Airborne (1997) (28 page)

An emplaced M198 lightweight 155mm Howitzer of the XVIII Airborne Corps’s Artillery Brigade. A section of six M198s along with contributor radar are permanently attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.

 

All in all, while the M-198 is heavy to lug around, it more than gets the job done where it counts: on the battlefield. In actual operations, each of the three brigades in the 82nd would be assigned a six-gun battery of M-198s from the XVIII Field Artillery Brigade.

The M-198 is heavy, but packs a punch. The M-119 is light, but lacks the power of the larger tube artillery pieces. In the future, the Army plans to deal with this dilemma by having a howitzer that will fit both roles even better than both the M-198 and the M-119. This will be the new Lightweight 155mm Howitzer. The Light Towed Howitzer program arose out of the requirement that rapid-deployment forces had for a light but powerful howitzer. To some degree the procurement of the M-119 dealt with this problem. However, a 155mm gun is still preferred and much more powerful than a 105mm (a 155mm shell has three times the lethality as one from a 105mm tube). How will this new lightweight howitzer be built? Currently it looks like advances in the field of metal alloys, specifically aluminum and titanium alloys, will offer the possibility of significant reductions in the weight of any new howitzer system. The required weight limit for this future howitzer is less than 9,000 lb/4,082 kg, so those companies bidding on this program had a difficult mission to deal with.

There are currently two favored gun designs which are competing against each other in the program. As surprising as it may seem, neither of these gun designs is American. Both originated in the United Kingdom. The first of these is from the Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited (VSEL) company, which is now a part of the firm GEC™ Maritime. This company has produced the Ultra Lightweight Field Howitzer (UFH) for use by future rapid-deployment forces. The total weight of the UFH is only 8,250 lb/3,745 kg, and the system is able to fire conventional shells to a range of 27,000 yd/24.7 km, and rocket-assisted projectiles out to a maximum of 32,800 yd/30 km. These ranges are very similar to those achieved by the M-198, but the UFH’s weight is more than 5,000 lb/2,267 kg less. The UFH is capable of firing four rounds per minute in short bursts and two rounds per minute of sustained fire. The entire system, along with a seven-man crew, can be carried in a single lift by a UH-60L helicopter, and can also be towed by an HMMWV.

VSEL’s main competition for this program comes from Royal Ordnance, now a part of British Aerospace. Their entry into the competition is called the Light Towed Howitzer (LTH—this gun has also been called the LTH-39). The LTH is more conventional-looking than the VSEL model but is just as capable. Able to hurl 155mm shells ranges similar to those of the UFH, the LTH is just slightly heavier than the VSEL competitor at almost exactly 9,000 lb/4,082 kg. The LTH-39 is also capable of firing four rpm in a maximum-speed burst or two rpm in sustained fire, as well as being transported by the same vehicles and aircraft. While both guns have a different design philosophy, they were both designed with one purpose in mind: to win the U.S. Army/Marine Corps lightweight 155mm gun competition. The winning decision has yet to be made, but both systems have been undergoing rigorous testing, and you can bet that whatever gun the military chooses, it will dramatically add to the punching power of the XVIII Airborne Corps well into the 21st century.

Now you’ve seen what the airborne trooper of today looks like and what types of equipment he may carry. What about ten to fifteen years from now? This question is not an uncommon one. As a matter of fact, the U.S. Army has been asking itself that same question for decades in order to plan ahead and develop new technologies. So exactly what will the airborne troopers of 2010 look like, and what types of equipment will they carry? Let’s take a look at how the U.S. Army has dealt with this question.

Armies are inherently conservative, and most of the paratroop’s personal equipment would be familiar to the 82nd Airborne soldiers who jumped into Normandy in June 1944—indeed some of the items are identical. But if the Army’s modernization plans are fulfilled, the next few years may radically transform the “soldier system”: everything the infantryman wears, carries, and consumes in combat. This effort includes approximately 100 to 125 advanced technology projects in various stages ranging from concept development to procurement and fielding. Like most R&D programs, this 21st Century Land Warrior concept (21CLW, or Land Warrior XXI, as it is sometimes called) is a wonderland of obscure acronyms and programs.

Some of these efforts reflect the revolution in military affairs that has grown out of advances in computer technology, electronic sensors, and satellite communication. The Army wants every soldier to have a miniaturized radio/computer system with an embedded GPS receiver. A lightweight Video Reconnaissance System with a tiny camera that clips onto the helmet has also been demonstrated. The helmet itself may be transformed into an information appliance and sensor platform, with an integrated HUD and thermal image viewer for use at night or in obscured visibility conditions (fog, blowing dust, or smoke). Also under development is a biomedical monitoring system with a wireless data link that automatically reports the condition of every soldier to his squad leader or platoon sergeant (remember the Space Marines in
Aliens?
).

