The Soviet Army thought that allowing the infantry squad in the back of the APC to bring their weapons to bear might be a good idea. The infantry could use their personal weapons from within the vehicle, or de-buss to deal with anti-tank guns, infantry with Bazookers, PIAT’s or Molotov Cocktails etc, thus basically protecting the tanks by making up for some of their weaknesses (lack of situational awareness and all round vision, etc). Kfz251) provided protection for Panzergrenadiers (mechanized infantry) from small arms fire and some artillery shrapnel, while also providing tactical mobility close to that of the Panzers. Already we are to the crux of the matter, the development of what we call the “combined arms” formations, tanks and infantry working together each has its strengths and weaknesses, vulnerabilities and advantages.įor example the Hanomag (Sd. Move onto WW2 and we have iconographic images of both German “Hanomag” and American M2/M3 “half tracks” providing “protected mobility” to infantry accompanying tanks formations. This was news to me, but hey it appears we invented the MICV before the APC ! Historyīut first, the potted history of the MICV / AIFV, starting with it’s predecessor, the Armoured Personnel Carrier:Īs is often the case these days, a succinct and reasonably accurate history is available from Wikipedia:Īpparently as early as WW1 the British Army built a “tank” variant with no main armament but designed to carry up to 30 troops, who were provided by armoured loop holes from which to fire their rifles, as the vehicle wadded through the mud, ran over German trenches, and protected said Tommies from machine gun fire. You can choose to interpret the question in its most broad sense, but I will attempt to constrain my meandering thoughts and arguments to the confines of a post SDSR British Army. Those comments have prompted me to ask my contentious question which provides the headline for this article, is the concept of the Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) or Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) passed it’s use by date ? There have been a lot of interesting comments made in the various post-SDSR army articles written by TD (and guests), some by serving soldiers, some by us arm chair generals, but I am focusing here on the ones about the Warrior upgrade, and the Protected Mobility variants of FRES SV.
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