Μilitary Questions & Answers

You have fixed ammo and not fixed ammo... most 57mm shells will be fixed so the round has a specific load of explosive and fragments or a HEAT charge or whatever and a fuse that is suitable for that type of round.

A new HE round might have a smart fuse where it can be set to explode on the lightest graze of the target, or it might have a time or radar fuse to explode a certain distance from the target, with the smart fuse you might have it set so that if it hits something but penetrates it the fuse will delay a half second so it explodes inside, whereas if it hits something solid it cannot penetrate it will explode after not making any progress into the target.

Artillery shells normally get fuses attached to them just before you fire them and the different types of fuses can have different settings you can set before firing them.

They are supposed to have developed an electronic fuse with GLONASS guidance and is fitted with small control fins to steer the shell in flight turning plain standard dumb artillery shells into guided shells... and with 152mm shells (and 122mm) shells having a standard fuse pocket size you could fit them to brand new shells, but also old WWII or even WWI era shells.

Timed fuses are not great... the precision needed has to be nanoseconds accurate which makes the timers really expensive... what the Russians seem to be doing is going for command detonated shells... initially they were going to use a laser beam where you fired a shell and then while tracking the target and the shell with radar when the shell approached the target a laser beam flashed a signal to detonate the shell as close as possible to the target. It eliminates the need for precision timers inside the shell which is the disposable part of the system and therefore needs to be the cheapest.

The problem is that at great distances through smoke or rain the laser might not be 100% reliable so they seem to have gone for a radio communication pulse to set it off which will work day and night and in any weather including dust storms (brown outs) and monsoon rain and heavy snow (white outs).

From what I have seen on the subject they are going for airburst 30mm and 57mm shells which are vastly more effective than impact fuses.

Regarding heavy weapons on the back of light vehicles, muzzle brakes on weapons can reduce the bounce but such light vehicles are going to move around anyway... even recoilless weapons like Grad trucks would move around during launch if they didn't have stabiliser legs dropped before firing.

S-60 you are referring to shoots 57x348 ammo.
Only two types of rounds were made for them, that is HE-T UOR-281 and AP-T UBR-281.
Other countries (SU, China, Bulgaria, Yugo, Poland and Egypt) were producing their own derivatives, but there were no changes. "U" version contained A-IX-2, so was slightly more destructive.

UOR has a MG57 or MG3-57 impact fuze.

Ammunition usually is held in wooden boxes with fuzes already screwed, only covered with a protective cap or protective pin.

The value of very accurate detonation of the shell in an airburst mode is actually worth an increase in cost.

The sensor is not complex or expensive... it does take up space, but it also makes the shells vastly more effective in the ground to air and ground to ground role.

Firing at aerial targets most shots will not make direct contact with the target... especially small targets like drones, so having airburst shells that explode before they reach the target means the target can be covered in shrapnel damage by shells that would otherwise have missed and simply blown past doing no damage at all.

The GPS guided shells prohibitively expensive , and thus useless .

American GPS guided shells are expensive... Russian GLONASS guided shells make a lot of sense... the satellite receiver and electronics are tiny... most modern cellphones have such things and can be less than 100 dollars to buy.

The 57mm calibre weapons would not benefit from satellite guidance but for artillery even just to space a volley fired at an enemy position sat nav would be useful to prevent the groups getting too spread out.

For instance you could programme the first shell with the actual target or centre of target coordinates and programme each subsequent shell to grid areas around the point of targeting for the first shell so when they all land together they are spread out with evenly spread fragments and blast waves.

Need cheap solution for all shell sizes

Not really... the very small shells like 57mm and smaller are generally direct fire ammo and modern ammo from a dedicated vehicle like the 2S38 should be accurate enough most of the time... if there is a point target 8km away you want to hit then use a Kornet-EM.

For heavier artillery then sat guidance and laser spot homing make sense without making the ammo too expensive.

I think if rate of rotation of shell increased by a kit ( fins )fitted to base of shell and vanes on a bearing on fuse , then shell rotate fast and generate many signals , the fuse head on bearing

The purpose of the rifling in the guns is to spin the shells... if you over stabilise them you get less accuracy, not better accuracy.

Fins can be used to induce a slow roll like the RPG-7 rocket tail fins, but that is only to stop it veering off course...

remain rotationally fixed relative to body of shell and register rotations . In the short interval that shell above trench , many pulses (made by rotating magnets )generated for cheap electronic counter . Should be accurate .

They have already stated they are using radio command detonation and the new 2S38 vehicle has radar antenna mounted on it for the required signals.

Such a system also improves aim by getting precise target data and also tracking outgoing rounds so accuracy should improve with use as well.

S-60 you are referring to shoots 57x348 ammo.
Only two types of rounds were made for them, that is HE-T UOR-281 and AP-T UBR-281.

It was produced in enormous numbers and was designed to fire in mixed clips so you could fire HE and AP at the same time which means they couldn't make the HE round as powerful as they could make it because it had to have a similar weight and speed to the AP round so they both hit the same point of aim.

Equally the AP round could not be very high velocity or a small penetrator dart like APDS or APFSDS because again aiming at the target one type of ammo would hit and the other would miss completely because of its totally different trajectory.

With modern guns and digital fire control systems you could fire different types of rounds in bursts with the computer aiming the gun for each different round type.

As I said before the AP ammo is fixed and the HE ammo is fixed... you can't change the fuse and therefore change its use.

It is like AP and ball and tracer ammo for a rifle.

