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Subject:
Tank or Jagdpanzer, the first vehicle to mount an effective railgun...
boris the romanian
3/15/2005 8:27:58 AM
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I was just curious about opinions regarding the probable mount for the first service rail gun. This is just hypothetical.
I think the first vehicle to mount a rail gun as its main weapon will be a vehicle with a hull mounted weapon rather than a turreted MBT. I say this for several reasons:
a) An effective railgun is incredibly complicated. First generation systems will probably be large and bulky, making carriage in a revolving turret very much more difficult.
b) The single most important use for a rail gun is in the antitank role, with CE railgun projectiles being very difficult to produce because of the enormous stress the fuse will have to take during accelleration. Also, conventional guns are just fine when it comes to firing HEAT or HE-FRAG, whereas APFSDS rounds are arguably reaching their limits of effectiveness against some of the more advanced armours being fielded by current MBTs and also what's on the horizon.
If the main gun was mounted in the hull, fire-on-the-move capability would suffer dramatically (to be almost non existent), but the tank destroyer could still be used offensively if it has effective armour and can destroy first-rate MBTs at more than double the range it is itself capable of being destroyed at.
c) A rail gun would give off phenomenal chemical (assuming a small charge is used to start the projectile off) and electromagnetic recoil. This would be very much better absorbed directly by the vehicle's suspension than any turret ring.
d) The overall development and production costs would be considerably reduced if the full traverse of the gun were done away with. Given that rail guns are already very expensive to develop and the associated systems add to the price, fixed or limited traverse seems to be the way to go (initially). Tactical limitations would exist, yes, but the dramatic power of the gun would be a huge advantage.
e) The Jagdpanther just looks so damn cool!! I'm probably biased, but if I were the one allocating the funds, I'd rather go for a larger number of highly effective modern Jagdpanthers in specialist Panzerjager battalions rather than a much smaller number of much more expensive (but more effective) rail gun-armed MBTs. Bearing in mind that modern MBTs are already exceptional at engaging soft targets and a rail gun might have some problems with firing CE ammunution, I think it is fine to "beef up" divisions equipped with current tanks by attaching a TD battalion at Army or Front level.
That's just my two cents (the armour board was so dead I'd thought I'd spice things up around here :-), any thoughts...?
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