Smoothbore long range rifles

J

johnwilliamson062

Moderator
A while ago I stumbled across some information concerning Israeli tank guns. The use smooth bores and they see increased velocities and report equal or even increased accuracy. These two factors lead to increased range which has allowed them an advantage in several conflicts.

I don't think they are using finned projectiles or anything.

My question is, why isn't this being applied to long range small arms? What am I missing?
 
I'm quite certain that those rounds use stabilizing fins.

The reason they're smooth bore is that the projectile is so long that no practical rifling rate can stabilize it.
 
Then there is also the fact you get longer life out of a smooth bore tube and higher velocity for an equal charge and the lack of rifling reduces further distortion of shells, all ready under stress due to being fired at high velocity and accuracy won't fall off as will happen with a rifled gun, though there has been tanks which fired fin stabilized rounds and had a rifled bore, but I think that was a stop gap measure early on.

There has been attempts at doing something similar with small arms, but complexity cost and current technology has more or less limited it to 20 mm and larger.
 
How do they handle HE? Is there a fin stabilized shell as well as rod penetrator?

Jeff Cooper said the tankers missed their rifled 105s when he got to shoot the newer gun. Fewer rounds in the magazine and fewer types of round for different targets. They thought the 105 would stop anything on the road.
 
They are all fin stabilised, save for the cannister round IIRC, which makes the 120 mm gun into a 600 meter shotgun firing tungsten ball bearings 3/8 dia and 1000 pcs +- and there is a round in development that will be a Multi purpose style warhead replacing 3 rounds currently in use M830A1, M1028, and M908, which will reduce the logistical train.

The 120 mm was adopted because it could kill modern armour designs at longer ranges and beyond the effective range of most rifles fielded by the Soviet/Russian/other forces.

There are also Smart rounds under development, that can be employed to extend range/laser guided/cluster munition, it's kind of mind boggling some of the things that are in the works or on the drawing board.

Its an interesting field of interest.
 
Here's a detailed video of the Abrams ammohttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yHbf-Eb3xak&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DyHbf-Eb3xak#

Our tanks and Britains use a copy of the Rheinmetall gun that is on the Leopard it's a smooth bore 120mm too.
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The British challenger2's main gun is the L30A1 and is rifled. The British Army prefer using high explosive rounds instead of the Abrams sabot rounds. The High explosive rounds have a longer range and the rifled gun is more accurate.

The main armament of the Abrams is the M256A1 120 mm smoothbore gun and it fires depleted uranium Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot (APFSDS) kinetic energy penetrators, at a velocity up tp 5700 fps ( over 1 mile per second ). The Abrams sabot round is far superior to the HE round within its maximum range.

The Israeli merkava tank also uses the same gun as the Abrams.
Boomer
 
Credit must be given to the Russians who pioneered smoothbore tank guns (unless you count the Sheridan tank, but that was a rocket).
 
Jeff Cooper said the tankers missed their rifled 105s when he got to shoot the newer gun. Fewer rounds in the magazine and fewer types of round for different targets. They thought the 105 would stop anything on the road.
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I've crewed them both. My favorite tank of the past three decades was the M60A3, which had marvelous fire control and a rifled 105mm tube. Yes, the rifled tube used finned ammo, primarily the APFSDS anti-tank round, which was Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot. It used a depleted uranium penetrator that was so long it intruded fairly severely into the powder column. That's the model that I took downrange in '84 and earned my Distinguished patch with a 97.5 Q1 score.

I never crewed the M1, but I did crew an M1A1 in my last unit. Good tanks, great mobility, awesome turret, but I never felt (without any evidence) that the 120mm smoothbore was as accurate as the older 105mm rifled tube. After I retired, the boys who took it to the desert showed that it was very capable. I have to admit that the 120mm smooth bore is a lot easier to clean than the 105mm rifled tube.
 
The Challenger 1 holds the record for the longest range tank to tank kill in history at 5.1 km during Desert Storm. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq a Challenger 2 scored a kill at 5.0km.

Well the Challenger has a great service record it doesn't even come close to the Abrams. The Abrams has over 2000 confirmed tank to tank kills without a single loss. The Abrams has never been defeated by an enemy tanks in combat.

Boomer
 
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And, there is something else a little different about one fin stabilized round.

A cannon designer I talked to told me that the M800 depleted uranium round used in the 105 mm is greased or the fired case won't extract. He had worked on the Stryker system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker

Maybe someone who has one can tell me how the round is carried, I assume it is greased at the factory and kept in a case till it is loaded.
 
A cannon designer I talked to told me that the M800 depleted uranium round used in the 105 mm is greased or the fired case won't extract. He had worked on the Stryker system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker
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From a crew members standpoint, we never greased them.

The Abrams has never been defeated by an enemy tanks in combat.
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Not defeated, but certainly damaged. The Abrams isn't indestructible, but it has a good combat record. It is subject to battle damage, and crew members have bee injured. The Wiki page lists a record of battle damage.
 
Not defeated, but certainly damaged. The Abrams isn't indestructible,but ithasa good combat record. It is subjectto battledamage, and crew members have bee injured. The Wiki page listsa record of battle damage.
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She may not be indestructible but she still has the best kill ratio of any tank in history and I'm glad she's on our side. ;)

A cannon designer I talked to told me that the M800 depleted uranium round used in the 105 mm is greased or the fired case won't extract. He had worked on the Stryker system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stryker
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It is my understanding that they're not greased per se but have a coating similar to steel cased centerfire ammo.

Boomer
 
I saw pix of a 3rd AD (Ayers Kaserne/Friedberg based) fratricide incident from Desert Storm ..... that M1A1 was certainly destroyed, with casualties .... did not see it listed in the wiki site. .......

I also personally saw 2 Kuwaiti M1's completetly burnt out, stem to stern, loaded on HETs after the end of combat ops .....
 
The Abrams has been defeated by anti tank missiles and 2000 lb IED's sure, but never by another tank.

The Abrams kill ratio is similar to the F-15c eagle. That F-15 has been shot down by surface to air missiles, but never buy another aircraft. It's Kill ratio is over 100 to 0. No F-15 has ever been defeated in air-2-air Kombat.

The Abrams was primarily designed to do one thing and one thing very well. Kill tanks. Something it does with almost impunity.

This is the reason the Abrams uses a kinetic energy penetrator instead of a HEAT round vs other main battle tanks. The depleted uranium still has better armor penetration ability than the HEAT round.

The one major downside of the depleted uranium sabot rounds is they sometimes pin hole through light armored vehicles without doing much damage where the heat round with blow it to pieces.
 
Hey PawPaw, ever hear of the Canadian Army Trophy shoot with NATO? I was there (Germany) in '84 and with 60 series tanks doing the machine gun setups. There was some hokey business there. Our boys had the XM-1's beat with the 60's and they got an alibi to add more points. An alibi is O.K., but I never saw one where the same target came up for the alibi. They rushed that XM-1 unit over just to show off. (The shoot is really nothing but an arms show and sale) The Germans did not even enter their latest tank and I suspect they were not allowed to.
 
ever hear of the Canadian Army Trophy shoot with NATO?
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A bunch of longhaired, bearded, hash smokin' Dutchmen won it one year I was over there ...... I remember the write-up in the Stars and Stripes ...... 1989?

The Abrams has been defeated by anti tank missiles and 2000 lb IED's sure, but never by another tank.
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The 3AD fratricide incident I was referring to ..... that M1 most certainly was defeated by several other tanks ...... M1's ......
 
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