Author Topic: Missiles on gun tanks  (Read 64397 times)

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #25 on: February 26, 2013, 05:07:38 AM »
Of course another path to take with this is to imagine that perhaps future tanks give up on the main gun as their primary tank killing weapon (say that after 120mm/125mm designers say enough is enough - we're not going to 140mm/152mm).  Instead, in the LeoIII/Challenger 3/M1A3/T-XX etc the conventional gun becomes the secondary weapon (say something around the 50mm size) for dealing with secondary targets and that the primary anti-tank weapon becomes the ATGW.  In this case, you end up with something more akin to a heavy IFV but without the troop carrying requirement.  Maybe even akin to the CV-90 series?



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Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #26 on: February 26, 2013, 05:08:42 AM »
Another spin might be to have standard tanks but with the missiles for Air-Defence.  LeoII with Stingers or even ground launched IRIS-T? etc...
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Offline Logan Hartke

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #27 on: February 26, 2013, 05:32:28 AM »
I'd already considered the AA missile route, but that was OT, so I was focusing on ATGM applications.  I think that if there ever was a major emphasis on defilade firing, I do think you'd see the emphasis on armor decrease proportionally.

Thanks,

Logan

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #28 on: February 26, 2013, 11:23:51 AM »
Of course another path to take with this is to imagine that perhaps future tanks give up on the main gun as their primary tank killing weapon (say that after 120mm/125mm designers say enough is enough - we're not going to 140mm/152mm).  Instead, in the LeoIII/Challenger 3/M1A3/T-XX etc the conventional gun becomes the secondary weapon (say something around the 50mm size) for dealing with secondary targets and that the primary anti-tank weapon becomes the ATGW.  In this case, you end up with something more akin to a heavy IFV but without the troop carrying requirement.  Maybe even akin to the CV-90 series?

One of the problems with that is chemical warheads are much more easily defended against than are kinetic energy ones, so at the moment armour is in the ascendency in the continual see-saw battle between protection and penetration.  You would need to see a significant increase in penetration for chemical energy warheads.  So, unless we see a change in the way such warheads presently work, this usually comes with a consummate increase in weight for the missile and it means the missile becomes large, unwieldy and expensive.

A way around that is to use a top-attack profile or the one I prefer, a high trajectory system such as FOG-M.  Because they are attacking the thinnest armour sections on the opposing tank, smaller warheads or even more exotic systems such as EFP can be used.  Both however come with their own difficulties and again, if reliant on chemical warheads can be defeated with reactive armour or active defence systems mounted on top of the tank.

One way around that is to use kinetic energy rounds - either missiles with sufficiently high velocities to mimic guns or guns themselves.  We are though, now reaching as has been noted the limits with 120mm calibre and in the late 1980s NATO agreed to move to 140mm calibre, after the brief stint with a longer-barrelled 120mm smoothbore gun (L/44 IIRC).   However such a large calibre carries problems with loading the rounds and so we have seen a move towards autoloaders.  This in turn has introduced concerns about inadequate crew to perform routine tasks such as maintenance and piquette duty.  Interestingly, the French overcame the problem by introducing "maintenance crews" into their armoured units and placed the now unemployed loaders in APCs to accompany the tanks.

Hypervelocity missiles have been flirted with by the US but they never reached any fruitition.  LOSAT has come and gone, morphing into HATM, so obviously simply making a much faster missile is a little more difficult than one supposes.  While it has the advantage of being recoilless, such a weapon needs to be fly a  line-of-sight course, like a gun so they lose the advantage of being able to utilise full defilade which many normal missiles can.

The US FOG-M and the European Polyphen systems, utilising fibre-optic cable, rather than traditional wires for guidance are IMHO an excellent solution.  They allow firing from full defilade, have no "gather" times and can even be utilised for immediate reconnaissance if necessary, utilising their TV cameras to report back on what is occurring on "the otherside of the hill" as Wellington termed it.  However both have been abandoned unfortunately.   

Offline Volkodav

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #29 on: February 26, 2013, 12:36:04 PM »
An idea could be a VLS installed in the rear compartment of an AIFV, looks exactly like the troop carrier version but instead of vegies in the back it has multiple VLS ATGWs.  A very easy if slightly boring Wiff with a number of armoured doors added to a new top plat on the hull rear of your AIFV.

Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #30 on: March 25, 2013, 10:25:32 AM »
Hypervelocity missiles have been flirted with by the US but they never reached any fruitition.  LOSAT has come and gone, morphing into HATM, so obviously simply making a much faster missile is a little more difficult than one supposes.  While it has the advantage of being recoilless, such a weapon needs to be fly a  line-of-sight course, like a gun so they lose the advantage of being able to utilise full defilade which many normal missiles can.

