Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Well, the claims are plausible, but the limitations are similarly plausible as well. In addition to the computing issue, Afghanit's mode of operation isn't the most reliable when it comes to KEP defeat
.
Probably not Nozh bad "defeats KEP, but only when hit in this exact spot", but still far from reliable.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I don't see any reason not to believe what they said this to time around.
Especially given that they said they can't actually do it reliably
Oh really when?
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
I'm also curious about what ammo it was tested with.
I recall M829A4 being capable of defeating APS and heavy ERA with a pre-fragmented penetrator according to the manufacturer. Is there anything suggesting that current generation Svinets or Vacuum penetrators have similar tricks up their sleeves?
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
The only systems that seem to have any success against long rods are high power blast counter measures and none of them of are what you could call a compact example. Some of the calibers of projectiles in those links are big enough and spraying enough fragmentation in some cases they could be an offensive weapon system. I might believe they deflected or possibly deformed part of a long rod penetrator with a blast shot but I have high doubts about outright destruction especially if it is a fragmentation projectile.
The M829A4 is not using a fragmented tip but like the A3 it has a windscreen on the tip. It shares the same general dimensions to boot but they did something to some part of the rods shape likely the part under the windscreen. They also changed its sabot composition and the shell has a part in the shell case that lets it "talk" to the fire control system of the tank.
From "M829A4 (formerly M829E4) Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot – Tracer (APFSDS-T)"
edited 10th Dec '17 8:02:55 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
Eye'm the cutest!
Russian Tanks Can Roll Toward Battle On An Iron Carpet. (War Is Boring)
Hey, can we license build this? I foresee a LOT of civilian potential particularly in places like the Colorado Rockies. Cuz like Russia, we have what we call "mud season" and dirt roads often become slippery, slick as shit pathways of clay or quagmires of sand in the months of April and May (sometimes March if it was a warm year) and an aluminum base left there until the Sun bakes the ground enough to be solid again in June would provide a lot of accessibility and safety benefits.
Provided it works of course.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
...so they reinvented the fascine layer, but with trucks?
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
rollin' on dubs
by COL William T. Nuckols Jr. and Dr. Robert S. Cameronedited 21st Dec '17 9:51:18 PM by TairaMai
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be a case on The First 48
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Mike Sparks is having a heart attack at this moment.
Who watches the watchmen?
Cant you penetrate the M113 with 7.62 AP at this point?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
You can penetrate it with 5.56mm Black tip. Aluminum while nice and light isn't so great as armor. It can stop ball ammo though.
The military and various researchers have found that laminated aluminum alloy as a front and backing actually improves protection against penetration and spalling.
edited 22nd Dec '17 12:25:30 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
The law in the night
Well, this is what happens when an over glorified taxi with a machinegun on it is pressed into the front.
Inter arma enim silent leges
Eye'm the cutest!
Its Warsaw Pact counterpart the BTR-60 wasn't any more protected or armed than the M113. It took until later marks of the BTR-80/82 for that to outperform the M113 in terms of armor/armament.
The BMP-1 was almost unarmored too. It just had a lot better armament.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
That certainly explains why the BMP-2 packs an autocannon.
@Tom: Unlike the M113, the BMP could at least swim.
Eye'm the cutest!
The 73mm was a lot better than the M60/M2HB/Mk 19 on the M113 though. While an M113 could with a .50 cal turn a BMP-1 to Swiss cheese and then some, the BMP would simply lob a round or two and turn the "Gavin" into a burning blasted hulk.
And that ignores the AT-3 Sagger they would carry as well.
The BMP-2 was a parallel development to the Bradley. The Soviets had gotten wind that the West was going to field a fleet of autocannon (and ATGM) equipped IFV's and experiences against Israel via Arab users in 1967/1973 revealed a fair few weaknesses in the BMP-1 thus the BMP-2 would need to be different. The 73mm Grom gun was having difficulty penetrating ANY tank even WW 2 surplus like the Sherman or T-34 and new improvements to missiles meant that ATGM's would be able to be fired from much greater ranges and much greater accuracy than the Malyutka so a 500 meter limited gun was unacceptable. An autocannon offered greater versatility though. Like the Grom, a 2A42 autocannon cannot penetrate tanks in most spots, but they can blind optics, disable tracks and make a lot of noise that's very distracting to enemy tank crews just before they end up with an ATGM up their arse. Plus autocannons were more useful in infantry support than an inaccurate short range low velocity cannon.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Auto-cannons with AP ammo can also perforate engine compartments on tanks if they hit them from behind or some of the thin spots on the side in the engine area. True they won't be drilling the armor but the gun fired missiles with shaped warheads fired by some of those low velocity guns are not something you really want to hit your tank.
Who watches the watchmen?
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Congratulations, your sequence of events is the one completely debunked by the very article I linked.
Also, you might as well be comparing a Marder to a stock MT-LB for the usefulness of your analogy.
What you know about the Sergeant York differs from what actually happened. Defense reformers lying? Say it ain't so!
