October 7, 2019

Anatomy of War: Flight of the Griffin

General Dynamic’s Griffin III Infantry Fighting Vehicle Demonstrator

And then there was one. According to Defense News, the Army has disqualified Rheinmetall’s KF 41 Lynx Infantry Fighting Vehicle from its open competition to seek a replacement for the aging Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. This means the Griffin III remains as the only viable contender left in the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle competition, which will undoubtedly run into the billions of dollars to procure once Congress has agreed to fund the program. Produced by General Dynamics, the Griffin III is an interesting choice to serve along side the M1 Abrams main battle tank because it can only carry six men into battle as opposed to a full squad of 9 men the Lynx could reportedly ferry. That said, the Griffin weighs in at only 40-tons compared with the 50-ton Lynx, making it far quicker on the open battlefield and more transportable in the event of hostilities breaking out far from home.

The Griffin will be armed with a 50mm main cannon capable of elevating 85 degrees and depressing 20 degrees. The vehicle can carry an operating crew of 2 or 3 men depending upon its multiple configurations, is clad in a hexagonal-shaped Infrared heat signature management camouflage system designed to reduce its detectable footprint on the battlefield, and sports the Israeli-created “Iron Fist” integrated active protection system that is aimed at defending against incoming rockets and missiles without causing injury to dismounted infantry.

Rheinmetall’s KF 41 Lynx Infantry Fighting Vehicle

Curiously, the overall profile of the Griffin III is still rather bulky for an Infantry Fighting Vehicle, making it just slightly smaller than the high-profile Bradley IFV. Since the ammunition used is larger than a standard 25mm round, the turret must be larger to accommodate the beefier rounds. And, in order for the gun to elevate 85 degrees, thereby making it capable of engaging and defending against multiple airborne threats that run the gamut from aircraft and helicopters to weaponized UAVs – the designers needed to increase the vehicle’s overall size. It is possible that an even newer iteration, heretofore dubbed the Griffin IV IFV, could be in the works in the not-too-distant future based upon what the Army concludes from testing the Griffin III and whether it currently meets or exceeds all of the Army’s requirements for a next-generation IFV.

The idea of cladding a vehicle in an Infrared heat signature management camouflage system is relatively new and remains an unproven technology on the battlefield of the 21st century. Instead of defeating a warhead as it strikes the vehicle by studding the vehicle’s exterior with a layer of explosive reactive armor cells – as is common with most of today’s armored fighting vehicles – the system has been created to make the vehicle appear more stealthy, similar conceptually to the employment of radar defeating materials used on several fifth generation aircraft. If a vehicle cannot be seen by the enemy, it is reasoned, then the need for up-armoring the vehicle is obviated.

In 2010, the Israeli company Eltics created an early prototype of a system of tiles for infrared camouflage of vehicles. In 2011, BAE Systems announced their Adaptiv infrared camouflage technology. It uses about 1000 hexagonal Peltier panels to cover the sides of a tank. The panels are rapidly heated and cooled to match either the temperature of the vehicle’s surroundings, or one of the objects in the thermal cloaking system’s “library” such as a truck, car or large rock.

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