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Any reason why Russians use a 152 mm Caliber Howitzer and not a 155 mm one like NATO ?
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75 posters
Russian Gun Artillery Thread
Austin- Posts : 7617
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GarryB- Posts : 40538
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Actually a better question would be why does NATO use 155mm instead of 152mm... the Soviet 152mm guns are actually 152.4mm calibre or a nice round 6 inches... which means that 155mm is 6 point something inches and is therefore the odd calibre.
155mm calibre is an old French calibre that was adopted by the US and then used since then in various new US guns.
There has been a long history of using artillery in calibre ranges... the 6 inch and 8 inch and 5 inch ranges rather popular for not being too big but big enough. Popular calibres in the 6 inch range include a few popular German WWII 15cm or 150mm guns, French 155m guns that go back to WWI, and Russian 152mm guns whose calibre remains in service to this day.
155mm calibre is an old French calibre that was adopted by the US and then used since then in various new US guns.
There has been a long history of using artillery in calibre ranges... the 6 inch and 8 inch and 5 inch ranges rather popular for not being too big but big enough. Popular calibres in the 6 inch range include a few popular German WWII 15cm or 150mm guns, French 155m guns that go back to WWI, and Russian 152mm guns whose calibre remains in service to this day.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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So is it difficult to machine a odd decimal caliber then then a even one even with the massive standardisation that 155 mm caliber enjoys.
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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No.
America was using the 155mm in the form of the Long Tom during WWII and that is the calibre they decided NATO should use. France was already using the calibre and the Long Tom and the Brits also got Long Toms from lend lease so it became the defacto calibre for NATO.
The Russians/Soviets didn't use 155mm, they had a 152mm calibre in service since before WWI and they stuck with their calibre with no reason to change.
While they share the same calibre the current NATO standard for 155mm internal ballistics mean it can't be used in a Long Tom, and I would doubt the current 152mm Russian ammo would be safe to fire in a WWI 152mm calibre gun because the pressures and propellent sizes have changed over the years... but the calibres have remained the same.
Very simply the Russians have production capacity for 152mm calibre rounds and a stock of ammo in storage and there is no reason for them to change to 155mm.
The Krasnopol-M can be used in either weapon BTW and is short enough to be loaded into the MSTAs autoloader and treated like a standard round of ammo.
It is also being used by the French and is fully compatible with French laser target designators (LTDs).
America was using the 155mm in the form of the Long Tom during WWII and that is the calibre they decided NATO should use. France was already using the calibre and the Long Tom and the Brits also got Long Toms from lend lease so it became the defacto calibre for NATO.
The Russians/Soviets didn't use 155mm, they had a 152mm calibre in service since before WWI and they stuck with their calibre with no reason to change.
While they share the same calibre the current NATO standard for 155mm internal ballistics mean it can't be used in a Long Tom, and I would doubt the current 152mm Russian ammo would be safe to fire in a WWI 152mm calibre gun because the pressures and propellent sizes have changed over the years... but the calibres have remained the same.
Very simply the Russians have production capacity for 152mm calibre rounds and a stock of ammo in storage and there is no reason for them to change to 155mm.
The Krasnopol-M can be used in either weapon BTW and is short enough to be loaded into the MSTAs autoloader and treated like a standard round of ammo.
It is also being used by the French and is fully compatible with French laser target designators (LTDs).
Austin- Posts : 7617
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Nice i didnt knew French used Krasnopol-M , I know India uses it from its Bofors FH-77B 155 mm Gun and it has served her well.
IronsightSniper- Posts : 414
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For some reason, NATO and Warsaw pact had a habit of making calibers only a few mm away from each other. Something about patriotism I guess. The only real advantage for Russia if they were to switch to 155 for their mainstream weapons would be the possibility of buying the Excalibur guided round. Everything else is pretty much the same.
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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The only real advantage for Russia if they were to switch to 155 for
their mainstream weapons would be the possibility of buying the
Excalibur guided round. Everything else is pretty much the same.
