LAV III RWS versus LAV III with turret

[Canadian.Trucker]

I recently returned from Afghanistan last December as a Pl Comd where I had 4 LAV RWS', 7 RG-31s and 1 TLAV in my Pl.
The RG-31 had the Kongsberg RWS system which worked well overall.  We used both the C6 and .50 with this vehicle but I ended up choosing to use the .50 with it strictly for the added firepower since there were no air sentries (there were hatches, but they were not used due to their inability to lie flat among other reasons).  I won't go into detail about the RG-31, but needless to say it was not a good vehicle, even on the highway it had significant drawbacks.  The RWS however was good as it's stability system worked, where the NANUK RWS quite frankly did not.
The LAV RWS uses the NANUK Remote Weapon System which has quite a few drawbacks and needs to be reviewed.  The camera is not independent of the weapon system so when you go to get a firing solution and are at the narrow field of view for the camera, the camera has to zoom out because at longer ranges the weapon system has to tilt up to compensate for bullet drop.  This means it's difficult to see the impact and fall of your rounds, and if your target is moving... well, good luck.  The STAB system barely functions and quite often it's better to just leave it off because as a gunner you will fight with it more often than not if it's on to remain on target.  As well the ammo box being located outside of the vehicle and being so high up meant when you ran out of your initial upload you would have to get out and be on top of the LAV in order to reload.  Not a place you want to be when under contact.

In the end we loved our LAV RWS, but that was more because it was a LAV and less because it was an RWS and it was more versatile and flexible than the RG-31.  There are pros and cons to having an RWS platform, but other than cost and maintenance there aren't many pros a LAV RWS brings to the table above a LAV III with a turret in my opinion.  We couldn't carry any more soldiers or equipment and the drivetrain was the same.  We had more initial protection than your standard LAV III did, but that changed when they were rotating the LAV IIIs for LAV 3.5s overseas.

 

[Snaketnk]

There was a really high Accidental Discharge rate with the RWS gun overseas, none of which ended in the gunner being charged. I've personally witnessed two "ADs" in which the gun decided on its own that it wanted to shoot and firing a round in a really unsafe manner (during readying). Both incidents ended up in UCRs being filed. If you're going to go with a RWS, use a different one.

I'm not sure I'd want to use it as a "combat vehicle" (We were dismounted any time anything happened anyway) but as a patrol/escort vehicle it worked awesomely. One change a lot of us agreed on is to get rid of the RWS, replace it with another pintle-mounted C6, and then add a camera on a mast to investigate anything supicious/use to walk rounds on target if firing at >1000m. It wouldn't make for a very good fighting vehicle in open ground, but for Urban Patrolling it provides an incredible amount of SA and guns pointed in 4 directions, able to react to a threat from any direction instantly (which we found really valuable when a car comes screeching out of a side alley or something).

One small detail that seems to have a big effect is the placement of the admin box. On the LAV RWS its right between the "turret" area and the air sentries, roughly midway along the top of the vehicle. It was moved there to open up the arcs of the air sentries. On the LAV 25mm, to make up for the loss of the admin box, they mounted huge bins on the side of the vehicle, which make it significantly more difficult to navigate through busy streets/gates/chicanes.

For Urban Patrolling, I'd prefer the LAV RWS, for a "real fight" I wouldn't want to give up the 25mm HEI.

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

There was a really high Accidental Discharge rate with the RWS gun overseas, none of which ended in the gunner being charged. I've personally witnessed two "ADs" in which the gun decided on its own that it wanted to shoot and firing a round in a really unsafe manner (during readying). Both incidents ended up in UCRs being filed. If you're going to go with a RWS, use a different one.

I'm not sure I'd want to use it as a "combat vehicle" (We were dismounted any time anything happened anyway) but as a patrol/escort vehicle it worked awesomely. One change a lot of us agreed on is to get rid of the RWS, replace it with another pintle-mounted C6, and then add a camera on a mast to investigate anything supicious/use to walk rounds on target if firing at >1000m. It wouldn't make for a very good fighting vehicle in open ground, but for Urban Patrolling it provides an incredible amount of SA and guns pointed in 4 directions, able to react to a threat from any direction instantly (which we found really valuable when a car comes screeching out of a side alley or something).

One small detail that seems to have a big effect is the placement of the admin box. On the LAV RWS its right between the "turret" area and the air sentries, roughly midway along the top of the vehicle. It was moved there to open up the arcs of the air sentries. On the LAV 25mm, to make up for the loss of the admin box, they mounted huge bins on the side of the vehicle, which make it significantly more difficult to navigate through busy streets/gates/chicanes.

For Urban Patrolling, I'd prefer the LAV RWS, for a "real fight" I wouldn't want to give up the 25mm HEI.

+1 to all your points, I had forgotten about that box that sat directly behind the crew comds/gunners hatches.  It was a minor inconvenience though, and for the job my Pl did which was convoy escort it worked quite well.

 

[McG]

For Urban Patrolling, I'd prefer the LAV RWS, for a "real fight" I wouldn't want to give up the 25mm HEI.

It is possible to have both the RWS and the medium calibre cannon firepower.
I had a friend posted to the LAV III LE project as it was getting its momentum - I was disturbed when advised that the project (at that time) believed they had to choose between two extremes of keeping the turret (with all the fire power but several limitations that were undesirable) or a machine gun firing RWS (without the concerning limitations of the turret but significantly less firepower).  At the time, I pointed him to the Samson RCWS with the potential to increase LAV firepower while avoiding all the bad limitations that we did not want from our current turret.  I really did not have a vested intrest in the Samson brand.  My concern was that the project recognize options existed between the two extremes that were being held as the "only possible" options; medium calibre cannon RWS might not be the right decision but it needed to be one of the considered options when making the decision.

In my opinion, for LAV III LE a RWS with medium calibre cannon & machine gun is better than a RWS that can only do machine gun or AGL.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Civvie [possibly dumb] question....

With the LAV chassis upgrades which will allow it to carry significanly more weight, is not possible to retrofit the existing Delco Turret with a 30mm Bushmaster II?

If memory serves, it only weighs about an 50KG  more, + additional weight of ammunition.

Quick thought being that if the difference between the 30mm and 25mm justifies any investment, then you get the best of both worlds with adding the heavier firepower while maintaining the situational awareness.

As I've never fired a 25mm or 30mm at a grapehut, I will now retreat to let those who have comment.... 

 

[McG]

Civvie [possibly dumb] question....

With the LAV chassis upgrades which will allow it to carry significanly more weight, is not possible to retrofit the existing Delco Turret with a 30mm Bushmaster II?

If memory serves, it only weighs about an 50KG  more, + additional weight of ammunition.

Quick thought being that if the difference between the 30mm and 25mm justifies any investment, then you get the best of both worlds with adding the heavier firepower while maintaining the situational awareness.

30 to 40 mm cannons can be considered for LAV III replacement (when we get to that) and CCV.  I don't know that up-gunning the turret would be worth the investment as part of a life extension though.  Doing so would certainly not address the concerns of the camp that was arguing that we ought to get rid of the turret all together.

Again, my previous post referencing the Samson was not to say that it or the 30 mm are what we need.  It was simply that we cannot declare the machine-gun RWS to be the only alternative when seriously discussing the option of removing the 25 mm turret from the fleet.