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Belgium has become the latest European country to decide to introduce revolutionary changes to its armed forces. Building 21st century forces, prepared to fight on the "digital" battlefield with full exploitation of information superiority is a challenging and difficult undertaking in itself, but above all, it requires military commanders to adopt new ways of thinking. The Belgian concept of fully wheeled forces seems to be a good model for an army for any small-or medium-sized European country. It will give Belgium flexible but capable forces, tailored to the both the concept of net-centric warfare and addressing current security challenges.
The Belgian Army is converting its entire combat-vehicle force to one based on high-mobility wheeled vehicles – specifically, Piranha III armored personnel carriers (one of which is seen here). The service will receive 242 of the new vehicles in seven different variants.
Mowag
The perceived need to maintain at least a minimal conventional deterrent force, along with light deployable forces for contributing to overseas operations like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, has caused many European armies to maintain two components: a heavy mechanized component for homeland defense and a light, air-transportable quick-reaction component for overseas contingency operations – not the best idea during a time of continuous budget cuts, since neither component was sufficiently large or equipped to achieve its required capabilities, nor could the two components supplement one another.
However, the advent of concepts such as network-centric warfare and information superiority has opened new opportunities. Revolutionary changes in battlefield surveillance, precision attack, and command and control (providing commanders with a common recognized tactical situation picture in near-real time) dramatically increased firepower capabilities. Presently, the same effect can be achieved with fewer fire means and much smaller forces. The land forces can act more through maneuver (to achieve advantageous positions, especially to get into the enemy's rear areas and vital points there) rather than through the direct use of massed firepower, since the firepower functions have been largely undertaken by airpower, combat helicopters, and long-range precision attack systems. The idea is to reduce the enemy's fighting capabilities "remotely," before contact with friendly land forces occurs. The land forces' maneuver element's main task is to get to the enemy's rear area in order to cut off supply lines; to disrupt the enemy's command system, if it still exists in any form after air attacks; and to engage and destroy the enemy's isolated and weakened units, one by one. For this type of maneuver warfare, there is a little need for heavy armor and tank-like firepower. Medium-weight and highly mobile, wheeled armored personnel carriers APCs are perhaps best suited for the task, especially since those APCs can be adapted to perform other support roles.
When the first light infantry divisions were established in the US Army in the early 1980s to fight low-intensity conflicts in various areas where they could be rapidly deployed and sustained for long time at relatively low cost, such units would have been of little value in a major European war. But the current all-wheeled medium-weight units are different from light infantry in that they are destined to fight any war, from a major full-scale conflict with a heavily armed enemy, through the low intensity conflicts of various sizes and involvement in peace and stability operations and preventive deployments in crisis situations. Of course, the necessary condition for the employment of such wheeled forces is the achievement of full information superiority and the possession of adequate firepower with precision-engagement capabilities.
One of the challenge related to the current revolutionary changes in the joint and land warfare is the resistance of conservative generals, to whom the idea of moving from heavy armor and tanks in particular is totally unacceptable. Belgium is the latest European country that has decided to make this radical transition and convert entirely to wheeled forces. To this end, on Jan. 27, the Belgian government signed a contract, valued in excess of $596 million, with Mowag (Kreuzlingen, Switzerland) for the delivery of 242 Piranha IIIC wheeled APCs in seven different versions. Approval of the contract by the Belgian Parliament is expected shortly.
All of the Piranha vehicles are to be air transportable by the future Airbus A400M aircraft, with the heaviest version weighing in at 22 tons. Deliveries will commence in the autumn of 2007. The first 138 vehicles will be delivered by 2012, with deliveries continuing through 2015. According to the contract, 99 of those vehicles will be configured as infantry carriers for up to 10 soldiers. They will be armed with M2HB-QCB .50-caliber heavy machine guns (HMGs), produced by FN Herstal (Herstal, Belgium), which will also provide the Arrow remotely operated turret for the HMGs. The Arrow turret will provide a 360° horizontal field of fire and elevations from -20° to +55°. The turret will be equipped with daytime camera and an uncooled thermal camera, both being provided by OIP Sensor Systems company (Oudenaarde, Belgium), and the picture from these sensors will be displayed on an 800x600-pixel liquid-crystal display (LCD). Both sensors will have two fields of view: from 5x3.75° to 15x11.25°, with continuous zoom. In addition, the APCs will be equipped with the acoustic Small Arms Detection and Localization System (SADLS). This device, dubbed Pilar and provided by 01dB-Matravib (Limonest, France), has a shot-location accuracy of ±2° in bearing and ±20% in range.