The Sergeant York was the front-runner in a program intended to provide the Army with a sorely needed “division air defense” (DIVAD) weapon system. It was based on a novel concept: re-purposing M48 Patton tank chassis’ with a new turret incorporating twin Swedish Bofors 40mm cannons and two radar systems — one for area surveillance (the rectangular antenna) and one for targeting (the conical antenna, an off-the-shelf application of the F-16′s radar).
A firing control system integrated the two radars, with on-board software prioritizing targets based on the threat they were assessed to pose to the system itself. (For the late ’70s /early ’80s, this was cosmic.) If the operator elected to allow the system to engage targets hands-off, it would slew the turret around at a nauseatingly rapid rate, taking on each in turn automatically.
On the next-to-last day of the test, my aircraft was joined by an Army AH-1 Cobra and OH-58 Kiowa and two Air Force A-10s. My H-3 was part of the test profile because its radar signature was essentially the same as that of an Mi-24 HIND assault helicopter of the day, which was heavily armed with both anti-tank missiles and rockets. We all converged on it simultaneously from about 6000 meters. My aircraft was the first to die, followed by the two A-10s, then the Cobra, and finally the Kiowa. It took less than 15 seconds to put plenty of hypothetical rounds into each of us.
I spent a depressing amount of that week watching myself get tracked and killed on video. Trying to “mask” behind anything other than rising terrain simply didn’t work; the DIVAD radar got a nice Doppler return off my rotor system if any part of it was within its line of sight, and it burned right through trees just fine. I couldn’t outrun or out-maneuver it laterally; when I moved, it tracked me. I left feeling pretty convinced that it was the Next Big Thing, especially since I’d come into the test pretty cocky thanks to having had a lot of (successful) exercise experience against current Army air defense systems.
So, what happened to the program itself? I think it was a combination of factors. First, the off-the-shelf concept was cool as far as it went, but the Patton design already was a quarter-century old; the DIVAD was awfully slow compared with the M1 Abrams tanks it was supposed to protect. It would have had a lot of trouble keeping up with the pack.
Second, The Atlantic Monthly published a really nasty article (bordering on a hatchet job) purporting to show the program was a complete failure and a ruinous waste of money. One of its most impressive bits of propaganda was an anecdote about a test where the system — on full automatic — took aim at a nearby trailer full of monitoring equipment. Paraphrasing, “It tracked and killed an exhaust fan,” chortled the author. (See The Gun That Shoots Fans for a recounting of this.)
Yeah, it did. It was designed to look for things that rotate (like helicopter main rotor systems) and prioritize them for prompt destruction. If any bad guys were on the battlefield in vehicles with unshrouded exhaust fans, they might have been blown away rather comprehensively. (My understanding at the time was that said fan was part of a rest room in one of the support vehicles and not a “latrine,” but why mess up a good narrative, right?)
To my knowledge, neither ventilated latrines nor R Vs full of recording devices are part of a typical Army unit’s table of allowance, so I really doubt there was much of a fratricide threat there. However, the bottom line was that this particular piece of partisan reporting beat the crap out of a program that I believe the Army needed, but already was facing a few developmental issues, and helped hasten its cancellation.
(The New York Times opinion piece linked to above was equally laden with innuendo and assumptions. It made a fair point about possible anti-radiation attacks it might have invited… but there are radars on every battlefield, and there are means of controlling emissions. It compared a late-Fifties era Soviet system — the ZSU-23–4 — with one fully twenty years newer in design. It asserted that it couldn’t hit fixed-wing aircraft, which to my mind and personal observation was arrant nonsense. The only issue it raised that I agree with was possible NATO compatibility problems with the unique 40mm caliber shells the Sergeant York’s guns fired. Funny — the Times pontificated that it wouldn’t be cancelled, too. Oops.)
Third, the hydraulics that were used in the prototype were a 3000 psi system that really couldn’t handle the weight of the turret in its Awesome Hosing Things mode. One of the only times I actually got a score on the system was when I cheated; I deliberately exploited that vulnerability. I flew straight toward the system (which would have blown us out of the sky about twenty times over had I tried to do so for real) until directly over it, then tried to defeat the system from above.
If memory serves, the system specifications called for the guns to elevate to more than 85 degrees if something was coming up and over; it then would lower them quickly, slew the turret 180 degrees around, and raise the guns again to re-engage. It was supposed to be able to do that in perhaps ten seconds (but I’m here to tell you it did it a lot faster than that). So, I had my flight engineer tell me the moment the guns dropped, at which point I did a course reversal maneuver to try to catch it pointed the wrong way. What the video later showed was:
Helicopter flies over.
Traverse/re-acquire movement starts.
Helicopter initiated hammerhead turn (gorgeous, if I say so myself).
Guns started to elevate to re-engage.
Clunk. Guns fall helplessly down; DIVAD crew uses bad language.
The hydraulics hadn’t been able to support the multiple close-on, consecutive demands of movement in multiple axes and failed. Like I said, I cheated. The Army and the contractors already knew about this problem and were going to fit out production models with a 5000 psi system. That might have had some survivability issues of its own, but the Army was perfectly happy that we’d done what we did — it proved the test wasn’t rigged and underscored the need for the production change.