LOSAT would be a nightmare in the field. It had a huge firing signature like an MLRS and would basically be a way of saying to everyone on the battlefield here I am over here under this giant plume of white smoke and behind the searing streak of white light.

The US FOG-M and the European Polyphen systems, utilising fibre-optic cable, rather than traditional wires for guidance are IMHO an excellent solution.  They allow firing from full defilade, have no "gather" times and can even be utilised for immediate reconnaissance if necessary, utilising their TV cameras to report back on what is occurring on "the otherside of the hill" as Wellington termed it.  However both have been abandoned unfortunately.

This capability is basically the RAFAEL Spike sytem. Thanks to advances in radio technology longer range missiles can safely use wireless like Spike-NLOS and as was planned for the NLOS-LS PAM and LAM weapons. Lots of other weapons have similar capabilities like Griffon and Delilah.

Offline elmayerle

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #31 on: March 25, 2013, 11:07:41 AM »
Any high-performance missile is going to have a large IR, visual, and radar launch signature, the last because the best high-performance solid rocket fuel burns aluminum with amonium perchlorate and that generates quite a reflective plume.  We had fun getting the folding vertical fin of ground-launched TSSAM to unfold through that booster plume and retain it's low-observables characteristics; Northrop ended up doing a bunch of testing with the booster maker to find suitable materials and I got involved as the responsible engineer at Northrop for the boosters and was involved in designing the test fixture.

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #32 on: March 25, 2013, 01:52:51 PM »
Hypervelocity missiles have been flirted with by the US but they never reached any fruitition.  LOSAT has come and gone, morphing into HATM, so obviously simply making a much faster missile is a little more difficult than one supposes.  While it has the advantage of being recoilless, such a weapon needs to be fly a  line-of-sight course, like a gun so they lose the advantage of being able to utilise full defilade which many normal missiles can.

LOSAT would be a nightmare in the field. It had a huge firing signature like an MLRS and would basically be a way of saying to everyone on the battlefield here I am over here under this giant plume of white smoke and behind the searing streak of white light.

You could use an elevating mount which while it wouldn't prevent retaliation it would decrease the likelihood of losing the vehicle.

Quote
The US FOG-M and the European Polyphen systems, utilising fibre-optic cable, rather than traditional wires for guidance are IMHO an excellent solution.  They allow firing from full defilade, have no "gather" times and can even be utilised for immediate reconnaissance if necessary, utilising their TV cameras to report back on what is occurring on "the otherside of the hill" as Wellington termed it.  However both have been abandoned unfortunately.

This capability is basically the RAFAEL Spike sytem. Thanks to advances in radio technology longer range missiles can safely use wireless like Spike-NLOS and as was planned for the NLOS-LS PAM and LAM weapons. Lots of other weapons have similar capabilities like Griffon and Delilah.

Wireless can be jammed or even hacked.

Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #33 on: March 25, 2013, 04:41:09 PM »
You could use an elevating mount which while it wouldn't prevent retaliation it would decrease the likelihood of losing the vehicle.

Not really. The position of the vehicle would still be betrayed. Mast mounted weapon stations are just the same as hull down vehicles except it increases the terrain conditions you can be hull down in.

Wireless can be jammed or even hacked.

Considering just about every new guided missile has a wireless datalink from Javelin Increment II through to JASSM I think the boffins know what they are doing re signal jamming.

Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #34 on: March 25, 2013, 04:42:54 PM »
Any high-performance missile is going to have a large IR, visual, and radar launch signature, the last because the best high-performance solid rocket fuel burns aluminum with amonium perchlorate and that generates quite a reflective plume.  We had fun getting the folding vertical fin of ground-launched TSSAM to unfold through that booster plume and retain it's low-observables characteristics; Northrop ended up doing a bunch of testing with the booster maker to find suitable materials and I got involved as the responsible engineer at Northrop for the boosters and was involved in designing the test fixture.

Which is why you want to keep them out of direct line of sight of the enemy. So they can have a reasonable chance to shoot and scoot.

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #35 on: March 25, 2013, 06:06:37 PM »
You could use an elevating mount which while it wouldn't prevent retaliation it would decrease the likelihood of losing the vehicle.

Not really. The position of the vehicle would still be betrayed. Mast mounted weapon stations are just the same as hull down vehicles except it increases the terrain conditions you can be hull down in.

Partially true.  They do tend to ensure that the launcher is both harder to spot and harder to eliminate.

Wireless can be jammed or even hacked.

