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155mm from PzH 2000 as MBT main gun


That Guy

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Title is the best description. I've read about how IS-2s didn't use AP rounds to kill tanks, and instead they relied upon HE's sheer explosive force to get the job done. I've also read a PDF file on how powerful artillery is even without direct hits: http://sill-www.army.mil/famag/2002/NOV_DEC_2002/NOV_DEC_2002_PAGES_8_11.pdf

 

So the question is whether this would actually be a good idea.

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Turret would have to be quite large in order to accommodate all the machinery and rounds. You'd need to install an autoloader for the larger rounds. Limit the size of the turret, and your number of rounds goes down.

 

Besides, there isn't a threat out there that requires a 155mm PzH2000 as MBT gun. Current guns and advances in related ammunition plus ATGMs will kill all current threats out there (provided they don't have APS like Trophy). Also, with APS installed, that sorta negates any advantage of the bigger round (i.e., it'll just as likely be intercepted by the APS).

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I was mostly thinking about having it for the HE and HESH. It doesn't really have to be L/55, it could easily just be the L/39 M777 adapted to use in a tank.

 

Basically a return to the concept of the IS-2, using HE instead of AP for anti-armor. Makes the need for APFSDS irrelevant, and for absolute catastrophic kills you just need to land a single hit. 20-30 round capacity max.

 

I guess downsizing the bore to 140mm would be reasonable. The beauty of having just a giant HE artillery round is that even if the APS makes it airburst, the shock wave and damage is enough to destroy a main gun, gunner sight, antennas, and other rather important equipment that would require the tank to go to the rear and functionally, would be a mission-kill. If it takes out some tracks, all the more dandy. At which point you can just call in artillery to finish up the job, which in some theoretical would could just be tanks parked on a hill 10 clicks away with the FCS in indirect fire mode.

 

I always thought it was a pretty dandy idea to lob a big ol' HE round to fix all your problems. HE is cheap and cheerful.

Edited by That Guy
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DP

 

Must admit though that didn't stop me from building a hypothetical M1A3E1 Abrams armed with such a gun and with extended bustle. :D

Edited by TomasCTT
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Problem with HE/HESH is the flight time, as opposed to the "Blink, kill" of APFSDS. On Chieftain we were forbidden from engaging moving targets with HESH since the computer would have a heart attack trying to compute the solution; we still did it by guessology mind you! Having said that, you wouldn't have to actually hit the target with a big HE/HESH round to knock it over.

183mm anyone?

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Never heard the ban on HESH for movers, IFCS could cope with it very well as it was part of the tecnique (tracking speed and time)for the firing solution, if thta failed still had aim off marks.

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Title is the best description. I've read about how IS-2s didn't use AP rounds to kill tanks, and instead they relied upon HE's sheer explosive force to get the job done.

That was mixed with SU/ISU-152. There is/was interview with crewman of SU-152 on the net (IIRC iremember.ru) where he was asked about AP rounds for 152mm. His answer? "Why bother, one hit by HE and any tank is a wreck."

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Well really the long barreled L/52 would probably have to be heavily compensated via muzzle brake. However lower charge propellant is needed, and since it's HE, velocity is only helpful for increasing accuracy, and probably accuracy. The round only needs to be able to keep about 1200m battlecarry range, but otherwise not as necessary to do much. I think that computer assisted lead calculation via thermal autotracking systems would definitely increase hit rates.

 

As long as it flies about as fast as HEAT though it shouldn't be all that big a deal.

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183mm anyone?

 

The FV4005 "tank destroyer", based on a Centurion hull if wikipedia is to be believed. You have to wonder at the ammunition stowage for such a gun (big rounds no doubt) plus could it fire over the side of the hull?

 

That'd be a unique museum piece if there ever was one, a shame it wasn't still around somewhere.

 

The American prototype/demonstrator T30 is probably the closest AFV that I can think of to that FV4005 and the "SU-152" prototype in Kubinka.

 

Best regards

 

Gavin

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The soviets made and issued AP/HEAT ammo for their artillery pieces, including the 152mm caliber, during the cold war. Evidently if they felt the need to have specialized antitank rounds which would be needed only occasionally they must not have been so confident in the MBT smashing power of standard HE...

Edited by Marcello
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There is a post on ARRSE apparently by the chap who did the 5000 metre kill by Challenger. He says he was rather more proud of his hit on a moving T55 with a HESH round at 1500 metres.

