NATO Military News

*THASF* said:

But the M10 is openly described as being intended for taking down fortifications.

M10 Booker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The M10 Booker Is the Army’s New Mobile Assault Gun

The Booker will bolster the firepower of paratroopers, light infantry, and other tankless troops.

www.popularmechanics.com

Sounds to me like they wanted a bunker remover.


They have a range of about 1 to 2 kilometers and lob a propane cylinder (or in some cases, water heaters!) that is filled with enough explosive material for the resulting shell to be three-quarters explosive by mass. Even the smaller ones were putting 60+ pounds of explosive on-target, with some of them going all the way up to 400+ pounds of HE. Their CEP is actually not very large at all; the makeshift shells often have welded-on stabilizing fins and it's not uncommon for them to hit within the same few-meter circle when firing a volley. Even the most inaccurate ones can still consistently pound the same building over and over from a mile away.





I wasn't thinking about the specifics of the improvised mortars themselves, though, but rather their effects on target. They just utterly, brutally demolished whatever they hit, collapsing multi-story structures with ease, blowing facades away, annihilating cover. That's a nice capability to have.

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Gotta admit, seeing this is making me glad the GLA is fictional: With all the shit seen in the Middle-East, Ukraine, and Syria in recent decades, there's a hell of a lot of inspiration for them, lol.

I mean, fucking propane canister/water heater artillery? Actual cannon balls? Generals was supposed to be a fucking parody.

*THASF* said:

My own proposition, back then, was a UGV based on the BAE Black Knight but with an autoloading 165mm demolition gun lobbing HESH shells to obliterate tough stone and mudbrick/adobe structures.

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...HESH for demolitions work?

What?

You're going to have to explain the logic of this to me.

*THASF* said:

My own proposition, back then, was a UGV based on the BAE Black Knight but with an autoloading 165mm demolition gun lobbing HESH shells to obliterate tough stone and mudbrick/adobe structures.

I got the idea from watching footage of the Hell Cannon improvised spigot mortars in Syria. Those things could pound huge apartment blocks into dust very quickly. Something like that, but with a bit more precision, ought to be very handy.

Sometimes, you just gotta go through a wall.

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HESH required rifled barrels that in turn interfere with HEAT, and the design of multi purpose HEAT rounds has advanced from the time when HESH was the cool thing, making them more versatile.

Secondly, you are not sticking a 165mm demolition gun, autoloader for it, and a reasonable ammo stockpile into a 12 ton vehicle normally carrying a 25mm autocannon, that's just pure fantasy, we don't have dimension folding tech. These guns were mounted on normal MBT hulls (Centurion and M60) for a reason, and even then the ammo capacity was not the best.
It's one thing to have a large mortar in towed configuration with manual loading and external ammo supply, as compared to fitting everything into an armored vehicle, nevermind such a tiny one.

LordsFire said:

...HESH for demolitions work?

What?

You're going to have to explain the logic of this to me.

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So, we are bringing back the Sturm Tiger?


Isn't HEP American for HESH?

*THASF* said:

But the M10 is openly described as being intended for taking down fortifications.

M10 Booker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The M10 Booker Is the Army’s New Mobile Assault Gun

The Booker will bolster the firepower of paratroopers, light infantry, and other tankless troops.

www.popularmechanics.com

Sounds to me like they wanted a bunker remover.


They have a range of about 1 to 2 kilometers and lob a propane cylinder (or in some cases, water heaters!) that is filled with enough explosive material for the resulting shell to be three-quarters explosive by mass. Even the smaller ones were putting 60+ pounds of explosive on-target, with some of them going all the way up to 400+ pounds of HE. Their CEP is actually not very large at all; the makeshift shells often have welded-on stabilizing fins and it's not uncommon for them to hit within the same few-meter circle when firing a volley. Even the most inaccurate ones can still consistently pound the same building over and over from a mile away.





I wasn't thinking about the specifics of the improvised mortars themselves, though, but rather their effects on target. They just utterly, brutally demolished whatever they hit, collapsing multi-story structures with ease, blowing facades away, annihilating cover. That's a nice capability to have.

