NS Military Realism Consultation Thread #3

[The Kievan People]

Huh.
So how come the Soviet rounds have a full kilo less explosive?

Because NATO shells are made of steel. The Soviet shells are made of cast iron.

Weaker material = thicker walls = heavier shell + smaller payload.

[Aqizithiuda]

Is it possible there was a mistake in the powerpoint? Does anyone have know the explosive weight for the XM933 or one similar? This one is NATO-spec and has an explosive weight of 1.36kg.

Armaco/Arsenal sell "long distance" mortar shells which are intended for long barreled mortars, and they feature a significantly increased weight. The 82mm ones are 3.1kg/420g for the standard HE-frag, but it's 4.15kg/750g for the LD HE-frag. Maybe the NATO 120mm had a similar development, of which the Eastern 120mm did not?
http://www.armaco.bg/product/mortar-bom ... -82ld-p318

Imagine a LD-160mm mortar...

You could be right about that.

I discovered something interesting. After my last post, I scoured a local bookstore and came away with Battles of The Medieval World and began leafing through it. Did you know at the battle of Crecy in 1346 the French army had 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen, 10,000 Men At Arms (Knights and mercenaries) and 14,000 peasant militia. Further at the Battle of Tannenburg in 1410 the Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem had 21,000 cavalry and 6000 infantry (I'm assuming of all types)

I didn't realise that the French had so many crossbowmen, and I don't think we actually have any solid, agreed upon numbers for Grunwald, but I'm certainly surprised by the generally agreed upon proportion of heavy cavalry. Admittedly these are mostly mercenaries and volunteers from other nations and probably weren't as well equipped in general as the Teutonic knights but, still, that's an awfully large number of cavalry to be facing.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Huh.
So how come the Soviet rounds have a full kilo less explosive?

Also, interestingly, the warhead on the Copperhead 155mm guided shell is only a 7kg shaped charge.
Feels like all that guidance is pretty wasted in the only target of an individual munition is a single battle tank. Why not just save the money and saturate-bomb where you think the enemy armoured company is with regular 155mm rounds?
Or, why not SADARM?

Speed and accuracy. It takes a lot of dumb rounds to take out a tank; you basically have to pray for a direct hit to the roof. The number of shells involved firstly negates most of the cost advantage, but more importantly negates the time advantage; once the first shell lands, the tank is going to try to leave the target area, making it harder to saturate it. A friend in the army mentioned that 32 unguided rounds are needed on average to take out a tank. For an M109 Paladin, that's nearly a half-hour of firing.

And SADARM never entered full production. Fewer than a thousand were made, and they were not precision-guided.

Paladins are organised six to a battery, three batteries to a battalion, three battalions to a division.
As such, anywhere between three and six vehicles will likely be engaging a single unit: cutting that time from 30 minutes to five or ten. Having multiple vehicles can either put a lot of ordnance down on a small area, or the coverage of one vehicle onto several squares.

Furthermore, the M795 projectile only costs about a hundred dollars, apparently (typically $110-120 for the ER model - compare with ~$80 for the standard round).
As such, that thirty-two round fire mission to kill a tank costs less than four thousand dollars. Compared to thirty thousand to launch a single Copperhead.

Huh.
So how come the Soviet rounds have a full kilo less explosive?

Because NATO shells are made of steel. The Soviet shells are made of cast iron.

Weaker material = thicker walls = heavier shell + smaller payload.

*insert "more you know" gif here*

Your opinion on our summation of the effects of slower, heavier fragments?

[The Kievan People]

Cast iron and steel have different properties, so it is hard to say which will produce more fragments and how big they will be.

Thicker wall = large fragments only holds if you are comparing the same material.

[The Kievan People]

Imagine a LD-160mm mortar...

Guess what is in the background

[Immoren]

and next question is obviously are all shells made from same alloy or is it one of those things that depends.

[Themiclesia]

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

I don't think they offer much improvement over nuclear weapons and are significantly more hazardous to operate or even transport and store.
If containment fails (which will require a lot of constant power consumption), the container will detonate.

[San-Silvacian]

Could once use a canister design for a mortar shell instead of a conventional shell with the same results or would the aero-shit mess with it?

[The Akasha Colony]

Paladins are organised six to a battery, three batteries to a battalion, three battalions to a division.
As such, anywhere between three and six vehicles will likely be engaging a single unit: cutting that time from 30 minutes to five or ten. Having multiple vehicles can either put a lot of ordnance down on a small area, or the coverage of one vehicle onto several squares.

5-10 minutes for a single target. But if you're engaging a whole company as you had mentioned, that's 14 vehicles. For a battery, that doubles engagement time as each howitzer must take out at least two vehicles. Put a whole battalion on it and you might get it down to ~20 minutes. An entire division's worth of artillery will still take ~5 minutes to take out a single company assuming that company doesn't move.

Furthermore, the M795 projectile only costs about a hundred dollars, apparently (typically $110-120 for the ER model - compare with ~$80 for the standard round).
As such, that thirty-two round fire mission to kill a tank costs less than four thousand dollars. Compared to thirty thousand to launch a single Copperhead.

