Given the advancments of modern arty, especially with the Ecxalibur and ERCA gun, we're now able to deliver precise fire as far as 40+ miles away with 155 mm shells.
IMHO the next step would be 8 inch long range (100+ miles) howitzers with guided shells and whole lot more of payload delivered (considered the development of newer explosives like CL-20)
>8 inch arty
Because the 8.9" is better than 8"
>MLRS/GMLRS
But I want big guns, anon. Rockets are lame.
In current year, guns are phallic status symbols for morons
big guns*
Big gun barrels are extremely expensive, heavy things that take a lot of engineering, rocket tubes are, light, cheap and a military runs on the lowest bidder
>They're also very funny like the time the US packed an 8" barrel with explosive and turned it into a ground penetrating bomb to drop on some Iraqis in a bunker
learn2greentext newbie moron
What's the wear and tear on a rocket/missile box launcher? Is it commensurate with the wear and tear on an artillery piece's barrel?
>Is it commensurate with the wear and tear on an artillery piece's barrel?
Barrel life is rated in Effective Full Charges (max propellant charge). Each gun have different re-ratings for different propellant charge (thus muzzle velocity), it's more a guide than anything accurate.
And each caliber/gun have different failure and degradation modes:
1. cracking (safety problem, no performance degradation)
2. chamber erosion (worse spread, safety)
3. rifling/barrel wear (worse spread and less range).
1. 2. are caused by pressure and chemical reactivity of combustion gases, none of those are problem in rocket tubes even if there's erosion
3. is far less because wear increases by the square or cube of speed approx. (ie some guns are rated 0.75EFC for 90% of max vel iirc, charge 5 vs charge 6 of EFC)
even if the missile is heavier wear of the tubes/rails aren't even important.
depends what kind of rocket that is, new perchlorate based propellants are very corrosive, but old NC/NG fuels? probably less wear than gun artillery as the pressures and temperatures are lower
Because it's a comparatively inefficient way of getting boom that size to a place you want it as opposed to a missile.
Uhm no... a tomahawk will cost you 2M$ per shot, flies much slower, has the same accuracy, and is too costly to be used to kill infantry
>tomahawk warhead: 450kg HE
>Soviet 203mm warhead: 13.8kg HE (w/rocket assisted boost)
That's why I specified its a matter of efficiency and explosive payload. Gun artillery is inherently limited by the need for a heavy, durable shell, something missiles do not worry about
>has the same accuracy
moron
big calibers are too impractical, 155mm is the sweet spot between range, rate of fire and ease of handling by the crews
>CL-20
never gonna happen, too expensive to synthesize. HMX is the best you will get
155mm already weights at 45kg, anything more than that is not possible to manipulate by hand.
That's why SPH are the future
even if you have lots of sph's theres utillity to having the same caliber between both types of howitzers, one of those being if you find yourself in the situation russia is in (replacing massive sph losses with crewed howitzers) you can keep firing normally
SPH means the gun is mounted on a vehicle. I think you're referring to autoloaders.
>45kg
that's almost 100 lbs in civilized units
100 moron units. METRIC SVPREMACY
it ain't a metrec nation's flag that was planted on the moon eurocuck. now go suck the paki cum out of your gf's pussy
If you're using millimeters you gets the kilos
the US pound was officially defined as 2.20462234 kilograms in 1894
the US inch was officially defined as 2.54 millimeters in 1930.
>the US inch was officially defined as 2.54 millimeters in 1930.
I think you'll find it's actually 2.54 centimeters, not 2.54 millimeters.
It was german scientists trained in Europe that made your space system work.
Also, the french flag is on the moon.
>Calculations were carried out using the metric system, but display readouts were in units of feet, feet per second, and nautical miles – units that the Apollo astronauts were accustomed to.
>Also, the french flag is on the moon
kek, I see what you did there
NASA is and was working with metric units and imperial units combined. The moonlanding is fun because it was a cross unit conversion hellscape. They even had to dedicate cpu time to do unit conversion to imperial for the Astronauts. On the bright side: Every civilized american colleague I ever met was more than proficient in using the metric system because especially in academic fields and research there's an obvious right and easy choice. In return we made sure to annotate conversions already in our plans to them and marked metric units in a prominent bright colour.