With some heavier shells of larger calibre you can change the effect of the round with changes in fuse settings... for instance with 125mm rounds you can set the fuse to explode on contact or to delay the detonation till it is well inside a lighter vehicle or structure.

The old stocks of 57mm ammo from Russian and Soviet stocks will be the two types Alamo mentions, but obviously for new guns and for new vehicles a lot of new ammo types are being developed and produced including APFSDS and HEDP and guided and air burst HE rounds...

The new rounds will likely be more accurate and more effective in a range of different roles... but the cheap rounds will be useful too.

The old rounds were designed for AA use only... they did have a 57mm gun for anti armour use but it was more powerful and used different ammo... 57 x 480mm, which is clearly bigger than the 57x348mm of the AA gun, but with plenty of the AA guns ammo and plenty of the AA guns they are clearly effective enough for them to keep using them... if accuracy is not good enough I would say modifying the vehicles they mount them on to lock the suspension or drop support legs or spades would be more effective and more efficient as the standard ammo could be used up without modification or needing more money spent on it.

This thing was made for suppressive fire.
It is spreading the ammo, because as you see they target a forest area.
Ukro hideouts can be anywhere in that area.
They can hit a pin point if needed, with single shots, direct fire for this gun is some 2000m.
Indirect up to 8000.
What worries me more, is a big % of ricochets and unexploded ammo.
That is probably because of storage life - those fuzes were improved multiple times for water resistance.
If you are improving ... and improving ... the point is that improvements do not work.
Still, I wouldn't bother much, it is a suppressive fire artillery built from waste to deliver some punch at close to zero cost.
The only thing that wonders me, is if the fuze is sensitive enough for the job.
23x152 that is being used is very effective because the fuze is known to work even too much. It is being ignited by the forest. Russkie made a pro out of that, using it as anti-AT teams ammo of choice, raining them with splinters.

Still, I wouldn't bother much, it is a suppressive fire artillery built from waste to deliver some punch at close to zero cost.

Not only is the old ammo already made so it is essentially free, by using it up you no longer need to store it and check it occasionally so you are reducing costs by not having to store it any more.

Older ammo probably has not got ideal packing and storage standards and using it up is a rather good thing because old explosive can become dangerous.

It would be a powerful round that will do a good job on most targets too.

The whole reason for storing it is to be able to use it when you find a suitable use...

Its effect on light vehicles would be impressive.

Can existing artillery round of say 152 mms , be fired from longer existing barrels or pipes bolted together , with higher pressure / slower burning , to reach 300- 500 km or even longer  range ? Cheaper than Rockets and Drones ? Like the Gerald Bull super- gun ?

The problem is the strength of the metal... just making the gun longer means the barrel near the chamber is under enormous pressure for a lot longer while the shell is in the barrel longer as it is propelled down the barrel.

The old super heavy German rail guns actually had individually designed shells because with every shot fired the calibre of the gun increased and you had to fire them in the correct order or you might have problems.

Long barrels and advanced propellants that get to high pressure limit of the barrel fast and then maintain that pressure till the shell has exited the weapon will give best performance... the thing is that water absorbs recoil best so naval guns is the easiest way to get a long range big power gun that is mobile and not a pain in the arse.

Another way to get very long range projectiles is low drag like an APFSDS round but perhaps double the calibre and made of HE instead of a solid metal dart would combine minimum drag and increased velocity (because it is going to be lighter that a full calibre round it will accelerate down the barrel faster and when it leaves the barrel its smaller calibre means less drag... by making it longer you maximise its weight and minimise its frontal drag... a bit like an arrow... the longer the arrow is the heavier it is but being a narrow arrow its drag is relatively small.

Conversely a balloon is large and very light so if you throw it it accelerates in your hand very quickly because it is so light but when you release it its enormous volume and its low mass means it slows down rapidly because it lacks momentum to push the air in front of it aside.

In comparison throwing a golf ball it is small and relatively light so you can get it up to a good speed and its relatively small size and reasonable density means it maintains speed better than a balloon so it is easy to throw much further.

That spider is ugly.

Are you suggesting the drones carry the bolas or the armoured vehicles use them to catch drones with their bolas?

I think the core problem for the drones to use bolas is that it would be rather simpler to carry a PETAB-B 2.5kg shaped charge cluster munition used in cluster bombs to deal with enemy armour, except instead of having hundreds of them in each bomb or rocket, you could carry half a dozen in a drone and fly down a line of enemy armour dropping one munition onto each vehicle...

Swinging a bomb on a length of rope on a battlefield and that rope will catch everything... tree branches, fences, power poles, power lines, all sorts of things...

The human launched bolos as a weapon is two or three weighted balls connected by rope or vine that is thrown in a way that the balls spin on the rope to entangle the legs of running animals for hunting... but the fact that they need to be accurately aimed to be useful means it might as well be a bomb or a gun...

Explosive ropes launched by rockets is already used in mine clearance... the UR-77 fires a rocket... I think it is an old ATGM rocket that is fired from an armoured vehicle dragging a long tube of explosive... when the rocket lands the rope it dragged out containing HE is pulled to straighten it and then it is detonated to blow an 8M wide path in the soil for vehicles to drive through an minefield.

During the current conflict in the Ukraine they have been using them against Ukrainian positions... the orcs have been digging trenches inside stands of trees to protect them from direct fire artillery... the shells hit the trees before they get to the trench and so the guys in the trenches are safe from the fragments because of the angles and distance away that the shells hit the trees at.

The UR-77 lofts the explosive up into the air and it comes down amongst the trees and they don't pull it straight, they just set it off like a huge bomb... very effective.

Two shots per vehicle before needing to reload.