TOKYO — Starting in 2016, Japan’s military will begin reshaping part of a tank fleet originally designed to repel a Soviet invasion from the north into a more mobile force aimed at a possible Chinese invasion of the nation’s far-flung southern island chain
The replacement is the maneuver combat vehicle (MCV), a wheeled tank destroyer billed by the Ministry of Defense as a more flexible alternative to Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force’s (GSDF’s) three main types of tanks. With a 105mm cannon, the MCV will pack enough punch to fight heavy armor but can be rapidly deployed south when needed.
According to publicly announced plans, the MoD intends to reduce the GSDF’s tank force from 740 to about 300 over the next decade, with most being concentrated on the main islands of Hokkaido in the north and Kyushu in the south. According to this scenario, some 200 to 300 MCVs will be procured and airlifted to islands where they are needed.
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The MoD’s Technical Research & Development Institute has been developing the MCV since at least 2008; it displayed a fourth prototype in October 2013. Testing is scheduled to begin shortly and if all goes well, the GSDF will receive its first units in 2016. The MCV is being built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The plan is proceeding smoothly, according to MoD spokesman Tsuyoshi Hirata, who said the deployment schedule and perhaps final number of MCVs will be reviewed over the next five years. The announced figures could change, he said.
“Based on the current Mid-Term Defense Program [MTDP] issued last December [2013], we plan to introduce 99 MCVs by the end of [fiscal] 2018. We have in mind to introduce about 300 MCVs,” he said.
The MoD plans to deploy the MCV in several rapidly deployable basic operational units (rapid deployment divisions and/or brigades) and rapid deployment regiments that will be formed.
“Please be reminded, however, that it is difficult to answer concrete number at this moment because the number will be reviewed at the time we form up the next MTDP and also we have to take into account the fiscal condition of Japan every year,” Hirata said.
While the MoD pursues the MCV, however, the vehicle itself raises several questions, according to local defense analyst Shinichi Kiyotani, who is an expert on GSDF procurement, logistics and armor.
The MCV, with a projected 400-kilometer range and a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour, is highly capable, he said, but its 105mm cannon could be just too powerful for some of the combat situations in which it might be used.
“At 105mm, the cannon is overkill for urban combat situations. The MCV could do just as well with a 90mm or a 76mm model, or even 40 or 35mm is good enough for a light tank,” Kiyotani said.
The big gun may make the MCV too heavy to be easily transported, he said. At 26 tons, the vehicle is near the projected carrying capability of the planned Kawasaki C-2 transport planes.
The MoD intends to start deploying the C-2 to the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF), initially at Miho Airbase in Tottori Prefecture in western Japan, as early as next year. First, the plane must overcome some technical issues, including an incident this January when a door broke during pressurization testing.
The ASDF said it requires up to 60 of the planes to replace its aging Kawasaki C-1s. While the C-2 has a stated range of 3,023 nautical miles when carrying its maximum payload of 30 tons, it might struggle to carry the MCV, Kiyotani said.
“With its weight, only one MCV can be carried per C-2 and that will be at the limit when you add in maintenance crew and ammunition. To transport one squadron of 12 MCVs, you may need as many as 20-plus C-2s, and where is the ASDF going to find those planes during a war in a remote island?” Kiyotani said.
Also, the MCV might not be as robust as it looks, he argued. While it will use modular armor, it has a relatively delicate undercarriage and drive system that may be vulnerable to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) in particular, he said.
And to save money, the MCV’s big gun will not have an automatic loader, requiring a crew of four who may have to fight in sweltering heat as the MCV lacks crew air conditioning.
“RPGs are a threat. The MCV is just a cheap tank. It’s the wrong concept,” Kiyotani said.
“One can always debate the merits of a 105mm versus something smaller, especially given advances in ammo technology that have made smaller guns rather lethal,” said Grant Newsham, senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, a Tokyo-based military think tank.
“There probably hasn’t been an armored vehicle introduced anywhere that didn’t have as many detractors as supporters,” Newsham said. “Recall the M1 Abrams introduction in the late ’70s, early ’80s. And even 75 years later people are still debating the M4 Sherman,” he said.
Regarding collateral damage, Newsham said that if Japan is using MCVs and its 105mm in an urban environment, the battle would have reached a stage where collateral damage isn’t much of a concern.
“You can move MCV around more easily than a battle tank and the 105mm gun has plenty of punch,” he said.
Newsham agreed that the MCV would be “a bit heavy” and may have less off-road ability than hoped for, but argued that the GSDF would also use commercially chartered aircraft and high-speed ferries to transport the vehicle because its potential operating area is fairly small and nearby.
“If there’s any sort of advance notice at all, a high-speed vessel could get MCVs to Nansei Shoto in 24-48 hours — assuming someone has thought through the requirements and put MCVs in the right locations with the right sealift prepared, and practiced. Moving MCVs around within the Nansei Shoto could take even less time,” Newsham said.
