8" MCLWG Mark 71 -- FMC Brochure

[ScottBrim]

"Petsan" on the World Affairs Board has posted an FMC brochure for the 8" MCLWG Mark 71.

 

I suspect this brochure contains much of the information Tanker Karl was looking for in April/May 2008.

 

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/showpost....mp;postcount=34

 

The folks over at WAB offer the usual laments for this system, cancelled in 1980, some say at the behest of Sen. William Proxmire.

 

At WAB, the usual suggestions are being offered that a commercial vessel be adapted to carry four of these guns under some kind if revived 8" program.

 

Certainly the case could be made that a San Antonio class hull should be adapted for the same pupose with much tighter compliance to Navy ship construction standards.

 

But would the Navy ever actually give any serious consideration to doing that?

 

Not hardly ... I think the DDG-1000 debacle of Summer 2008 illustrates the trend of the future.

 

Existing weapons system programs that are currently suffering significant technical issues, and which are running severely over budget and over schedule, won't be killed.

 

Rather, these programs will suck funding from other programs and from the operational accounts while at the same time, unit costs for surviving programs zoom as the numbers to be procured are significantly reduced to keep the total lifecycle costs within budget.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[shep854]

Going for popcorn...

[ScottBrim]

Going for popcorn...

Lay in a supply of butter and salt too.

[gewing]

interesting brochure.

 

While I don't really believe it is a practical change now, I tend to think it should have been fielded at the time of its development.

 

Perhaps it did not offer enough of an advantage (the ability to outrange Soviet naval and shore guns seems to me to have been of at best arguable importance even then, Nice but...) but I would think that it would have been easier to develop successful guided projectiles in 8" than in either 155mm or 127mm. At 12 rpm, that isn't a HUGE drop from 20 rpm from the 5" 54cal. Probably made up for by the much larger bang per shell.

 

A 5 or 6 inch subcaliber shell should have been fairly easy to develop for extreme range capability. At 260 lbs, an 8" shell could probably carry the same amount of HE as a 155mm shell and a rocket booster that weighed more than a 5" shell does...

 

 

 

an 8" proximity fused anti aircraft round?

 

oh well, if wishes were horses all beggers would fly.

[shep854]

Lay in a supply of butter and salt too.

 

Another one to watch is the "Privateer/Liberator" thread where it was indicated that 20mm is no more effective than .50. There was at least one permaban from the last time that subject came up...

[ScottBrim]

interesting brochure. .....While I don't really believe it is a practical change now, I tend to think it should have been fielded at the time of its development.

The most interesting thing about it to me, in comparison with today's situation with 155mm AGS, is that the Navy and FMC were able to get a working 8" MCLWG system up and running that did most of what it was intended to do, and accomplished that feat in a much shorter timeframe and with a lot less money than AGS will require.

 

Now, it is known that the MCLWG system needed further work before it could be reliably deployed fleet-wide, but that would have come with time and with operational experience on the initial hulls. Teething problems would not have been unexpected, but a good ten years of evolutionary experience would have solved most, if not all, of the kinds of problems the system might have encountered.

[zakk]

I see no need for an 8 inch gun. Why not just reactivate the Iowa class battleships?

[BansheeOne]

[shep854]

Back In The Day, I tried to follow the LW 8" in Armed Forces Journal. In the Post-Vietnam period, with a dovish Democratic Congress and President, the knives were out and bloody. The reason AFJ cited for killing the LW 8" was "accuracy problems at the final third of it trajectory" ie; normal dispersion at long range.

[Lampshade111]

Either a version of the 6.1 inch (155mm) AGS, or the 8 inch MCLWG sounds good to me. We just need a ship big enough to fit plenty of ammo.

 

I would first want to see different types of ammunition than the guided round developed for the AGS however.

[ScottBrim]

Either a version of the 6.1 inch (155mm) AGS, or the 8 inch MCLWG sounds good to me. We just need a ship big enough to fit plenty of ammo. ..... I would first want to see different types of ammunition than the guided round developed for the AGS however.

