5/3/2002 [EXTRA]: Crusader Self-Propelled Howitzer

[Nothing But Net]

<img src="http://www.army-technology.com/projects/crusader/images/crusader8.jpg">

This strangely compelling image comes from <a href="http://www.army-technology.com">army-technology.com</a>, a very cool site.

One Crusader vehicle can fire up to 8 rounds to strike a single target at the same time. The digital fire control system calculates separate firing solutions for each of the 8 projectiles. A battery of six Crusaders can deliver 15 tons of ammunition in less than 5 minutes.

Isn't it funny that there can be such beauty in devastation?

Oh, and it's probably only concidence that it's named the 'Crusader' (that's basically saying "Screw you, Arabs")...

[MaggieL]

Gee...that's that same gadget jag thought was such a waste of money.

http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?postid=11057

To be fair, it was <b>Time Magazine</b> that thought it was a waste of money; jag was just repeating what he'd heard. Of course Time's not exactly financial experts either these days...$56B loss? :-)

[Undertoad]

Such beauty in devastation -- that's one of the strange things about this warfare stuff. Sometimes so awesome, or so technologically amazing, that it's truly a shame that its purpose is to kill.

[Nothing But Net]

What I want to know is, what was the shutter speed used for this photograph?

[Hubris Boy]

Yeah... Oooh. Aaaah. Ain't that cool? Guess what? Don Rumsfeld wants to cancel the Crusader acquisition program. And he's right.

Crusader is another one of those government projects that continues to stagger forward, zombie-like, despite anyone's best efforts to kill it. They've already spent over ten years and $11 billion developing this damn thing and it STILL isn't operational.

Now, I'll grant you, it's a pretty spiffy piece of hardware. I understand the need for self-propelled artillery... the Paladin system's getting a little long in the tooth, and conventional towed artillery just can't keep up with a mechanized unit when it's moving forward (or backward, depending on how things are going that day.)

But the operational idea for this thing was originally developed to help stop Warsaw Pact tanks from pouring through the Fulda Gap. The idea was to base most of them in Europe and leave them there, because they're too damn heavy to move around quickly. Most of the threats the US Army is likely to face today won't need to be "softened up" by the kind of sustained artillery support that Crusader is designed to deliver. What a terrible f*ckin' waste of money. The MLRS does almost everything this piece of shit can do, and it's already in service.

pant...pant...pant... Ahem. Sorry about that. I get a little worked up sometimes. And no, NBN, the name's got nothing to do with pissing off the Arabs.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy

But the operational idea for this thing was originally developed to help stop Warsaw Pact tanks from pouring through the Fulda Gap.

Of course, the operational idea behind the B-52 was kinda far afield from how it was ever actually used, too. Useful, nonetheless.

The world changes so fast these days that it's difficult to imagine weapons systems that are developed with an accurate picture of the circumstances under which they'll ultimately be used. Even the latest touches on "bunker buster" ordinance used in Afghanistan were actually developed for Desert Storm, but hadn't been deployed...they just weren't ready in time. (And some of them were refinements of ideas originally deployed in Vietnam.)

If you wait to start designing and building stuff until you know where the battle's going to be fought and against whom, you'll never have anything ready in time. You look for holes in the force structure and fill them as best you can as existing systems obsolete out. Then when the real battle shpes up, you improvise from what you have, and hope you've got a wide enough array of resources available to put together something effective.

[Hubris Boy]

originally posted by MaggieL
If you wait to start designing and building stuff until you know where the battle's going to be fought and against whom, you'll never have anything ready in time.

Horseshit. That's not the way it works. At least, that's not the way it's supposed to work.

Crusader was "envisioned" (and I shudder to suggest that "vision" was even in the building when this decision was taken) as a replacement for Paladin. Nobody ever stopped to wonder whether the Army needed a replacement for Paladin. The "vision thing" seems to have been left out.

My Officer Evaluation Reports include spaces for judgement, reasoning, and wise use of resources. I'm constantly amazed that the PowerPoint Rangers associated with this program haven't all been the lucky recipients of Relief-for-Cause OERs. Fuck it... most of 'em will probably screen for flag rank before their careers are over.

