At the Eurosatory 2022 defense exhibition, Rheinmetall exhibited a Puma VJTF infantry fighting vehicle. Its biggest feature is a set of special TSWA remote-controlled weapon stations installed on the tail, the so-called Turret Independent Auxiliary Weapon Assembly (TSWA; German) For the Turmunabhängige Sekundär waffenanlage), it is not equipped with the machine gun . Instead, it is equipped with a set of multi-barreled grenade launcher , thus solving the defense problem at the rear of the infantry fighting vehicle with a special idea.
When an infantry fighting vehicle is engaged in street fighting, you may encounter enemies outflanking the rear of the infantry fighting vehicle or having a firepower point in the rear building without the vehicle itself being aware of it. If you blindly open the hatch, you may easily be stunned by the enemy. Or use machine guns or rifles to shoot down dismounted infantry, causing heavy casualties. In order to solve this situation, the first thing people think of is to allow the mounted infantry to use the light weapon to shoot outward from the shooting hole on the vehicle, or open the top hatch to shoot with the probe. The advantage of the shooting hole is that it is simple in design, and Periscope can also satisfy the firepower density, but don’t expect accuracy. After all, people cannot stand while the vehicle is in motion. It mainly serves as a deterrent. In conjunction with this, the seats are generally designed in back-to-back mode. Compared with getting off the vehicle, difficulty. At that time, there was even a rear firing hole in the tail hatch.
Pay attention to the three shooting hole baffles at the rear of the vehicle
However, this design has basically been abandoned by emerging infantry combat vehicles, but it still exists in anti-terrorist assault vehicles. The main reason is that it drills holes in the entire armor to reduce its protective capabilities. It is also difficult to add additional armor. In contrast, after removing the shooting hole, a large area of additional armor and grille armor can be hung on the side, which has better protection performance and a better design of a three-defense system to seal the body. But in this case, it is very likely that someone will block the door and beat you. Then there was the improvement of installing additional armor and cameras on the tail springboard, but the tail defense is still difficult to solve, and the turret cannot be turned around again and again. In this regard, the Germans' solution was to first install a remote-controlled machine gun. For example, the Weasel A1 infantry fighting vehicle had a remote-controlled machine gun at the rear, but it was later removed. Now the Germans have decided to install another remote-controlled weapons station, which is really inhumane.
KF-41
Weasel A1
The Puma VJTF infantry fighting vehicle on display is actually the first batch of improved versions of the Puma infantry fighting vehicle. It was first won on July 13, 2017 by Rheinmetall worth 115 million euros. Order to carry out performance expansion and additional equipment modifications for the Puma infantry fighting vehicle of the German Bundeswehr . Among them are the development of a new turret-independent secondary weapon system (TSWA) for the Cougar, the installation of modern sights and displays, and the provision of new simulators, mainly to upgrade the Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in 2015. The first batch of 350 early-stage Cougar infantry fighting vehicles is to meet the needs of the 2023 NATO High Alertness Joint Task Force (VJTF). Its name is designated as Cougar VJTF or Cougar S1 infantry fighting vehicle. In 2020, 41 Cougars have been upgraded.
Cougar
Cougar VJTF
In March 2021, the German army released a promotional video for the Cougar VJTF, which mentioned its upgrades, including the upgrade of the PRC117 satellite radio communication equipment and SDR communication software of the IdZ-ES battlefield management system, and the replacement of the observation and sighting system. It has become a 20x magnification color CCD daytime camera and a high-resolution full-color flat-panel display. Eight sets of SCM day and night surveillance camera modules are also added to the body, which can provide a 360° panoramic image outside the vehicle, greatly improving its situational awareness capabilities and weapons. On the other hand, a Spike LR anti-tank missile twin launcher is installed on the left side of the unmanned turret, and the coaxial machine gun may be replaced by an MG5. In addition, a TSWA remote control weapon station is installed on the right side of the rear of the vehicle.
TSWA remote control weapon station consists of a component bracket, a multi-barreled grenade launcher unit and a dual-axis stable day and night photoelectric system. It adopts a modular design for easy maintenance, and has the characteristics of simple operation and high reliability. Its transmitter and sight are separated. The optoelectronic system consisting of a high-resolution camera, an uncooled thermal imager and an laser rangefinder adopts a bi-stable design and can be tilted and rotated 360 degrees to search for targets. It can be searched for by the rear combat compartment. Soldiers control via tablet. The multi-barreled grenade launcher unit adopts a honeycomb design and can launch 20 different types of lethal and non-lethal grenades in a pitched direction. It is equipped with low-velocity ammunition and has a maximum range of 400 meters. It has 18 ammunition and can shoot around the vehicle.
Interestingly, this defense exhibition also exhibited the SSW40 (Squad Support Weapon-40mm) automatic grenade launcher using the same type of ammunition. According to Rheinmetall, this is the world's first automatic, magazine-loaded, shoulder-fired grenade launcher. Its prototype is the Hydra automatic magazine-fed grenade launcher launched in 2012. The design of this grenade launcher is very similar to the assault rifle . It has a newly designed self-adjusting recoil system and can fire all 40×46mm SR low-velocity (LV) ammunition, as well as the new Rheinmetall RDM company’s 40mm medium-velocity (MV). Medium velocity ammunition.
Hydra
MV medium velocity grenade specifications are 40×51mmSR, its flight speed is increased, and its trajectory is flatter. Compared with LV ammunition, which has a muzzle velocity of only 75 meters/second and a maximum range of 400 meters, the muzzle velocity of MV medium velocity grenades can reach 100 meters/second. Seconds, it is said that its range can reach 900 meters. It has a wide variety of 40mm MV ammunition, including HE high-explosive ammunition (HEFRAG16), anti-personnel armor-piercing ammunition (HEDP16), door-breaking ammunition (HEBE14), programmable air-burst ammunition (HEAB), and training ammunition (TPM, TPM-T ), lighting/smoke grenades, stun and flash grenades, and tear gas (CS). The main ones installed on the TSWA remote control weapon station are high-explosive bombs , which can effectively kill the enemies behind and cover the infantry disembarkation.
It can be seen that the Germans used a very luxurious method to solve the problem of infantry fighting vehicle tail protection. Combining grille armor and composite armor can minimize soldier casualties. The premise is that you can afford the price of an infantry combat vehicle equipped with an unmanned turret and a remote-controlled weapon station. You must know that a Jaguar costs 7 million US dollars. This is still the price before modification. After the VJTF modification, it will be properly priced. More than a lot. The greater possibility is that some and countries in the Middle East that are not short of money will buy this system and install it on their own equipment. In fact, we have also played this trick. At the 2019 International Defense Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, we displayed a VN-50 heavy infantry fighting vehicle. The rear of the vehicle was more luxuriously equipped with two remote-controlled weapon stations with machine guns. After all, rich people don’t need money!
