{"id":196865,"date":"2008-03-18T23:06:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T04:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/18\/xm360-gun-for-mcs-variant-of-the-future-combat-system\/"},"modified":"2008-03-18T23:06:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T04:06:00","slug":"xm360-gun-for-mcs-variant-of-the-future-combat-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/03\/18\/xm360-gun-for-mcs-variant-of-the-future-combat-system\/","title":{"rendered":"XM360 Gun for MCS Variant of the Future Combat System"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While I think that the entire manned vehicle portion of the Future Combat System is a waste<sup>*<\/sup>, there are some technologies that look to be interesting from a military perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point, the  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviationweek.com\/aw\/blogs\/defense\/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&amp;plckScript=blogScript&amp;plckElementId=blogDest&amp;plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&amp;plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A3641681d-cbb4-4bd1-88b5-eac04ba939f7\">lightweight XM360 120mm gun for the MCS (Tank) variant of the FCS-MGV<\/a><sup>\u2020<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s about a ton lighter than the 120mm gun used on the Abrams, with significant reductions in recoil, both due to a more effective recoil system, and because it uses a muzzle break that is compatible with sabot rounds.<\/p>\n<p>It achieves the weight savings through a high strength steel barrell with a composite wrapping to keep tension on the barrel, and by using largely titanium components in the recoil assembly, much like the lightweight towed M777 155mm howitzer.<\/p>\n<p>Of interest, the gun is also capable of indirect fire out to 12 km, which would be an improvement on M256 used on the Abrams, which does not have this capability.<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pic60.picturetrail.com\/VOL1689\/10590113\/18913141\/309304353.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><br \/>Image courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Electrothermal-chemical_technology\">Wik<\/a>i.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, &#8220;wrecker&#8221; variant from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).<\/span><br \/><sup>\u2020<\/sup><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">Future Combat Systems-Manned Ground Vehicle.  These are the ones that are the tanks and APCs. As opposed to the various unnmanned vehicles, etc. that form the full FCS.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While I think that the entire manned vehicle portion of the Future Combat System is a waste*, there are some technologies that look to be interesting from a military perspective. Case in point, the lightweight XM360 120mm gun for the MCS (Tank) variant of the FCS-MGV\u2020. It&#8217;s about a ton lighter than the 120mm gun &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1008,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-procurement","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}