>big calibers are too impractical, 155mm is the sweet spot between range, rate of fire and ease of handling by the crews
It's not significantly bigger than 155 mm in terms of size but it's twice as heavy in terms of weight. Which is probably gonna be mitigated by the rising use of SPHs
>never gonna happen, too expensive to synthesize. HMX is the best you will get
Because it's produced in literally tiny quantities. But it's a much better explosive with almost no residue left and can be used as propellant with no signature at all. Current pricing is at 600 $/lb while HMX is at 50 $/lb (still 8 times more expensive than TNT at 6 $ and 6 times more than IMX-101 at 8 $/lb)
>Which is probably gonna be mitigated by the rising use of SPHs
Autoloaders rather, and SPH with automatic resupply features. Otherwise you get comical contraptions like M110 or 2S7. Not ideal since you lose the option for covert resupply by the crew from a randomly dropped ammo pallet
>Because it's produced in literally tiny quantities
And because it uses a multi-step lowish yield batch process instead of a one step continuous nitration and purification. You pay 12x as much for 11% increase in RE, I don't get the point for HE shells, maybe only for ATGM warheads since there is no way to get results other than maximal optimization
>to make it more stable, just add TNT
>add TNT
>stable
>to make it even more stable, just add HMX
NOPE
>100+ miles
LRLAP could do that, no need for an 8" gun.
>LRLAP
24 lb charge is ridicolous for that range
What size charge would an 8" shell need for 100 mile range?
The LRLAP achieve its range by gliding (and it's very slow).
Why is that a problem?
Because it's subsonic most of its trajectory. The excalibur is "justified" because 155 howitzers are common but rockets are far better to launch guided munition with less strict g-rating.
Yeah, but why is being subsonic a problem in this case?
None if you ignore than a barrel is a waste if in the end your projectile is subsonic 90% of the time.
that*
You mean like you might as well use missiles instead? LRLAP at its expected full production cost would be 10-15% the cost of an MLRS rocket and 1-1.5% the cost of a cruise missile. Pretty sure there's also logistical benefits there as well, the shells are pretty compact.
LRLAP costs estimated by the manufacturer (aka wishful thinking/congress deception) was $35k, actual procurement costs for M30 in FY06 were $113k, Excalibur costs during that period were also around $100k and never got below $80k. Why would it be cheaper if it's just as complex and uses similar components?
>never got below $80k
https://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2016-02-16-US-Army-awards-Raytheon-31-8-million-contract-for-continued-Excalibur-production
>The U.S. Army awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a $31.8 million contract to produce and deliver 464 Excalibur Ib extended-range precision projectiles.
$68,500. I can't speak to parts similarity, but either way it should be much cheaper to operate than MLRS/HIMARS.
PGK doesn't have the same range (no wings), but it's about the price of a JDAM, and works on most 155 rounds. Notably, the US has reportedly produced over 100K of them and none of them have been sent to Ukraine.
> LRLAP at its expected full production cost would be 10-15% the cost of an MLRS
All the optimistic figures turned to be off by an order of magnitude above the projected cost (marginal cost not total program cost).
The small diameter bomb is far cheaper because it doesn't have to deal with absurd contains of a shell (size and g forces), even taking into account the booster's cost.
Barrel life measured in the dozens?
If anything the much greater accuracy and the introduction of things like EFP firing shells will make guns smaller on average. If you can hit something directly you no longer need as big of a weapon.
But, at the same time, drones allow for accurate fires at much greater distances and bigger guns = more range, so we shall see how those two factors balance out.
China accidentally publicly released an RFP for big bore guns not that long ago. The thinking is though that the main use for big guns (240mm IIRC is more that they can be used for loitering munitions. Above a certain size, new technologies will allow for radically longer range at much lower prices then missiles, so that might become a thing, big tubes for blasting spotters and network repeaters into the air quickly before AD can get them.
I disagree.
We should have rapid fire automatic small caliber artillery.
Why shoot one 155mm when you can shoot ten 90mm MRSI.
Hell. You can even make it dual purpose and swat drones.
Which is more dangerous, a handful of gravel or one solid rock?
I think the other side of that would be:
>What's more dangerous: 10 rounds of .22LR or a 12ga buckshot shell?
If you've managed to improve artillery accuracy to the point where you can reliably hit a target within the CEP where a 90mm HE round is lethal, then I'd say there's a case for it.
Oto Melara 76mm on a Boxer or Tatra 8x8. Two support vehicles with air and ground surveillance radars datalinked to the rest of the gun battery. All the pieces exist, just a matter of cost-conscious Euros uniting them.