Finally, the Army itself honestly appraised the system based on its progress (and lack of progress) versus their requirements. Wikipedia provides a passage that encapsulates this end-game well: “The M247 OT&E Director, Jack Krings, stated the tests showed, ‘...the SGT YORK was not operationally effective in adequately protecting friendly forces during simulated combat, even though its inherent capabilities provided improvement over the current [General Electric] Vulcan gun system. The SGT YORK was not operationally suitable because of its low availability during the tests.’ ”
I guess I’m forced to conclude that the Sergeant York was a really good concept with some definite developmental flaws — some recognized and being dealt with, perhaps one or two that would have made it less than fully effective in its intended role — that was expensive enough for bad PR to help bring it down before it fully matured. The Army was under a lot of political pressure to get it fielded, but to their credit they decided not to potentially throw good money after bad.
On balance, a lot of the contemporaneous criticisms mounted against the M247 really don’t hold up very well over time. Short-range air defense currently is provided by the latest generation of the AN/MPQ-64F1 Improved Sentinel system. Radar emitting on the battlefield? Check. Target prioritization capabilities? Check. Towed (which equals “slow”) versus self-propelled? Check.
I’m glad we never wound up in the position of needing it but not having it. My personal judgment was and is that it probably could have wound up a heck of a lot more capable and useful than its developmental history might suggest, but its cancellation probably was justified given other acquisition priorities at the time.
Bottom line: I repeatedly flew a helicopter against it over the course of many hours of testing, including coming at it as unpredictably as I knew how, and it cleaned my clock pretty much every time.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Hmm interesting to read but it sounds like its flaws were problematic enough. Turret weight was too high for the hydraulic systems. The chassis they chose was inadequate to keep up with the big armor it was supposed to help cover. It's radar threat tracking and engagement systems needed some obvious work if ventilation fans registered as helicopter or jet turbine on an attack craft. Two of those should have been fixable. A more powerful hydraulic system and tweaking the targeting equipment was definetly doable. The one that would have been a lot harder and fairly expensive to address is the chassis.
Who watches the watchmen?
rollin' on dubs
AS much as I hate the non-defense press there are things about the SGT YORK that cost many officers higher rank and caused the Army to re-think SHORAD:
- As The Other Wiki points out, the guns were 40mm because Ford Aerospace had an agreement with Bofors, despite 35mm being the NATO standard. Just what the Army needed, another caliber to support.
- The system was a hodge-podge of "Off the Shelf" systems. The counter-ECM suite could be defeated by minimal jamming, the hydraulics sucked - at one point it was taken to the Fort Bliss washrack and the leaks shorted out parts of the system. Germany is famous for it's rain.
- To quote The Other Wiki "To add to the problems, another generation of Soviet helicopter and missile designs was pushing their envelope out to 6,000 m, rendering DIVA Ds ineffective at long range."
- So the Brass wanted to add Stingers - making a joke out of the original requirements.
It was a waste of time that caused much needed reform.
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be a case on The First 48
Cape Malleum Majorem
I once worked for a guy who used to work for Kaiser Electrical Precision, and was assigned to the Sgt. York Gun project. He basically said the same thing: it could take out Soviet helicopters from five miles away, but the Soviet helicopters carried missiles that could take it out from eight miles away.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
Eye'm the cutest!
^ And all of this was accounted for on the other side of the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. While Yankee was trying to make their version of Shilka 25 years too late, Ivan was making Tunguska and explicitly added missiles from the start, the guns being more secondary weaponry. Tunguska-M1 > Sgt. York at the Anti-Air role in every aspect. It had 10+ km range missiles that could reach out and touch our A-10s, F-16s, F-18s and F-4s packing Mavericks, it could also use those same missiles against our Cobras and Apaches armed with TOW/Hellfire that could outrange a Shilka.
And to add insult to injury, Tunguska could radio the bigger longer ranged SAM's that would operate not that far behind it as part of an in-depth Integrated Air Defense System. One which the West had no equivalent and to this day still doesn't.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
A very lucky Abrams after a hit from an RPG-29.
◊
Looks like it was a bad angle. A good one would have likely made it all the way though.
Oh really when?
Eye'm the cutest!
Not all the way through even on a good hit but it would be worse than that.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."
Yea, I have to agree with tom for once, it barely went through the tread skirt, and damaged the turret a bit, a good hit still wouldnt have gone through.
Except from the ass, even an RPG-7 can go through the ass.
Swatting down KEP's is not impossible, shooting bullets is a thing in reality (though difficult to accomplish at the speeds seen in KEP's).
That said however, I find this one particularly suspect. The "strong enough computers" thing gives it away. Calculating targeting solutions on high speed targets ain't like discovering the Higgs boson. It's been doable for 50 years in anti-aircraft warfare on stuff that modern wristwatches out-perform in raw computing power.
"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."