[peter12]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

This is semantics but, by definition, both the Canadian Army's Leopard and LAV 6 are AFVs. A Bradley, while technically an AFV, is more commonly referred to as an IFV. And, really, a LAV 6 is an IFV, too. When we refer to an AFV, we mean "tank".

The problem with the LAV 6 in its current iteration was how the Army/Infantry employed them. That is to say, they employed them wrong. The Infantry adopted the doctrine of driving right up onto the objective and then dismounting the soldiers. This has long been the DS answer in the "Good Book" at the Infantry School.

The LAV (and Bradley) is quite vulnerable and nowadays you have to assume every enemy combatant has an AT weapon of some type. On a MAPLE RESOLVE exercise a few years ago, some UK troops were the enemy force and basically a section's worth of them decimated a Canadian LAV company using Javelin AT weapons system.

Canadian Infantry officers are now figuring out that you have to dismount your soldiers before they reach the maximum effective range of the most likely enemy direct fire weapons system on the last know point of enemy detection. The LAVs should then roll back to their ZULU harbours to provide support, if required. Note that this was precisely what we did with the M113s.

But a LAV providing direct fires in support of the dismounted infantry is not exactly optimal. I wouldn't feel comfortable in any LAV that is exposed to any type of line of sight. If the plan is to use LAVs in a direct fire support role, they absolutely cannot open fire until dismounted troops are in contact.

In my opinion, the LAV 6 is valuable only prior to an assault and after. It's useless during.

Why is this? It's not like Canada hasn't previous experience with IFVs/APCs. Heck, there's a good case to be made that Canadians invented them out of need when we converted Rams and Priests into Kangaroos during Operation Totalize.