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It won't do much to any actual fortficati9ns.
It is also not an assault gun.
It is as Tiamat said, more of a light tank.
It is not made for any sort of direct combat, and is in the role to help the infantry accomplish thier mission without being directly engaged.

Assault guns are only useful if you don't have comparable munitions in other ways.
Like a Jav....
Which is light and can be in more places.


Also, a Hell canon like they use is horrible for anything not stupid warfare like the Civil War.
Useless against a real military with air power due to the fact it is a GIANT target

LordsFire said:

...HESH for demolitions work?

What?

You're going to have to explain the logic of this to me.

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Fairly common, actually.

While only effective against tanks without spaced armour or spall liners, the round is still favoured for combat demolition purposes. The flattened high-velocity explosive pat can destroy concrete constructions much faster than a HEAT round (which is designed to penetrate armour), and without the dangerous fragmentation of a traditional high explosive (HE) fragmentation round.[3]

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Marduk said:

HESH required rifled barrels that in turn interfere with HEAT, and the design of multi purpose HEAT rounds has advanced from the time when HESH was the cool thing, making them more versatile.

Secondly, you are not sticking a 165mm demolition gun, autoloader for it, and a reasonable ammo stockpile into a 12 ton vehicle normally carrying a 25mm autocannon, that's just pure fantasy, we don't have dimension folding tech. These guns were mounted on normal MBT hulls (Centurion and M60) for a reason, and even then the ammo capacity was not the best.
It's one thing to have a large mortar in towed configuration with manual loading and external ammo supply, as compared to fitting everything into an armored vehicle, nevermind such a tiny one.

M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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I can’t find the vid or the file right now, but I actually modeled it, years ago, with the actual dimensions for everything. The gun did fit. However, the resulting vehicle was closer to 20 tons, and the turret was huge (to allow for a couple dozen rounds of ammo to fit inside), partly covering the rear of the hull. It was not a standard 165mm demolition gun. I adapted the soft-recoil mechanism of the XM204 howitzer to it, and the animation I did showed the barrel moving forward before firing. This was, of course, to keep the recoil from bowling it over.

Since it was unmanned, the internal volume of the turret could be wholly dedicated to the gun, autoloader, and ammo. I was careful to check the internal volume by shoving dummy primitives of the requisite dimensions into the turret model to see if they’d fit, and they did.

*THASF* said:

Fairly common, actually.

High-explosive squash head - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Was a common thing in Cold War UK chiefly, not so much anymore.

*THASF* said:

I can’t find the vid or the file right now, but I actually modeled it, years ago, with the actual dimensions for everything. The gun did fit. However, the resulting vehicle was closer to 20 tons, and the turret was huge (to allow for a couple dozen rounds of ammo to fit inside), partly covering the rear of the hull. It was not a standard 165mm demolition gun. I adapted the soft-recoil mechanism of the XM204 howitzer to it, and the animation I did showed the barrel moving forward before firing. This was, of course, to keep the recoil from bowling it over.

Since it was unmanned, the internal volume of the turret could be wholly dedicated to the gun, autoloader, and ammo. I was careful to check the internal volume by shoving dummy primitives of the requisite dimensions into the turret model to see if they’d fit, and they did.

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That sounds more reasonable, but still, is a hyper-specialized vehicle like that worth it? The armor and mobility of such vehicle would be heavily limited by such specs.
At that point, if you want a way to relatively cheaply hit buildings with a big HE shell, get more of those increasingly popular and lightened down truck based 155mm howitzers, much more useful in general.

Essay on Baltic & Nordic Country Military Readiness Versus other European members of NATO.


Also Estonia recently acquired the Blue Spear anti-ship missile.



Which came out of an Israeli-Singaporean project. It's advertised as a 'Fifth Generation surface to surface missile.

Defense News said:

IAI has said the fifth-generation surface-to-surface missile is designed to prevail in contested, congested and complex situations, even when pitted against increasingly sophisticated countermeasures.

