Future Israeli Howitzer Likely To Be Based On Oshkosh HEMTT

Through 20.9.18 til 3.10.18, the IDF will be throwing an exhibition for domestic purposes that will be open to the wide crowd, not to be confused with international defense exhibitions with orientation on striking defense deals.

In one of the videos the IDF prepared for the exhibition, it has showcased a mobile distributed mission control center. At some point in the video, it also showed artillery units. Except this time instead of the good ol' M109 'Doher' howitzers, those are Elbit's new howitzers, which consist of a turret that was showcased, and a HEMTT truck.

It is already known that the first batch of 100 howitzers will be wheeled (and that the next one may be tracked), and it is also known that the howitzer will utilize a common combat module in the form of an enclosed turret, that is platform-agnostic.
What we did not know yet is what platform it will utilize.

Of course, last year there was some glimpse into an Elbit presentation that included what seemed to be a turret mounted on a HEMTT, but the general notion was that it was just some idea they toyed around with.

At the time of announcement of Elbit's victory.

Apparently now it's much closer to being a hard fact.
The turret itself was shown to the public a while back as well, so we should know now how the whole system will look like.

The source for the image comes from here:

IMI Tests Iron Fist MBT APS on Namer APC.

IMI has released a marketing video of their Iron Fist APS, just as it is gaining some traction abroad, especially in the US and Australia, and as the IDF is progressing in its Barack MBT project.

Iron Fist has been made in numerous derivatives. One is the Iron Fist MBT, previously known simply as Iron Fist when it had no derivatives, which features a full spectrum defeat capability.
It is capable of defeating not only ATGMs and rockets but also kinetic energy penetrators.

Derivatives include the Bright Arrow which combined a remote controlled machine gun station with the launchers, which wasn't very successful, and the Iron Fist Light Configuration which is the only variant that garners serious interest so far outside Israel. It offers lighter interceptors incapable of intercepting kinetic energy projectiles that in return are safer to use, and requires lower power consumption, and takes less weight and volume.

It seems the Iron Fist MBT test was on a Namer APC (APS was mounted on the hull, not turret), from what appears to be a much larger launcher than typical.

The original video here:

IMI do have Namers to test various weapons and technologies they're developing, but they have already used the Sabra in the past for the Iron Fist, in the MBT version.

We should also keep in mind that IMI lost the IDF's competition to supply APS to the Merkava and later the Namer and subsequent vehicles like the Eitan or others' derivatives.

My take on this, is that this is a prototype of what the next generation of Trophy. It was said back in 2014 that IMI and Rafael are cooperating on an APS, and then things didn't work out and the project was cancelled. But now that the Merkava 4 Barack is in development, the project was revived, perhaps with a new concept, and according to press releases it should utilize the Iron Fist's interceptor's and Trophy's architecture.

A limiting factor of the Iron Fist that lost the competition in 2006 was its lack of munitions. Coming in with 4 interceptors per vehicle, versus Trophy's 6, it failed to meet a key IDF requirement for 6 munitions, as it had to sacrifice 2 interceptors for the sake of slewing rate that was necessary to engage very fast APFSDS rounds.

With a bulkier system, but one featuring an autoloading system, the Iron Fist could become more competitive.