 

As a cost saving measure to reduce the complexity and expense of the gun, the AGS design of was descoped at least four years ago to preclude the use of conventional 155mm ammunition. 155mm LRLAP appears to be the only capability it will have, assuming rumored issues with the launch survivability of the LRAP guidance package can be solved.

 

I presume as well that a collateral impact of the decision to drop conventional ammunition from the AGS design spec means the gun would likewise not be capable of handling a 155mm version of ATK's proposed long range air-breathing artillery round.

[Lampshade111]

As a cost saving measure to reduce the complexity and expense of the gun, the AGS design of was descoped at least four years ago to preclude the use of conventional 155mm ammunition. 155mm LRLAP appears to be the only capability it will have, assuming rumored issues with the launch survivability of the LRAP guidance package can be solved.

 

I presume as well that a collateral impact of the decision to drop conventional ammunition from the AGS design spec means the gun would likewise not be capable of handling a 155mm version of ATK's proposed long range air-breathing artillery round.

 

Surely the development of unguided ammunition could be resumed or restarted if enough AGSs were to make it onto ships. Some DPICM would be a nice addition.

 

Was an anti-air capability such as on the 5 inch guns ever planned for the AGS or the MCLWG?

[ScottBrim]

Surely the development of unguided ammunition could be resumed or restarted if enough AGSs were to make it onto ships. Some DPICM would be a nice addition.......Was an anti-air capability such as on the 5 inch guns ever planned for the AGS or the MCLWG?

The situation is that the AGS gun's internal design is not being configured to handle more than one major category of 155mm ammunition.

 

The 155mm LRLAP is actually a gun launched, rocket-boosted gliding missile constructed in two sections, a warhead/guidance unit and a rocket assist unit. The AGS gun rapidly and automatically assembles the two pieces of the LRLAP inside the barrel before launching the "projectile." A complicated set of internal mechanisms inside the gun itself handles this chore.

 

Including a capability to fire an additional major class of 155mm ordnance such as a navalized conventional 155mm projectile or ATK's unitary air breathing round would add significant complication and expense to the gun's internal design and also to the chain of automated components which feed it.

 

More technical issues, more money, more time, and more project risk on top of other very significant technical and cost control issues.

 

It is easy to see that 155mm LRLAP will likely be the only major class of ammunition developed for AGS. To handle multiple classes of 155mm ordnance would require the design process for the entire integrated set of AGS subsystems to be restarted at the beginning in order to handle all the added requirements. This isn't going to happen, of course.

 

I still remain somewhat skeptical that 155mm AGS will actually be deployed aboard DDG-1000.

 

The use of a Peripheral VLS aboard DDG-1000 will adversely affect the seakeeping ability of the ship because of the rolling moment induced by its location in the outer sections of the hull. There is also the issue of water intrusion into the PVLS cells if combat operations must be conducted in rough seas.

 

If these potential problems with PVLS turn out to be significant issues in practice, it is not hard to foresee a decision to drop 155mm AGS from DDG-1000 and install a centerline VLS in the DDG-1000 hull instead. Norman Polmar has already expressed his opinion this is what should be done.

 

I see this kind of decision being made within the next three to five years. At which point the attention of some NSFS advocates will likely turn once again towards 8" MCLWG.

Edited December 18, 2008 by ScottBrim

[DanielStarseer]

Is there any reason some of those PGK-type nose-fuze-with--control-fins things we're seeing for 155 and 105mm (and hopefully, 127mm) can't be ported over to 203/210mm if the need arises?

 

I realize for the bulk of a 200+ pound 8" shell, we'd need a beefier mechanism that what's required to steer/adjust a 105.

But it should work...

 

(I wrote "203/210" that way because of interest in a Gerry Bull type gun, the Iraqi Al Fao, a scaled-up 155mm Rhino (Manjoon? Majnoon?, in Iraqi service) that had a 210mm gun, offering the incredible range, for the day, of just over 57km (pre-Desert Storm timeframe).

Build a VLAP for that, and we could see ~100km, maybe? No point trying to do a fresh design in 203, if the 210 blueprints could be dusted off... Myself, was always a fan of the big US 240mm/9.45" howitzer from WW2 (partner piece to the longer-barrel 8" gun) that was towed in in pieces and assembled where needed,..not that we'd even see it, but it could lay to rest any further reasoning by those battleship gun lovers!)

