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Subject: Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?
ilpars    6/14/2004 10:08:24 AM
Guided sniper bullets which can slightly change its course during flight to target.
If this technology founded even an inexperienced soldier can kill an enemy several kilometers away.
How far are we from this tech?
What kind of guidance does this weapon need?
 
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Kadett    Impossible   6/14/2004 5:18:53 PM
Aside from the sheer technical difficulties of developing chips and guidance gear that small, who wants to spend $10,000 a bullet?
 
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blacksmith    RE:Impossible   6/15/2004 1:04:50 AM
The 25mm smart round that's getting ready to be fielded has an electronic fuze and costs $20 a round (if I recall correctly). I would hesitate to say guiding a 25mm shell was impossible. It may require a smoothbore to eliminate spin, but if it's guided, you don't need spin stabilization. We are probably spending more than $10,000 a bullet now when they drop Laser Guided Training Rounds (LGTR) on people. The inert LGTR were being used in Bosnia I believe to take out snipers. The laser tracker is at least $50,000. Issue is not the value of the round. It's the value of the target, or the asset being protected. When you look at the cost of throwing a war, expensive ammo is a miniscule part.
 
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wkwillis    RE:Impossible   6/15/2004 11:02:39 AM
It's 20$ in price, not in cost. The more you make the less it costs, in electronics.
 
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Ehran    RE:Impossible   6/15/2004 3:58:12 PM
from what i read the company was hoping to get the price down to 20 or 25 bucks a unit once they got into full scale production.
 
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eon    RE:RAP rounds   6/16/2004 10:30:34 AM
CONARC (CONtinental ARmy Command) and the Infantry School did some research on this about twenty years ago. Their "ultimate seeking projectile" was a ramjet round using a solid rocket type propellant. Basically a hollow tube with a central "spindle" to house the seeker, it stered by a thrust-vectoring ring system similar to the old Polaris SLBM. Assuming an infra-red seeker (the only thing they figured they could get into that small a space), they calculated they could attain a "circular error of probability" (CEP) of under 20cm (about 8 inches) at 4000m. Since the "ram-rocket" would continue to accelerate the projectile for roughly half ther flight-time to that range, the total time-to-target would have been a bit less than 3.5 seconds. However, the smallest package they could put it in turned out to be a 25mm Vulcan cannon shell- which really doesn't need that sort of help out to that range. Future applications of this or a developed technolgy might include aircraft cannon or low-level AAA gun systems, but I don't see it being practical in small arms..
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:Impossible   6/16/2004 6:57:10 PM
Discovery Channel ran a show about emerging weapons systems -- OICW, etc. -- that included mention of the UK MOD spending money on developing a course-correcting round suitable to be fired from something heavy caliber (I believe the program showed guys firing a Barrett .50 cal, but it was a dramatization). Feasibility probably starts with assessing what you want it to do -- but I'd hesitate to say that it will not be possible in, say, the next decade for something like a 25mm round or something similarly largish.
 
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blacksmith    RE:RAP rounds   6/16/2004 7:28:14 PM
They already tried the 20mm grenade launcher in the XM-29. A 25mm isn't that big a stretch. I read something recently (might have been in StrategyPage) about one of the newer rifles having a very effective muzzle blast deflector. I think it was one of the 50cal sniper rifles. If an "almost recoilless" 25mm piece could be conjured up with a bipod rest, firing smart shells long ways from the underbrush may be a viable way of convincing bad guys to take up another line of work.
 
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eon    RE:RAP rounds-eon to blacksmith   6/17/2004 9:28:13 AM
This goes back to roles and purposes. A 25mm precision-guided round fired from something like a Barrett M82 would equal a very good anti-materiel weapon. But I think ilpars was thinking more in terms of a precision-guided small-arms round intended for the anti-personnel role; something along the lines of a 7.62mm weapon that could neutralize one specific individual out to about 2000m. Handy for dealing with enemy high-rankers or overambitious terrorists, especially if hostages are in the target area (Munich 1972). Nice idea, but I'm afraid not within the state-of-the-art anytime soon..
 
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ilpars    RE:RAP rounds-eon    6/17/2004 9:34:22 AM
" But I think ilpars was thinking more in terms of a precision-guided small-arms round intended for the anti-personnel role; something along the lines of a 7.62mm weapon that could neutralize one specific individual out to about 2000m. Handy for dealing with enemy high-rankers or overambitious terrorists, especially if hostages are in the target area (Munich 1972). Nice idea, but I'm afraid not within the state-of-the-art anytime soon. " That is exactly what is in my mind. I know that it is not possible now. And that is the reason I have put it under Military Science-Fiction category. I am wondering what kind of technological breakthrough needed to make it possible. And how long later these kind of weapons will become possible.
 
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blacksmith    RE:RAP rounds-blacksmith to eon   6/17/2004 11:10:15 PM
I absolutely positively guarantee that a 25mm slug is an anti-personnel weapon. Don't get hung up on caliber = purpose. What's the mission and what have you got to do it with. A 25mm guided round will be here before a 7.62mm guided round. It's not only roles and purposes. It's also capability. If the 7.62mm can't reach the target, it doesn't matter what its purpose was. It the 25mm can reach the target, it has a new purpose.
 
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mudshark    RE:Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?   6/18/2004 9:57:20 AM
would the projectile guide itself? Any way I would have thought that a hand held directed energy weapon would be closer to realization? If this is so wouldn?t it be likely to have pin point accuracy over very large distances. Making the need for a gas sniper weapon redundant even one that has the ability to alter it?s trajectory in flight. But then what the hell do i know. Mudshark waits to be straightened out
 
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doggtag    RE:Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?   6/18/2004 3:59:37 PM
The Barrett Payload Rifle is a derivative of the Barrett M82 .50in rifle family, and proves the feasibility that a man-portable system can fire a large (25mm OCSW ammo) round. If one looks forward to some of the concepts for Objective Force Warrior (the US "Soldier of Tomorrow",), one concept shows a KE "bullet" barrel (stacked rounds like in the MetalStorm) mounted above 4 15mm tubes supposed to be capable of firing programmable ammo (ever seen the movie "Drudge Dredd", with Sylvester Stallone?). Give it 20 years from now, and some type of micro-miniaturised seeking round of about 10mm could happen (but I wouldn't be suprised if lab boys aren't pushing for closer to 10 years away...)
 
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chinese boy    RE:Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?   6/18/2004 5:10:01 PM
far, far, very very far. if you want a guided sniper bullet, try a stinger. it's a little big, but it works.
 
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blacksmith    RE:Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?   6/19/2004 1:05:08 AM
A 2,000 lb bomb is a nice anti-personnel weapon, too. However, one of the lessons of precision warfare is that a weapon can be too big. If the target is one 75 kilo mass amongst a group of other collateral masses, you can't use the 2,000 lb bomb, or the Stinger (which, OBTW, is not an anti-personnel weapon since it would be completely unguided against a person). That's where snipers come in. Doctors of warfare. Brain surgeons mostly. Favorite operation is the encepholectomy. A weapon that makes snipers more effective increases the discomfort level amongst the bad guys.
 
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MattZone    RE:Guided sniper bullets. How far is it?   6/19/2004 8:22:38 PM
I think the law of diminishing returns applies here. Snipers are currently able to hit their target at distances of over 1 mile. A Canadian sniper in Afghanistan recently made several shots that were over 2100m meters, including a world-record 2430 meter shot. What would be the point of further increasing the accuracy of the bullet?
 
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