You do realise how silly that is to say that don't you?
GPS guided munitions would be rather useless for Russia because Russia is not allowed access to military Navstar signals so Excalibur would be without any guidance....
It makes rather more sense for them to simply develop a new version of Krasnopol with a combination of an upgraded Krasnopol-M with Glonass guidance and use that.
Personally I think a similar guided round would be useful in 240mm calibre and 203mm calibre too... and 120mm and 125mm as well for that matter.
BTW patriotism has nothing to do with it. When you have an artillery park of thousands of towed and self propelled 152mm guns you don't suddenly get an urge to trash them all and replace them with a calibre standard used by a former enemy for no reason, or to get access to a round guided by a guidance system that can be turned off on a whim beyond your control.
Would point out that Georgia was using military signal GPS in August 2008 while the civilian GPS was turned off for the period of the conflict... of course the US didn't know or support Georgias invasion... NOT.
Nice i didnt knew French used Krasnopol-M , I know India uses it from its Bofors FH-77B 155 mm Gun and it has served her well.
It is quite popular because it is handled just like a standard round of ammo with a cap protecting the seeker that is ejected in flight so you don't have to take measures to protect it during handling or before loading.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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GarryB wrote:Would point out that Georgia was using military signal GPS in August 2008 while the civilian GPS was turned off for the period of the conflict... of course the US didn't know or support Georgias invasion... NOT.
Is this true ? that would be interesting , because it wont be easy to close civil gps as it would have an impact on a large area of civil area traffic that can cross the boundaries of Georgia.
AFAIK US gurantees Civil Signal will be available all the time and wont be degraded.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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check this on Krasnopol
http://trishulgroup.blogspot.com/2009/07/truth-about-krasnopol-m-firing-trials.html
http://trishulgroup.blogspot.com/2009/07/truth-about-krasnopol-m-firing-trials.html
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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AFAIK US gurantees Civil Signal will be available all the time and wont be degraded.
From Wiki...
Due to the absence of satellite-targeting, precision-guided munitions could not be used (US controlled GPS was unavailable since the war zone was blacked out).[378]
The link of 378 takes me to this document: www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/Articles/09spring/mcdermott.pdf
Which contains this excerpt:
Despite promises made in December 2007 by Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov to fully equip the Russian Army with GLONASS receivers by mid-2008, the Russian Army largely went into combat in August with World War II-era compasses and maps. Russian forces allegedly attempted to use the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but were thwarted in their attempts by the fact that the map of Georgia was blanked out for 48 hours. They were forced to resort to targeting conventional weapon systems through the use of vintage 1960s optical equipment.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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Funny they say things like optical sight , compass , ww2 equipment etc , Russia has OptoElectronic Satellite that can generate upto date digital maps , it has reco assets like aircraft that can do mapping/targetting ,plus you have inertial guidance etc
They really did not need GLONASS to take on their neighbours ,I think those links are just pyscops nothing else.
They really did not need GLONASS to take on their neighbours ,I think those links are just pyscops nothing else.
IronsightSniper- Posts : 414
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GarryB wrote:The only real advantage for Russia if they were to switch to 155 for
their mainstream weapons would be the possibility of buying the
Excalibur guided round. Everything else is pretty much the same.
You do realise how silly that is to say that don't you?
GPS guided munitions would be rather useless for Russia because Russia is not allowed access to military Navstar signals so Excalibur would be without any guidance....
It makes rather more sense for them to simply develop a new version of Krasnopol with a combination of an upgraded Krasnopol-M with Glonass guidance and use that.
Personally I think a similar guided round would be useful in 240mm calibre and 203mm calibre too... and 120mm and 125mm as well for that matter.
BTW patriotism has nothing to do with it. When you have an artillery park of thousands of towed and self propelled 152mm guns you don't suddenly get an urge to trash them all and replace them with a calibre standard used by a former enemy for no reason, or to get access to a round guided by a guidance system that can be turned off on a whim beyond your control.