 

Naw, seriously, 127mm should be plenty (we just poke and prod DENEL to design a VLAP for them, since the US defense industry has, so far, stuffed up at least half a dozen attempts at improved 5" munitions...).

 

Anything more, we clusterpack scores of MLRS-sized rockets (if we're really that bent on long range firepower with large warheads) if aircraft just won't be around to do that kind of work (where in the world are we ever going to need to do another D Day landing?).

[Tomas Hoting]

(I wrote "203/210" that way because of interest in a Gerry Bull type gun, the Iraqi Al Fao, a scaled-up 155mm Rhino (Manjoon? Majnoon?, in Iraqi service) that had a 210mm gun, offering the incredible range, for the day, of just over 57km (pre-Desert Storm timeframe).

 

Iraq didn't have any G6s, only towed G5s. The Al-Fao (the 210mm variant) and the Al-Majnoon (the 155mm variant) were only prototypes (AFAIK only two vehicles, one of each variant, were ever built). The 155mm gun in the Al-Majnoon was apparently similar to the FGH-155/45 towed howitzer built by SITECSA, a Spanish company Gerald Bull's SRC worked with in the 1980s. The 210mm Al-Fao apparently used a barrel developed in France, and the chassis used by both variants came from the Spanish company Trebeland. The prototypes were flown from Spain to Iraq in 1989 in an Antonov AN-124, and were shown on the 1989 Baghdad arms expo.

 

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/1648/iraqalfaw02dp2.jpg

[DanielStarseer]

Thx for the additional info.

I've got a little about both in a few books at home, will have to re-read tonight...

 

France, huh?

I just don't see it. Was it a private development, not state-sponsored?

Because I just don't see even the French (state industry) somehow having the rationale to develop such a large caliber gun.

 

Recalling from the pics I've seen, the 210 chassis was bigger than the 155 chassis, but both bore striking resemblance to the G6 6-wheeler, hence my suggestion/speculation at just calling the Iraqi 155 system a G6...

 

(France? Seriously? Gerry Bull found some additional supporters outside his SRC crew, his old pals from Canada and Austria (Voerst-Alpine?) and the occasional mad dictator who wanted to build an anti-Israeli SuperGun??)

 

As to a Spanish company fabricating the vehicles; I'm surprised we haven't seen their ideas taken further by any other Spanish AFV programs (not even some makeshift Caeser type), and find it still quite interesting they both bore more than just superficial resemblance to the South African system (who else anywhere ever brought forth such a 155 design, on a 6x6 chassis, those big tires, and the turret there at the back like that?).

 

Can't offhand think of the book I have in my mind that shows them both, side by side, broken down with separate spec sheets.

Maybe a late 1980s/early 1990s Jane's A&A?

[Guest bojan]

...Gerry Bull found some additional supporters outside his SRC crew, his old pals from Canada and Austria (Voerst-Alpine?) and the occasional mad dictator who wanted to build an anti-Israeli SuperGun??)...

He was hired by Yugoslavia in '80s to develop new arty systems including:

152/155mm 45cal gun with 35km range (152mm M46/86 and 155mm M46/84)

152mm gun-howitzer with 39cal barrel and 24km range (152mm M84 Nora-A)

Lightweight versions of 152mm pieces for mounting on armored/unarmored vehicles (that program was resurected relatively recently and produced Nora-B52 SP piece with 25l/52cal gun and 40km range)

Improved range and accuracy 105, 122, 130, 152 and 155mm ammo.

He and his team got about 15mil$.

 

He also worked for Austria, Argentina, South Africa, Iraq, France and Spain.

[DanielStarseer]

Iraq didn't have any G6s, only towed G5s. The Al-Fao (the 210mm variant) and the Al-Majnoon (the 155mm variant) were only prototypes (AFAIK only two vehicles, one of each variant, were ever built). The 155mm gun in the Al-Majnoon was apparently similar to the FGH-155/45 towed howitzer built by SITECSA, a Spanish company Gerald Bull's SRC worked with in the 1980s. The 210mm Al-Fao apparently used a barrel developed in France, and the chassis used by both variants came from the Spanish company Trebeland. The prototypes were flown from Spain to Iraq in 1989 in an Antonov AN-124, and were shown on the 1989 Baghdad arms expo.