Speaking to Defense News at the Singapore Airshow, Ron Tryfus, general manager of Proteus Advanced Systems, said the Blue Spear 5G SSM's advanced data link could be used in a fire-and-update mode in addition to a fire-and-forget profile.

The onboard data link also allows the missile to be tracked in flight by operators.

However, Tryfus declined to directly answer whether the missile can be re-programmed to attack different targets when already in flight, instead telling Defense News that customers will be able to define what kind of midcourse updates the missile is capable of when used in fire-and-update mode.

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I find it hilarious and ironic that Russia's actions have created the exact thing they were trying to prevent/feared: A stronger, anti-Russian NATO with more members. smh

Jormungandr said:

I find it hilarious and ironic that Russia's actions have created the exact thing they were trying to prevent/feared: A stronger, anti-Russian NATO with more members. smh

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Yeah I wonder if the range of the new anti-ship missile of Estonia includes any nearby naval bases. From the graphic and statement it states it can cover the entire Baltic Sea...

Husky_Khan said:

Yeah I wonder if the range of the new anti-ship missile of Estonia includes any nearby naval bases. From the graphic and statement it states it can cover the entire Baltic Sea...

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Is St. Petersburg in range? Because then it'd be a surface-to-city missile.

Jormungandr said:

Is St. Petersburg in range? Because then it'd be a surface-to-city missile.

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It is. I'm sure the urban clutter and Russian air defenses there have a say but the Blue Spear is supposed to be more advanced then the Carrier killing anti-ship missiles Russia has been lobbing at Odessa regularly, the advanced Cold War sensors on the missiles tragically blowing up churches and apartment buildings since they're the closest facsimile to a warship I guess.

Husky_Khan said:

It is. I'm sure the urban clutter and Russian air defenses there have a say but the Blue Spear is supposed to be more advanced then the Carrier killing anti-ship missiles Russia has been lobbing at Odessa regularly, the advanced Cold War sensors on the missiles tragically blowing up churches and apartment buildings since they're the closest facsimile to a warship I guess.

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"Comrade, we have blown up another Ukrainian ship! Huzzah!"

"Strange design though comrade, what with those stained glass windows and spires."

Jormungandr said:

I find it hilarious and ironic that Russia's actions have created the exact thing they were trying to prevent/feared: A stronger, anti-Russian NATO with more members. smh

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It's less ironic, and more 'You did exactly this same stupid stuff multiple times through history, Russia.'

LordsFire said:

It's less ironic, and more 'You did exactly this same stupid stuff multiple times through history, Russia.'

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Yet they've never learned. sigh Even when Russia hadn't been taken over by Commies, they still did the same shit over and over.

Jormungandr said:

Yet they've never learned. sigh Even when Russia hadn't been taken over by Commies, they still did the same shit over and over.

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Not always true,when german tsars ruled over Russia some of them was smart enough to avoid making their enemies unite again them.But last one was not smart,then come soviets,and now we have colonel KGB ruling as new tsar.
Of course he must made such mistake.People from secret services never ever should rule any country,especially Russia.

Husky_Khan said:

Yeah I wonder if the range of the new anti-ship missile of Estonia includes any nearby naval bases. From the graphic and statement it states it can cover the entire Baltic Sea...

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Which mean,that taking ships to Baltic is very stupid idea for anybody facing relatively modern military.
But our polish idiots still want to build frigates.Sight.
We need more missiles ,drones and maybe submarines,not this.
Well,good that they do not try build carrier or battleship....

ATP said:

Which mean,that taking ships to Baltic is very stupid idea for anybody facing relatively modern military.
But our polish idiots still want to build frigates.Sight.
We need more missiles ,drones and maybe submarines,not this.
Well,good that they do not try build carrier or battleship....

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Say you don't know what Mieczniks are and what the modern Navy is like without saying you don't know.
I will say this, these three frigates will do much more than even 10k drones, missiles and any number of submarines.
Our new Frigates are specialized in the air defense function. Of course, they can perform other roles, but their official name itself, the Coastal Defense Frigate, speaks for itself what they are to be used for.
Even modern guided missiles or drones have trouble penetrating the anti-aircraft defenses of modern ships. And the Mieczniks will precisely act as a naval shield at the weakest point of Polish air defense. If we tried to replace this with a classical defense, we would spend much more and the effects would be much worse.

