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India Wants Us Naval Guns?


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That price is eye watering. I would have thought $10 million per piece or so would be about right.

 

That be be about $10M for the tubes, but the catch probably is in the 'related equipment' that probably includes turrets, loading systems, ammunition storage and the like, with all the electronics and the like.

 

India has a long history of mixing and matching Russian/Soviet and Western systems.

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That price is eye watering. I would have thought $10 million per piece or so would be about right.

 

That be be about $10M for the tubes, but the catch probably is in the 'related equipment' that probably includes turrets, loading systems, ammunition storage and the like, with all the electronics and the like.

 

India has a long history of mixing and matching Russian/Soviet and Western systems.

 

Sure there is a fair bit of stuff in there, but the same applies to eg. Koalitsiya-SV, and that is what, maybe $3 million or so a piece ?

 

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That price is eye watering. I would have thought $10 million per piece or so would be about right.

 

That be be about $10M for the tubes, but the catch probably is in the 'related equipment' that probably includes turrets, loading systems, ammunition storage and the like, with all the electronics and the like.

 

India has a long history of mixing and matching Russian/Soviet and Western systems.

 

Sure there is a fair bit of stuff in there, but the same applies to eg. Koalitsiya-SV, and that is what, maybe $3 million or so a piece ?

 

 

 

USA would like to trade for $$$

 

Russia wants to trade for influence with rubles as a lesser concern. As well if Russia gets the gig then their tech people will be on site to see what is happening with both their own gear and whatever the west send over. Espionage at its most commercial.

Edited by DougRichards
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I at first wanted to say is "why not do this in house with the M-46 130mm field guns that are already inventoried"...on paper they are roughly equivalent weight for the tube, muzzle velocity at max charge, and ammunition size. But then I looked and saw that India basically went away from the 130mm to 155mm for those old tubes so the rounds are probably out of inventory...and since that is the case ...and they probably want them to work (i'm looking at you INSAS), I can see them going to an already developed system and save the time and trouble of doing this domestically.

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130mm M-46 and Soviet naval 130m ammo is not interchangeable.

I am aware of this, this is why i did not compare the AK-130 (Russian naval gun) instead I used the M-46 and I specifically compared the Russian Field Gun (M-46) to the U.S. Naval Rifle MK-19 as they are comparable in mass and performance. (note: this is gun tube and breech only, obviously there is no towed U.S. Naval Rifle MK-19 and conversely there is no DP mounted Russian M-46).

 

But since India has withdrawn the M-46 from it's inventory it may not make the most sense to engineer a solution when you have no starting point as the proposed system is no longer in inventory. (and really, how many of these would be made, I don't think there is scale savings here)

 

The points in favor ot the AK-130 though are the fact that the ammunition is unitary, therefore a faster loading cycle, and that the mounts at least have splinter protection which is lacking in the U.S. mounts. The advantage of the U.S. Mount is that there a lot of them in service ( and have been for a long time), and that they are much lighter than the single mount of the AK-130.

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I am a little surprised there are no 152/155 mm naval guns. Moving to that caliber would give you access to the myriad of guided, extended range projectiles etc. developed for land artillery. Some of the autoloaders etc. developed for that caliber might even find dual use.

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I guess 155 class start to not pay for itself in terms of weight and logistic coast when other things can be done with aircraft or cruise missiles.

I would say Western navies stayed with 5" due to tradition. The U.S.N.had the very successful 5"/38 which was on several ships that were given away after WW2 which further spread the 5" gun influence.

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I guess 155 class start to not pay for itself in terms of weight and logistic coast when other things can be done with aircraft or cruise missiles.

 

I would say Western navies stayed with 5" due to tradition. The U.S.N.had the very successful 5"/38 which was on several ships that were given away after WW2 which further spread the 5" gun influence.

Like the 50 cal. Doesn't go away.

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The endurance of 50 cal. makes sense - it is about the biggest you can go and still have infantry carry it. The Soviets tried 14.5mm HMG and it did not work. Now you could perhaps make a case for some lowish velocity 25mm autocannon as a complement to the 50 but for this sort of work an AGL or a mortar is probably better.

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The 4.5" (British)-5" guns seem to be the sweet spot for weight, rate of fire and ammo capacity for medium displacement ships. 57mm seems to have taken over the 3" niche.

Edited by shep854
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The 155mm guns on the new Zumwalt class DDG's seem to be pretty much dead weight since their guided rounds priced themselves out of existence.

They can use Excalibur or similar if they want an off the shelf solution.

 

From what I've read, the gun was custom-designed to use the LRLAP round. The Navy considered modifying Excalibur as an alternative, but abandoned that plan (for whatever reason). Possibly the ammunition storage and handling system is unique to LRLAP?

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I mean they should have designed it to be compatible with current and future 155mm land systems, and so then eg. unmodified Excalibur would work. But even better would be to have not proceed at all with such a speculative project.

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The 155mm guns on the new Zumwalt class DDG's seem to be pretty much dead weight since their guided rounds priced themselves out of existence.

They can use Excalibur or similar if they want an off the shelf solution.

No. The ammunition shares only diameter with land service 155 mm. It would be like using 7.62 Tokarev in an MAG.

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And the Navy is not about to let a Zumwalt (apt name; Elmo was big on new, whiz-band ideas. Kind of like a naval MacNamara) anywhere near conventional artillery range of a landing beach, so, no conventional bombardment.

Reviving or navalizing the 6"/155mm for a shipboard gun is still a nice thought, though. 8" even better, but ammo is no longer made.

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A naval 155 mm would cost a lot to develop and offer few advantages over existing and well supported 127 mm guns. A navalized HIMARS/MLRS would probably be a better candidate for improved naval fire support.

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And the Navy is not about to let a Zumwalt (apt name; Elmo was big on new, whiz-band ideas. Kind of like a naval MacNamara) anywhere near conventional artillery range of a landing beach, so, no conventional bombardment.

Reviving or navalizing the 6"/155mm for a shipboard gun is still a nice thought, though. 8" even better, but ammo is no longer made.

Yes - I mean if they wanted to add a shore bombardment capacity the cheap and cheerful way to do would be to adapt an extant land system and put it on a smaller and simpler ship - LCS would have made much more sense. And on this class of ship the gun actually has a useful anti-shipping capability, because you can perhaps imagine it mixing with patrol or missile boats, whereas if you are using what is basically a cruiser to engage enemy shipping with a gun something has gone wrong.

 

 

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