US/NATO operations in Afghanistan:

Viktor wrote:Like every other major offensive it will end up with bunch of dead taliban witch changes nothing.

GarryB wrote:Game changer?

Really?

It is just a shoulder fired grenade launcher with a grenade with a timed fuse to make it air burst.

The soviets had 40mm under barrel rifle grenades that also air burst and while they were popular they were hardly a game changer.

BTW 2,300ft is about 750m which is not outside 50 cal or PKM range.

I assume the Muj still have all those .50 cal rifles the US gave to them to deal with helos in the 1980s.

Of course I will be interested to see how they justify this weapon, the automatic grenade launchers like the AGS-30 and Mk.19 are claimed to be crew served weapons that are used against area targets but this weapon is clearly an individuals weapon and likely to be used directly against other individuals using HE ammo.
This is banned by the Hague convention.

No it isn't.

Soviet tanks have been simulating airbursts with standard HE frag shells with the fuses set to delay and firing them at a shallow angle to the ground so they bounce up before detonating.
There were two standard grenades for the GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher used by the Soviets in the 1980s and since, one was a standard impact grenade and the other had a small charge to blow the grenade up into the air before the main charge detonated.
It was in mass production and did not require a complex and expensive computer system and chip etc.

The difference is that the regular 40 mm that air burst air burst by bouncing 1.5 meters. This thing allows you to program where it'll air burst, so you can just aim it like a regular rifle, shoot the grenade, and it'll air burst somewhere to the flank of the target.

Having the grenade explode at head height is the best height to set it for. This isn't a 155mm shell that is more effective at 10m because the blast and frag radius is extended.

It also relies on the fact that the enemy will not have any top cover... it wont be long before they start preparing their firing positions better that have some top cover as well as cover to the front.

It is a bit like issuing US troops with Javelin when all they need are RPGs. It seems money is no object.
The irony is that instead of firing Javelins and these new grenades at the enemy if you threw the cash that these weapons cost you could buy the enemy instead of killing them.

The US army has developed the XM25 rifle to give its troops an alternative to calling in artillery fire or air strikes when an enemy has taken cover and can't be targeted by direct fire.The rifle's gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to calculate the exact distance to the obstruction. The soldier can then add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target (see zoomimg).

As the 25-millimetre round is fired, the gunsight sends a radio signal to a chip inside the bullet, telling it the precise distance to the target. A spiral groove inside the barrel makes the bullet rotate as it travels, and as it also contains a magnetic transducer, this rotation through the Earth's magnetic field generates an alternating current. A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip uses fluctuations in this current to count each revolution and, as it knows the distance covered in one spin, it can calculate how far it has travelled

GarryB wrote:

Ainet fuse setting system? This thing is basically that but you won't need a tank.

No, not Aniet, I am talking about standard 125mm HE Frag rounds. As I have explained elsewhere on this site the fuse can be set open or closed and it can be fired with the safety cap on or off. When firing HE shells at targets on snow or swampy soft mud then you set the fuse open with the safety cap off which makes it very sensitive so any impact will set it off including rain. With the safety cap on but the fuse set open the round will explode on impact. What I am talking about is using a dumb cheap shell with a standard fuse and leaving the safety cap on and the fuse set closed which delays the detonation of the shell a few mili seconds so the gunner aims low at the ground in front of the target area and the shell hits the ground at a very shallow angle and bounces up into the air while the delay means the shell doesn't explode in the ground but in the air. It means a much more efficient fragmentation pattern.

With the 40mm grenade it is the same a simple and cheap method to get an air burst round. Not as high tech as this new US weapon, but cheap and in mass production for over 20 years.

This system effectively creates a 40 mm Sniper rifle in a sense.

An enormously expensive sniper rifle. For a fraction of the cost they could have bought a real 30 cal sniper rifle with computer aiming assistance plus a 40mm automatic grenade launcher that could be mounted in the trailer of a quad bike.
Both of these added to a foot patrol would be much more useful.

