New Hitech Army "Rifle"-Part II

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You don't want to get me started on the M119 POS. In order to travel long distances by road the tube has to be traversed over the trails. In order to do this you have to take a road wheel off, not the most convient way to march order the weapon in some situations. The switch to the American tube was neccassary to fire the millions and million of US 105 ammo, if me memory serves the the L118 used a a lighten version of the abbott SP tube that shoots seperate loading ammo vice the standard semi-fixed ammo if the US. Kind of like the reason the M1 was in 30-06, MacArthur as COS of the Army didn't want to waste the millions of rounds of 30-06 in storage so we didn't convert to adopt a more advanced 7mm round. The planning data you used for ranges are out of date however. Using standard M1 HE you get the 11,500s you cite. With and M760 HE your range is 14 KM, the M913 HE-RAP gives 19.5 KM and for M915 DPICM you get 14 KM. Not as good in some cases as the English tube but adequete for the range of ops for the light forces that use the weapon

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery
 
my understanding is that during the relatively recent use of the Iowa-class ships, the shells *and powder* were vintage. we still have stocks of the things somewhere, since we didn't use the BBs as much as expected in WWII. I believe they had to reformulate the powder somewhat since it was up to 50 years old (!) but the bulk of the charges was really that old. I know the shells used had ordnance stamps from 194x. of course, if our beloved Emperor ;) signs the check for a new BB class, then I'm all for a new gun design. it might be interesting to stick to 16" diameter but a longer, heavier projectile (unless you want to talk sabots!). cut down frontal area and get more range.

for some reason I've never been comfortable with separate bagged charges. I guess when I think of projectiles I think in terms of cartridges, rockets, or railguns. though I like the liquid propellant concept, I don't think I'd like to be too close to the turret. maybe if the LP feed lines were only pressurized when juicing the chamber, and vented to 1 atm the rest of the time; plus have some sort of flame resistors in the LP lines. but the 2nd hurdle for having BBs in active service is the required squid complement. IIRC the Iowa class ships had something like 2500 on board in WWII, and 1700 more recently. unless we go back to a peacetime draft, I don't think a new BB would float unless we could get the complement down to 1000 maybe.
 
I think there is a cartridge that has intermediate power and excellent accuracy for short and medium ranges. That is 6mm PPC, which actually is 7.62x39 Russian case necked down to take 6mm bullet. That round has won bench rest competitions and is more compact and less recoiling than full power rounds, and could be controlled in bursts. Too bad no-one makes assault rifles with that chambering with scope attachments for tactical scopes like ACOG or ELCAN. That would give pinpoint accucacy for average grunts. Ossi
 
Liquid Propellant?
I cant see the benifits that it would give you - but I can see many problems.
I favor the shells that we have now.
 
I was involved ininstalling the Tomahawk cruise missiles and the over the horizon targeting system for them on the Iowa class battleships. While doing this I got tp tour the forward triple 16 inch gun turrets and their magazines. That made a true beliver out of me. Bring them back!
 
Ok I don’t disagree with a lot here but a few facts
One carrier can not deliver in 24 hours of operation the same weight of shot ashore as an Iowa class battleship can deliver in 20 minuets.

Forget the 18 inch guns the blast is so intense that no one can be on deck during firing or they get KO’ed every time a gun fires, look at the Japanese super battleships during WWII all their anti-aircraft battries were enclosed for this reason.

The navy was working on a rocket booster and a laser designator for 16 inch guns in the 80s that would have given them a range of up to 75 miles.

A modern MTB (main battle tank) has a bigger main gun than a destroyer. Heck some frigates have 37mm main guns.

Now IMHO
As far as going backward by using the M-14, that would only be that case if the kids cant shoot any better than they do today. I prefer marksmanship to volume of fire and in the case where you are fighting a horde you better be able to knock them down and kill them with one shot like a 30-06 or 308 as it you will be hard pressed to fire 2 or 3 5.56 rounds in to every one of them. A rack grade M-14/M-1 will shoot 3 MOA and a typical rifleman doesn’t need anything much better If their that far out then you have time to put more rounds on them and if they are closer then it wont matter. If you need any better then go with something else (you wont need a lot of them either). Personally I would go with a mix in ever rifle squad of M-16 and M-14s more of the latter in open country and more of the former in urban or jungles.

On new optical sight the old Iron sight are pretty bullet proof any of the new sights would be that much more to go wrong.



[This message has been edited by Alan B (edited March 02, 2000).]
 