Other projects are quite simple, but no less vital. Laser Eye Protection is just one example. Eye injuries make up a large percentage of casualties on the modern battlefield, since the head is often the only part of the body exposed to direct fire. But with the increasing use of laser range finders and target designators, operating at high energy and wavelengths that are not eye-safe, the risk of blindness from enemy
or
friendly lasing is increasing. There has even been some concern about “eye-popper” laser weapons designed specifically to blind enemy soldiers, though this is quite illegal under international law. However, many of our potential enemies have little regard for such niceties, and there are indications that the British may have used some U.S.-built laser “dazzlers” against Argentine pilots during the 1982 Falklands War. Optical devices, such as binoculars and telescopic sights, which concentrate light, must be protected by special coatings and filters, but the infantryman’s fragile Mark I eyeball will also need protection.

Another huge and limiting problem is the matter of supplying all of these high-technology gadgets with electrical power. Just as the ancient battlefield was littered with spent arrows and broken javelins, tomorrow’s battlefield will likely be littered with depleted batteries. All the portable electronic wonders described in this chapter ultimately depend on batteries, and as any laptop computer user can tell you, few areas of technology have proven so resistant to radical breakthroughs in performance. Lead-acid and alkaline batteries have been slowly replaced by rechargeable NickelCadmium (NiCad) cells, and these in turn are giving way to Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH), Lithium Hydride (LiH), and newer types. However, the proliferation of new, non-standard battery types creates a nasty logistics problem, especially for foot soldiers who already have to carry everything they need. The Army currently stocks almost three hundred different types of batteries. Unlike a satellite, a soldier cannot be covered with solar power cells, especially if he fights at night or in the shade. The soldier needs food and water to live, ammunition to fight, and spare batteries to communicate, and these requirements all compete for space and weight in his rucksack.

To begin any improvement plan for the soldier of the future, the Army first needed to set goals for what they wanted to attain. If these goals are reached, the Army leadership feels that they will be more than able to overmatch and defeat any known or imagined infantry force well into the next century. The goals are broken into five general areas:

 

In addition to these five goals, the current modernization plan for the soldier of the future can be broken down into two more basic time-related categories. First there is the near-term project. This is what is known as the Soldier Enhancement Program or SEP. Back in 1990, Congress decided that the Army and Marine Corps should begin to focus their attention on enhancing the combat capabilities of individual dismounted soldiers through a program known as the Soldier and Marine Enhancement Program (SEP/MEP). The SEP/MEP program was intended to be a short-term study illustrating what can be done to improve the capabilities of the infantry soldiers in the near future.

SEP/MEP essentially stopped just short of any dramatic advances in ground combat. These dramatic advances would be reserved for the 21st Century Land Warrior Program, which will be discussed next. Congress directly funded the SEP/MEP program for three years. Through 1996, many important new technologies have been developed and are still being developed for the dismounted soldier of the future, including the beginnings of several important programs. Let’s take a look at some of the near-term projects which were worked on in the SEP program:

 

The above three systems are just a few of the new technologies which came about as a result of the near-term/quick-results study called SEP.

The next step in developing the combat force of the future has now passed to what has become known as the 21st Century Land Warrior, or 21 CLW. The 21 CLW program is actually a vision of what the Army of the long-term future will (perhaps) look like, and begins tracking what the U.S. Army needs in order to get ready for tomorrow. Thus the 21 CLW is not a single program, but rather a series of high-tech initiatives which will (hopefully) produce usable technologies which will dramatically enhance the combat capabilities of tomorrow’s foot soldiers. Because the 21CLW is such a wide-ranging project, the Army realized that it had to be broken up into several projects in order to more clearly accomplish its goals. The 21CLW project is charged with the job of illustrating exactly what is, and what is not, feasible for the Army of the next century. The cornerstone of the 21CLW project is what has become known as the Army’s Generation II Soldier Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD). The goal of this project is to test the current limits of technology, in order to determine just how high-tech and combat-effective America’s Army can become in the 21st century. The preeminent part of the current Generation II soldier system is the Individual Soldier Computer/Radio (ISC/R) subsystem. This is essentially a mini-computer which provides data for all aspects of the future infantry soldier’s sensor and weapons packages. The particular packages which are controlled by this computer may include an advanced headgear system that will integrate the following information: