General artillery, SPGs, MLRS and long range ATGMs thread.

[LoooSeR]

[Ramlaen]

Better version of that picture.

[Ramlaen]

Couple pictures from when that 155mm low recoil howitzer called Brutus was being tested.

 

[Alzoc]

BONUS ammo used to destroy a column of ISIS "armored" vehicles

It was the first operational use of the BONUS round in the French army (and AFAIK the first operational use with any army), apparently everything worked just as advertised:

 

On December 3rd a column of ISIS vehicle is detected [in Irak], TF Wagram receive the order to cut their path.

After a first barrage the column go around the area and relaunch their offensive, order is then given to destroy the column.

The CAESAR fire 4 bonus rounds neutralizing 8 armored vehicles.

 

Confirming again that having an APS capable of intercepting fast moving top attack ammunition will be an absolute necessity on any future AFV.

[N-L-M]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

Confirming again that having an APS capable of intercepting fast moving top attack ammunition will be an absolute necessity on any future AFV.

Or, alternatively, having roof armor designed to counter single EFPs. (Or indeed tandem EFPs if you want to stop OTA missiles like the TOW-2B).

 

[Alzoc]

1 minute ago, N-L-M said:

Or, alternatively, having roof armor designed to counter single EFPs. (Or indeed tandem EFPs if you want to stop OTA missiles like the TOW-2B).

 

True but if you can have an APS that will work on a broader spectrum of threat, it can allow you to forgo additional roof protection (at the expense of redundancy and resilience though).

[N-L-M]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

 

True but if you can have an APS that will work on a broader spectrum of threat, it can allow you to forgo additional roof protection (at the expense of redundancy and resilience though).

That's very optimistic. Skeet submunitions have very unpredictable flight patterns and detonate quite a distance away. You'd need to intercept them before they go off (I'd assume, as the slugs are pretty zippy), and that's not easy. Single EFPs are however not as penetrative as similarly sized conical shaped charges, so I'd expect any bomblet armor (other than the German spikes which work differently) to also be effective against these skeets.

You still want the roof armor, no APS I'm aware of can shoot down multiple DPICM bomblets in flight.

[LoooSeR]

   A "soft-kill" part of APS on Armata vehicles method of dealing with submunitions is to pop a multispectral smoke screens with quick reaction grenade launchers. I don't think APS could reliably intercept submunitions physically, so at least making vehicle harder for submunition targeting system to detect is currently the only way.

 

[Eliz]

How aps will protect you from artillery?! 

 

In mass artillery strike, with hundreds of rounds fired if only 1percent is precision guided how aps gonna help?

 

Or when 50kg high explosive is coming from above is aps gonna help?

 

 

In mechanized warfare we all talk about armor which protects from tank rounds and missiles which are fired horizontally but no one is worried about artillery and top attack munitions or threat from air (which also includes artillery) ? 

 

 

Is not that true that most armored and non armored vechiles are destroyed by non dedicated  anti tank  means?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

1 hour ago, Eliz said:

How aps will protect you from artillery?! 

/.../

   I was talking about submunitions with guidance system, like one Smerch have.

 

   Obviously soft kill APS can't do shit against dumb artillery projectiles.

[Ramlaen]

 

[Collimatrix]

On 12/7/2018 at 2:24 PM, Eliz said:

How aps will protect you from artillery?! 

  

 In mass artillery strike, with hundreds of rounds fired if only 1percent is precision guided how aps gonna help?

 

Or when 50kg high explosive is coming from above is aps gonna help?

  

 

In mechanized warfare we all talk about armor which protects from tank rounds and missiles which are fired horizontally but no one is worried about artillery and top attack munitions or threat from air (which also includes artillery) ? 

  

 

Is not that true that most armored and non armored vechiles are destroyed by non dedicated  anti tank  means?!

 

 

Hard-kill APS could defend a tank from dumb artillery fire fairly easily.

Consider: most APS are cued by radar.  The radar can determine (within the resolution limits of the radar antenna) the position and velocity of incoming shells.  Therefore, the APS need not expend ammunition against any threats that are not on an intercept course with its host vehicle.  I think you would agree that a dumb artillery shell that doesn't hit the roof of a tank isn't going to do much.  Maybe damage some sensors or rough up the skirts if it's a near miss.