 

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/1648/iraqalfaw02dp2.jpg

 

Yup, that's it.

Didn't have the hardbound resources at my shop computer earlier today, but verified with Jane's A&A 1990-1991, and a couple others, now that I'm home. I apologize to all for posting in haste without properly sourcing my info...

 

Reading further under the Jane's entry, it suggests both Iraqi pieces/vehicles weren't "solid" bodies like the G6 at all, bearing really only superficial appearance after all (even though the chassis and turret were the same size for both vehicles).

The article suggests the vehicles were middle-hinged (left-right articulation only, not up-down), somewhat akin to what we see now in the Archer, with the driver and engine in a totally separate portion up front with the front tires, and the fighting compartment comprised the aft module with its 4 tires (everything I've ever seen was from a front 3/4 view that didn't show the joint).

 

Semantics aside, the range is still quoted, with ERFB-BB Extended Range Full Bore- Base Bleed ammo, as being ~57,340m (62,710 yds; 35.63 miles), which no other in-service land-mobile tube artillery could achieve since the days of the big WW2 german railway guns.

One article suggests rounds weighing at about 109&1/2kg (about 241&1/4 pounds)...

Seeing as DENEL's ammunition family can give a 155/52 tube a range approaching 75km, a similar round in 210 might just cross 100km.

 

On the 240mm of my fave, here's a link on the T92 and its partner T93 ,the self propelled versions under development for the Invasion of Japan 1945 onwards).

Can only imagine, even with a spade, the recoil force of that gun on that vehicle.

As always, the Wiki article is ehhh,...but gets one pointed in the right direction.

 

Shell weigh was around 163kg (~360 pounds, and it ranged to about 23km (little over 14&1/4 miles)...keeping in mind this gun could be moved inland (in pieces), whereas battleship guns cannot.

Still, the argument for SSMs and other rockets makes more sense here: a 9" (227mm) diameter MLRS rocket can now get a precision 90kg (~200pounds) warhead to 70km (43&1/2 miles) on a good day.

 

Comparison with 52-cal 155's and the 53cal 210mm Al Fao, an Al Fao-length 240mm tube would be about 46 calibers (~36&1/2 feet, roughly 9 feet longer than the 240mm M1's barrel @ app 331 inches), still much shorter than that 203mm Russian behemoth (that, thankfully for NATO armies, wasn't a Bull-type long range gun).

 

(VLAP'ing my 240 with an optimized barrel length (ideal range for weight and size) might see it beyond 125km, a range only surpassed by LRLAP.)

 

 

Too bad the US let Bull slip thru their fingers (too bad Bull couldn't get away from his shooting-satellites-from-large-guns fantasy).

Minimally, he might have taken US tube artillery designs forwards, as other nations have in adopting these latest 155/52s.

Rather, we're actually going backwards, what with 39 cal being our standard, and the NLOS-C supposedly having a 38-cal tube, relying solely on boosted PGMs to match the ranges these 52s can reach without.

Bull might have been able to enhance the ranges of anything from our towed 105s to 127mm naval guns, gotten us at least to adopt the 155/45-cal tubes over our 39s, and perhaps even "tuned up" the massive 175mm M107, whose barrel length possibly could've granted ranges over 75km with ERFB-BB type rounds, and a VLAP-type there would easily exceed 100km (something even MLRS cannot routinely do yet).

 

 

But again, all that range is little more than harassment value if we lack the capability to accurately place those shells on their intended targets over such ranges.

Size means nothing if you can't even get the rounds where you wanted them in the first place.

[Tomas Hoting]

Daniel,

 

interestingly enough, besides that odd 210mm calibre, Bull also worked on improving the 203mm calibre artillery. SITECSA for example developed the 203mm FGT-203 towed field gun, basically an enlarged 155mm FGH-155/45, and test-fired it for the first time in 1991. Capable of lobbing its (I suppose ERFB-BB) round up to a distance of 50km. Maximum ROF was 3 rounds per minute.