Would point out that Georgia was using military signal GPS in August 2008 while the civilian GPS was turned off for the period of the conflict... of course the US didn't know or support Georgias invasion... NOT.
You can always modify the software to be compatible with GLONASS. If Krasnopol could be GPS guided, it would of been, so far the AAR for the Excalibur is very proficient.
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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Funny they say things like optical sight , compass , ww2 equipment etc ,
Russia has OptoElectronic Satellite that can generate upto date digital
maps , it has reco assets like aircraft that can do mapping/targetting
,plus you have inertial guidance etc
Well it does, but with voice only communication to the troops in the field and no individual GLONASS receivers telling them where they are they would have to rely on maps and compasses and a bit of maths. Not as bad as it sounds... people actually managed to find their way around before sat nav using maps and compasses, but it is really one area the Russian military is well behind NATO and it is being addressed I would suspect as something they learned from this conflict in South Ossetia.
If Krasnopol could be GPS guided, it would of been, so far the AAR for the Excalibur is very proficient.
The guidance equipment for satellite guidance is smaller and easier to make than laser homing. The satellite receiver can be a chip the size of your fingernail... a company in New Zealand developed one and cell phone companies and electronics companies came rushing to their door. This small chip as a receiver obviously needs and antenna and a battery, but both these components are already part of the design of a cell phone so by adding a chip the size of your fingernail and some software to the existing hardware you can turn a cell phone into a simple GPS receiver.
The cellphone is less than 500 grams or half a kilo or less. In Krasnopol-M, which is a 50kg projectile there is plenty of space to add a Glonass receiver chip and antenna and a short term chemical battery in addition to the existing electronics.
The problem hasn't been an inability to do it. The problem has been that until your recon assets can provide coordinates of targets and communicate them to artillery batteries, and of course until Glonass offers decent coverage and accuracy what is the point. For all we know they might already have them ready to go into service.
Developing a module that allows laser aiming plus image recognition like SOKOL-1 (if it can see and attack tanks without a laser target marker marking the tank then it clearly has optical image recognition capabilities as well) and add satellite guidance that can be used in the Gran 120mm guided round then this guidance can also be applied to the larger calibre guided shells for 122mm, 125mm, 152mm, 203mm and 240mm tube artillery weapons.
The export potential will be limited of course to those who get to share military GLONASS signals, like India.
IronsightSniper- Posts : 414
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GLONASS is very close to a full constellation, it's accuracy is only a bit less than NAVSTAR. That shouldn't mean a massive degradation in accuracy. For reference, the Excalibur has a company stated accuracy of 20 m CEP, while battle testing has shown it could be as low as 4 m CEP.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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Brahmos director has mentioned last year that they did tested Brahmos launches with GLONASS seeker and he was very happy with GLONASS performance , considering these test were done in India which perhaps does not have the best coverage yet.
This was a time when Glonass had just 18 satellite available for total global coverage , so Glonass does a fine job even with low numbers , ofcourse a full 24 sat coverage would be merrier.
This was a time when Glonass had just 18 satellite available for total global coverage , so Glonass does a fine job even with low numbers , ofcourse a full 24 sat coverage would be merrier.
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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Until Glonass receivers are widely deployed to artillery units and recon units the accuracy of Glonass is not so important.
Mass production of Glonass receivers is the issue at the moment... and that will be tied into the efforts at creating an effective C2 system with which no doubt Glonass receivers will be incorporated... they have to get it tested and working before putting it into production first however... in the mean time laser homing is good enough.
Mass production of Glonass receivers is the issue at the moment... and that will be tied into the efforts at creating an effective C2 system with which no doubt Glonass receivers will be incorporated... they have to get it tested and working before putting it into production first however... in the mean time laser homing is good enough.
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So those new built MSTA-S will be integrated in C4ISR with data links, GLONASS and computers? This is good news. Will the older MSTA-S also be modernized to the same level?
