/k/ - Weapons and Militaria

>take 120mm mortar shell
>replace tail section with a rocket motor
>load it into a 122mm tube
>now you have mortar and rocket artillery production and development mostly unified
Am I a genius, or is there a reason nobody does this?

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>>983
>Am I a genius
You've reinvented rocket assisted projectiles, congratulations. some 80 years after Germans did it
>nobody does this?
They do tho.

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>>998
It seems like you have completely missed the point. 122mm is the calibre of the BM-21 Grad, and as a result it is also used by lots of other countries in lots of other rocket artillery systems. Now, designing and manufacturing fancy new 122mm shells might be a bit expensive, but a 120mm mortar shell with a rocket motor fitted to it is something any company or country that already manufactures 120mm mortar shells could do relatively easily, and if it can be launched by any 122mm MRLS then they suddenly have a completely new market. This whole thing has nothing to do with rocket-assisted howitzer shells.

The nobody

>>1002
>a 120mm mortar shell with a rocket motor fitted to it
>if it can be launched by any 122mm MRLS
If you make the rocket part large enough to get the mortar shell going from zero to some ballistic trajectory, well you end up with a grad-sized rocket more or less. Chambered artillery is way more efficient than rockets because energy from the burnt propellant is concentrated in one direction - pushing the round out of the barrel - while the rocket blasts it out the rear end of the launcher tube. Not to mention accuracy.
Any efficiencies from economies-of-scale or consolidating on manufacturing side I think are easily exceeded by the extra propellant costs and hauling around larger/heavier ammo.

MLRS has its advantages like cost of launchers, mobility, massive salvos in short time but these are different form what you're talking about I think.

>>1011
It seems like you have missed an other point. The rocket would be grad-sized because it is meant to be fired fired from a grad-launcher. And it is not meant to replace mortars, but if you want a MRLS that fires 122mm Grad rockets, then making those rockets by slapping rocket engines to 120mm mortar shells that you are already manufacturing would be cheaper than making a completely new assembly line for 122mm rockets. You would just manufacture the 120mm shells and either add a tail assembly to turn them into 120mm mortar shells or a rocket motor (with a diameter of 122mm) to turn them into rockets. Kind of like how in Ukraine people figured out that they can launch 82mm mortar shells from an RPG-7.

>>1018
Consider that 120mm HE mortars contain ~2kg of explosive, Grad warheads about 3x that and are 1.5-2 times heavier overall. Can be done in a pinch but doesn't seem like a good match. Even if the rocket size is reduced proportional to the warhead/mortar weight at best you end up with nerfed explosions and two types of rockets to deal with.

>>1021
Well, I could suggest putting multiple shells into a single rocket, but then I'm just grasping for straws. Maybe you could either reduce the size and weight of the rocket and make a launcher that has significantly more rockets, but that also doesn't sit well with me. Anyway, mystery solved.

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Are we going to see the return of infantry tanks?
How do you defend effectively against drones without EW?

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>>1036

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>>1036
>Are we going to see the return of infantry tanks?
Maybe not as a dedicated vehicle, but in the sandbox all vehicles got lots of additional armour, so I can see something similar happening, especially because many newer vehicles have modular armour plates, so in theory you could develop some extra heavy ones that make the vehicle slow like an infantry tank. And with all these drones and trenches, maybe someone will have the bright idea of putting more than one weapon stations on the roof, and just let an ”AI” do all the targeting and firing for those. The end result would be similar to pic related, but all those roof machine guns would be firing on their own.

>>1036
>Are we going to see the return of infantry tanks?
Yes its called Infantry Fighting Vehicles these days.
Come to think of it something like 2B held about as much crew as a bradley, there is precedent for infantry tanks being troop carriers.

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The new hotness straight from Russia is the FA-1500, a guided bomb that weights 1500kg, as the name suggests, because it can pound fortified enemy positions hard enough to have an effect. Now, will they develop something like a guided V-1 to do the same thing without risking planes and pilots just to chuck some bombs at targets right at the frontline? Of course, I am not speaking about a straight copy of the original design, but I think you could make one that carried a FAB-1500 and fits on a trailer, and still reach its target even if it is fired from well behind the frontline. 
>>1052
Also, I am still excited about the idea of using a 155mm howitzer as the main gun of a tank, and if you did that with one such tank it might be different enough to warrant a name that is different from main battle tank.