 

Im sure as a hobby he practised shooting the nuts off gnats with an airgun. :)

Last ranges I did there were CFE Chieftains as hard targets; the gunners were dropping HESH into individual hatches. Mind you, they were static and not shooting back!

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A hatch is what, 60cm in diameter?

Assuming a dispersion of .3 mil for a HESH round (which is a tad optimistic already), at 1000m you can at best get 35% of your rounds into the hatches (unless they are vertically arranged to your trajectory, which even for HESH isn't the case). At 2000m you're down to 17%.

 

Does it happen? Sure.

Can you guarantee it with every hit? Most certainly not.

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You can stow far more "kills" with a smaller, handier round. The ballistic advantages of a very fast, long aspect ratio projectile can't really be understated either. Big, heavy walled cased shells would be even more tough to handle and probably require mostly automated handling from getting the round into the tank to getting it out of the barrel.

In which case, what about the effectiveness of 120mm HE against vehicles? Of course, the APFSDS is smaller but when it primarily depends upon hitting crew, fuel, or ammo to achieve it's damage, it's harder to achieve a kill. HE's primary use would be against buildings and people, but when the sheer blast force would be capable of destroying some rather important bits on the outside of the vehicle, I would be pretty content with tracking or destroying the gun tube of an enemy tank, and possibly a lot more.

 

APFSDS is extremely specialized, and is really just a big bullet that goes fast and goes through things. Also it requires specialized materials to increase penetration, is definitely more expensive to produce than HE, and can be manually loaded yes, but once tanks go beyond 130mm in caliber for their guns it's necessary to go to automatic loading of the tank anyway. Sure, you have a round that's extremely flat in trajectory, but when FCS has become increasingly sophisticated, why not? 140mm has already been done on the Abrams in the CATT-B, and the Type 99KM for the PLA.

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The soviets made and issued AP/HEAT ammo for their artillery pieces, including the 152mm caliber, during the cold war. Evidently if they felt the need to have specialized antitank rounds which would be needed only occasionally they must not have been so confident in the MBT smashing power of standard HE...

 

True. Each 2S1 has standard load of 5 122mm HEAT rounds (standard load is indicted by the fact that to five of the 40 ammo holders in ammo racks fits only HEAT)

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The 2S9 "Nona-S" also has a 120mm HEAT round available for it although with only 25 rounds being carried as a full combat load, I do not know if any such rounds are carried normally.

 

With all of the coverage given to how tanks have problems elevating their main guns during urban combat, perhaps an artillery piece (2S3 for example) isn't such a bad idea, as long as it still has high elevation capability.

 

An interesting idea surely, but no doubt one that'd have some engineering problems associated with it!

 

Best regards

 

Gavin

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The 2S9 "Nona-S" also has a 120mm HEAT round available for it although with only 25 rounds being carried as a full combat

With all of the coverage given to how tanks have problems elevating their main guns during urban combat, perhaps an artillery piece (2S3 for example) isn't such a bad idea, as long as it still has high elevation capability.

 

AFAIK in Soviet/Russian MOUT doctrine the SP-artillery bty/bty's are intended to be use in DF role inside city IOT support INF while MBT's are intend to be use in more open city outskirts and reserve role.

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Does anyone know what range the blue on blue incident occured in Operation Telic? What was that, round down the hatch on the second round?

 

Admittedly that was using the fire control. I would imagine accuracy would be nowhere near as good using the fire control quadrant. Indeed Im wondering if thats even still fitted on Challenger2?

Stuart the pdf of the enquiry is here. You can work it out from the grids.

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That'd be a unique museum piece if there ever was one, a shame it wasn't still around somewhere.

 

It (or at least the turret on another Cent hull) still exists. Not sure about the FV4004 as the pic on this site was taken in 1969:

 

http://arcaneafvs.com/conway.html

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The 2S9 "Nona-S" also has a 120mm HEAT round available for it although with only 25 rounds being carried as a full combat load, I do not know if any such rounds are carried normally.

 

With all of the coverage given to how tanks have problems elevating their main guns during urban combat, perhaps an artillery piece (2S3 for example) isn't such a bad idea, as long as it still has high elevation capability.

 

An interesting idea surely, but no doubt one that'd have some engineering problems associated with it!

 

Best regards

 

Gavin

A high-elevation turret with a 105mm how or 120mm mortar could be useful in town. I've often thought how nice a drop-in conversion for infantry support would be, though Big Picture practicality is probably lacking.

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