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Subject: Artillery for Light Troops
Thomas    6/11/2003 5:24:12 AM
On the infantry board, there is a discussion of the future of light infantry. On the armour board there is a discussion of the future (if any) of the Light tank. To complement these discussion in the spirit of combined arms: What sort of artillery should go with Light troops. It should be airportable. It should be "resupplyable". It should be able to operate under the conditions of the Light Infantry. Any thoughts?
 
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Nichevo    RE:So what you really want then is a stubby, short range missile?   10/24/2004 4:48:33 AM
Just as for inkjets, swapping out the cartridges instead of refillling them tends to extend service life. Electrical firing also helps I'm sure. How about this idea for your HailStorm? Instead of long skinny projectiles like those 40mm grenades, how about a barrel loaded with rounds like coins? Each has a paste of explosive smeared on the back, tailored to form the disc into a cone as it exists the barrel. 1) You could have a lot of rounds in one barrel. 2) If a 1" or bigger disc of metal struck you broadside, that would I think tend to be excellent for knocking people over. If not killing them, it would tend to stop them. Point being, it would not penetrate and it would not have long range. It might be easier to shoot a gun out of someone's hand, too. Air marshals, pilots, flight attendants, anyone? Oh, it could also carry a small charge, maybe the coin is made of thermite or is hollow and filled with WP or plastique. I suppose it could also be designed to fragment easily (under centripetal force) upon impact. Conceivably, it could have come kind of chip in it FWIW. Maybe as a GPS homing device, shoot a tank, say, and it's tagged, you can drop a bomb on it anytime.
 
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gf0012-aust    WIFI   10/24/2004 4:50:09 AM
sorry, I hit enter before ending my response properly. No one I know in EW or related areas is that keen on WIFI triggered respondents. There are substantial issues involved - it can be done, but know one really wants to do it due to various reasons. maybe in a year when some of the concerns are sorted - but not yet for sure.
 
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gf0012-aust    tank tagging   10/24/2004 4:52:04 AM
[Maybe as a GPS homing device, shoot a tank, say, and it's tagged, you can drop a bomb on it anytime] I've got a funny feeling that mike_gulf, chdnorm and albany rifles might have something to add here. ;)
 
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Nichevo    RE:So what you really want then is a stubby, short range missile?   10/24/2004 5:27:55 AM
But that shooter was at the gun at time 0 and had 1.5 seconds to run away at 10m/s before detection? I was N meters from the gun at time 0 and if sitting in a moving car while firing, could be farther faster. Or could sit still. How many shells to kill everthing in a 300m radius? Or it could be on a timer, or controlled by long wire/fiber (1000m on 1000BT-FX? Longer?), or it could fire itself when proper conditions arose. or by satphone if you don't like WiFI or WiMax or whatever. Be half the planet away to push the button. 40 man platoon, 1 mortar, 3 man mortar crew, 40 rounds 81mm. Mortar crew killed, or bungs mortar, or pack mule runs. 0 weapons, 37 rocks. 40 man platoon, 40 mortars, 40 rounds 81mm. 3 men killed, 37 weapons, 37 mortar crew left. Counterbattery: 3 man mortar crew fires 3-5 rounds before dying. 40 man crew fires 40 rounds from a safe distance at times of their choosing during the battle. Undetected till they fire. Also note low acoustical signature of my rocket mortar.
 
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gf0012-aust    RE:So what you really want then is a stubby, short range missile?   10/24/2004 5:47:31 AM
[But that shooter was at the gun at time 0 and had 1.5 seconds to run away at 10m/s before detection? I was N meters from the gun at time 0 and if sitting in a moving car while firing, could be farther faster. Or could sit still. How many shells to kill everthing in a 300m radius?] This is a simple exercise in probables ;) 1) Value of the threat 2) speed of egress from the firing point (1.5 secs) compared to blast effect of respondent system (could be hi-frag, grape, cannister) 3) speed of blast effect upon contact (you're going have to be damn fast to outrun cannister spreading out 4) selection issues of respodent system. (Could be contact, could be proximity, could be altitude, could be guided from UAV) If the principle task is threat removal - then you'll take out the grid. Std sized Grid against a proximity blast will be unattractive.
 