Batrix2070 said:

Say you don't know what Mieczniks are and what the modern Navy is like without saying you don't know.
I will say this, these three frigates will do much more than even 10k drones, missiles and any number of submarines.
Our new Frigates are specialized in the air defense function. Of course, they can perform other roles, but their official name itself, the Coastal Defense Frigate, speaks for itself what they are to be used for.
Even modern guided missiles or drones have trouble penetrating the anti-aircraft defenses of modern ships. And the Mieczniks will precisely act as a naval shield at the weakest point of Polish air defense. If we tried to replace this with a classical defense, we would spend much more and the effects would be much worse.

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Tech wise you have a very... relative point. There's nothing special making ship based SAMs better or cheaper than land based. Hell, some repurpose one the other way in general, both west and east.
Ships also aren't equal in AAW capability, so don't think Mieczniks will be DDG(X) or something like that, they aren't that.
You can cheap out on number of radars with a ship, but on the other hand, you can't disperse the SAM like a land battery, so if it gets hit it all goes, rather than 1-2 out of 12 trucks, can't hide it innawoods, can't move it inland, you have to protect it from anti ship weapons, submarines etc which is expensive in itself, and reloading VLS is a pain, it needs a lot more time and port cranes, while a modern land SAM can be reloaded in less than an hour, absolutely anywhere, by 1-2 trucks.

If anything it's a favor for our allies, as frigates are in great demand for... situations like in Red Sea. You can call them whatever you want, but it's still a variant of new British general purpose frigate model, and 6k nautical mile range is not necessary for Baltic Sea.

Marduk said:

You can cheap out on number of radars with a ship, but on the other hand, you can't disperse the SAM like a land battery,

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And in return, you have the firepower of a dozen such batteries in one place and far greater mobility than land-based counterparts. More importantly, they are immediately on the water, so they give you much greater response time than tethered SAMs on land.

Marduk said:

so if it gets hit it all goes

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Admittedly, but it's in my reckoning, the gains are worth the risk of losing such a unit. And, against all odds, it will be very hard to lose such a one.

Marduk said:

rather than 1-2 out of 12 trucks, can't hide it innawoods, can't move it inland

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Akurat is no disadvantage, the seas, even such as the Baltic, are quite large bodies of water. It's quite easy to hide ships on such and hard to find them. Even the best fleets (and let's not kid ourselves Russia doesn't have one) have problems finding vessels on them. Let alone the Russians will have! So I wouldn't exaggerate the problems with stealth.

Marduk said:

modern land SAM can be reloaded in less than an hour, absolutely anywhere, by 1-2 trucks.

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On the other hand, such a single battery carries far fewer missiles at once than any ship. What would break through a land-based defense, for a ship, would pose no challenge. So something for something, either large firepower but time-consuming reloading or small but quick reloading.

Marduk said:

f anything it's a favor for our allies, as frigates are in great demand for... situations like in Red Sea. You can call them whatever you want, but it's still a variant of new British general purpose frigate model, and 6k nautical mile range is not necessary for Baltic Sea.

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Where are the flaws?
This makes the units a powerful political asset, while at the same time giving them a fair amount of independence from allies if the need ever arises to send ships on a long voyage.

Batrix2070 said:

Say you don't know what Mieczniks are and what the modern Navy is like without saying you don't know.
I will say this, these three frigates will do much more than even 10k drones, missiles and any number of submarines.
Our new Frigates are specialized in the air defense function. Of course, they can perform other roles, but their official name itself, the Coastal Defense Frigate, speaks for itself what they are to be used for.
Even modern guided missiles or drones have trouble penetrating the anti-aircraft defenses of modern ships. And the Mieczniks will precisely act as a naval shield at the weakest point of Polish air defense. If we tried to replace this with a classical defense, we would spend much more and the effects would be much worse.

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I am ignorant.But i knew,that AS missiles are much cheaper then frigate,and Baltic is not place where frigate could be out of enemy missiles range.