If the APS smacks the incoming shell hard enough that the shell detonates at some distance from the tank, then this is still a massive improvement over having the shell hit the tank from above.  Shock wave intensity drops off as a function of the inverse square of distance.  So, a shell that is detonated by APS ten meters away from a tank's roof will produce a blast overpressure that is one one-hundredth as powerful as one that detonates only a meter away.

 

However, it is also possible, perhaps even likely when engaging insensitive munitions, that the intercepted shell will not detonate at all and will instead deflagrate or it may simply be ripped apart.

In the case of fancy shells that use explosively forged penetrators or blast fragmentation rounds, the shell relies on sensitive geometry and timing, so hitting it with APS should keep it from functioning properly.

[LoooSeR]

RADIRS (Hydra 70 rocket pods, basically)

 

[heretic88]

20 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

Hard-kill APS could defend a tank from dumb artillery fire fairly easily.

What about airburst shells? Those are even more effective (at least for mission-kill), and harder to defend against.

Also, in my opinion, we'll soon see the appearance of anti-APS jammers, which would easily render radar based APS useless. It is enough to know the radar's working frequency range, then range information can be easily denied using simple noise jamming. Its not impossible to install such equipment in an artillery shell, russians already have special radio jammer munitions for 152mm guns.

[Serge]

It already exists. 

[N-L-M]

2 hours ago, heretic88 said:

then range information can be easily denied using simple noise jamming.

No. Modern radars are magic and white noise jamming is easily filtered out. You need waaaay more advanced trickery than simple noise jamming to fool a good, modern, AESA radar.

[Collimatrix]

On 12/13/2018 at 3:01 AM, heretic88 said:

What about airburst shells? Those are even more effective (at least for mission-kill), and harder to defend against.

 

Why would airburst shells sidestep any of the issues I mentioned?  Think about it.

 

1)  Average fragment density will still be subject to the inverse square law.

 

2)  Artillery shell fragments have low sectional density and high aerodynamic drag, and thus poor armor penetration.  Simply hardening sensor mounts to defend against airbursts isn't out of the question. 

 

3)  Airburst shells rely on active sensors (usually proximity fuses) to determine the distance to the ground.  These can be jammed.

 

 

This means an unavoidable trade-off between shells that are exploding far away above the tanks, in which case they have a low density fragmentation pattern with slow-moving fragments, or they're exploding closer to the tanks, which makes them easier to jam or engage with APS.

[heretic88]

On 12/13/2018 at 1:56 PM, N-L-M said:

No. Modern radars are magic and white noise jamming is easily filtered out. You need waaaay more advanced trickery than simple noise jamming to fool a good, modern, AESA radar.

Well, it depends. If the radar is prepared to face jamming, there are definitely ECCM modes that can filter out jamming. Correct me if Im wrong, but I think APS radars are currently not prepared for dealing with jammers. Of course, this can be fixed by upgrading the hardware and software of the radars.

[LoooSeR]

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XM2001 Crusader rusting somewhere.

[heretic88]

On 12/14/2018 at 1:50 PM, Collimatrix said:

 

2)  Artillery shell fragments have low sectional density and high aerodynamic drag, and thus poor armor penetration.  Simply hardening sensor mounts to defend against airbursts isn't out of the question. 

 

3)  Airburst shells rely on active sensors (usually proximity fuses) to determine the distance to the ground.  These can be jammed.

 

Well, in the article of the american Field Artillery journal they said that airbursts are quite devastating: "Aerial bursts of HE rounds with VT fuzes damaged or destroyed gun barrels, vision blocks, antennas, sights and engines and destroyed anything stored on the outside of the vehicle."

That means lots of things to be uparmored.

As for jamming, of course this is possible, but this can mean two things: 1, built-in jammer, which again results in mass/complexity/cost increase, and/or the need of a specialized vehicle just for this task, like the russian SPR-2.

 

[N-L-M]

51 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

Correct me if Im wrong, but I think APS radars are currently not prepared for dealing with jammers. Of course, this can be fixed by upgrading the hardware and software of the radars.

