Alzoc

Nexter propose a new artillery shell LU 220 :

https://www.forcesoperations.com/eurosatory-lobus-lu-220-de-nexter-arrowtech-un-coup-de-punch-pour-lartillerie-de-155-mm/

Almost the same than the LU 211 :

• Improved range by working on the aerodynamics (44 km compared to 40 km previously)
• More explosive mass (11 kg compared to 8,8 kg previously)
• Improved lethality (double effective area claimed)

Nexter Arrowtech is now working on the LU 320 with a goal of a 1000 m/s muzzle velocity for a range of 50 km and course correction

Well unlike the previous version, this EMBT could actually be a worthwhile interim solution (though it is already obese at 61,5t but I guess some systems may be optional).

Remain to be seen if there is actually a market for it. It will be competing with the latest K2 and Leopard 2 variants without having the benefits of being already in production or in use and I doubt it would be any cheaper than them.

SMDR and NX70 lightweight UAV :

Griffon in the Sahel region :

Radar for the SAMP NG

3rd Chinese carrier seems to be close to launch :

Russian armored train ferrying BMP-2 (for protection or as cargo?) into Ukraine :

As much as I like armored trains (who doesn't?) it does feel a bit anachronistic. If it works though...

I'd wager that this is more effective against HEAT than sheet metal bolted on the side. "Rocks" are a medium with a potentially complex microstructure and composition. It could get even better if they have enough space to jiggle a bit when hit.

Printscreen of the second video in the thread (+ other screen of the Caesar management system) :

@BeerSeem like the shells they are using are of French origin.

For the fuzes I can guess that "FRAPPE FR" stands for impact fuze (Fr) while "RALECF3 FR" stands for Radioélectrique F3 (probably programmable fuze for airburst/delayed/proximity fuze?).

As for the shells they are the OEF4 and OEF1. The OE (Obus Explosif) F4 is apparently the LU211 in Nexter's catalogue with a range of 40 km (base bleed) when fired from an L52. As for the OEF1, my guess is that it is the LU107 which is a derivative of the US M107 with a slightly improved range (22 km claimed) and that can be fired from L52 gun using a reduced propellant charge.

So all the range to the target claimed around 20 km could be the result of using the LU 107 which caps out around this range.

As for TCM, it stands for Top Charge Module.

In the second video, in the status screen, on the gun side (right) the "Trajectory correction" can be seen in red, which could mean that the Ukrainians didn't get guided shells or SPACIDO compatibles ones.

If anyone can understand what the guy is saying that would help^^

Video of the first RapidFire unit (not the mock-up) at Nexter (still lacking it's sighting system which will be installed later by Thales).

Nothing new in terms of technical informations and it remain unclear whether the system can participate in terminal missile defence (and to what extent).

Another line-up of the ammunition types available with a 40mm Bofors behind them for size comparison (6:56).

First units will be installed on a ship (likely the new BRF Jacques Chevalier which was launched last month) by the end of the year or early next year. Live fire trials are expected by the end of the year.

1 minute ago, Beer said:

LPR D-20 had it enough...

 

Put some perspectives on how many shells are being fired if even a relatively low pressure gun blew up.

Infography on the VSR 700 and the H160M that will equip the French navy in the future.

The VSR 700 will be probably present on pretty much every ship (from an OPV to a BPC) while the H160 will replace pretty much all light helicopter currently in service in the navy, the army and the air force (Fennec, Gazelle, Panther, Alouette III and Dauphin).

A battery (3) of M109A3 shelled by cluster ammunition. At least one looks like it is burning at the end of the video :

I'm more interested in the fact that they were used against artillery and yet the range to the target was of only 17 km (very short range once again).

FCAS update (TL:DR Still in limbo) : https://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/219110/<i>(free-access)<§i>-france-and-germany-waltz-around-the-ngf.html

Keep in mind that this website is based in France and is obviously quite (a lot) biased against Airbus. Some interesting titbits though :

Quote

On May 9, during their first meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed the NGF. The German side proposed a joint-venture (50/50) on the flight controls which was declined by President Macron himself.

Quote

Several other technical and technological issues such as the flight controls, the functional architecture, stealth, man-machine interface and, of course, the IP background of all these fields remain undecided.

Quote

[...] the workshare is still contested by the German side, despite the fact that 68% of the fighter will be produced by Airbus Germany & Spain.

All in all the tone is that France has reach it's limits on the concessions they are willing to offer to the other partners (mainly Airbus Germany) :

Quote

All these points have been sum-up by the General Delegate for Armaments, Joël Barre, in a hearing before the Defence Committee of the French Senate:

"On this point, I defend the following position: there is an agreement between the two industrialists concerning phase 1B - which was to be started in 2021 and which we can hope to start by the end of 2022 if we manage to conclude the discussions - covering the period 2022-2025. Airbus must sign the contract that Dassault has offered.”