Considering just about every new guided missile has a wireless datalink from Javelin Increment II through to JASSM I think the boffins know what they are doing re signal jamming.
[/quote]

One should never assume that a radio signal cannot be jammed or hacked.  Such hubris has, upon several occasions in the past ended up with lots of red faces and invariably dead people.   Be it Tannenberg to the "battle of the beams", Window and through to the recent hacking of drones' video feeds in Iraq, it all started with people making assumptions about the security of their radio systems.

Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #36 on: March 25, 2013, 07:57:27 PM »
Partially true.  They do tend to ensure that the launcher is both harder to spot and harder to eliminate.

Ehh that’s part of the benefits of hull down?

One should never assume that a radio signal cannot be jammed or hacked.  Such hubris has, upon several occasions in the past ended up with lots of red faces and invariably dead people.   Be it Tannenberg to the "battle of the beams", Window and through to the recent hacking of drones' video feeds in Iraq, it all started with people making assumptions about the security of their radio systems.

Who said anyone in Raytheon, RAFAEL, Lockheed Martin, etc are making assumptions about radio security in their missile guidance system designs?

Offline Weaver

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #37 on: March 25, 2013, 08:08:17 PM »
I've often wondered whether you could add anti-armour KE capability and anti-aircraft capability to a low-velocity gun by using it to launch a ramjet-powered hyper-velocity missile. The propellant charge would get the thing up to ramjet ignition speed and a solid fuel ramjet (like the Spark missile) would them take over. Guidance could be laser beam riding or semi-active laser.
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Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #38 on: March 25, 2013, 08:56:53 PM »
I've often wondered whether you could add anti-armour KE capability and anti-aircraft capability to a low-velocity gun by using it to launch a ramjet-powered hyper-velocity missile. The propellant charge would get the thing up to ramjet ignition speed and a solid fuel ramjet (like the Spark missile) would them take over. Guidance could be laser beam riding or semi-active laser.

You would need to rely upon a kinetic kill.  One of the problems with ramjet or rocket powered shells is that they lose an appreciable amount of their filling to fuel for the ramjet/rocket.  They also tend to, unless guided, to have often erratic trajectories compared to true guns.

Offline Weaver

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #39 on: March 26, 2013, 01:32:36 AM »
I've often wondered whether you could add anti-armour KE capability and anti-aircraft capability to a low-velocity gun by using it to launch a ramjet-powered hyper-velocity missile. The propellant charge would get the thing up to ramjet ignition speed and a solid fuel ramjet (like the Spark missile) would them take over. Guidance could be laser beam riding or semi-active laser.

You would need to rely upon a kinetic kill.  One of the problems with ramjet or rocket powered shells is that they lose an appreciable amount of their filling to fuel for the ramjet/rocket.  They also tend to, unless guided, to have often erratic trajectories compared to true guns.

The whole point would be to achieve a kinetic kill from a low-velocity gun, and yes, it would definately be guided.
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Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #40 on: March 26, 2013, 10:58:33 AM »
I've often wondered whether you could add anti-armour KE capability and anti-aircraft capability to a low-velocity gun by using it to launch a ramjet-powered hyper-velocity missile. The propellant charge would get the thing up to ramjet ignition speed and a solid fuel ramjet (like the Spark missile) would them take over. Guidance could be laser beam riding or semi-active laser.

You would need to rely upon a kinetic kill.  One of the problems with ramjet or rocket powered shells is that they lose an appreciable amount of their filling to fuel for the ramjet/rocket.  They also tend to, unless guided, to have often erratic trajectories compared to true guns.

The whole point would be to achieve a kinetic kill from a low-velocity gun, and yes, it would definately be guided.

In theory it would be possible then, if that is the objective.  However, in practice it might be more difficult. That rather limits the size of the weapon, 'cause you've got to cram fuel, motor, guidance system and guidance method (fins, etc) into the package.  Not impossible just technically hard.   More than likely 40+mm would be the minimum and I'd expect something more about the 60+mm size.  Not sure how high velocity you'd be able to achieve.  Ramjets require a fair distance to develop thrust and accelerate, even with a boosted launch.  Rockets less so.   So velocity would be rather dependent on range.  More than likely there would be some optimum range where conventional guns are superior but beyond that, a rocket/ramjet fired weapon would be better.

Offline Weaver

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #41 on: March 26, 2013, 12:01:48 PM »
The idea came from a real 1980s missile project called Spark which was essentially a ramjet-powered HVM. I can't recall the exact spec (and can't find it on line) but I do remember that it was small enough to launch from a tank-size gun (i.e. under 155mm) although that wasn't the intention and it's sustainer ignition speed was within the muzzle velocity of a howitzer. It had a solid rocket booster packed inside a solid ramjet grain, so if that booster was replaced by a propellant charge, there'd be room down the middle for quite a bit more gubbins.
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Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #42 on: March 26, 2013, 02:14:03 PM »
The idea came from a real 1980s missile project called Spark which was essentially a ramjet-powered HVM. I can't recall the exact spec (and can't find it on line) but I do remember that it was small enough to launch from a tank-size gun (i.e. under 155mm) although that wasn't the intention and it's sustainer ignition speed was within the muzzle velocity of a howitzer. It had a solid rocket booster packed inside a solid ramjet grain, so if that booster was replaced by a propellant charge, there'd be room down the middle for quite a bit more gubbins.