>>1135
>Also, I am still excited about the idea of using a 155mm howitzer as the main gun of a tank, and if you did that with one such tank it might be different enough to warrant a name that is different from main battle tank.
That's called a Siege Tank; the US Army actually built a few prototypes (the T30) in the closing days of WW2. Was deemed to impractical.

>>1135
Anon its a GLIDE BOMB
You are not dropping it over target, you are dropping it up in the clouds 200kms or so from the target and it glides up there. 
The payload is not the main attraction there, it is that the glide kit is cheap and can be put on preexisiting old soviet stock for a guided missile that costs aprox. 2 beers to produce.

>>1135
>Also, I am still excited about the idea of using a 155mm howitzer as the main gun of a tank, and if you did that with one such tank it might be different enough to warrant a name that is different from main battle tank.
Traditionally, in USSR a variant of already made tank with shorter, but higher-caliber gun (not SPG built on tank hull to begin with!) would be called “artillery” tank and have “A” added at the end. For example T-26A, but that one did not work well, so its production was stopped.
>>1136
In USSR this was tried repeatedly, but KV-2 seems to be the last serious attempt.

>>1137
Yes, but apparently the planes still go have to so close enough to the front that enemy AA is a threat. I genuinely don't see why wouldn't you want to take out the plane from the equation if you just want to chuck bombs at a static target.
>>1136
>Siege Tank;
>>1138
>“artillery” tank
Damn, those are some cool names.

>>1143
>Yes, but apparently the planes still go have to so close enough to the front that enemy AA is a threat. 
Yes but in all the cases in this war it was
a) due to pilot fucking up and being caught out of position
b) AA was moved dangerously close to the frontlines to intercept the plane (with obvious consequences)
c) were intercepted at low altitude via "ambush" on previously known path serbian style.
It works, range is honestly longer than many expected.
>I genuinely don't see why wouldn't you want to take out the plane from the equation if you just want to chuck bombs at a static target.
Because then you are ending up with ballistic missiles at much, much greater cost then barrel with gunpowder + bolted on wings.

>>1144
In other words, in a real-world operational environment just about any sort of shit happens. Yes.
In reality of the coast lines in XIX century, pole mine boats only became obsolete when self-propelled torpedo became accurate enough, and first “carriers” were mine boat carriers.
In late XX century conditions it’s quite possible (while not likely) for military aircraft to be ambushed by a missile cruiser, that is discover it only by a sudden target lock from directly below — according to actual military pilots.
Discussions of races between spherical horses in vacuum (like trekkies vs anti-trekkies shitfests) would not tell you either, as they tend to simplify things too much.

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And speaking of artillery cannons on guns russians had a prototype, objekt 292, of t-80 with 155mm. 
It has been recently a reward for warthunder event, it is fun. 
Also leos and leclercs were made with swapping to 140mm at some point in mind.

>>1138
Am aware, but the other strelok asked specifically for 155mm guns, and the T30 literally used the US Army's common 155mm howitzer of the time.

>>1153
The LP-83 gun the Obj292 used was a 152mm gun (technically 152.4mm).

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>>1153
>objekt 292,
It has a smoothbore gun, but apparently they also wanted to experiment with a rifled barrel, and maybe even the smoothbore one could fire 152.4mm shells meant for rifled artillery guns.
>Also leos and leclercs were made with swapping to 140mm at some point in mind.
The program that lead to the 120mm NATO calibre also had a 140mm project going hand-in-hand, in fact, the 120mm case is just a shortened and necked down 140mm case. The 140mm gun is meant to be a drop-in upgrade, even if it is not that simple, but many tanks with the 120mm gun are set up so that it is possible. I think both the Leclerc and that Korean MBT have autoloaders designed so that they can handle both 120mm and 140mm shells. And then Rheinmetall relatively recently decided that they have to be special and developed a 130mm gun. Still, all of these are smoothbore guns meant to fire heavy darts at high speed. If I am not mistaken a 120mm mortar shell has comparable explosive power to a 155mm HE, and all of these smoothbore guns have significantly smaller HE shells because they are only a secondary shell type.
>>1160
>and the T30 literally used the US Army's common 155mm howitzer of the time.
If we want to be really autistic we can point out that the barrel was slightly shortened. Still, I really love American heavy tanks, the M6 is a flawed but lovely machine, and then they only got lovelier after that one.
>The LP-83 gun the Obj292 used was a 152mm gun (technically 152.4mm).
Or 6", which would be 60 lines for Russians. But then there is the classic question of what you measure exactly, as all the Russian small arms chambered for what they call 7.62mm have the same calibre as 7.7 British and 7.7 Japanese. For Tsarist Russia that was 3 lines, but even the Brits referred it as .303". So who knows what goes on with artillery guns. Still, 152.4mm and 155mm are close enough for the purposes of this discussion in my opinion.