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gf0012-aust    counterbattery issues   10/24/2004 5:51:46 AM
[Counterbattery: 3 man mortar crew fires 3-5 rounds before dying. 40 man crew fires 40 rounds from a safe distance at times of their choosing during the battle. Undetected till they fire. Also note low acoustical signature of my rocket mortar.] In all likelihood, in current scenarios, any HVA is going to have a UAV trawling about as part of the patrol matrix. If the UAV is a UCAV (sorry about the redunancy here ;)), then it can go for the hardware while directing co-ords for the respondent system to swat the patrolling OPFOR. I'm not dissing your idea btw. Just adding some counterfire of my own about what has been looked at in the past and near present.
 
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Nichevo    RE:So what you really want then is a stubby, short range missile?   10/24/2004 10:16:05 PM
Nonetheless, I am maybe 400x harder to take out at 300m than he is at 15m. (This is assuming the distance is 300m and not 3 time zones. You could reuse a TOW guidance system with its line coming out, I believe, at least a mile. However long a wire or fiber can be laid, or how far a radio signal will travel, is the range. And assuming he shoots-and-scoots he can only travel so fast and far before firing again, say in the back of a truck doing 60kph--he fires, fires again let us say 5 sec later;less than 100m between shots, on a predictable path. I can fire two (or any number of) mortars 300m (or more) from me in any random direction simultaneously. If I am killed, someone else with a PDA can set off the shots, or they can fire autonomously (imagine a field of shells hooked to People Sniffers in Vietnam). This system is far less vulnerable to counterbattery fire than any reloadable weapon. However long it takes to acquire and fire, you are firing at nothing. The fact is, you might be able to effect HailStorm as a disposable single-barrel system with net-data-fused PGMs, in which case it would be more like my concept. (Hopefully once the VC or whoever had found your used tube and CPU, it would be in no shape to be recycled as anything.)
 
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Nichevo    RE:counterbattery issues   10/24/2004 10:33:44 PM
Sure, and I appreciate it. But if they only have 1 U(C)AV, it can only be over one firing point at one time. Once the shell fires, there is nothing else that matters. Its mission is done. There is no target like a gun left behind for the UAV to counter, there is no bearing on the crew to vector your security elements. You cannot stop the next shot by bombing that site. The next shell will come from somewhere else, maybe close to the first, maybe far away (hundreds, thousands of meters), maybe far, far away. The crew is nowhere near any of them but is remote at whatever distance. Or there is no crew at all; the sensors' logic (timer, proximity, shoot at the first and last vehicles in any southbound column of three or more, whatever) can eliminate even the need for remote telemetry. They could have been dropped along the HVT's route the night before by cargo plane and self-deployed. And maybe that second shell that comes up will target the UAV. The third and fourth target the firefinder and UAV base station. The fifth can be the SUV in the convoy with the most chrome, or his security men's radios, or a GPS plot from that coin-size tag somebody put on his bumper. The hardest part of my program is the sensorium, the rest can largely be abstracted from mature platforms. If the word 'mortar' gets you, imagine sticking this on top of a Zuni or Hydra or Stinger, and planting a dozen spiked Stingers (camo'd as bushes?) in a forest. No launch tube or electronics, all electronics in the warhead and just a guide rail to launch from. Since you are not using a tube, incidentally, it could have fixed wings, or any sort of aerodynamic pattern really.
 
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Nichevo    RE:So what you really want is a PIAT or something?   10/24/2004 10:39:34 PM
Sorry, I don't know the weapons systems you describe. The pattern is irrelevant. Take your PIAT and fit it with a smart warhead, make it a throwaway, programmable/remote-controllable design, and it might be just fine. Being launched with a charge avoids backblast from the rocket on the ground and offers a higher initial launch speed, that's all. Or a bunch of wired Javelins with remote or in-warhead guidance would be fine, you could prop those up and set the fuzes too. But ultimately, mine could be cheap OR expensive (but still cheaper). This munition could be widely reused as well (say air-launched).
 
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Nichevo    RE:So what you really want then is a stubby, short range missile?   10/24/2004 10:47:52 PM
Keep in mind this is the answer to the question posed on the forum, What Artillery For Light Troops? Mine is the lightest solution imaginable. You could set it up as a minefield, but equally use it from a foxhole. You might want to be in the next foxhole, though. Basically, if you wanted 105mm shells to kill OBL in the White Mountains, but couldn't get a pack howitzer up the slope, instead you could carry up a 105mm shell and fire it off by itself. Accurately, over a reduced but still significant range.
 
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