LOSAT Analysis Great

The original LOSAT launch platform was a stretched (seven vice six road wheels) Bradley fighting vehicle that carried four LOSAT ready to fire and 16 more missiles in an automatically reloaded magazine. Average reload time for four missiles was 15-20 seconds.

The Bradley-LOSAT was to be part of a mech-infantry battalion's "Echo" or anti-tank Company with the extended range (10-15 km), top attack, FOG-M. There were to be 12-16 launchers proportioned 2/3 LOSAT and 1/3 FOG-M. When the Cold War ended. Bradley production was cancelled and the LOSAT was moved to the XM8 Buford light tank chassis. The Buford-LOSAT carried eight ready to fire missiles in two pods of four missiles. It had no reload magazine.

Then Buford was cancelled to pay for Bosnia, at which point LOSAT nearly died.

The LOSAT program was re-scoped yet again and placed in a Hummer, which carried four ready to fire missiles and had four more in a trailer for reloads. It was intended to provide the 82nd Airborne Div. with a heavy punch anti-tank company of 12 launchers and 144 missiles (IOC 2003).

I've run into this "Hummers die from artillery, so LOSAT is no threat," argument before. The Hummer is after all a soft target. Against a M1A2 class tank opponent with full combined arms support, the exchange ratio of a Hummer-LOSAT to MBT will probably be 2-to-1 in the MBT's favor.

WHAT MAKES LOSAT CRITICS THINK IT WILL BE LIMITED TO HUMMERS? Shinseki's Medium brigades won't be armed with a Hummer-LOSAT. They will have something like a USMC LAV. Proponents of the LOSAT have stated in old MARINE CORPS GAZETTE articles that an LAV could carry four LOSAT ready to fire and another four in an auto-loaded magazine. The exchange ratio between such vehicles and Abrams class tanks will be better than four-to-one in the LAV-LOSAT's favor.

That is all she wrote, when it comes to heavy armor, because all our likely enemies that require us to ship large numbers of Abrams will be able to afford a battalion or two of the missiles. Sweden is working on a LOSAT equivalent missile. It is dead certain China and Russia are working on missile in that class and will sell them everywhere it is hurtful of US interests within 10 years.

Our current fast sealift can deliver a brigade of US Army heavy armor anywhere in the world in a week to ten days and a US Army heavy division in six weeks (given strategic warning and the political will to act on it). One or two battalions of LAVLOSAT class launchers in the hands of a Third World military will rip the heart out of those heavy units.

And this is assuming that the ports for those ships, and airfields our troops land at, are not blown to Hades by GPS guided Scud derivatives first.

If we cannot project power with near invulnerable armor, and we know that light infantry cannot cut it in the face of Third World armor, then we are left with airpower and light armor with lots of ECM.