The 6mm PPC uses a weird bolt face so that's a strike right there. Short dumpy rounds are not the hot setup for feeding through something belt fed(M249SAW replacement) The links would get really short. Also what's the velocity of the 6PPC? I don't think it has enough juice over the 5.56 to justify the whole new BS.
Liquid Propellant will be a good thing, someday. Right now solid propellants are it. Combustion Augmented Plasma (CAP) technology looks promising, but again 20-30 year development timeframe.
Battleships are great, but the Iowa class is 60yrs old. And regardless of what you want, the logistics guys will give you old powder and old shells, it will be Ka-BOOM like on the Iowa all over again (if you see a consistant rant against procurement and log types, congrats, you are not blind:-))So go with the 18's.
I would say three ship series, nuke power, 4 triple 18" turrets(triples are known commodity), secondaries of 155mm twins(6-10)VLS wells along the beam but outside the armour belt for T-hawks, Naval ATACM, VLS Sea Sparrow,etc. Wide beam, 130+ft for stabiltity. However long it needs to be to make 32kts with however much shaft horsepower you have space for. 18-20 inch armour belt over the mags and vital spaces, 23 inch turret faces, conning tower etc. Not really critical since nothing punches through armout anymore(shaped charges make small holes). Each turret to operate independantly with commo, firecontrol, firecontrol radar, etc to support a different unit. Secondaries run from the CIC or gunnery control. Lots of automated stuff but not so much that people can't still run a turret if needs be. One per fleet, Pacific, Atlantic, Med+Red Sea. Kinda OT, but some rifle stuff in there. NO OICW's anywhere aboard. Semper Fi....
 
LP technology when it matures will allow what are know as Multi-Round Simo Impacts (MRSI) Which with current solid propellent is possible, but normally a Max of two rounds per piece (this is done by firing the first round High angle with the greatest TOF possible followed by a low angle shot at the minimal TOF). The future Crusader will be able to 4 to 8 with MACS solid propellent, but only at certain ranges and only because of being fully automated and extremely fast reloading time. LP can allow customization of the charge to the spefic quadrant to fire to allow 8 round MRSI missions at almost all ranges. Giving each gun more fire power than a battery.

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery
 
Back to the original topic...The OICW is now being modified to interface with the Land Warrior system according to this weeks Army Times. Since Land Warrior and OICW are seperate projects this will probably add years to the time it will take to field the system.

I don't think we're going to see a new service rifle anytime soon. There is nothing wrong with the M16 series of weapons, we have large stores of ammunition and spare parts. Putting the Army on wheels will give the big defense contractors something to keep them occupied and spending our tax money for years to come. Rifles are small potatos when it comes to all new fighting vehicles.

Jeff
 
Can't pass up the chance to plug my favorite Armed Force segment - the US Navy Seabees! We build, we fight!

OO Rah!
 
I'm also skeptical of the 6mm PPC and most of the other low power rounds. I've looked at the ballistics of many oddball cartridges between 5.56 and 7mm, and I haven't seen one that's a good replacement for the 5.56x45.

I'll respectfully disagree on the optics question; in poor lighting, with a partially camouflaged target, under time pressure, I want to use optics if at all possible. if the optics break (how often do hunters break scopes? pretty rare these days). if the optic sight goes down, with QD rings it takes all of 3 seconds to remove. from 100 yards on out, optics greatly improve the ability to make first-shot hits.

I seem to recall reading an article in Proceedings about the idea of putting Abrams turrets on frigates or destroyers. I don't recall the motivation for doing so, other than using off-the-shelf hardware instead of developing a new gun system.
 
STLRN - Your talking a TOT thing right?
I'm just a Leg - so arty is strange and fearfull to me... but I do understand some things. What you just layed down is saying that with LP a Battery would be TIMES 6-8?!?

Talk about a Force Multiplier! :eek:

Does the Army have current LP projects in the works? Strike that - Dont answer that here.
Wow... That is impressive stuff.
 
George:
The following is availble through open open sources.
Yes and no, it was abandoned on the the future Crusader because of lack of maturation of the technology. However the newest unitary charge system MACS and advanced autoloaders still give the howitzer (crusader) MRSI capability but not to the extent of the LP. In the very distant future it might be possible, however the Crusader will problably be the last propellant based gun. The future will probably see rail gun technology be used vice chemical energy. I have read that English developed a workable LP system, however it was not enviromentally sound and was abandoned.

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery
 
I agree with the general consensus,tis a silly new rifle. I like all this battleship talk though. Figuring that there`s really no need for quite such massive armor protection it should be easy to make a new one lighter and more efficient. Nuclear for sure ,basically the same size and shape hull as the Iowa class(they`re proven and very fast for their size and weight so it must be pretty efficient),9 new 18" guns. BTW the Japanes super BBs Yamato and Musashi did have open AA gun emplacements later in the war. If the gunners didn`t get out before the main guns fired they often had the flesh ripped off their bodies,to say nothing of the noise and lack of oxygen. They had another BB being built that was never finished,it would have had 20" guns (!!!)but they were sunk by US forces during transport. It`s true however that the US no longer has the facilities to make such guns. The steel plant (Bethlehem Steel Co.) that made ALL the US naval guns over 8" is located a few miles from me and the "high house" used to make them was torn down two years ago. Doh. Marcus
 