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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So those new built MSTA-S will be integrated in C4ISR with data links,
GLONASS and computers? This is good news. Will the older MSTA-S also be
modernized to the same level?
Pretty much.
As part of their role the Artillery branch of the Russian Army has probably been the most switched on regarding C4ISR... they were really the only branch of the Russian military that invested in and used UAVs for recon and combat damage assessment.
The introduction of this new C4ISR suite will make them much more effective (and they were effective before), plus it will mean that sat guided ordinance becomes a much more practical thing to develop... if they haven't already.
medo- Posts : 4343
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Russia always have one of the strongest artilleries on the World and I'm sure today is not so much different. Artillery is for Russian army very important, because they are not sure if they will have air support all the time needed, but guns and MRLSs will be always there.
Will Russian army in new brigade structure integrate artillery inside armor units or they will still be independent units?
Will Russian army in new brigade structure integrate artillery inside armor units or they will still be independent units?
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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The Russian Army is very much designed to operate alone and to that end they have continued with tactical ballistic missiles like Tochka and Iskander/Tender as a sort of Army controlled all weather day/night deep strike capability that few other Armies have at their disposal.
Because the brigades are highly mobile I would expect they might use integrated artillery units within the brigades, but I think external artillery units that can be brought in when needed might be useful.
Of course having said that these external artillery units might be less effective and less mobile than say calling in CAS or light air strikes. I doubt the army will want to become dependant on the air force. Of course their future artillery will be interesting and will likely include anti armour artillery in the form of HERMES.
Because the brigades are highly mobile I would expect they might use integrated artillery units within the brigades, but I think external artillery units that can be brought in when needed might be useful.
Of course having said that these external artillery units might be less effective and less mobile than say calling in CAS or light air strikes. I doubt the army will want to become dependant on the air force. Of course their future artillery will be interesting and will likely include anti armour artillery in the form of HERMES.
medo- Posts : 4343
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I think the mix of artillery integrated in armor units and independent artillery units is good decision, specially larger cal. guns and MLRSs are better in independent units. In some articles I read, that ATGM like Khrizantema is also part of artillery units. Wouldn't it be better, if they are in more mobile armor units to support them?
The biggest danger for artillery units are air attacks. C4ISR could give them better insight about situation in the air around them. Do they have any capabilities to defend themselves, when air force or near air defense fails, than just changing positions, fortifying, masking, building decoys, etc, known as passive air defense measures?
The biggest danger for artillery units are air attacks. C4ISR could give them better insight about situation in the air around them. Do they have any capabilities to defend themselves, when air force or near air defense fails, than just changing positions, fortifying, masking, building decoys, etc, known as passive air defense measures?
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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In some articles I read, that ATGM like Khrizantema is also part of
artillery units. Wouldn't it be better, if they are in more mobile armor
units to support them?
I could see why you would use a Krisantema unit as part of an armour unit, but also separately as a long range anti armour ambush type unit that engages a target formation at very long range in the worst weather conditions and then manouvers to avoid artillery or air attack and then attacks again from a new position etc.
I could also see a Krisantema unit as being useful with its standoff range to engage the enemy and start hitting threats like air defence vehicles and troop carriers at long range so when the two armoured units get to main armament range the enemy force has been depleted.
I don't see them as part of an artillery unit however because no Artillery unit should ever get within 6km of the enemy armour... it is simply just too dangerous.
I think ground based HERMES with 100km range missiles deployed with artillery makes rather more sense as its almost 30kg warheads will make it effective against a range of targets... An artillery unit will have the recon assets to spot enemy targets at long range and the use of HERMES to take out all the enemies radars and air defence vehicles, and artillery to take out as much of the HQ and comms assets will expose the enemy unit to air power and land forces.
The biggest danger for artillery units are air attacks. C4ISR could
give them better insight about situation in the air around them. Do they
have any capabilities to defend themselves, when air force or near air
defense fails, than just changing positions, fortifying, masking,
building decoys, etc, known as passive air defense measures?