Bitter? You bet.

Sigh. Everybody has hot buttons, I guess. Child support from wrongly-accused felons seems to be one of yours. The Crusader program is one of mine.

[Griff]

What I envision is picking up a couple of these army surplus to replace my old lawn darts set.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy

Horseshit. That's not the way it works. At least, that's not the way it's supposed to work.

Between "the way it works" and "the way it's supposed to work" lurks one hell of a big gulf. "No plan of battle survives first contact"

I'm constantly amazed that the PowerPoint Rangers associated with this program haven't all been the lucky recipients of Relief-for-Cause OERs. Fuck it... most of 'em will probably screen for flag rank before their careers are over.

"Powerpoint Rangers" are endemic to any sufficiently large organization...from DoD to MS to the Red Cross and the Girl Scouts. See http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

Sigh. Everybody has hot buttons, I guess. Child support from wrongly-accused felons seems to be one of yours. The Crusader program is one of mine.

Stick around, I've got a number of buttons, and adhereing to legal priciples consistantly is only one of them . Being wrongly accused and convicted of a capital felony by the state doesn't excuse a parent from paying child support. :-)

[tw]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy
Crusader is another one of those government projects that continues to stagger forward, zombie-like, despite anyone's best efforts to kill it. They've already spent over ten years and $11 billion developing this damn thing and it STILL isn't operational.

I was caught completely flat footed by the Crusader because it was not worthy of study and totally irrelevant to the needs of current and future military. Even George Jr campaigned for president against this program. And yet, in the tradition of the B1 and B2 bombers - both also useless even ten years after purchased - this Crusader lives on as a tribute to legalized bribery of politicians.

Accurately noted is that Crusader is a weapon for armored warfare. That type of war ended with the Gulf. The army currently needs highly armed, light, fast equipment. That is what the military is so short of. The 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Division are all but exhausted. We don't have enough of these units that desperately require supply, transport, and new, light weapons. The Crusader is everything that all military services - domestic and foreign friendly - don't want.

What country is going to mount a concentrated, heavy armour attack? Where do we find countries with the equipment to perform same? Israel. Are we planning to attack the Holy Land?

No. Our military's best weapons against armour include what is probably the best aircraft in the Air Force - as proven in the Gulf War - the A10 Warthog. What is the best aircraft in the Air Force over Afganistan? Puff the Magic Dragon - a modified C-130. That is the weapon that small, light, fast, well equipted professional military always wants.

Read detailed non-fiction on military equipment and strategy. For example, do you read Clancy's fiction or non-fiction books. Quite obvious. The Crusader has no purpose in any current military plans. The military is more in need of air support that can remain on station, travel deeper into enemy territory, and that is integrated with ground troops. Did we not learn those lessons in Kosovo? Of course we did. Crusader would even be useless for George Jr's current plans to unilaterally attack Iraq.

Those enfatuated with big, expense, useless, wasteful weapons systems such as the B-1, B-2, Star Wars, and now another useless ABM system will love the Crusader. The military requires high proficient and well supported small units - new versions of special forces. The nation requires a Coast Guard and Customs Service that has necessary and functional equipment. Clancy defined a direct attack on the capitol even in his ficton books. Terrorists all but duplicated that attaack almost ten years later because no systems, equipment, thought, or provisions were in place to combat such attacks. Not exotic, heavy, big buck equipment. Small, light, flexible equipment to empower the small military or domestic security units. How many times do little airplanes have to crash while attacking the White House before we finally get serious about the real threats. Even a 737, during a highest state of security with F-16s in the vicinity, could fly directly over the White House without challenge.

Three cheers for politicians more interested in their convenience in National Airport than the security of the nation. How then do we expect these leaders to quash a useless weapon system?

George Jr "wisely" has increased the US military budget by $331 billion for many big weapon systems such as Crusader. That increase alone is more than the entire military budget of France, or Britian, or most every other nation. What is this nonsense? Just another reason to support those who provide legalized bribes with fat, useless, contracts such as The Crusader?