>>1164
All true, in agreement. I was only being particular about bore because what the strelok specifically asked about, but you remind me I was being too particular about semantics.

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>>1135
>155mm howitzer as the main gun of a tank
The 120mm L/44 smoothbore gun can fire the M829A3 with muzzle velocity of 1555m/s, and the penetrator together with the sabot weights 10kg, and that gives us 12,090.125KJ. The M777 has an L/39 barrel, and from what I can find it can launch the M795 shell (46.7kg) with a muzzle velocity of 827m/s, and that is 15,969.74215kJ. If we want to be generous to the howitzer and a bit mean to the smoothbore gun then we can round them up to 12,000 and 15,970, and claim that the howitzer has ~33% more energy at the muzzle. Of course, it is not that simple, but at the very least I think that firing an APFSDS projectile from a 155mm L/39 gun at a tank hiding at the other end of a field would be still reasonably viable, even if the rifling won't thank you for doing this repeatedly.  But what I really want to say is that a 120mm L/44 and a 155mm L/39 gun have roughly the same barrel length, so at least you wouldn't have to retrain the driver and gunner how not to hit random objects (including the ground) with the barrel.

Also, the M777 has a rather old-fashioned breech, so I am not saying that this exact gun should be put into a tank, but changing the breech system shouldn't impact the ballistics.

To what degree could Satellites armed with missile interceptors alleviate MAD?

>>1232
It could in theory stop a limited attack from a rogue nuclear state like North Korea or Iran, but even if employed en masse it wouldn't do anything to a global nuclear power like the US or Russia.
Satellites are far too easy to track and work around; any power that is capable of causing MAD is also capable of shooting down or otherwise disrupting satellites.

>>1232
The number of satellites required to defend against hundreds of launches on both sides would require dense constellations that would only add to the potential space junk. Naturally a first strike would entail the destruction of the enemy's satellites from communication to spying to these missile interceptors. Kessler Syndrome guarantees that anything in orbit will fall to MAD as anything on the ground.

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>>1137
Glide bomb conversion kits don't cost "2 beers" to produce. They don't simply strap 2 wings on an iron bomb and call it day, because then they would be about as accurate as a regular dumb bomb. 
Glide bomb conversion kits come with navigation systems and sometimes everything except for the warhead itself is replaced with a new body. 

They're cheaper than buying newly built modern smart munitions, and they breathe new life into outdated stock. But they're not cheap and nobody is dropping them on low priority targets.

>>1241
Come on anon it is just humorous exegeration.
>But they're not cheap and nobody is dropping them on low priority targets.
They seem to be used as a breakthrough weapons. Low or high priority targets does not matter, what matters is that they are at the plot of land russians really want.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=q2vq_5hhJ2Q&t=960
Russians did the needful and started launching FAB-250s from Tornado-S MRLSs.

>>1424
Link does not work

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>>1425
Works on my machine. But you can also switch to an other invidious instance by clicking on that text, or pop the link into yt-dlp, or stream it through mpv.

>>1426
If it is true that is practically new meta in guided missiles.
>dumb rocket shot at a general area with glide kit providing accuracy
vs.
>standard guided missile
Might be genuinely cheaper .

>>1429
I recall the Serbs already did such conversions in the 90s, it just did not catch on despite being a cheap alternative to bombers. Now I am just waiting for ground-launched FAB-3000s to show up.

>>1431
Yeah but there is a world of difference between launching explodium and launching explodium and hitting the target.

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https://twitter.com/colonelcassad/status/1774158611205194234
https://archive.ph/sanvW
The age of killbots is upon us.

>>1451
ban fully semi automatic assault drones now

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>>1451
NICE!