That is exclusive of propellant and transportation costs. 32 M795s also include 32 propellant charges, while one Copperhead requires only a single charge, as well as only slightly more space to transport than a single round.

Also, contracted unit costs per projectile for the M795 without fuze are closer to $1,000 per unit, rather than $100. Depending on the specific contract (several were issued, with different prices per round), costs for the metal forgings alone cost $200-500 per unit, while assembly and packaging cost another $140-230. This excludes the cost of the fuze, explosive filling, and propellant charge. The army's own lower-end cost estimates are $333 for the basic round and $700 for the base bleed round. Reference.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Could once use a canister design for a mortar shell instead of a conventional shell with the same results or would the aero-shit mess with it?

You've basically just described WWI shrapnel shells.

[San-Silvacian]

Could once use a canister design for a mortar shell instead of a conventional shell with the same results or would the aero-shit mess with it?

You've basically just described WWI shrapnel shells.

Could you fill it with HE, HE-FRAG and all those fancy munitions.

[Immoren]

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

exhaust from antimatter engine is best antimatter weapon.
antimatter bomb would end up in few pairs annihilating and rest scattering uselessly into space.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Since we no longer use "shrapnel shells" and instead just use frag-sleeeved HE shells, maybe not.

Paladins are organised six to a battery, three batteries to a battalion, three battalions to a division.
As such, anywhere between three and six vehicles will likely be engaging a single unit: cutting that time from 30 minutes to five or ten. Having multiple vehicles can either put a lot of ordnance down on a small area, or the coverage of one vehicle onto several squares.

5-10 minutes for a single target. But if you're engaging a whole company as you had mentioned, that's 14 vehicles. For a battery, that doubles engagement time as each howitzer must take out at least two vehicles. Put a whole battalion on it and you might get it down to ~20 minutes. An entire division's worth of artillery will still take ~5 minutes to take out a single company assuming that company doesn't move.

Furthermore, the M795 projectile only costs about a hundred dollars, apparently (typically $110-120 for the ER model - compare with ~$80 for the standard round).
As such, that thirty-two round fire mission to kill a tank costs less than four thousand dollars. Compared to thirty thousand to launch a single Copperhead.

That is exclusive of propellant and transportation costs. 32 M795s also include 32 propellant charges, while one Copperhead requires only a single charge, as well as only slightly more space to transport than a single round.

Also, contracted unit costs per projectile for the M795 without fuze are closer to $1,000 per unit, rather than $100. Depending on the specific contract (several were issued, with different prices per round), costs for the metal forgings alone cost $200-500 per unit, while assembly and packaging cost another $140-230. This excludes the cost of the fuze, explosive filling, and propellant charge. The army's own lower-end cost estimates are $333 for the basic round and $700 for the base bleed round. Reference.

They only need to kill four or five vehicles of a 14-vehicle unit (plus damage inflicted) to make the remainder not want to be where they are anymore.

Meanwhile, the Marines cite a peak cost for the M795 of $320 plus shipping crates.
Sorry, ~$400-450, the document cites "unit cost" of explosive as per pound. I thought three dollars for an M795's worth of TNT sounded cheap.
http://www.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/AM/Ammunition/ref/pdf/PRESBUD06/Artillery(1473).pdf

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Could once use a canister design for a mortar shell instead of a conventional shell with the same results or would the aero-shit mess with it?

Sorry, I confused "canister design" with "canister round".
I assume you mean launching a fat cylinder?
The AVRE petard's 240mm shell wasn't called "flying dustbin" for nothing. They have terrible aerodynamic profiles.

[The Kievan People]

and next question is obviously are all shells made from same alloy or is it one of those things that depends.

There is a steel imaginatively called HF-1 that is used in a lot of US munitions. But I cannot say how common it is world wide.

[The Kievan People]

Could you fill it with HE, HE-FRAG and all those fancy munitions.

BRB need to get a relevant and cool article from the Russian interwebs.

[The Akasha Colony]

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

I don't think they offer much improvement over nuclear weapons and are significantly more hazardous to operate or even transport and store.
If containment fails (which will require a lot of constant power consumption), the container will detonate.

Fullerene containment. Completely passive. Will only detonate if something strong enough to break the molecular bonds comes along. They also offer an improvement of multiple orders of magnitude in terms of energy density over any fission or fusion weapon.

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

NS FT seems to be incredibly averse to antimatter despite the fact that to make basically any of the things most nations claim, they'd need a power source with its output. It's hard to comprehend just how much more powerful antimatter is as a power source than fusion or fission.

Nevertheless, my FT nation uses it widely; it's the standard missile warhead for both anti-ship and anti-missile warheads, either directly or as a power source for a gamma ray laser emitter.

They only need to kill four or five vehicles of a 14-vehicle unit (plus damage inflicted) to make the remainder not want to be where they are anymore.

Meanwhile, the Marines cite a peak cost for the M795 of $320 plus shipping crates.
http://www.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/AM/Ammunition/ref/pdf/PRESBUD06/Artillery(1473).pdf

Which takes an extremely disproportionate amount of force to accomplish in a reasonable time frame. It would take a single battery a full half-hour to accomplish, with the expenditure of 160 rounds just to take out five vehicles. Or they could use five rounds and take about a minute.