You are definitely wrong. Current APS radars are AESAs, which are as advanced as radar hardware needs to be to handle the most advanced signal processing wizardry. Considering the EM intensive battlefield, any APS radar has to be able to distinguish its signal from background noise, ground return, and the radars of other vehicles within LOS, and is therefore quite ready to deal with basic bitch white noise jamming already. (point of fact most modern pulse-Doppler radars are fairly immune to plain noise jamming).

 

49 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

As for jamming, of course this is possible, but this can mean two things: 1, built-in jammer, which again results in mass/complexity/cost increase

Negligible cost increase, if you already have the APS radars and computers installed. old VT fuzes are hilariously easy to jam, and I don't think anyone has large stocks of a newer more resistant variety.

[Collimatrix]

6 hours ago, heretic88 said:

 

Well, in the article of the american Field Artillery journal they said that airbursts are quite devastating: "Aerial bursts of HE rounds with VT fuzes damaged or destroyed gun barrels, vision blocks, antennas, sights and engines and destroyed anything stored on the outside of the vehicle."

 That means lots of things to be uparmored.

 As for jamming, of course this is possible, but this can mean two things: 1, built-in jammer, which again results in mass/complexity/cost increase, and/or the need of a specialized vehicle just for this task, like the russian SPR-2.

  

 

NATO level 4 and 5 protection specifies a 20mm fragment simulating projectile that is 54 grams moving 960 m/s.  That's about half the kinetic energy of WWII vintage Solothurn/Lahti 20mm AT rifles, which could penetrate something like 40mm of RHA.

Jamming RF-based proximity fused shells does not incur any additional weight or complexity if the jammer is an AESA radar that is used by the APS.  Trophy uses AESA.  AESA radars can trivially double as jammers with just a software upgrade.

[heretic88]

18 hours ago, N-L-M said:

You are definitely wrong. Current APS radars are AESAs, which are as advanced as radar hardware needs to be to handle the most advanced signal processing wizardry. Considering the EM intensive battlefield, any APS radar has to be able to distinguish its signal from background noise, ground return, and the radars of other vehicles within LOS, and is therefore quite ready to deal with basic bitch white noise jamming already. (point of fact most modern pulse-Doppler radars are fairly immune to plain noise jamming).

Not really. Being AESA doesnt automatically mean that the radar is suddenly immune to jamming. AESA means only that the radar array has multiple elements, each has a built in transmit/receive module. Alone this means nothing. The software does the job primarily. Against simple noise jamming, frequency hopping, and/or changing the frequency of certain T/R elements can be 100% effective. However barrage jamming can still easily deny range information. The only solution is triangulation, but for that, you need two radars (for example Buk SAM system uses this), which means two AFVs because APS radar coverage usually do not overlap. There are other factors too. For example the frequency range of the APS radar, the type of the jammer (a miniature DRFM jammer would be incredibly nasty, even without using barrage jamming!), the radar and the jamming signal power, etc. So it is not that easy.

 

[N-L-M]

34 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

Being AESA doesnt automatically mean that the radar is suddenly immune to jamming

No, but it does mean the radar hardware needed for advanced signal trickery is all there, as everything required for advanced DSP and pseudorandom transmissions are there, as they are needed to run a bog-standard AESA. And what I said is that the hardware is all there.

36 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

Alone this means nothing.

It means you need the hardware to control the phased array, which is the same hardware needed for the more advanced methods.

37 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

However barrage jamming can still easily deny range information

No. Barrage jamming is almost completely ineffective against any kind of white noise filtering. Even a simple frequency sweep pulse compression will easily filter out white noise barrage jamming.

39 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

The only solution is triangulation

Learn DSP.

41 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

a miniature DRFM jammer would be incredibly nasty

Completely useless for standoff asset protection jamming outside the same range gate the protected target is in against modern software defined pulse encoding. The radar has the ability to reject signals from outside the range gate, and the different encoding of sequential pulses means that you have no gating ambiguity and drfm from a platform outside the fate gets rejected really easily. The jammer being further away, it gets filtered out trivially.

44 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

So it is not that easy.

Again, learn DSP and study current radar tech. Modern software-controlled AESA radars are magic by 1980s standards and a lot of 1980s tricks just dont work on them any more.

[LoooSeR]

Koalitsiya-SV's cannon is rumored to be tested as separate artillery piece ("D-400")

 

Spoiler