Or if you want to get real fancy, set it up with CRAM-capable radar. good luck knocking out an artillery battery that can shoot down the incoming counter-battery too!
A potential appeal of long range gun arty is overwhelming defense systems, like iron dome style interceptors.
Technological answer: because a GMLRS does it better.
Historical answer: because problems with 8" artillery tubes in the US Army in the Vietnam War led 8" to be dropped in favor of 155mm as the standard tube artillery caliber.
Where can one read about these historical problems in 8'' artillery tubes?
Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library, US Army Center of Military History, DTIC, and the National Archives.
Side note since I'm not about to dig up the actual pdfs for you: 8" was perhaps ironically considered the ideal caliber for ship to shore fire support.
Ok, but how are warship gun barrels replaced?
Rarely. Trying for commonality between land and sea guns is a classic mistake, so dumb it only comes along maybe every other generation. Sea cannon shoot little to naught; a battleship might carry just 300 shells per tube per campaign. A howitzer might shoot that much on day 1 of a battle. The risk isn't a logistical problem of swapping out barrels, it's a problem of barrel erosion causing the cannon to explode and wreck the crew.
Final note: tubes are for quantity fire nowadays so this difference has only been heightened by the advent of guided projectiles. The pre-guidance reason for heavier artillery was WW1/modern Russian style attrition bombardment of fortresses and dug-in positions where ROF didn't matter. 155mm was the unbashed sweet spot for area/power/rate of fire in 1940, 1960, 1980, and it still is today in 2024.
>Trying for commonality between land and sea guns is a classic mistake,
Classic mistake is trying special snowflake round for Navy. It would enter death spiral of order cuts and per unit price grows and finally would be canceled.
Navies should stop being snobs bite teh bullet and adopt 155mm caliber. This caliber rounds would be developed and produced in large quantities regardless of Navy failure so they can jump on train of that development and economy of scale production.
agree, thats why I said they shoulda just re-manufactured the last class of 8" gunned heavy cruiser for "shore bombardment" instead of that GHAY USS Zumwalt that any fool could see was a dumb idea from day-1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Des_Moines_(CA-134)#cite_note-1
Whatever they were able to do with TODAY's 6" guns they could do much better with modernized 8".
Then make a SPG non-turret based on stretched MBT chassis, and a towed version.
I'd like to see towed arty with POWERED system to place itself and get ready to roll, with manual Meat Bag operation only as backup. Could be built into the trailer-unit, or powered by Electrical, mechanical take off, compressed air, etc from tow-truck.
Questions:
1. Can 203mm and 175mm artillery fire or launch missiles?
2. Can 203mm and 175mm artillery fire or launch drones?
1) Technically yes; Rocket-Assisted Projectiles with some form of guidance.
2) Technically yes; a cargo round can be used to deploy a drone behind enemy lines. I'm not certain what the status of any programs are, but I've seen pictures of mock-ups and booth demos claiming that it's feasible. It certainly shouldn't be much harder than deploying smart submunitions like SADARM or BONUS.
Now, does either have that capability in service right now? No, because 203 and 175 have been largely removed from service in favor of upgrades to 155s (both guns and shells) or 5" for the USN. As others have pointed out in this thread, a lot of the reason to use a bigger shell is for a larger area of effect, but shells get hammered with something akin to the square-cube law: the heavier the shell or the farther you want to send it, the smaller your bursting charge becomes as a % of total shell weight, and thus the less effective per lb your fragments become. This is, of course, because the shell has to withstand immense g-forces at launch, whereas artillery missiles have "softer" launch profiles, allowing for more HE and less steel. That always used to be a trade-off, and now it's almost irrelevant because relatively cheap guidance options like PGK exist. Thus, 155s are "good enough" for most missions, and if you need more than that for penetrating a hard target, chances are that a 175 or 203 won't be enough either (at which point you're calling in a 1-ton JDAM or a bunker-buster). So, the niche for large-caliber shells has gotten smaller and smaller with each generation. 155 works well, generally gets the job done (especially with guidance), has very well-established procurement and logistical chains, etc. It's also a large-enough diameter that if somebody came up with a SADARM2 using drones, you'd have up to a 6" HEAT or EFP warhead, which is more than adequate for top attacks.
>8 inch arty comeback
yes daddy please!
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