Marcus, I wouldn't take away *too* much armor; one of the nice features of the Iowa class BBs is that they can take an Exocet and keep fighting, which is not true of just about any modern warship in active service (that I know of). however, I'd move a bunch of armor below the waterline, as any 3rd world nation can get lucky with a mine or torpedo. Iowa-sized BBs can obviously take any current naval gunfire, and we've got pretty darn good anti-missile defense.

if we consider connecting the OICW rifle to all that "personal onboard electronics" that the Army is considering, and continue projecting further use of electronics, at some point we'll have to have a 15 minute "time-out" daily to reboot all the computers... ;)

STLRN, how does barrel heating fit in to all of this stuff? I am assuming that cold barrels shoot more precisely, so there would seem to be a limit to the utility of getting a higher firing rate out of a single gun.

also, I assume you folks look at saboted rounds (this seems like one of those technologies that would resurface every 5-10 years, get re-analyzed, and put away until the next guy thinks he can make it work). why aren't they used for field artillery? what are the downsides?
 
If you look at the rail technology - at the potential it has for not just Arty - but for MBTs as well... A rail gun armed tank could kill another tank, at any range - so long is its line of sight. By the time we have that kinda cannon, imagine the advances in the targeting computer. Put those together and what do you get?
Armour would be about pointless as a projectile from such a gun would cut through armour like a battle axe through butter.
So what I think you'll see is lighter, smaller and much faster tanks. Speed and manuver will be more important than mass and armour. The Brittish Challenger for example would be the firt tank scrapped... or at least turned over to Guard units. (If the Brits got reservists like we do... who is the lowest rung?)
The M1 would still make a good platform, but the turret would be very different. Maybe go to much smaller platforms... like the air dropable Sheridan, with a massive engine upgrade. The Armoured Car concept would grow... Like the FOX... imagine that with the ability to smack down an Abrams at 5000 meters.
 
The Crusader will have a liquid cooled barrel, to control the heat that will be generated from the high rate of fire. Even with this I have been told that the tube life will only be 1000 EFCs. Sabot and non-sabot reduced bore projectiles have been used in the past, however two major problems exists with these type of rounds. The first being they were not all that accurate, the high velocity would give almost naval gunfire like characteristics. That is very large probable error in range. An additional problem erratic separation cropped up with sabots. There was almost now way to predict a point of impact for the round because of the inability to determine when separation of the sabot would occur 100% of the time. In the near future this could be solved with the Low Cost Competent Munition Fuze (LCCM). This fuze will contain a combination INS and GPS, to allow the round to self-guide to the target. However, these fuzes are yet to be perfected. Currently, the fuzes are not rugged enough to handle the firing acceleration, which in 155mm can sometimes be greater than 40000 Gs. The second major problem is the reduction in the payload of the projectile. This was possibly the most significant problem associated with the rounds. A 155 projo would only have slightly more effect than a 105, if you were lucky. The 175mm, reduced bore actually used a 155 with plastic skirts, so a projo that would normally weigh 170 lbs. now had a 95 lbs. pound projo. A tremendous reduction in throw weight, that really can’t be solved. Even high fragmentation steel and newer explosives can’t make up for the reduction in throw weight. Since artillery kills because of mass of explosive and saturation, the sabots and reduced bore rounds only are practical under special circumstances.

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery
 
MAD Dog:
Read your post with great interest. Do you remember the SPIW and AAI.s amazing "contributions" to that program?
 
George, I wouldn't be surprised if armored vehicles develop some sort of automated self-defense capability. along with smoke, one might have a little missile that would shoot out about 500m and deflect the incoming round into the dirt. of course, this would require full-time radar or lidar scanning or maybe IR (I figure the aerodynamic heating of the projectile nose should be visible to imaging IR cameras).

I have a secret plan for the next generation of vehicle armor; dried oatmeal. if you've ever let your cereal bowl dry out, you'll understand how hard it is to chisel that stuff out. obviously a good armor material, though a waterproofing treatment will be needed. :)

STLRN, I was thinking more along the lines of reducing shell diameter but increasing length such that total weight is the same. I guess this would require redesign of shells and gun chambers. what got me thinking about this was a little digging I did a couple of months ago in search of long-range rifle cartridges. the .270 Wby Mag performs admirably at longer ranges (I was looking at 600 yards) in comparison to larger magnums because of its sectional density. extrapolating this to howitzers, I thought a long, skinny, heavy projectile might travel a bit farther without accuracy loss.
 
The russians already have a actve anti-atgm system for tanks. it uses a mm-wave radar and ahoot a claymore like bombs into the path of the ATGM.

We have gone as slime on projo as we can without changing the rifling and chambers. Example the M107, the old style HE, will eventually be replace with M795, it is almost a foot longer because of the longer Ogive.

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery

[This message has been edited by STLRN (edited March 05, 2000).]
 
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