

[a_majoor]

Also describable as an armoured, self-propelled field gun.

I beg to differ. If you look at the example of the German StuG field guns, they generally mounted short, low velocity guns to launch HE shells at enemy strong points, while the JgPz's mounted high velocity cannons to deal with enemy tanks.

With the evolution of modern cannon this distinction is somewhat mooted (the Stryker MGS is considered a fire support vehicle and explicitly used to attack enemy strongpoints, despite having a 105mm high velocity tank cannon), but at the time and place the Chimera was conceptualized, and its presumptive role in Corps 86, it is most assuredly a tank destroyer. I also doubt that any "real world" examples of such a beast would be able to carry sufficient 120mm HE or dual purpose ammunition (in addition to its APDSFS rounds) to make it worth while to even throw into the fray as an infantry fire support vehicle.

OTOH, if anyone had been crazy enough to build these back in the 1980's, we would now have a lot of hulls that could usefully be transformed into engineer vehicles of various sorts.

 

[Kirkhill]

... I also doubt that any "real world" examples of such a beast would be able to carry sufficient 120mm HE or dual purpose ammunition (in addition to its APDSFS rounds) to make it worth while to even throw into the fray as an infantry fire support vehicle.
...

13 pdr QF field gun 24 rounds per gun in semi-detached limber
18 pdr QF field gun 24 rounds per gun in semi-detached limber
25 pdr QF gun/howitzer 32 rounds per gun in semi-detached limber

Jagdpanzer IV 79 rounds per gun
Sturmgeschutz 54 rounds per gun
Stridsvagn 103 50 rounds per gun

Leo 2 - 15 ready rounds per gun + 27 stowed

Stryker MGS - 18 rounds per gun

The early QF were most assuredly intended to be used in DFS role (hence the bullet screens) because they were expected to be used on line with the infantry battalions - as employed during the Boer War and in 1914 (before settling down to trench warfare and being withdrawn behind the forward lines).

Even a couple of tubes with a couple of dozen mixed rounds each would make a useful addition to a battalion in Adaptive Dispersed Operations I am thinking.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

This was the same time that Sweden had the S-tank and I think Kannon-Panzer was still gun equipped or just going to HOT-ATGM's. Plus we just gotten the Leopards and I think the realization was that armour wise they could not stand up very well vs Warsaw Pact and already the L7 was becoming stretched to deal with new Soviet threats.

 

[OldTanker]

Again, having written some of the TD doctrine, my memory is that we weren't looking at any specific vehicles (all we had were conceptual drawings of what Chimera COULD look like) but more focused on adding the idea of TD into our doctrine. Corps 86 as those involved in developing it will recall was huge and we had a bit of everything. Considering we were still fighting the battle to replace Leo C1s, this was real fantasy stuff and usually resulted in a slow head-shake from the Armour community. But it was a good way to burn off excess staff planning time and resources  : since apparently we had nothing else to do.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Do you recall if you used another countries doctrine as a guide? Basically you had the British (Conqueror), Swedish or German either wartime or postwar to go on. Can't think of any other postwar non-Warsaw Pact countries that employed gun TD's other than the Japanese twin RR light TD

 

[KerryBlue]

Also describable as an armoured, self-propelled field gun.

Looks like a modern Stug IV to me, I really like the look of this.

 

[OldTanker]

If anything we were looking at the German model of using TDs. Again, this was all pretty off-the-wall stuff.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

thanks, i can imagine it's all pretty hazy now.  [

 

[Blackadder1916]

From Sean Maloney (who is usually well researched), this brief mention of the "Chimera" in his draft Chapter 18 (unpublished - that ended up on the editor's floor) for a history of the RCAC.

Another interesting concept which emerged in the Corps 86 process was the planned
Chimera tank destroyer unit. The role of the Germany-based brigade was, simply put, to
destroy as much enemy armour as possible should war occur. The tank-TOW team was
considered effective, but some Canadian armour officers on course at Bovington in the
UK determined that an anti-tank vehicle with a kinetic energy penetrator would be a
useful supplement. Division planners agreed. Preliminary studies projected an Challenger
or Leopard II MBT hull with a fixed 120 mm gun and the latest fire control system. As
with TOW Under Armour, the Chimera would operate alongside the infantry and be used
to free up tanks and thus bring more flexibility to the use of armour in the brigade group.
Corps 86 structures saw a divisional anti-tank battalion made up of three squadrons of 16
Chimeras each. Chimera was eventually overshadowed by events and inter-arm politics
and never built.

There is also a mention of the Chimera (with a photo of the plastic model) in "Counterstroke" B-GL-309-007/FT-001.

 

[Old Sweat]

As I recall Corps 86 started in the mid-seventies as a project to resurrect the Canadian Army combat development (CD) process. For what seemed like a lot of good reasons at the time the army leadership did not place any constraints on or provide any guidance to the various teams formed to produce the various branches' input into a divisional structure. There also was no underlying concept of operations other than to be part of the defence of Western Europe.

The result was a huge organization that had no chance of ever being authorized. It was used as the order of battle at CLFCSC, but the deputy commandant of the college remarked to me that it was too big and cumbersome and the students were never challenged in trying to make do with too many tasks and not enough "stuff."