The HUGE advantage of using HERMES instead of Krisantema is that HERMES has a surface to surface missile system that is unified with the Pantsir-S1 SAM missile so one or two Pantsirs within the artillery unit could guide any SAMs fired from HERMES systems too.
medo- Posts : 4343
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I could see why you would use a Krisantema unit as part of an armour unit, but also separately as a long range anti armour ambush type unit that engages a target formation at very long range in the worst weather conditions and then manouvers to avoid artillery or air attack and then attacks again from a new position etc.
I could also see a Krisantema unit as being useful with its standoff range to engage the enemy and start hitting threats like air defence vehicles and troop carriers at long range so when the two armoured units get to main armament range the enemy force has been depleted.
I don't see them as part of an artillery unit however because no Artillery unit should ever get within 6km of the enemy armour... it is simply just too dangerous.
I think ground based HERMES with 100km range missiles deployed with artillery makes rather more sense as its almost 30kg warheads will make it effective against a range of targets... An artillery unit will have the recon assets to spot enemy targets at long range and the use of HERMES to take out all the enemies radars and air defence vehicles, and artillery to take out as much of the HQ and comms assets will expose the enemy unit to air power and land forces.
Agree. Hermes make more sense than Khrizantema. The only role for Khrizantema in artillery, that I could see, is a kind of protection against armor units, which could suddenly come through front line or against helicopters, which could come to close.
GarryB- Posts : 40538
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Agree. Hermes make more sense than Khrizantema. The only role for
Khrizantema in artillery, that I could see, is a kind of protection
against armor units, which could suddenly come through front line or
against helicopters, which could come to close.
The unification of HERMES and SA-19/Pantsir-S1 SAMs make it a very potent support unit for artillery.
Not only can the land launched HERMES hit targets out to 100km with terminal guidance for point targets, if it is fitted with Pantsir-S1 missiles it can engage enemy aircraft out to 20km or so.
The only area Krizantema could compete is in cost, and smaller lighter missiles, but the ground based Krizantema has a range of 6km only which is just too close for enemy armour and air power.
To replace ATGM teams in BRDM units with Konkurs and Fagot the Krisantema is a huge step forward in range, penetration, missile velocity, and of course all weather day night targeting performance.
For helos it offers large missile payload options for a decent engagement range of 8km and can be used against armour and also a range of other target types using laser beam riding for targeting.
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I should add that now that it is pretty clear that the GLONASS GPS system will be funded and maintained and globally operational now it makes sense to develop every new military system with GLONASS receivers... and that includes rockets and artillery shells.
Navstar guidance was better than map and compass but fairly pointless for most military purposes as the civilian frequency is only useable below certainly flight speeds (800km/h) and below certain altitudes and can be turned off without notice as the Russian forces found in Georgia.
Glonass will be critical to the changes being made to the Russian military... I have even read that Norway is in talks with Russia to use GLONASS because of the way GLONASS works (with eliptical orbits with the satellites) it is actually much more accurate near the poles, which includes the north pole, so for Norway the Glonass is a better system for things that require accuracy like traffic etc.
Anyway the point I am making is that now that Glonass can be trusted to actually exist and presumably money is being spent on Glonass receivers that Glonass guided ordinance will become much more common.
Navstar guidance was better than map and compass but fairly pointless for most military purposes as the civilian frequency is only useable below certainly flight speeds (800km/h) and below certain altitudes and can be turned off without notice as the Russian forces found in Georgia.
Glonass will be critical to the changes being made to the Russian military... I have even read that Norway is in talks with Russia to use GLONASS because of the way GLONASS works (with eliptical orbits with the satellites) it is actually much more accurate near the poles, which includes the north pole, so for Norway the Glonass is a better system for things that require accuracy like traffic etc.
Anyway the point I am making is that now that Glonass can be trusted to actually exist and presumably money is being spent on Glonass receivers that Glonass guided ordinance will become much more common.