Note this weapons main claim to fame is that it can hit targets behind cover. Its problem is finding targets firing from behind cover in the first place and determining if they are bad guys, or a group of women and children hiding from the fighting.

Note that I said Flank, you can program it to explode to the side of your target, or hell, beneath it. The difference with this and the RPG is that you can't air burst it.

The super feature of the system is to allow the engagement of targets behind cover that were obviously protected from the front but not the top.
An RPG with a Thermobaric round will demolish most front cover and turn that cover into shrapnel to kill those directly behind it in the same way that a Javelin would normally be used to hit such a hard target. This new weapon of new calibre and new ammo is supposed to bypass the front cover and come in from above to attack the target from a vulnerable direction.

What I am saying is that any auto grenade launcher with its low velocity grenades will land rounds coming in fairly steeply that attack from above and rifle mounted 40mm grenades used in the early 1980s could airburst such targets for a fraction of the cost. Obviously without the laser rangefinder and ballistic computer and advanced fuse system it will not be as accurate or as flexible but really this is just a high tech way of doing something that can already be done.

Hell, they don't need top cover, they still need a hole or opening to shoot out of. That basically means we can program the grenade to blow up inside the building, still killing the guy. Besides, with electronics costing so little these days, these things only get cheaper.

The RPO-A had a precursor charge to blow a hole in cover and blow thermobaric explosive into the cavity and then detonate it. And it could do it almost 30 years ago fairly cheaply.

They also deployed Abrams and called that a gamechanger also. Contridacting themselves?

Western media seem to have a fixation on "super weapons".

Even when the Soviets were there they credited the Muj with calling all sorts of Soviet weapons as "the devils chariot". From the Mi-24, the Su-25, and even the ZSU-23-4 in the direct fire support role.

Ainet fuse setting is for standard 125 mm HE-Frag rounds.

Ainet is a fuse system, it uses any 125mm shell that can be fitted with a fuse (there is the standard HE FRAG shell and a new shell designed to direct fragments forward as well as sideways to take advantage of Ainet fuse type systems).
Ainet consists of an electronic fuse that is fitted to the shells before they are placed in the autoloader of the tank, and an automatic fuse setting system that is between the autoloader and the gun breach. The gunner lases the target to determine range and the gunner can manually add or deduct from that range by pushing some buttons... so you can lase the front of a building and then add 3m worth of flight time to the fuse setting. He then loads the round where the round passes the fuse setter the time is set and when the round is fired the fuse detonates the round at the specific range.

The trick of setting the fuse to delay and bouncing the rounds into the air for an airburst has been done since WWII and is not new.

The problem with your simple solution is that method does not allow the "long range" firing of the weapon, as I recall the maximum range for a Soviet 40 mm is about 300-400 meters, XM-25 does up to 750 and still can kill a room of enemies.

The 40mm bounding grenade has a small bounding charge to blow it into the air and it will work right up to its max operating range of about 450m. The Russians have a 40mm automatic grenade launcher called BALKAN that has a range of 2,500m with grenades larger and heavier than the 40mm under barrel grenades used in the GP series launchers. The 30mm AGS-17 and AGS-30 can both now use improved grenades with ranges of 2.2km. The AGS-30 weighs 16kgs including the tripod mount.
The Arbalet experimental shoulder fired grenade launcher has a drum mag that holds 10 x 30mm rounds and it can fire the 2.2km ranged grenades too.

It costs only $25,000 USD. A 7.62 is useless if they're behind cover and you don't know exactly where behind cover they are. This allows you to basically put a grenade into their room from over 750 m away, and you don't need to know exactly where they are in the room, it's a Frag grenade, everything's gonna get hit. So, technically speaking, it's also more accurate and deadly.

The problem is that an afghan out in the open at 750m is hard enough to ID as good guy or bad guy. Knowing what is behind cover 750m away is going to be rather tricky.