Regarding potential armor weaknesses, Newsham countered: “Everything is vulnerable to IEDs and to aggressive fighters willing to get in close and fight with RPGs and other anti-armor weapons.
“No armored vehicle is ideal for everything. It’s either too heavy, too light, drinks too much fuel, has wheels, has tracks, etc. At the end of the day, one can at least say the MCV is useful — certainly compared to a battle tank — for many of the things GSDF might do: island defense, [peacekeeping] and UN operations,” he said.
Japan To Emphasize Military Mobility With MCV | Defense News | defensenews.com
This is a great idea. Use mobility to flank and destroy heavily armored tanks from the rear where their armor is more thin. Also unlike our Stryker, the MCV seems to be a tank destroyer from the ground up, not an APC that was turned into a mobile gun platform. The only issue I have with the design is the use of the under-powered 105mm, but if speed and mobility are your main concerns than anything larger would be too cumbersome. Perhaps adding a few of these (see pictures for details) would be useful as well. I'm also adding a pic of China's counterpart for comparison.
This is a great idea. Use mobility to flank and destroy heavily armored tanks from the rear where their armor is more thin. Also unlike our Stryker, the MCV seems to be a tank destroyer from the ground up, not an APC that was turned into a mobile gun platform. The only issue I have with the design is the use of the under-powered 105mm, but if speed and mobility are your main concerns than anything larger would be too cumbersome. Perhaps adding a few of these (see pictures for details) would be useful as well. I'm also adding a pic of China's counterpart for comparison.
I'm having problems with the reply feature, so I'll post this here instead of in a new post.
China's Neighbors Are Going On a Military Shopping Spree — In Japan
It's no secret that China's rise as an economic power has been miraculous. Over the past few decades, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, BMWs have replaced many bicycles on the streets of Beijing, and China's is now the second-largest economy in the world.
This economic explosion has in turn boosted the fortunes of China's regional neighbors and trading partners — but they're not entirely happy about China's new-found power. Because in addition to having the world's second-largest economy, China is also the second-largest spender on arms in the world — with a military to match.
Neighboring countries feel they're being pushed around by an aggressive Chinese foreign policy, and as a result, they're continuing to beef up their own militaries. And it's Japan, China's historical rival, that is quietly providing assistance to many countries that — like Japan itself — are feeling the heat from China.
China shares a land border with more countries than any other nation on earth — and it has territorial disputes with almost all of them: Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. (On top of that, separatist movements in Tibet and Xinjiang are pushing for the regions to secede from China.) Most of the border disputes have remained more-or-less dormant for decades.
In 2009, China presented a map with nine dashes snaking through the South China Sea, which boasts rich fisheries and abundant reserves of oil and natural gas. The so-called "Nine Dash Line" or "Cow's Tongue" — the line resembles the outline of, you guessed it, a cow's tongue — staked China's claim on up to 90 percent of the South China Sea, including territory already claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
China soon grew belligerent about its territorial claims. Exactly why this happened is a mystery. It started with the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea — known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan. China suddenly asserted its claim with visits by Coast Guard and fishing vessels.
Earlier this year, China turned its attention to the Philippines and the
Ayungin Shoal, pressing its claim with more Coast Guard ships and by parking the
Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig, owned by the state-run Chinese National Offshore Oil Company, off the coast of Vietnam inside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone, established by a 30-year-old UN convention. Soon Chinese warships and combat aircraft were sighted in the area.
This trend line isn't good for China's neighbors. China's military continues to grow alongside the boldness of its territorial claims. Between 2004 and 2014, every one of China's Pacific neighbors, with the exception of Japan, minimally
doubled the amount it spends on defense. Many countries turned to the United States to gear up, but they also started buying from a much closer and highly unlikely neighbor: Japan.
Unlikely for two reasons. First, many Asian countries are not historically very fond or trusting of Japan. The country's war crimes in many parts of Asia committed mostly during the first half of the 20th century resulted in millions of deaths. Despite Japan's later apologies and financial compensation, many of its neighbors remained wary, and Japan has often been used as a bogeyman for nationalist purposes.
In the aftermath of World War II, Japan adopted a national constitution that enshrined pacifism. Article 9 of the constitution banned war as a tool of government, and one of the offshoots of that was a policy banning the sale of arms to pretty much everybody. So while Japan became an exporter of a lot of things, weapons weren't really one of them. The current government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, loosened the ban to allow weapons to be sold to friendly countries — a move that he no doubt hopes will boost Japan's ailing economy.
After decades of neglect, the Philippines is rebuilding its air and naval forces. It's receiving
10 patrol ships from Japan, along with satellite communications equipment. The ships, of course, will be used to patrol the area in dispute with China. The Philippines is also buying a dozen
FA-50 fighter jets from South Korea, and acquiring old US Coast Guard cutters.