“I agree […] that we must be firm with the German side regarding the commitments that have already been made – in particular the industrial organization providing for clear responsibility for each pillar. You need a project manager and an architect for the plane. The best in the field must be designated in this case, namely Dassault France and not Airbus Germany. Finally, the balance between the two countries must be assessed in the light of all the cooperation programs”.

Norwegian M109A3 spotted in Ukraine around Kiev :

DGA launched a request for the development and delivery of 10 aerial balloon equipped with an optronic ball for the French army.

The idea is to acquire a tool for area surveillance that would be as cheap as possible while still be very capable.

http://www.opex360.com/2022/06/01/la-dga-a-lance-un-appel-doffres-europeen-pour-doter-larmee-de-terre-dune-dizaine-de-ballons-captifs/

Beside being extremely cheap, balloons have the advantage to be very difficult to detect. They are obviously silent, have little to no heat signature, are difficult to see when high enough and can pretty much only be detected by radar.

Link to the request

1 hour ago, Cobras said:

It's not about using chinese chips, but buying western ones from China itself. Russia can make trade agreements for the goods they need, you don't need hard cash when you got natural resources.

Yes but if China become the sole supplier of critical components to Russia and their main buyer for natural resources China will be the one who set the prices, not Russia.

The main risk long term is to see an increased vassalization of Russia to China. China is already the senior partner in the relationship between the two country, and regardless of the issue of the war it will only get worse at times goes on (heck if Russia is actually perceived as winning the war, the sanctions could always potentially become worse).

A Russia dependent on China for it's key imports and exports will have to sell it's resources for cheap and China may be actually able to get their hands on a few key technology they still have issue with (like fighters jet engines), potentially driving Russia out of the weapons export market by proposing cheaper alternatives with a similar technological level. Reduced income from sale of raw resources (potentially compensated somewhat by increased market price) and a civilian and military industry that's becoming less competitive will only see the Russian economy worsen.

The longer this war drags on the worse it will be for everybody but China :

• Europe will be lacking energy and raw resources (at least in the short term) and is currently spending a lot to plug the biggest gaps (abyss) in it's defence (though the later will probably help in the long run).
• For the US, in the short term they will see Russia disappear as a threat (not that Russia was much more than a regional power with access to nuclear weapons at this point anyway) and they will be able to sell gas and weapons to Europe. Long term they'll have to face China as a country with access to cheap Russian natural resources and that didn't spent anything (be it resources, money or military potential) during the war in Ukraine (same problem apply to Europe as well).
• Russia will end up in a much worse situation by the end of this war, that much is a given at this point (Worse economy, severely depleted military potential, a part of the educated population having fled the country, isolation on the international scene, etc). The only question is by how much.
• As for the rest of the world, they'll have to suffer from the long term consequences of a major economical crisis potentially coupled in the short term with a lack of wheat for some country.

Also keep in mind that China may not want to alienate it's western economical partners too much (at least for a time) so the support it will provide to Russia may be limited (potentially making Russia fall faster and harder and thus cheaper to buy out when they'll get really desperate).

Really the best scenario for the world as a whole (Ukraine and Russia will get shafted in one way or the other anyway) is for the war to end as fast as possible (which should be obvious at this point). One reason for the war to end would be one side suffering unsustainable attrition be it in men or material. Russia still have the mobilization card to play (but that may be a hard sell to the Russian people) and potentially greater reserves of soviet era material. Ukraine meanwhile, may gain the technological edge if western weapons supply goes on and they have a population that is ready for full mobilization. On the other hand, Ukrainian moral seems to be flagging lately (at least in Donbass) and it's their country which will be in ruin when the dust settle. Russia could also stop the invasion if they manage to take enough of the Donbass to sell it as a victory, but Putin and the associated system is really playing their political future on this war (from the outside it looks like more and more that they locked themselves in a do or die situation) so it will have to be somewhat significant gains.

The way I see the situation right now is that Ukraine is aiming for maximal attrition of Russian forces in order to make the political and economical cost of the war unbearable while refusing to fall back in Donbass (even if regrouping could help militarily) and pushing back where they can (like in Kherson which would also double as slap in the face for Russia if they actually manage to retake it). Ukrainians knows that every territory they lose now, they'll have a very hard time reclaiming it once the war is over. Russia on the other hand is trying to gain as much control of the Donbass as possible in order to achieve a victory of some kind while taking minimal risks to limit their losses (advancing slowly while destroying everything in front of them by a massive use of artillery).

There is also a risk that Russia may escalate the conflict in some way (Full scale mobilization for example), the rethorics of some Russian reporter or even politicians is becoming increasingly disconnected from reality and we are hearing absurdities like a presenter saying on Russian state TV that we have entered WW3 and that Russia will have to demilitarize the entirety of NATO :

Or a member of the Douma seriously saying that Russia should kidnap a minister of defence from a country member of NATO while they are in official visit in Kiev.

Words have a meaning, and it should be high time that the Russian elites remember that. Because spouting that kind of non sense all days long on public channels will end up leaving a mark in the long run.