A single valid reason to build this weapon system has yet to be presented here. Just because it might fire quickly does not provide it effective or necessary. It is designed for an a military that no longer exists or is needed. The Fulma Pass, a fixed location, is not a potential battlefield. Cursader is designed so that is cannot be made available when and where the military will operate. It is a classic example of Pork and of how not to justify a weapons system.

[jaguar]

geee maggiel, the fact it makes pretty picutres makes it worthwhile? Its an obselete, outmoded, overpriced, badly designed joke.

[MaggieL]

(Aside to jag--the pretty picture is a credit to the photographer rather than the Crusader; any projectile-throwing weapon down to a handgun can deliver pretty pictures like that)

Seems to me I heard the same kinds of criticisims of The Abrams and the Bradley that I'm now hearing about the Crusader. It's all well and good to claim that "armored warfare is over"...but that same claim was made after the Soviet Blok crumbled *before* Desert Storm. And yet the Abrhams and the Bradley turned out to be handy things to have. As far as I can see Abrams is to M60 as Crusader is to Paladin...to the point that versions of the Crusaider and Abrams now in development will use a common engine.

The alternative is to ditch Crusader now, and hope the Paladin holds up as well as the B-52 has (or that tw is right and armored warfare and artillery are *really* dead this time) .

My point still stands that the development and acquisions cycle for weapons systems is still *way* too long to follow the shifting patterns of threat right now; that "the world is no longer the same as it was when Crusader was originally designed" applies to *any* significant weapons system currently under development.

It's true: the major threats today appear to be rooted in asymmetric warfare; what kind of weapons systems it takes to fight that kind of conflict from the fat end of the assymetry are still being figured out.

The usefullness of systems to down airliners (and agplanes, apparently) will depend on our ability to figure out *which* airliners and agplanes should be targeted..or work out ways to make airliners and agplanes harder to commandeer. We probably can't set up Patriot batteries to protect every high-value domestic target...I do remeber when every major city had a Nike installation or two, but that seemed more like desperation rather than a finely-wrought strategy.

But having attention focused on terrorism doesn't mean conventional warfare is over either--a state that shelters, houses and trains terrorists (like the Afghani Taliban regime) is a *conventional* warfare target.

That said, the way DoD specifies and buys hardware is expensive, graft-ridden, slow, inefficient and clumsy. And it's been that way for hundreds of years. How do you folks think it should be changed to fix it?

[tw]

Originally posted by MaggieL
The alternative is to ditch Crusader now, and hope the Paladin holds up as well as the B-52 has (or that tw is right and armored warfare and artillery are *really* dead this time) .

The entire concept of my previous post and problems facing our military was misunderstood. Artillery and armor are not obsolete. But the new military is not making a fixed stand in the Fulma Gap. It must be light, fast, hard hitting, and able to provide supply and support over greaer distances. The Crusader is none of that. We have plenty of armor. We don't need any more just as we don't need a lot of ineffective air craft carriers.

Why is the B-52 still in service? Because too many replacements were so flawed - the B-1 and B-2. Both B-1 and B-2 suffered from the same mindset associated with Crusader. The B-52 adapted to changing conditions whereas the B-1 and B-2 cannot even fly out of any airport due to a need for specially designed hangars and other unique equipment not found in any airport and not available at any battlefield. The B-52 still performs functions that the B-1 and B-2 were suppose to and failed to perform. Money did not determine a good weapon system. Application to future needs does. B-1 and B-2 violated those principals. At least B-2 was built for a war we might have fought. But the B-1 never had a useful purpose other than to enrich the wrong people.

The military needs fast, light, brutal, and combat reliable equipment. Not something that will be in development for a decade after it is delivered to the miliatary and that has limited range. Abrams and Bradley were so criticized so that those programs were rescued. They were weapons that the military needed for a European WWIII standoff. They were criticized only because they were not meeting the military's needs. They were required when they were in trouble and therefore they were worth rescuing. The Crusader, in its basic philosophy, is everything the military does not need and therefore not worth rescuing.