Being explosive the 25mm shells will kill or injure most things near the target too... including bystanders. A 7.62mm round will kill what you are aiming for and nothing else.

The issue in Afghanistan is that the enemy have realised that most of the western foot patrols have 5.56mm rifles which are ineffective beyond about 400m, so they are using SVDs and PKMs and RPGs and the like and opening fire from 700m or more so that they can fire on a patrol with a chance of inflicting casualties with a good chance of running away and not getting effective fire brought down on them.

Considering foot patrols already had 30 cal rifles and GPMGs for fire support I really don't think this grenade launcher will be adding too much to the equation. It would make more sense just to carry more 30 cal rifles for engaging targets at longer ranges and perhaps add light vehicle support with a light cannon like a Stryker.

Uh, but your method won't work because they'd have a roof over their heads.

The first few rounds will get rid of any top cover and certainly deter return fire while the rest of the foot patrol either move forward or withdraw depending on the situation.

A TGB-7V will work but you can't really use a RPG for all your AP purposes. XM-25 allows you to circumvent your enemy's cover and fill them with shrapnel. Hell, I heard there's a thermobaric grenade in development for the XM-25.

Four or five hits with a 25mm grenade are not the same as a single hit from a 105mm calibre thermobaric RPG round with several kgs of material in it.
The whole purpose of the design of the RPG is to deal with hard points at 400-500m range. The sort of things the British used the Milan for in the Falklands and the US used the Javelin for in Afghanistan and Iraq. The RPG-7 is much cheaper and easier to use and for most of the time that is what it is issued for in the absence of enemy armour.

That's not the RPO-A genius, that's the RMG.

Excuse me, but the first RPO you had to fire in through windows... the current models have precursor charges to make holes in walls and the main charge is blown into the cavity and detonated.

And no, how much ammo do you have for a general RPG with you? 3? Maybe 5 if you have another guy?

Every man in the unit can carry spare rockets and also carry the disposable equivelents themselves like the RPG-22 et al.

Needless to say a single heavy rocket can take out a small building that would require several hits from this new weapon.

This thing, you can have a magazine full of air bursting grenades and you can reload it in about the same amount of time it takes to reload a regular AK or AR.

Once you have fired all your grenades you are probably armed with a pistol.

It's also more precise, as just simply making a big hole then making a big boom isn't what this does, it goes through small holes and makes a big boom, effectively reducing the weight in munitions and thus creating a larger ammunition carrying capacity.

Against Taleban it will be quite effective, but against a modern army with flak jackets its effect will be greatly diminished.

See RIAN and their coverage of "game changing" equipment such as the Mi-28N.

Yes, they are picking up the wests bad habits.

Another thing this toy has in favour of is its ability to perform job without that nasty WOOSHING sound (~normally is associated with those RPGs) & the muzzle flash!! Which make its quiet difficult to detect by enemy when operated in dark!!

This would be useful on the offense, but the article describes this weapon as the solution to the current problem of the taleban ambushing from long range and then leaving the area before air power can arrive. As such the best defence from this system is simply to target the soldiers carrying it at the start of the ambush. No doubt if they had any brains they would look at the foot patrol before they decided to open fire and any designated marksman with a 30 cal rifle and any soldier carrying a GPMG would be targetted. Well if this weapon is as effective as it is suggested I would expect the Taleban to simply target the operators of this weapon too... and perhaps start an ambush with an IED attack and in the ensuing chaos fire at the patrol from long range and then leave the area before the victim of the ambush can work out what just happened and before air power can arrive.

Of course it's not new, but this is one of the first times that such a fuse setting system has been Modernized and applied to a small package. Gun weighs the same as an AK!

The XM25 weighs over 5kgs empty and its ammo will not weigh nothing.
Hardly comparable with an AK... or even an SVD.