 

Apparently there also was the SRC VSP-203, another 6x6 self-propelled system. Maybe your Jane's A&A also has some additional info on it?

[DanielStarseer]

Daniel,

 

interestingly enough, besides that odd 210mm calibre, Bull also worked on improving the 203mm calibre artillery. SITECSA for example developed the 203mm FGT-203 towed field gun, basically an enlarged 155mm FGH-155/45, and test-fired it for the first time in 1991. Capable of lobbing its (I suppose ERFB-BB) round up to a distance of 50km. Maximum ROF was 3 rounds per minute.

 

Apparently there also was the SRC VSP-203, another 6x6 self-propelled system. Maybe your Jane's A&A also has some additional info on it?

 

Have to look to somebody else to answer that one: my Jane's A&A library has a break between 1986 and 1989...and Jane's website suggests these very systems are explained in their 1989-1990 edition,

and the "ease" at which this edition can be procured anymore is along the lines of Hunnicutt's Stuart and Sherman books: those still advertised as for sale are prohibitively expensive for us common folk.

 

Anyone else know anything?

 

There's one of those chinese blog sites that has some pics (could be japanese, though: the writer seems to have some fascination with anime characters),...for those of us who can read it (count me out).

But in the end, I'm pretty sure it's been generally agreed upon that tubes over 155mm anymore are either inefficient overkill, or too cumbersome, when compared to various rockets and missile systems,

hence my suggestion of stopping the madness beyond 127mm. Consider my 240mm suggestion as the joke of the day.

(although..., re-boring those WW2 triple 203mm turrets on USN cruisers...

nah, unless I'm gonna take a note from Tony and Admiral Furashita and create some "Grand Fleet meets the Foresight War, the Pacific Tales" kinda story!.)

[Lampshade111]

So is there anyway the warhead/guidance section of the 6.1" LRLAP could be replaced by a different froward section with a different payload? I imagine the guidance electronics would have to stay if that is controlling the rocket engine.

 

Theoretically how many 8" MCLWG shells could be carried in a DDG-1000 class ship? Would a conventional hull of the same size be superior (in regards to ammo storage)?

[ScottBrim]

So is there anyway the warhead/guidance section of the 6.1" LRLAP could be replaced by a different froward section with a different payload? I imagine the guidance electronics would have to stay if that is controlling the rocket engine.

I don't see any fundamental technical reason why this couldn't be done. It's probably a matter of justifying the need, gaining priority for funding, and integrating that particular version into the logistical supply chain.

 

This would be a very sensible thing to be considering, assuming the DDG-1000 program as a whole wasn't suffering from significant technical and cost growth issues.

 

But good luck with expanding the range of 155mm AGS technical options, given that:

• The justification for 155mm AGS is to supply volume fires, but that there will only be six AGS guns in the fleet
  
• There likely will be only one AGS ammunition configuration because of its significant ordnance development costs
  
• The logistical infrastructure needed to support volume AGS fires hasn't been programmed into the long-term ship construction budget.
  

For these reasons, among others not mentioned in the above list, I suspect the days of 155mm AGS are numbered. (NOTE: If the 5-inch ERGM program hadn't been cancelled last spring, I'd be a lot less sure in my speculations that 155mm AGS will eventually go on the chopping block.)

 

Theoretically how many 8" MCLWG shells could be carried in a DDG-1000 class ship? Would a conventional hull of the same size be superior (in regards to ammo storage)?

Given the substantial volume 155mm AGS currently occupies within the DDG-1000 hull, my speculative guess is 1500 to 2000 8-inch rounds of the standard unitary configurations. For a ship of DDG-1000's displacement, I would guess its a wash as to which hull shape is more suitable for an 8-inch MCLWG setup in terms of greater versus lessor magazine capacity.

 

But the next question is, in a high-threat environment, would the US Navy ever allow a DDG-1000 close enough to a coast to make truly effective use of the standard 8-inch ordnance? I rather doubt that prospect as well.