Vietnam and China have been enemies for thousands of years; the two countries most recently fought a two-week, incredibly bloody war in 1979. In response to China's buildup, Vietnam's defense spending has nearly quadrupled over the last 20 years. Japan is
set to donate several retired Coast Guard vessels to Vietnam. And in 2009, Vietnam blew its entire defense budget on six Improved Kilo-class submarines from Russia. So far, three of the submarines have been delivered.
Vietnam had never even had submarines before, but it feels the need now because of its overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea with China. India, which maintains similar submarines,
is helping train the crews.
India shares a border with China, and in 1962 the two fought a brief war over contested territory in the Himalayas, where tensions have again been rising recently. India has been stepping up cooperation with Japan, and there is talk of India buying Japanese seaplanes.
Australia, which counts itself an Asian nation, is also boosting air and naval forces. Australia will be a customer for America's F-35 fighter, and is building two small aircraft carriers and three new destroyers. But the most surprising part of Australia's buildup is the
impending purchase of 10
Soryu-class attack submarines from Japan, which will be the largest sale of weapons by the country since the end of WWII.
The
Soryu class is one of the best non-nuclear powered submarines in the world. They will be used to replace Australia's homemade
Collins-class submarines, which by all accounts have been riddled with problems since their introduction 20 years ago.
So does all of this shopping mean these countries now view China as an enemy? It's more complicated than that. A lot of them do a good deal of trade with China. So for countries like Vietnam and Japan, China is both an economic partner and a military rival. Weeks after worries that Vietnam and China appeared as though they might come to blows over the Haiyang Shiyou oil rig, Vietnam dispatched an envoy to China to patch things up.
But Japan will no doubt keep on selling. Japanese military equipment, while untested in battle, is well-made and often technologically on par with US equivalents. Japan is likely to offer generous credit terms to its neighbors, both to position itself to capture a large segment of the arms market and to strengthen its diplomatic position in the region. Japan, constrained by an enormous deficit and domestic and constitutional quandaries with national defense, can't quickly expand its military. It can, however, help others expand.
From
China's Neighbors Are Going On a Military Shopping Spree — In Japan | VICE News
Still having issues with the reply feature (it won't let me post a new item, only replies) so I'll add this as well. Sorry for the long read!
Report: Japan Interested in Aegis Ashore for Ballistic Missile Defense
The Japanese Defense Ministry is interested in acquiring Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense (BMD) battery, according to an August report from the Japanese newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun.
The paper reported the Defense Ministry is expected to spend “tens of millions of yen” as part of the Fiscal Year 2015 state budget for research into Aegis Ashore — which combines the Lockheed Martin SPY-1D radar with a battery of Raytheon Standard Missile-3 missiles.
“The ministry intends to introduce new ground-based SM-3 missiles, in addition to the sea-based SM-3s that the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) already possesses, to enhance Tokyo’s readiness to intercept ballistic missiles heading toward Japan,” according to the report.
When contacted by USNI News, representatives of Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) did not elaborate on the Mainichi story.
The only MDA effort ongoing in Japan is the installation of a Raytheon Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2) BMD radar, an MDA spokesman told USNI News on Friday.
Currently, Japan uses a combination of four Kongo-class Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyers armed with SM-3s for longer-range ballistic missile threats and Lockheed Martin Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) mobile ground based interceptors for missiles closer to their targets.
“There are concerns that PAC3s could not respond if a massive number of ballistic missiles were to be simultaneously launched toward Japan,” read the Mainichi report.
Japan intends to double the amount of BMD destroyers to eight by 2018, according to local press reports.
The Kongos ships use a legacy Aegis BMD configuration that do not allow the Aegis combat system to operate as BMD defense platforms and as anti-air warfare ships simultaneously.
Japan is also exploring upgrading at least some of its ships to a more advanced Baseline 9 configuration that would allow the ships to simultaneously act as a BMD and AAW platform.
Aegis Ashore operates with a version of Baseline 9 that doesn’t include an AAW component, but given the similarities of the ground based system and the Aegis combat system onboard U.S. and Japanese ships, those capabilities could expand.
“This is the Aegis weapon from a ship. It can do AAW, terminal defense and mid-course intercept,” Navy Capt. Jeff Weston, the Aegis Ashore program manager for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said last year during a USNI News interview at Lockheed Martin’s Aegis testing facility in Moorestown, N.J.
At the time, Weston said an U.S. Aegis Ashore battery would only concentrate on BMD. “We’re not going to do anti-air warfare in someone else’s country,” he said.
However, a Japanese run installation could expand the missile offerings beyond the BMD optimized SM-3s.
Depending on the configuration of the Aegis Ashore installation, the site could conceivably be expanded to include other AAW capabilities that would allow the site to handle multiple air threats in addition to a BMD mission.
From
Report: Japan Interested in Aegis Ashore for Ballistic Missile Defense - USNI News