What is the range of the Crusader. The new battlefield is not 20 miles. It is hundreds of miles. The military needs Osprey, airborne refueling tankers, C-17, satellite navigation and communication, stealth helicopters, drone fighters and observation aircraft, real time reconizance, etc. The Crusader fits none of these AND the Crusader wastes funds necessary for real world and future weapon systems.

The same army that needs the Crusader also needs an air defense system. Why is that air defense system also not being built? That program was also screwed up and was also being built in the same philosophy of the Crusader - fleets of troops sweeping across the field. Obsolete military weapon. VietNam, Afganistan, Somolia all demonstrated what the new world of warfare was going to be. It is why light, fast, effective weapons such as the RedEye anti-aircraft missile are the weapons of the future. Crusader violates those principals and does not adapt well to other forms of warfare. Its battle range and transport range as too limited. It is designed for fixed warfare. It does not well support the troops and reconfigurations for the new military.

[Hubris Boy]

Originally posted by MaggieL
It's all well and good to claim that "armored warfare is over"

What idiot claimed that?

As far as I can see Abrams is to M60 as Crusader is to Paladin...to the point that versions of the Crusaider and Abrams now in development will use a common engine.

No... Abrams was an excellent replacement for the obsolete M60. Nobody disputes the need for a heavy main battle tank like Abrams. Crusader, unfortunately, is not a good replacement for Paladin, for the reasons we've already discussed.

The alternative is to ditch Crusader now, and hope the Paladin holds up as well as the B-52 has (or that tw is right and armored warfare and artillery are *really* dead this time) .

No... the alternative is to ditch Crusader now and rely on MLRS, HIMARS and Paladin until a truly useful self-propelled artillery system can be developed and deployed. (One that actually meets the mobility and deployability criteria of the Army's FCS program, maybe? Hmmmm??)

That said, the way DoD specifies and buys hardware is expensive, graft-ridden, slow, inefficient and clumsy. And it's been that way for hundreds of years. How do you folks think it should be changed to fix it?

Heh. Put my Mom in charge of DoD procurement. Sheeesh... I've never seen anybody beat down prices like she can at a Saturday-morning yard sale!

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy

What idiot claimed that?

tw said " Accurately noted is that Crusader is a weapon for armored warfare. That type of war ended with the Gulf."

Nobody disputes the need for a heavy main battle tank like Abrams.

Good, 'cause we used them already, and once you drive them off the lot, you can't return them.

No... the alternative is to ditch Crusader now and rely on MLRS, HIMARS and Paladin until a truly useful self-propelled artillery system can be developed and deployed. (One that actually meets the mobility and deployability criteria of the Army's FCS program, maybe? Hmmmm??)

The first Paladins went out the door in Chambersburg in 1994.

"The envisioned [FCS] Objective Force must provide the Army with a significant combat overmatch against all foreseeable enemies extending through the 2025 timeframe... [T]he program will select a single contractor team to build and test an FCS demonstrator. The information gained through this demonstration and experimentation effort will allow the Army to make a decision regarding Engineering and Manufacturing Development in fiscal 2006, with the first system fielding in 2012."

So...for FCS to provide a Paladin replacement, we're talking about a minimum 18 year service life for Paladin <i>if FCS delivers systems on schedule</i>. FCS is a pretty ambitious high-concept program, and talks about a lot of nifty things. Do *you* think it will deliver a (robotic?) mobile artillery piece on that schedule? If it slips, how close will we be to asking Paladin to serve as sucessfully as the B-52 has? (Bear in mind that B-52 is the most successful of the last *four* heavy bomber programs, including B-70, B-1 and B-2.)

I haven't heard much bad said about MLRS, and HIMARS looks like "MLRS lite" in a lot of ways. But to somebody who's an aviator and a software engineer rather than an artilleryman, they look like they do a somewhat different mission than Crusader and Paladin do.