On 11/02/2019 Jane's posted a video from IAV (International Armored Vehicles), showing an interview given by Shmulik Olanski, Head of Innovation Programs Center, Land and Naval division.
In the interview, Olanski talks a lot about Rafael's evolving future armored vehicle suite intended to provide mission support to the two crewmembers, also known in Israel as the Carmel.
In the Carmel project, three teams, or three companies, were pitted against each other in a $100m competition between Rafael, IAI, and Elbit, to design a cockpit for the next generation AFV of the IDF.
One of the key aspects of the cockpit are the ability of the crew to observe their surroundings almost seamlessly and thus prevent casualties from small arms fire when crewmembers stick their heads out of the vehicle.
I remind that the concepts are as following:
Elbit - IronVision helmet mounted system.
Rafael - Panoramic wide screen setup.
IAI - Combination of wide screens and a helmet.
IAI has still not presented its concept in a visual way, nor has publicly revealed any details about it, other than it being a combination of Elbit's and Rafael's concepts.
Elbit's concept was also revealed a while ago:
Elbit has also presented a prototype at roughly when Rafael only began working on their solution, but that won't seem to be an issue, except for one thing:
Elbit's solution has already been picked for the Merkava 4 Barack MBT, Eitan IFV, and presumably also the Namer AFV.
This may create some bias within the IDF for Elbit's system for the Carmel, however the Carmel is supposed to be a clean sheet design, and the competition is only supposed to examine various concepts, not the end product's performance.
It is also in my belief that Elbit's control of the BMS market will not affect the competition.
The purpose of this post is to provide a brief summary of the pros and cons of each of the presented solutions.
Rafael
Pros
- Crewmen can point to the other crewman on the screen, and be sure they are observing the same thing. Especially useful in ambush scenarios, or in recon duties when the BMS is not yet fed with the target data or cannot pick up the target.
- Easy data input via touching the screens.
- More intuitive for a larger crew - a 3rd human crewman may be added for special missions.
- More rugged.
- Can possibly display other critical mission data when external cameras are offline.
- May be used to interface with other systems in the tank during the mission, when cameras are online.
- Stimulates team-work.
Cons
- Coverage is limited to the location of the screens, requires movement of the independent panoramic sights to observe high elevation targets, which may take up some of the visual space for the other crewman.
- Either analog and thus inferior movement of the independent sights or complex eye tracking technology.
Elbit
Pros
- More intuitive for the single crewman, seeing everything right in front of his eyes.
- Easier to operate the independent (TC or gunner's) sights.
- Possibly less complex technology to move the independent sights (inertial navigation vs eye tracking).
- May interface with different sights without interfering with the work of the other crewman.
- Higher coverage.
Cons
- Harder to communicate with the other crewmen over shared objectives.
- Stimulates solo operation.
- Less rugged.
- If external cameras go offline, the vehicle's backup interface and systems may be more difficult to operate.
- Difficult data input, may require separate computer or only allow commander to do so via less intuitive methods.
Those were just the pros and cons I could think of in the total span of maybe 5 minutes.