33 minutes ago, Beer said:

Are you sure the Caesars in Ukraine are equipped with the muzzle radar?

The guns transferred were taken directly from the French army stock so they should have it and it can be seen on the video we have from the Caesar in Ukraine :

33 minutes ago, Beer said:

Also the 40 km maximum range applies for base-bleed projectile, not the common NATO HE. Are you sure that Ukraine was supplied with base-bleed ammunition or even SPACIDO kits? 

As for the the ammunition Ukraine received, unfortunately I have no idea. Though as I said even with plain dumb HE round, the radar should help somewhat with internal ballistics correction for the next shell (by how much though, I have no idea). For comparison the PzH 2000 (155mm L52 as well) apparently achieve a range of 30 to 36 km using DM121 (which should be a basic HE round, @SH_MM?).

No matter how you look at it, 22km is far from using the full capability of those guns (even when using regular ammunition). It may be in order to achieve greater accuracy and limiting the exposure time, but with only 6 of those guns for now, that's probably not how they should be used. In my opinion (for the little it's worth^^) they should use their range to surprise the Russians where they think they are safe from regular artillery. Yes shoot & scoot is what the system is designed for, but that's still taking a lot of risks with weapons they have in a very small number. Even if the guns can leave the area before the shells land, Russian UAV are probably looking for enemy artillery at around 20 km from the "frontline". That being said, I obviously don't have all the informations and there may be a very good reason (some already cited here) as to why the Ukrainian are limiting themselves to barely over 20 km.

1 hour ago, Beer said:

Per STANAG 4635 the standard CEP50 for unguided HE projectile is 0,56% at 10 km (56 meters); 0,65% of range at 20 km (130 meters); 0,86% of range at 30 km (258 meters) and 1,15% of range at 40 km (460 meters).

I don't know if this norm takes in account the presence or absence of a muzzle radar, let alone what "rating" the Caesar may achieve under this norm (I don't know it well enough). But the circular error will be hugely affected by a muzzle radar because artillery shells don't land within a circle but within an ellipse (longer diameter along the direction of travel of the shell). A muzzle radar bring back this error into the shape of a real circle meaning the circular error obtained is much, much smaller :

Even if you don't use a guided or programmable shell, knowing the true ballistics (which you can't accurately predict) of your round when it exit the gun allows you to compensate somewhat for internal ballistics (which will depend of the wear, temperature and the metallurgy of the barrel) when you'll fire your next shell, greatly reducing longitudinal dispersion.

Soviet Union : Put the first man-made satellite in orbit, showing off to the American

US Air Force in answer : Must ... nuke ... the Moon

...

2 hours ago, RobertV said:

What exactly would require for the  Kh-101 cruise missile to have  35 micro chips  ? 

Guidance mostly (positioning, fins control, target recognition, etc).

Missiles aren't simple objects far from it. Cruise missiles are costly with a price ranging from anywhere between 1 to 3 million dollar per unit. Unlike simple unguided artillery shells or rockets where you just have to calculate the initial angle and impulse and let the thing fly, missiles have a complex and semi-autonomous trajectory needing onboard computing power.

There is a reason why everyone went away from big old analogue calculator : Size and weight. Same reason everybody try to reach the smallest transistor size possible on microchips. The smaller your calculator (be it an analogue system or a modern microchip) the more computing power you can cram for a given volume and weight. Older missiles had to be bigger partly for that reason. So yes you can have a cruise missiles using 65 nm microchips or perhaps even using an analogue system. But for a given size it will tend to be less accurate or have smaller payload and range (to compensate for the size of the computing unit) or any kind of combination of the three.

So of course having a harder access to modern microchips won't mean that Russia won't be able to manufacture complex weapon systems in the long run (short term they will have to redesign their entire industrial process). But the weapons and sensors (like a tank thermal camera for example) produced will be overall less performant than their western counterpart. And the higher the performance/tech level of a weapon system the more the difference will be felt.

Poland apparently transferring 18 Krab SPG (155mm L52) to Ukraine :

11 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

What if the Ukrainian Artillery Management system has baked-in planning assumptions for ranges to be used at?

That's a possibility though I doubt it. I think Ukraine still have a few 152 mm guns from the soviet era as well as their own truck based 155 mm (in very small number), so it's not like they never used artillery with a greater range than ~20km.

A software or programming error is always possible I guess though it would greatly diminish the value of those guns. What's the point of having a very small number of guns that can outrange Russian artillery if you treat it like a regular 155 mm L39 or a 122 mm D-30? We might get an answer when the PzH 2000 arrive in Ukraine (guessing they'll adapt the software for integration as well).

A family of laser guided ammunition from Thales. I found very little information on the net, but as far as I understand it, around 2017 Thales proposed a family of laser-guided ammunition (gravity bomb, 70 mm rockets, mortar rounds) based on common components. At least some test with inert ammunition took place as seen in the video.