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Subject: USS Carronade
Librarian    5/19/2006 4:14:33 PM
I was perusing a late 60s copy of Jane's Fighting ships and came across the listing for a USS Carronade LFR-1. I had read about it in a comic book many years earlier. In the entry in Jane's it appeared to have been built in response to the Korean War, commissioned in about 1955, retired to reserve in 1960 and then reactivated in about 1965. From the web I found out that it served in Vietnam. However, I couldn't find any reference as to how effective it was. Does anyone know how useful it was?
 
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Yimmy    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 6:50:33 PM
I would be surprsied if the German F125 frigates carried many guided rounds, I do not think they are meant for precision or anti-ship strike but for supporting their half marine company as conventional MLRS support. As I would say is the 155mm for.
 
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EW3    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 7:23:09 PM
One thing about the Carronade and other ships like her, was that she was providing fire while located in rivers or coastal waters. The rivers were quite calm, and they were not going to fire from offshore in 2ft seas. Firing unquided weapons in any kind of sea conditions is like dropping unguided bombs through the clouds to support your troops. Friendly fire isn't.
 
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Yimmy    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 7:33:43 PM
Surely we can now stabalise a few MLRS? It isnt exactly rocket science. :D And I think cost is rather an issue too.
 
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doggtag    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 9:32:19 PM
Does anyone have any per-round cost figures comparing the M26-series unguided MLRS rockets to the M30 series G-MLRS? Is it a marginal increase (10-20%) per round, or something more noticeable (>30%)? Judging by the rising costs of 155mm PGMs, I am wondering if it still ends up being cheaper to use an unguided rocket with a much larger cluster warhead for saturation attack/area coverage: even with a lower inherent accuracy, the greater dispersal area of the rocket's submunition payload gains an edge over artillery shells. The only edge I see going to the artillery PGM is when surgical precision is needed to remove threats without excessive collateral risks. It comes down to warhead size and the size/strength of the target you wish to dispatch. I'm guessing most 155mm PGMs won't have a warhead larger than 10kg (roughly Hellfire equivalent, maximum). While this may be ideal for hitting civilian-surrounded targets, and a single 155mm PGM certainly would be cheaper than a single larger guided rocket, we lose with the artillery PGM when the target requires several of them (MRSI): wouldn't it then be more cost effective to use a single G-MLRS with its 90kg unitary warhead? The only way I see expensive artillery PGMs in MRSI being better suited than unitary-warhead precision rockets will be when, in the not-too-distant future, more battlefield systems are fitted with those counter-weapon systems like the Russian Shtora and that new Israeli system the US has expressed interest in. If those can deter incoming rounds from striking, perhaps saturation attacks will be necessary to overwhelm the systems: a single inbound guided rocket with a single large warhead may be deterred (although even the 90kg warhead of a G-MLRS will leave you rattled considerable when it goes off several meters away), but a MRSI of PGM artillery may be the solution, to overpower the counter-weapon's reaction. But, considering all the external odds and ends on any given battle system (things not under the heavy armor on MBTs) that can be damaged with comparably minimal effort, such as vision elements and sensor heads, what might become more useful in the future is a piece of kit like this: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2005garm/wednesday/bradford.pdf>Persuader hypervelocity rocket, pdf Certainly be worth considering other diameters besides 2.75", but the obvious benefit of the weapon is there: saturate the external of a given target with dozens of KE dart "flechettes", and all kinds of parts and subassemblies and perhaps even reactive armor tiles can be rendered ineffective, destroying the vehicle's fighting ability. Considering all the more topside armor ships have anymore, a larger diameter version of this concept, dispersing in a downward/oblique cone above a target vessel, could cause considerable damage. (I suggested submunitions earlier because they wouldn't explode until impact: the US DPICM would be just as ideal against naval vessels as AFVs, artillery, and troops in the open, as would these flechette warheads.)
 
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EW3    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 10:08:52 PM
Stabalizing any weapon system on a ship under 20K tons is hard to do. The cost of actuators and the computer power to activate them is actually pretty cheap. (I still think JDAMs could be built a lot cheaper) Just look at the fact the Army only wants to use GPS guided version. I think that should speak volumes to the USN. And guided munitions are your only choice for hitting a moving target.
 
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MadRat    RE:OP answer?   5/29/2006 1:29:57 AM
I want to say it was the recantation of the operation and what happened during it.
 
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Lawman    RE:German F125   5/29/2006 6:03:28 AM
If you look at globalsecurity, they give the thresholds for the unit cost, though how reliable they are is anyones guess. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/mlrs-g.htm I seem to remember the actual figure being somewhere around $60-90k per round. The sad thing is that the cost ratios are reversed when compared to unguided rounds - the GMLRS is cheaper than guided artillery (Excalibur et al), but unguided artillery is much cheaper than unguided rockets!
 
