MRM KE/CE Tank Munition

[tomahawk6]

An Abrams hit a moving T-72 at 8600m with this munition. With this munition available for 105mm guns it should enhance the survivability of the MGS in the Stryker brigades.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htarm/articles/20060929.aspx

M-1 Gets 8,600 Meter Kill
September 29, 2006: While Russia has been firing guided missiles from tank guns for 30 years, the United States has only recently gotten back into the business. A new "guided shell" (the MRM KE/CE) has had several successful test firings this year. In the latest test, a U.S. M-1 tank fired an MRM CE round, which hit a moving T-72 tank at a range of 8,600 meters.

In 1968, the U.S. introduced a light tank, the Sheridan, which fired a guided missile from its 152mm main gun. This Shillelagh missile (with a max range to 2,000 meters), was not a success, and Sheridans sent to Vietnam just carried conventional rounds.

In the 1970s, the Russians began to introduce guided missiles fired from 125mm tank guns. The Russian missiles (there were six different models introduced, the latest in 2001, with another still in development), all had a max range of 5,000 meters and, like Shillelagh, used a shaped charge warhead. None have been used in combat.

The MRM KE/CE comes in two versions. The KE (Kinetic Energy) uses a metal penetrator, and gets a speed boost from a rocket motor to give it sufficient momentum to penetrate thick armor. The CE (Chemical Energy) round uses a shaped charge. The MRM uses GPS, radar and a laser to find its target.

Current U.S. 120mm tank guns can get hits at up to 4,000 meters, using chemical (explosive) rounds. The vast majority of enemy combat vehicles spotted are within that range. But it is expected that greater use of UAVs will enable tanks to identify enemy vehicles at longer ranges, and the MRM KE/CE shells would enable these targets to be hit.



http://www.defense-update.com/products/digits/120MRM.htm

 

[brihard]

When was the last time a tank in any coalition force had to splash a tank from outside the effective range of an APFSDS or HEAT round? This may be a solution seeking a problem... Any target our UAVs can spot that would be engageable by that weapon will probably just eat some 155 from the M777 anyway.

And of course in the U.S. context any target that far away can likely be engaged much more safely by an attack helicopter.

 

[Lop Eared Galoot]

MRM_KE is the ideal weapons system for a light tank which needs to fend for itself in an RDF role where all forces must be highly mobile and underarmor and support weapons like trailed howitzer and palleted N-LOS systems like Netfires may not be supportable.

If you took a platform like the M8 Thunderbolt and gave it adequate (APS + Level 3) protection, you could role three of the vehicles off a C-17 ramp in a  north-40 highway somewhere while avoiding the need to answer the Modern Tank Destroyer vs. MBT question by keeping the threat firmly over the horizon.

I can see exactly this kind of mission need in a North Korean nuclear decapitation mission where uncertain intel and the need to pin several sites simultaneously might inhibit deployability assets using conventional Marine STOM.

Another scenario would be the current Syrian situation where you might want to be able to LADS  something to support 'independent revolutionary forces' without the problem of using conventional airpower which may or may not be released to a 'no fly' condition ability to hunt vehicle targets.  We saw how long that took in Libya and there was not a major chemical/rocket threat which a tank could scoot from under in NBC protection while an SOF technical would be pinned and gassed.

The key is to acknowledge the reality of three needs:

1.  Organic netcentric UAV.
Not as throaway LAM/PAM (expensive) but as something which can still be readily lofted and recovered in some swarm numbers from vertical launchers in a paired vehicle or from the main tube.  Silent Eye comes to mind here.

2.  APS over Armor.
If you keep the range long enough, KE can be knocked down with .75ms reaction times typical of modern APS.  With a little upper-hemisphere work, the same can be said for unitary artillery.

3.  Variable Pressure Volume Fire and Autoloading.
In many ways, AMOS is a better gun for the majority of 'CAS with a gun' missions because it doesn't shock the electronics and it can fire MRSI equivalent bursts which will defeat threat APS to an actually greater range (10-12km) while retaining the advantages of dumb rounds for work in places like the mountains of AfG off a simple chassis like the M113.  AMOS is not a LOS vehicle or even bunker killer however and the USAr may be looking to play both ends of the spectrum with a high pressure tube.  In this, the M8 and similar light tanks which divest themselves of the loader to dedicate turret volume to a continuous link feeder system at least have the essential advantage of higher ROF (12-15spm) than any manually loaded weapon which is essential for defeating threat APS when they inevitably begin to mimic.  We will still need to shift to a cannister round similar to the Excalibur Increment 3 with it's two SADARM if we wish to operate in a high intensity threatcon battlefield.

And that's how you break into a 60 ton MBT battlefield with a 25 ton scout tank and a force which can actually -preempt- MTWs like ODS rather than drop the 82nd into the sand and dare the next Saddam to drive his tanks over them.  The problem being how likely you think it is that we will face such a threat again, or that the aforementioned Korean and Syrian threats will be dealt with by direct intervention rather than be AF delivered smart weapons.

In many ways, this is the US Army attempt to maintain relevance as they finally switch to smart shot kill effectors and accept a much smaller deployment footprint as a means of sustainability and minimized force protection problems in the 21st century.

And because the threatfor _will_ mimic and yet it is unlikely to have the money to innovate or buy the full three layer system that such an approach requires 'to be safe from itself', we could easily switch to a tank-heavy OBCT that was still a more more readily, rapid deployable, force to respond to micro-crises with the kinds of long range and flexible firepower to be a game changer and keep the U.S. effective strategic players in the much more likely local-coalition system as occured with the Northern Alliance in AfG.

But which did not happen in Darfur.  Because we couldn't see the value in sending a major mission force to stabilize and still sting from the slap of Mogadishu.

Built around a redesigned (FCS+), purpose built, AFV with full high angle shot capabilities, MRM could be the keystone unit around which 20km of relative piece by immediate response fires could be immediately achieved without exposing Allied forces to the kinds of meatgrinder attrition in place that now can only be avoided by Predator Politics.

 

[PMedMoe]

Hmmmm, almost six years....

 

[CombatDoc]

Hmmmm, almost six years....

Moe, I had the same thoughts with this thread resurrection, but it's actually closer to 6.5 years.

 

[AmmoTech90]

And MRM is cancelled...around four years ago.

 

[PMedMoe]

Moe, I had the same thoughts with this thread resurrection, but it's actually closer to 6.5 years.

You're right.  My math ability is pretty much nil.  :-\

And MRM is cancelled...around four years ago.

Too little, too late.