Russian Gun Artillery Thread

GarryB wrote:

EDIT: I think the largest caliber gun we're going to see on a ship could well be the twin 152mm Koalitsiya on the Nakhimov?

Ships have traditionally been fitted with absolutely enormous guns that make the 203mm gun look like a pea shooter because water absorbs recoil very very efficiently.

Older generation guns got bigger and heavier as armour was added to ships... a bit like tanks but on a much more expensive scale, but aircraft bombs and missiles rendered the armour deadweight, so they became light again and so lighter guns were used along with missiles to destroy enemy ships.

The thing is that like the F-35 programme, the Zumwalt class ship with its special guns was a good idea, but the messed it up.

What the US Navy should have done was said to the Army... hey... we want a powerful long range gun we can use instead of expensive missiles and inefficient rockets. Lets work together on a shared gun design, we can make it a standard design... 155mm or 203mm are common for the US Army and Navy... 6 inch and 8 inch guns.... they could get together and develop new ammo, new guns, new propellent, new projectiles etc etc new automatic feed mechanisms etc etc.

Don't expect enormous ranges to start... work in stages... the point is that a 203mm gun is useful for landing force support... and a very long range heavy gun that is accurate is a valuable thing because a 203mm artillery shell that is 110kgs of mostly HE warhead that can be fired to 200km would be an excellent way of dealing with surface vessel threats... even a solid steel shot round round that has no HE that punches a hole right through the front of an enemy ship... a Phalanx would be useless.... most SAMs would be useless because they work by making the warhead explode, but a solid round would just keep coming... it wont do as much damage as a HE round but it will certainly have an effect when it punches a hole deep into the target.

A large ship could carry thousands of shells for sustained support in any weather day or night for landed troops.

An enormous range of shells could be developed including communications jamming rounds to fire into the enemy troop positions so they are cut off from command.  

GarryB wrote:Interesting, but the Americans with the Zumwalt gun and the Russians with the naval Coalition are aiming for much better range, but also a decent HE payload as well.

GarryB wrote:Interesting, but the Americans with the Zumwalt gun and the Russians with the naval Coalition are aiming for much better range, but also a decent HE payload as well.

To blunt an attack a few hundred hits with APFSDS rounds might be interesting on a ship like a helicopter landing carrier or a cruiser, but it might be a bit hit and miss regarding other platforms... it is certainly an area of weapons that seems to be ignored.

Of course US Navy Phalanx gatlings fire subcalibre DU rounds to defeat incoming threats, while the Soviet 30mm guns fire HEI and HE rounds to try to detonate the warhead on the incoming round.

Now, even more incredible, such a  Navy not just have armed shis but it eeven has a long tradition of indipendently develop, produce, install and use operatively their own weaponries (and radars too).

Isos wrote:They used to have all of this. Now they buy US f-35 and make collaborations to create even the cheapest stuff they use.

GarryB wrote:Thank you for the education Marcello, but I don't think this is the correct thread for it.

I rather think it deserves its own thread, if you would like to make one I can transfer the relevant posts if you like.

Sadly the media and marketing machine of the US and to a lessor degree UK and France, other countries with defence talent often get ignored or under rated.

When others used those lightweights:

To be fair the Soviets and Russians also used Kashtan with 30mm guns and missiles plus naval TOR and naval OSA and other missiles as well as 57mm and 76.2mm and 100mm and 130mm guns with proximity fused shells and were also interested in dealing with sea skimming supersonic anti ship missiles and had plenty of good examples to test their systems on.

Did the soviets or Russians ever produce airbursting artillery and mortar shells with VT fuses? I cant find any info about such shells ever being in Russian service.

Mir wrote:

Did the soviets or Russians ever produce airbursting artillery and mortar shells with VT fuses? I cant find any info about such shells ever being in Russian service.

don't know if this answers you question but Russian artillery rounds can use the AR-5 radio fuse.