French armoured reconnaissance prototypes

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I wasn't a 100% fan of the French Pahnhard SPHINX armoured recce car when it was unveiled. It was smaller (more a good thing than not) than its predecessor, appeared to have a sensible protection and good armament. The almost evenly spaced 6wd promised a decent off-road mobility, albeit not one that's especially noteworthy.

Overall, it was nice to see that the French appeared to take armoured recce seriously and did not go down the route towards mobile observation posts.
 

 
The one probable substantial mistake in the Sphinx concept was in my opinion the lacking dismount element.

Armoured recce needs to negotiate difficult terrain, drive over bridges, move through possible ambush sites and move into building compounds for temporary hiding and resting. One thing common to this is that it's an extremely good idea to dismount one man and let him scout ahead on foot. You cannot see if a bridge is rigged with explosives without leaving the vehicle and look at its underside. You better don't drive into a compound to see if it's clear - you rather send dismounted scouts forward to check it.

This is an often neglected part of armoured reconnaissance. You simply don't find an entry in data sheets about whether leaving and entering the vehicle is quick and comfortable enough to do it every couple hundred metres if necessary.

Now the French (Panhard) went towards a less well-protected, less well-armed and smaller yet at the same time more agile vehicle; the 4wd Panhard CRAB.

(Hat tip to Think Defence for the video.)

This, too, appears to be influenced by the specific French idea of armoured reconnaissance: Scout AFVs are to Frenchmen at the same time intervention AFVs for Africa. This means they're supposed to pack a punch and have decent protection.

Early descriptions of the Panhard CRAB focused less on high-res photos than on the concept, so let me refer to this article:
 

Panhard propose à l'armée de terre un blindé révolutionnaire

Le buggy blindé CRAB est un engin de reconnaissance d'un type nouveau : léger, puissant, rapide et peu cher.

Now I wouldn't emphasise the "buggy" thing about a 8+ ton vehicle, but the characterisations are interesting.

Panhard CRAB artist's impression

léger - light

puissant - powerful

rapide - quick

peu cher - ~affordable

"léger" is relative - half the weight of an already not really heavy SPHINX, but at 8 tons or more it's on the limit for 4wd off-road mobility. "puissant" may refer to the armament and depends a lot on what armament choice to make. The turret with 25 mm gun (see artist's impression and video) is impressive, but not the only choice. "rapide" - well, top speed is rather unimportant. What's more interesting is the acceleration. No combat vehicle drives much close to its top speed unless it's really, really slow by design. The power/weight ratio of about 35-40 hp/metric ton is excellent for combat vehicles (they already followed this route with SPHINX). For comparison; a Stryker ICV would have more than 570 hp instead of only 350 if it had such a ratio.

"peu cher" - well, that's what the industry always says.

CRAB does appear to offer quick and comfortable exit and entry, so it's more suitable for the aforementioned use of a dismount. I'm not sure if the three-man crew (only) is really meant for this, though. It sounds a lot like commander, driver and gunner to me. Well, let the commander dismount then.

Another thing about CRAB does irritate me, though: The large windows. SPHINX had them too. Armoured glass has two principal problems: (1) It's very heavy for a given protected area (25 mm thickness at the very least, usually much more - and glass is quite dense).(2) It becomes practically intransparent if hit. Even modern sandwich techniques cannot keep the fractures from spreading, scattering the light on a substantial area even if the hit was merely about a petty AK bullet.
The volume and weight as well as the size and difficulties of replacing make it unlikely that such vehicles have many spare windows (unlike tanks and their spare mirrors for telescopic optics).
Vehicles with large glass surfaces will be a pain in the ass in a conflict with much fast-moving lead and iron in the air.
Again; the French probably think more about using such vehicles in African interventions than anyone else.


Overall, it's nice to see the French paying attention to more than just sensors on masts in regard to armoured reconnaissance - they keep the fighting part in mind. Their prototypes aren't flawless even in a superficial consideration, though.



S Ortmann

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