The next 32 vehicles will be equipped with the Elbit (Haifa, Israel) ORCWS-25-30 Overhead Weapon Station, armed with a 30mm automatic gun, similar to those that were recently ordered by Protugal for its PandurII vehicles (see "Unmanned Turrets Chosen for Portuguese Pandur IIs"). This is also a remotely controlled turret and is to be provided with aiming devices in the form of a CCD TV camera and a thermal imaging unit provided by OIP Sensor Systems. These vehicles will not be equipped with SADLS, but will be fitted with a laser-warning receiver provided by Thales Communications Belgium SA (Tubize, Belgium).
Another 40 vehicles will be equipped with the 90mm LCTS 90 turret with the Mk8 gun system, provided by CMI Defense (Embourg, Belgium). The turret will be also equipped with the OIP Sensor Systems' observation and aiming devices. All of the turrets in this and the two previously discussed versions will be also equipped with smoke launchers.
The remaining four versions will include 24 command vehicles, 12 armored ambulances, 17 recovery and repair vehicles, and 18 armored engineer vehicles.
The Piranha IIICs, all seven versions, will equip one brigade, as well as several vehicles for training for a second brigade. Despite the fact that only one brigade will have full complement of the new vehicles, the Belgian Army will continue to maintain two mechanized brigades. Both brigades will swap their equipment periodically, and the one possessing it will be combat ready. This seems to be a logic move, since most of the current low-intensity conflicts or stabilization operations, in which many NATO armies are engaged, are prolonged and demand that soldiers be rotated every six months in the mission area. Therefore, there is a greater need for personnel than for equipment – somewhat like in air force, in which at least two pilots are assigned to each single aircraft. The gun-armed vehicles are destined to replace Leopard 1A5 tanks in one of the two existing tank battalions, and the 30mm-gun-armed vehicles will replace one of two existing reconnaissance battalions. The infantry-carrying vehicles are destined for four infantry battalions, while the command vehicles will be assigned to brigades' and battalions' headquarters. The engineering vehicles will go to one of two existing engineering battalions, and the recovery vehicles and armored ambulances will go to the one of two logistics battalions.
This arrangement is considerably different from the organization of that of the US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team (BCT), in which the company is a basic combat module, having its own organic fire-support element with 105mm gun systems on the Stryker chassis (for more on the Stryker BCTs, see "Stryker Improvements on the Way"). In the Belgian Army, a brigade will continue to be a fully independent unit, and the battalion will form the basic combat module. However, it is expected that, in a smaller combat environment a smaller combat group would be formed, with the companies and platoons taken from specialized battalions and combined together into a flexible combat unit. The other difference between the Belgian solution and US Stryker BCT is the fact that Belgian brigades will not have tank destroyers in the form of APC-mounted anti-tank guided weapons. This means that the combating of tanks has been left completely to airpower and combat helicopters. The Belgian Army will, however, have heavy gun-armed version (though only with a 90mm gun, as opposed to the 105mm-armed Stryker's M1128 machine guns). This version is clearly not designed to fight an enemy's tanks but to provide a heavy punch against targets such as bunkers, reinforced fire positions, enemy personnel hidden in buildings and basements, etc. Theoretically, such targets would be also eliminated by other fire means, but in practice, not of them can be detected in a timely enough manner to avoid exposing friendly forces to contact with them. Moreover, once detected and confronted, it is often much easier and cheaper to destroy such targets with a single 90mm unguided round than to call in air support or to use a much more costly guided weapon.
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