[Glaswegistan]

Right, another odd question, probably.

Magazine fed revolvers; any way to make them effective or practical?

Furthermore, Magazine fed automatic revolvers; same question applies.

Yes, I just found out about the Dardick 1500.

[The Kievan People]

I found it

It's like a HE shell with a Shrapnel shell stuck to the end. A super shrapnel shell!

[Samozaryadnyastan]

I don't think they offer much improvement over nuclear weapons and are significantly more hazardous to operate or even transport and store.
If containment fails (which will require a lot of constant power consumption), the container will detonate.

Fullerene containment. Completely passive. Will only detonate if something strong enough to break the molecular bonds comes along. They also offer an improvement of multiple orders of magnitude in terms of energy density over any fission or fusion weapon.

What is the prevailing opinion on anti-matter weapons (speaking of course in FT) on NS?

NS FT seems to be incredibly averse to antimatter despite the fact that to make basically any of the things most nations claim, they'd need a power source with its output. It's hard to comprehend just how much more powerful antimatter is as a power source than fusion or fission.

Nevertheless, my FT nation uses it widely; it's the standard missile warhead for both anti-ship and anti-missile warheads, either directly or as a power source for a gamma ray laser emitter.

They only need to kill four or five vehicles of a 14-vehicle unit (plus damage inflicted) to make the remainder not want to be where they are anymore.

Meanwhile, the Marines cite a peak cost for the M795 of $320 plus shipping crates.
http://www.marcorsyscom.usmc.mil/AM/Ammunition/ref/pdf/PRESBUD06/Artillery(1473).pdf

Which takes an extremely disproportionate amount of force to accomplish in a reasonable time frame. It would take a single battery a full half-hour to accomplish, with the expenditure of 160 rounds just to take out five vehicles. Or they could use five rounds and take about a minute.

I can't see anything that requires the energy density of antimatter as a weapon, nor can I justify to myself the adoption of a thirty thousand dollar munition, regardless of its capability.
It's not as effective against more conventional fare for an artillery piece, meaning you'd only carry a limited amount of them - they're only useful against tanks or very small hard targets - and losing a single vehicle with a load of these would be the loss of one or two hundred thousand dollars worth of precision munition.

I found it

It's like a HE shell with a Shrapnel shell stuck to the end. A super shrapnel shell!

Shotguns, now in artillery form!

[Aqizithiuda]

Right, another odd question, probably.

Magazine fed revolvers; any way to make them effective or practical?

Furthermore, Magazine fed automatic revolvers; same question applies.

Yes, I just found out about the Dardick 1500.

Scale down a revolver cannon.

[The Kievan People]

Shotguns, now in artillery form!

It is actually better than that. The shell is time fuzed, so it will fly as a shell then detonate at the optimum-death-spraying-distance from the target.

[The Akasha Colony]

I can't see anything that requires the energy density of antimatter as a weapon,

In hard FT, nothing really does. In soft FT, a lot of things do. Guess which is more common.

nor can I justify to myself the adoption of a thirty thousand dollar munition, regardless of its capability.
It's not as effective against more conventional fare for an artillery piece, meaning you'd only carry a limited amount of them - they're only useful against tanks or very small hard targets - and losing a single vehicle with a load of these would be the loss of one or two hundred thousand dollars worth of precision munition.

For what it can do, $30,000 is cheap. Consider what it actually does as a whole: frees up the battery to engage other targets more rapidly, reduces logistics and transportation requirements, and significantly increases first-hit probability against a desired target.

The first two are quite important. 160 rounds to take out two vehicles is the equivalent of 1.5 loads from a M992 FAASV. It also deprives other units of support from that battery for the duration of its fire mission, and also prevents friendlies from entering the danger area around the target due to the inaccuracy of unguided shells. For the cost of a single $30,000 shell, you have not only negated the need for 32 other shells, but freed up the gun to support other units. You have, in effect, multiplied the number of artillery batteries at your command by making them able to engage more targets more rapidly than they would otherwise have been able to.

First-round hit capability also means your artillery changes from a mere harassment weapon to an actual kill weapon. Which means you're no longer shooting just to distract or disrupt, but can actually take out the target directly. This reduces the need for lower-level anti-tank weaponry.

$30,000 is also pretty cheap for a guided munition in general. Modern KEPs cost $8,000, and ATGMs can cost well upwards of $30,000 depending on age and capability. LAHAT in the late 1990s already cost $20,000 a unit. Hellfires cost $68,000+. Compared to the vehicles carrying the ammunition and their electronics, the ammunition itself is cheap. Even if they're smart units.

In fact, it's been sufficiently successful that the US military wants to make all of their munitions smart, mostly through the addition of new relatively low-cost guided fuzes.

[Purpelia]

Random question time. What KEP is better KEP. Soviet 125mm (most modern variant) or western 120mm (again most modern variant). The special bonus condition is that any and all DU rounds are disqualified unless they can be reproduced with wolfram since my army does not use DU.

I am at the stage where I want to chose a decent KEP for my rifled 12.3cm.