I sort of know what you are talking about. There were proposals to use a ramjet in an artillery shell to extend range like rocket assist and base bleed. However that’s all I can remember of the top of my head but will look around some files to bring up more.

Offline Weaver

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #43 on: March 26, 2013, 08:54:19 PM »
I found a small entry about Spark in an old reference book last night, but I'm sure I used to have a much more extensive magazine article on it that's probably long gone now, sadly.

It was a bit bigger than I remembered: 165mm diameter, and the air vehicles they actually tested in the late '70s/early '80s had no guidance, but they did have space for it in the intake centrebody. If the concentric booster in the middle of the ramjet was removed, the diamter could be reduced quite a bit. As far as I know, it petered out when attention switched to the rocket-powered HVM that became LOSAT.

The Germans also did some work on ramjet ("athodyd") shells in WWII, with a variety of different intake configurations.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 08:56:15 PM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

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Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #44 on: March 26, 2013, 09:06:43 PM »
The South Africans currently have a ramjet artillery round research project underway.




Offline AGRA

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #45 on: March 26, 2013, 09:16:08 PM »
A quick search of DTIC indicates that the solid fuel ramjet (SFRJ) had a very wide experimental application in the US during the early 1980s. While I haven’t found any detailed operational information there was a 40mm SFRJ for air defence use and a 75mm SFRJ for anti-tank. The idea was they would be fired by high velocity cannon and the SFRJ would boost and maintain velocity out to typical ranges (4km for the 40mm) round. Therefore reducing time of flight and increasing accuracy. Lead agency was the US Army Chemical Research and Engineering Development Centre (CREDC) and their Tubular Projectile (TUP) developmental program.

Offline ysi_maniac

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #46 on: March 28, 2013, 01:41:53 AM »



Are there any head inside those helmets ?!?!?!?

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #47 on: March 28, 2013, 08:15:19 AM »
Doesn't appear to be.  They seem to be just resting on the hatch.

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #48 on: April 05, 2013, 10:02:00 PM »
What I mean by this is not single-purpose ATGW vehicles on a tank chassis, but rather a vehicle (we'll allow wheels too) that has a turret with a substantial gun in it AND an ATGW capability. Most of these proposals were never built for obvious reasons to do with reloads and reloading, but they were mostly workable and so would make an interesting What If, if a suitable backstory could be concocted.

I think they fall into two categories:

1. Gun-launched ATGWs:

Sheridan with Shillelagh (service)
M60A2 with Shillelagh (service)
MBT-70 with Shillelagh prototypes only)
T-55 with 9K116-1 "Bastion" ATGW (service)
T-62 with 9K116-2 "Sheksna"  ATGW (service)
T-72/80 etc with 9M119 "Svir/Refleks" ATGW (service)
BMP-3 with 9K116-1 "Bastion" ATGW (service)
Israeli LAHAT missile used from various 105/120mm gun-armed tanks

AMX-30 with ACRA (a 142mm gun/launcher: abandoned due to cost):





2. Separate guns and ATGWs

AMX-13 with SS-11.   One of the few such designs that actually went into service. 2 x twin SS-11 on open rails on front of turret, either side of gun barrel.




AMX-13 with HOT. Proposed replacement for above. 2 x triple HOT boxes on either side of the turret. Close to adoption, but the French Army changed it's ideas on ATGWs and bought the VAB Mephisto instead.



The early version had 2 x quad HOT launchers:




Vickers Mk.2 MBT with Swingfire. This was a Mk.1 fitted with 2 x twin Swingfire boxes on either side of a modified turret bustle. Mock-up only.




M47 with Swingfire. Similar proposal to above, fitted with 2 x twin Swingfire boxes on either side of a modified turret bustle. Mock-up only.




Saladin with Swingfire. Standard armored car fitted with 2 x single Swingfire boxes on either side of the turret. Mock-up only.




Centurion with Swingfire. Seems to be basically the same system as the one on the Vickers Mk.2 Mock-up only.



 
Hi,i just love missiles,rockets on tanks or otherwise,heres a few of mine
















enjoy Don

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Missiles on gun tanks
« Reply #49 on: April 06, 2013, 03:09:46 AM »
Some nice work there Don.  What's the third one?
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