Again, another problem, standard 40 mm underbarrel grenade launchers, you have to launch it with a huge ballistic trajectory. It's very difficult to actually land a grenade inside a room.

No you don't. Current GP launchers have two range scales on them... red and white for indirect and direct fire. In fact with practise you can load one round (they are muzzle loaded and have no shell case to remove like a mortar shell) and aim and fire with the red scale for range and then adjust the sight to the same distance in the white direct fire scale and reload another round while counting. When you count (in seconds) to about 9 or 12 seconds (can't remember which) you then fire a second round and both rounds will land on target at roughly the same time because of the different flight times.

That means you can aim, point, calculate and shoot, grenade doesn't need to bounce it just knows when to detonate.

Very expensive toys considering by the time you know which room to destroy you could probably have used an RPG of some sort.

We have a 40 mm AGL too. Problem is that it weighs a couple dozen kilos. This thing weighs the same as an AK-47.

The basic XM25 weighs more than a loaded AK and its grenade weight will likely make it triple the weight or more.

The MM-1 is actually a very similar weight at about 5.7 kgs empty and able to hold 12 rounds ready to fire.

Also, with a 30 mm or 40 mm AGL, you can't accurately land grenades inside a room, you can demolish the room, but it'll take you a salvo of grenades, which would mean excessive damage to nearby buildings. With this, you just need to put 1 grenade inside the room and the enemy's done for, no need for Grenade spam.

This XM-25 could kill flies at 750m... what chance is there on a real battlefield that you will be able to spot flies at 750m?

To take out a room at that range a Russian soldier would likely use a Metis-M (AT-13) guided missile with a range of 2km fitted with a conventional HE warhead.

It has a x4 Thermal sight or a x2 Optic sight.

So zero chance to properly ID a man sized target at 750m. A thermal sight is great for night and all weather use, but useless for identification of people... and x2 optics will not help.
And this is people out in the open.

Identifying an enemy (which basically means a guy with a weapon) from 750 is going to be fine.

90% of the population in Afghanistan is armed. You start killing anyone with a gun and you might as well leave the country now and save a bit of time.

But this is extremely effective in an Urban combat scenario, where say, a guy with a Pecheneg is suppressing your Squad, you just need a guy to land one Grenade in his room with the XM-25 and he's dead.

On paper it should be effective. In practise unless the target has a muzzle flash the size of a 2ltr coke bottle and fires continuously with tracer ammo showing where he is I really think you will have problem locating him accurately while you are under fire. Remember this weapon determines range but after traveling 750m a cross wind could easily shift the grenade several metres to one side or another... these rounds are not guided like an ATGM like METIS-M is.

That's a waste of ammunition and it'll cause collateral damage. One grenade in the room, neutralized targets.

You are talking about firing explosive grenades 750m you can't care about collateral damage. Otherwise you should be talking about a 50 cal rifle to return fire and hit targets behind front cover Save money on the fused rounds and keep the laser range finder and ballistic computer.

But do you know how much a RPG weighs? And it's ammo?

They are carried in Russian patrols anyway, plus light disposable rockets like RPG-22. When there is little enemy armour then Anti personel rockets can be carried in fairly large numbers including the large calibre thermobaric rounds and the 40mm anti personel rockets which can be carried in very large numbers BTW.

We're not exactly talking a professional army here. They don't wear flak vests as far as I know, a 25 mm grenade will do fine.

Eventually the Afghan government forces are going to start getting issued with at the very least flak jackets... if not bullet proof vests.

So, bottom line is that I've seen a lot of numbers thrown at me, 600 mm from Rosonboronexport, 750 mm from Wikipedia and other sources, and 850 mm from combat performance. Which one is it?

It can be all three. You can't just look at where a rocket hit to determine performance because the angle of impact is very important in determining penetration.

Also the protection levels are described as effective protection levels, which also assumes a specific angle of impact.

Another factor is that penetration figures usually assume thicknesses of penetration that still allows for damage done to the interior.