Stryker-based High Mobility Battlefield Logistics Transport

[Old Wombat]

Thanks, Brian!

I'm also looking at the current predominantly "LIC" engagement scenario, where insurgents are taking out soft-skinned transports (even in convoy) with pretty light weapons.

Still, you have me thinking about yet another possibility.

With the input so far I'm going backward in my planning faster than I ever went forwards!

Thanks, all!



Guy

[buzzbomb]

Woo hoo.. this is looking interesting

[NARSES2]

I've merged the two threads into this one as requested, anything else needed PM me

Chris

[Old Wombat]

Thanks, Chris! You're a champ!

And thanks, Brian!

Some more playing with "Paint";









These are all ideas based on a modified up-scaled Volvo/BAe linkage. The shaft between the tractor & trailer incorporates a drive shaft from a 2nd engine in the rear of the tractor, & electrical & hydraulic linkages within an armoured tube. The joints at either end are protected by armoured housings to prevent direct fire to these weak-points.

These are growing on me! Maybe...



Guy

[Hobbes]

The real problem with your design is steering.  That middle pair of wheels is going to make it a lot harder.  Much larger turning circle.  They will ease cross-country movement though.

It's not a real problem. You just have to make all of the axles steerable. Given enough articulation, you can make the thing turn in place.

[scooter]

Guy,

Have you looked at the M-1000/1070 HET?  The rear 4 sets of axles on it pivot, allowing the trailer to turn.  Which makes sense when you're hauling a 70t Abrams.  Not quite sure of the drive system, but I think its either hydraulic or electric.

[Old Wombat]

Hmm, looks like I've managed to forget to answer that question every time, so far.

As the trailer is based on a Stryker, too, each of the designs, so far, has at least one set of steering wheels. Mostly at the front but the last one has them at the rear.
So, in these latest efforts, the trailers have powered wheels & steering. The last one has rear-wheel steering because I vaguely recall, from somewhere in the distant past,
that this allows better performance around obstacles.

However, I'm a former naval aircraft mechanic who dropped out of physics at uni, what'd I know about ground-pounder engineering!



Guy

[kerick]

I know I'm going to be watching this one develop, it will be great what ever you decide.

[Old Wombat]

Thanks!

[Old Wombat]

Another variant. This time a side-loader, doors on both sides for faster on & off loading, with a remote weapon station at the rear for added protection from RPG-wielding bad-guys.



PS: Thanks to Trumpeter for the original artwork, that I'm butchering.

[rickshaw]

For a sideloader, I'd bring the two trailer wheel stations closer together.  You don't want to belly.  Now, unless you're planning of legions of men to handload this vehicle through those generous side hatches, I'd simply have a flatbed with drop sides.  Rely on MHE (Mechanical Handling Equipment for the non-qualified.  In otherwords Forklifts).  Put on its back a little cubby for a self-loading forklift.  You'll see them on the back of civilian trucks.  Basically they drive up to the back of the truck, insert their forks in the appropriate slots and hoist themselves up and are then strapped on and that is how they travel until needed.  They're three-wheeled with power to the front two and the third on a pivot for steering (although steering is actually accomplished usually for gross movements by differential hydraulic power to the front two).    The key is speed - fast load, fast unload, gone!  The less time spent at an RV or distribution point (DP) the less time the enemy has to detect what is going on.  Giving each vehicle the ability to load and unload itself is the best way of achieving that.  Everything is palletised from ammunition to fuel, to water, to rations, etc.   You drive up, drop your sides, drop your forklift and off comes the pallets in a long line on one side.  The units which are being supplied drive up on the otherside, select what they need, load and drive off.  Whats left gets reloaded and you're gone.   If done properly it looks like absolute mayhem, moving vehicles, shouting people, masses of dust, confusion but its all got a sort of order to it and the DP Master controls the lot and if things a really bad, has a stop watch and when he says, "that's it!"  That's it and everybody clears out.

Saw 1 Armoured Regiment do a complete regimental resupply in 1 hour and 45 minutes.   Ammunition, fuel, water, rations, clothing (if required) and they were gone.  Hardest 1:45 I've ever worked in my life and I was a runner, dashing up and down, organising which vehicle had to go where.  We used a herring-bone pattern for that one.  Two lines of Log vehicles with a centre lane each AFV, etc. came in, in and they peeled off to the vehicle they needed.  They'd then go exit the outside and come back around to the centre to find the next vehicle needed.   We had amusing signs made up for the POL Bowsers, the Ammo vehicles, etc. so they wouldn't miss them.  By duplicating the lanes we speeded up the process.  In the debrief afterwards, I suggested to the boss we should have added "Med & Dent" to the end for a proper "one stop shop" and he thought about it but decided it'd slow things down too much. 

[Old Wombat]

Pretty sure I know the forklift of which you speak, Brian, but (unless you know where I can buy one in 1/35th scale?) it is beyond my scratch-building abilities to reproduce one.

Therefore I've got to go with the manual system (3rd Platoon, C Company! You've just volunteered to unload that truck!).

[Gondor]

I would have thought forklifts would be very difficult to use in the field. If you used the type of equipment the British Army uses (LDROPS or something) where the whole flat bed is unloaded from the truck that would make more sense as that can lay on any rough or muddy surface where a fork lift has to have a hard flat surface to work efficiently.

Gondor

[Hobbes]

Some armies use a digger with forklift attachment instead of an industrial forklift:



This would mostly solve the surface issues.

[rickshaw]

There are well, forklifts and forklifts.   You have the type most people see, whizzing around warehouses, they are referred to in the military lexicon as "on-pavement forklifts".  They are not designed to operate on anything except hard standing.  Basically they need smooth, level surfaces like concrete floors. There are what are referred to as "off-pavement forklifts".  Obviously they are designed to operate, well, "off-pavement" - they can operate on soft ground and have the wheel clearance to hand small obstacles.   Then you have "Cross-Country forklifs" - they're designed to operate, out, "in the field", often they are specialised in design like the "Giraffe" type, which not only feature an offset mast which enables to lift but to "reach" across a truck bed to the otherside.  The ones I used to drive were made by "CASE" and while they didn't have the Giraffe jib, did look like a small front-end loader with forks on the front.  They had four-wheel steering and tyres about 6-7 feet tall. Then you have the serious stuff that the Terminal Regiment used in my day, the Pettibones.  Think the LARGEST front-end loader and take the bucket off the front and put some forks in their place.  They could lift and carry a fully-loaded 40 container across a beach with ease.   They had the sheer power to do it.   Now, the sort of forklift I'm talking about, the self-loading ones fit down in a niche just between "off-pavement forklifts" and "Cross-Country forklifts".



The LAPES system is an interesting solution.  One I know from a practicable viewpoint seem to answer all the problems we've been discussing.  However from an administrative viewpoint I really can't see how it works all that well.  However that may lay outside the scope of what OW wants or needs to know.      You basically load the vehicle tray with whatever is required and you then drop that at a pre-arranged RV or DP and exchange it for an empty one.   It certainly speeds the process but tends actually to be more expensive than MHE.