There were some positives, including developing staff methodology for CD, so it was not a complete waste of time and (lots of) money.

 

[ohslowpoke]

Again, having written some of the TD doctrine, my memory is that we weren't looking at any specific vehicles (all we had were conceptual drawings of what Chimera COULD look like) but more focused on adding the idea of TD into our doctrine. Corps 86 as those involved in developing it will recall was huge and we had a bit of everything. Considering we were still fighting the battle to replace Leo C1s, this was real fantasy stuff and usually resulted in a slow head-shake from the Armour community. But it was a good way to burn off excess staff planning time and resources  : since apparently we had nothing else to do.

Bit of a quick introduction, I am apart of a group that is prowling through archives and hunting for interesting, unique or unheard of armored vehicles. I am currently in the process of having 3rd parties get myself the actual documentation on the Chimera itself. But, I always love to hear the whole story behind stuff, it's the most interesting part. The what is interesting, but the why is usually more so, in my opinion.

Is there any direct documentation on Corp 86 that you'd know of, or where I could begin to look? I mean, you're the guy that wrote it after all!

I'm actually in contact, supposedly, the artist during the design of the Chimera project (or so he claims) and he does say that there was a Canadian officer on his course!

From Sean Maloney (who is usually well researched), this brief mention of the "Chimera" in his draft Chapter 18 (unpublished - that ended up on the editor's floor) for a history of the RCAC.

There is also a mention of the Chimera (with a photo of the plastic model) in "Counterstroke" B-GL-309-007/FT-001.

Yup! Thank you, I already have that one, though.

 

[Edward Campbell]

For what it's worth: the Germans, pretty good soldiers, by and large, believed in the Jagdpanzer (JgPz) and had them in service from circa 1940 until about 1990.

From:

The Jagdpanzer 38 which saw service in the 1940s


To:

The Raketenjagdpanzer 4 Jaguar 2 which was in service from 1965 to 1993

 

[ohslowpoke]

For what it's worth: the Germans, pretty good soldiers, by and large, believed in the Jagdpanzer (JgPz) and had them in service from circa 1940 until about 1990.

From:

The Jagdpanzer 38 which saw service in the 1940s
To:
The Raketenjagdpanzer 4 Jaguar 2 which was in service from 1965 to 1993

To be fair, those are quite different vehicles, but I digress!

As I recall Corps 86 started in the mid-seventies as a project to resurrect the Canadian Army combat development (CD) process. For what seemed like a lot of good reasons at the time the army leadership did not place any constraints on or provide any guidance to the various teams formed to produce the various branches' input into a divisional structure. There also was no underlying concept of operations other than to be part of the defence of Western Europe.

The result was a huge organization that had no chance of ever being authorized. It was used as the order of battle at CLFCSC, but the deputy commandant of the college remarked to me that it was too big and cumbersome and the students were never challenged in trying to make do with too many tasks and not enough "stuff."

There were some positives, including developing staff methodology for CD, so it was not a complete waste of time and (lots of) money.

It seems like it was more or less just a good exercise to get people's brains moving, but it was a little bit on the fanciful (or fantasy) side of things?

 

[Old Sweat]

To be fair, those are quite different vehicles, but I digress!



It seems like it was more or less just a good exercise to get people's brains moving, but it was a little bit on the fanciful (or fantasy) side of things?

The original 1940 guns were assault guns (like the Mobile Gun System we almost got) that were the result of a 1935 proposal by Oberst Erich von Manstein and were assigned to the artillery.

What follows is an extract something I wrote about them a while back:

The battery was equipped with a new weapon – the Sturmgeschutz III Ausft. A or StuG III – a 75mm short barrelled gun mounted in the modified hull of the Panzer III tank.  The gun grew from a 1935 proposal by Oberst Erich von Manstein that Sturmartillerie units equipped with assault guns mounted on tracked chassis should accompany attacking infantry to knock out pill-boxes, machine gun nests, anti-tank guns and other strong points. A Sturmgeschutz training manual explained that “Assault guns are an offensive weapon and give the infantry immediate, powerful support through mobility, fire and striking power." Unlike a tank, the gun in the StuG III was mounted in the hull, so except for the final aiming by the gunner, the gun had to be pointed towards the target by the driver jockeying the vehicle. The 75mm StuK 37 L/24 gun was mounted offset to the right in a sloped armoured superstructure mounted on the welded hull of the Panzer III. From January to May1940, 30 Sturmgeschutz III Ausf A were produced. Of these, 24 went to Sturmartillerie Batteries 640, 659, 660 and 665 and saw service during the French Campaign. The remaining six assault guns were issued to the Sturmartillerie battery of the LSSAH. 

 

[ohslowpoke]

The original StuG was designed as, primarily an infantry support platform, provided with a weapon designed for direct support of the infantry.

The Chimera it seems, was designed primarily for it's role as an anti-tank platform and resembles perhaps the WW2 Era Jagdpanther, designed from the outset as a tank-killer, with a tank-killer gun and armor that was as good or better than that current generation of tanks it was designed to fight.