2S35 Koalitsiya-SV 152mm

Well as the artillery UAV support improves and increases in performance then longer ranged artillery options become more useful, and in fact necessary.

A 152mm shell with perhaps laser homing terminal guidance and a 160km range would be an ideal tool to use with UCAVs in places like Syria where airsupport would become expensive, and in many cases excessive... two 250kg bombs from 6km altitude from an Su-24 would be a good way of dealing with an artillery position like a launch site for unguided rockets, or a comms centre or HQ, but against an enemy in a small civilian toyota light truck with a HMG or perhaps even TOW on the back then it would be over kill.

Just like tank gun launched missiles I doubt they will become the primary ammo for most units, but it is a handy arrow to have available if needed.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:152mm thermonuclear shell, with a warhead yield of 2.5 kilotons:

so thye were able to miniaturize a nuclear bomb to be a fuse for the shell ?  

Probably since the cold war, It'll be interesting if they could combine this yield with the extended range (170km) shell they're working on.

if i am not mistaken also the Americans were experimenting in nuclear ammunitions for their artillery since the 60s

Likely just a pure fission bomb with two bits of Uranium that are slammed together to create critical mass...

The 160km range rounds would be rather interesting and with decent C4IR would make fire bases potentially a cost effective way of supporting troops.

I would expect to get that range the rounds are reduced weight max propellent rounds perhaps even sub calibre with guidance and perhaps a 5-10kg payload, which would be effective if accurately delivered...

USSR had plenty of small nuclear warheads.thry used it in suit cases they were bringing into USA. And in S-200 missiles, in 650mm torpedoes, in antiship missiles. Even small missiles like kalibr and kh-55 can have one.

The backpack nukes were for special forces use in enemy territory... usually with a conventional equivalent of about 800 tons of TNT... so .8 kiloton, which sounds tiny for a nuke but it would be more than any man could carry in conventional explosives... you could take out a bridge or a dam or a power station or a train station or an underground rail network etc etc.

Well imagine this 152mm shell with a 2.5 kilo ton power that is probably about 40kgs in weight... reduce the physical weight to perhaps a half or less to about 18-20kg per unit and make it a shape that packs efficiently in a tube the size and cross section of a cruise missile... with a warhead capacity of perhaps 1 kiloton or 1,000 tons of TNT per warhead and in a 5,000km range cruise missile that can carry a 400kg payload... so say 15 of these warheads with perhaps a small booster rocket charge of 4-5kgs of rocket fuel with a parachute to retard the descent speed... you could design it so these charges are arranged down the centreline of the weapon with fuel tanks distributed along the length of the weapon as well with the turbojet motor at the rear... so as it flys along it manouvers from target to target... waypoint to waypoint launching individual warheads up in to the air to fall back down and detonate after a short delay after the cruise missile has flown past to a safe distance... these fission explosions would be quite dirty in terms of radiation and with ground bursts a lot of soil will be irradiated too so while their kill radius wont be very big the radiation levels will be substantial and persistent...

The last warhead can be fixed inside the weapon to destroy the final target but multiple targets along the way can also be engaged too to maximise the effect of each missile.

The new nuclear powered missiles with unlimited range could carry large numbers of small warheads to maximise its effect too, but I agree that use against carrier type targets would be interesting as they could radically increase the performance of these missiles by reducing the warhead size to that needed for these tiny and relatively light nuclear warheads which means more fuel for better range and terminal speed because with a normal warhead of 400-500kg replaced by a 30kg nuke warhead you could carry an extra 300-400 kgs of fuel to both fly further and as it is approaching its target it will be 300-400kg lighter than a missile with the standard conventional warhead...

Lighter weight means faster, longer ranged, and able to perform sharper turns when manouvering...

So according to the translation from Yandex the top picture from top left down the column:

Uses propellent charges of more energy.

Increases length of gun barrels

Shells more aerodynamic shape

Projectiles with base bleed design (to reduce drag and extend range)

Column right top to bottom:

Development of projectiles with rocket engine

Making projectiles of lighter materials to increase range

optimising pitch of the projectile in flight to reduce drag and increase flight performance.

In the third image at the bottom of the above post at the bottom centre the round with control fins states above it:

DVAB with satellite navigation and autonomous homing.

It also states higher firing rate, extended range, more powerful ammo, more accurate ammo...

Another factor... when they talk about range and accuracy are they talking about unguided rounds... I suspect not.

I would guess they are talking about improvements with standard dumb rounds fired by the new platform.

For instance the 1.5 to 2.5 factor increase in range, for MSTA, that is a standard HE round with a 24.7km range and a base bleed round with a range of 28.5km, so the smaller magnifier of 1.5 with the standard round means 37km range, and the larger magnifier for the extended range 28.5km range base bleed round is 71.25km which sounds about the sort of ranges they were talking about, but with the new ammo.

To be clear the number of wheels is not an obvious indicator of the chassis... with different vehicles they can use different numbers of wheels and different positioning of those wheels because of weight distribution...

For instance the ZSU-57-2 is mounted on a lightened T-54 chassis... the T-54 normally has 5 road wheels on each side, but the reduced weight ZSU-57-2 has four road wheels on each side... this might be an Armata chassis but with a reduced number of wheels.

Remember the turret is unmanned so whatever chassis they use needs to have three crew... it is easier to fit them in an Armata chassis that already has three crew in the hull than the T-90 chassis with just the driver in the hull.

I would like to see them replace the existing 130mm gun mounts on the Kirovs they are upgrading with a twin barrel Coalition mount in 152mm calibre... it would give them time to develop the gun ready for destroyer sized vessels to carry it when they are ready, and will give the companies that designed it some work and experience so perhaps they could look at a 203mm upgraded weapon for land and sea use... which could be mounted on new build cruisers and perhaps on new landing ships...

The improved shell range on its own would be valuable and investment in a variety of guided shells would also be useful too... a 152mm shell has plenty of room for all sorts of things like optical sensors... being able to fire a single 152mm round weighing 50kgs into a large group of incoming drones that you can track with the main ships radar (the drones and the outgoing shell) and send a laser beam signal to the 152mm shell so it detonates amongst the drones for max effect would result in a cheap air defence capacity with nose mounted control fins able to steer the round to an optimal position for detonation without being expensive... and being able to fire them at over 100 rpm would make it very effective against a range of threats from cheap simple drones to enemy speed boats and missiles...

A 203mm gun expands that potential even further... and the land based potential for long range smart ammo in 203mm calibre is enormous too.

If 152mm rounds with a 170km range are being tested then 203mm rounds should be able to reach much further with a bigger payload...