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B.Smitty    RE:German F125   5/29/2006 10:23:37 AM
..the GMLRS is cheaper than guided artillery (Excalibur et al).. If Course Correcting Fuzes live up to their promise, this won't hold true. (Semi-)guided arty will be cheaper than GMLRS.
 
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doggtag    guided rockets vs guided artillery shells   5/29/2006 12:06:01 PM
I think then it's safe assumption that the cost of an artillery PGM goes up because we have to strengthen its components against a greater acceleration: an MLRS rocket has a longer acceleration curve (to get to maximum speed), as compared to an artillery PGM reaching its maximum velocity by the end of the barrel (just over 26 feet for an L52 gun tube). So that is my concern over the proposed railgun armament for the DDX (or whatever future combatant gets it). How much will it end up costing us per round to make the mechanisms inside a railgun PGM survivable for high-Mach launches? (we can't just fire at super velocities and expect an unguided shell to hit with precision over several dozens of km: even at such high speeds, it will still suffer from perhaps only minute dispersion/deviation, but still enough to make uncontrolled rounds miss by several dozen meters at range. So they will have to have some kind of steering mechanisms.) http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Rail_Gun.htm>http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Rail_Gun.htm "2) As the KE projectile has very high impact velocities, the kinetic energy of a solid projectile is considered to be more than sufficient to destroy most targets, including hardened bunkers. For that reason, having a burster is not seen as necessary. This reduces the cost and complexity of the projectile, as it is effectively just a solid bullet needing only a GPS/Inertial guidance package that can withstand the high acceleration force, estimated to be about 40g. The US Army has demonstrated that the technology to build such a guidance package already exists. As a result, the cost of each projectile is significantly lower than that of ERGM or LRLAP and was estimated in 2004 as being about $10,000 per round. " OK, that part I can't figure out: explosives and fuzing aside, if they are trying to suggest that Mach 5+ hardened guidance and steering mechanism can be made so much more cheaply, why are these other 155mm projectiles, not even half as fast, being so expensive to manufacture? Is it still an economy of scale issue, and they'll be cheaper once massed production is initiated? I don't know if I trust that railgun projectiles will fall within price ($10K), as explosive filler is actually pretty cheap, as is rocket propellant (for artillery PGMs and rockets & missiles): it's the electronics where the expense comes from. If your explosive filler (normally, a fairly solid "brick") cracks, it will still detonate after initiation, but if your circuitry isn't strong enough for launch stresses and it cracks, no more guidance and control of the projectile. I think the cost suggestion of railgun projectiles is wishful thinking (always under-quoting is what wins contracts. Then just blame cost increases that should've been obvious on things like "unexpected technical difficulties"). Besides, if those railgun circuits and mechanisms can be made so cheaply, wouldn't that then suggest that they could also be incorporated into current systems and create additional cost savings there also, thus bringing down their price even more? If it's being suggested that accurate-enough and capable-enough guidance & control components can be fabricated into a hypersonic projectile for an end cost in the neighborhood of $10K for a complete round, then I don't see any reason why anyone (current major militaries) even uses any unguided artillery shells over 105mm and any unguided rockets over 2.75". If these components can be made so small and durable, why don't we have more of them in service in smaller PGMs now? Is it because the people writing the war-fighting doctrines just seriously lack the vision necessary to exploit what we can really achieve with modern technology? If so, maybe then it's time to kick out all the tired old cronies with their antiquated mindsets and scrounge up more computer-savvy geeks in lab coats who have bigger and brighter tech-rich ideas... I wonder how small BAe can make their course-correction fuze technology? Apparently, back in the 1980s, Vought Aircraft and Ford Aerospace each had their own programs to develop 40mm command-guided shells, perhaps for the defunct Sgt York DIVADS air defense tank. Ford's can be seen on pg 765 of the 1985-86 Jane's Armour and Artillery, with the suggestion that it "was able to change its course from its ballistic trajectory within the confines of a 1000m test range..." and that it was "fired from a test cannon with launch forces of 30,000 Gs and course changes are carried out by an onboarb computer". (The stated 30,000 Gs is one reason I don't agree with the Rail Gun's suggested 40G acceleration curve...either Jane's Information Group or that guy writing the NavWeapons site got some incorrect info or did a typo.) OK, so this technology was available back in the mid 1980s. Regardless of how much the electronics content interfered with warhead payload (test purposes, not a production-re
 
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MadRat    RE:guided rockets vs guided artillery shells   5/29/2006 5:32:23 PM
Actually the 486 debuted at 33MHz and later downplayed to a 25MHz version for expanding the market if memory serves me right. Hell, even the 50Mhz version came in two versions 25MHz bus double-clocked and 50MHz bus single clocked, the latter which was a fiery performer.
 
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