Kurganets & Boomerang Discussions Thread #1

GarryB wrote:
MMW radar is AFAIK in the Ka and Ku bands.

Most of Ka band is in the MMW, but Ku band is in the cm wave region.

collegeboy16 wrote:

GarryB wrote:

BTW like I said the threat of 30mm cannon rounds cooking off was never the concern... it was 125mm propellent stubs exploding with regard to the Burlak, but in the case of IFVs a criticism leveled at the Ukrainian BTR-4 was that its ammo is external and therefore vulnerable even to large calibre sniper fire. The same criticism was leveled at the external RWS of the Lynx.

I doubt they would consider such an arrangement for the BMPT.

for BMPT yes, 120 mm gun/mortar + gsh-6-23 combo ftw  . whit this thing, well jsut have to wait and see.

Why not 203 mm gun/mortar?   Despite having a little less HE power, 125mm fires a far bigger variety of rounds (HE, AP, ATGM), and has more range, elevation wise. Considering tank hull is pretty expensive, it's pretty pointless to mount mortars on it, especially when they would be mostly used in indirect fire role anyway.

collegeboy16 wrote:

GarryB wrote:

BTW like I said the threat of 30mm cannon rounds cooking off was never the concern... it was 125mm propellent stubs exploding with regard to the Burlak, but in the case of IFVs a criticism leveled at the Ukrainian BTR-4 was that its ammo is external and therefore vulnerable even to large calibre sniper fire. The same criticism was leveled at the external RWS of the Lynx.

I doubt they would consider such an arrangement for the BMPT.

for BMPT yes, 120 mm gun/mortar + gsh-6-23 combo ftw  . whit this thing, well jsut have to wait and see.

10,000 rounds a minute firing 23 mm rounds from the GSH-6-23 may'be overkill and maybe a smaller caliber equivalent (Yak-B-12.7, GShG-7.62) might be more appropriate; however with the GSH-6-23 you'll be able to fire well over a 100 rounds holding the trigger down for less than second, add a Shtora "soft-kill" apparatus and jihadists hiding in Dagestan will be running and wetting their pants simultaneously.

Why not 203 mm gun/mortar?  Despite having a little less HE power, 125mm fires a far bigger variety of rounds (HE, AP, ATGM), and has more range, elevation wise. Considering tank hull is pretty expensive, it's pretty pointless to mount mortars on it, especially when they would be mostly used in indirect fire role anyway.

The 120mm gun/mortar would be primarily used for direct fire on the BMPT. The 120mm system and rounds have already been modernized so it makes sense to use it for future vehicles.

In the anti-armor roll the Gran 120mm mortar round would be devastating against any MBT out their and has significantly farther range than any GLATGM in service. As a plus, it hits with a top attack flight profile.

10,000 rounds a minute firing 23 mm rounds from the GSH-6-23 may'be overkill and maybe a smaller caliber equivalent (Yak-B-12.7, GShG-7.62) might be more appropriate;

The GSh-6-23 has no windup and an instantaneous  jump to high fire rate due to its gas operation. On the BMPT it would fire for a fraction of a second at a time and the HE laden 23mm shells would contact like a massive explosive shotgun blast. It would be a brutal weapon for the anti-infantry roll.

Armata is going to enter serial production with an APS. Since APS can detect the direction of the threat, they can queue the gunner were to return fire.

Zivo wrote:

Why not 203 mm gun/mortar?  Despite having a little less HE power, 125mm fires a far bigger variety of rounds (HE, AP, ATGM), and has more range, elevation wise. Considering tank hull is pretty expensive, it's pretty pointless to mount mortars on it, especially when they would be mostly used in indirect fire role anyway.

The 120mm gun/mortar would be primarily used for direct fire on the BMPT. The 120mm system and rounds have already been modernized so it makes sense to use it for future vehicles.

In the anti-armor roll the Gran 120mm mortar round would be devastating against any MBT out their and has significantly farther range than any GLATGM in service. As a plus, it hits with a top attack flight profile.

10,000 rounds a minute firing 23 mm rounds from the GSH-6-23 may'be overkill and maybe a smaller caliber equivalent (Yak-B-12.7, GShG-7.62) might be more appropriate;

The GSh-6-23 has no windup and an instantaneous  jump to high fire rate due to its gas operation. On the BMPT it would fire for a fraction of a second at a time and the HE laden 23mm shells would contact like a massive explosive shotgun blast. It would be a brutal weapon for the anti-infantry roll.

Armata is going to enter serial production with an APS. Since APS can detect the direction of the threat, they can queue the gunner were to return fire.

I'm well aware of the advantages, the gas operated Russian gatling guns are vastly superior to the western analogues due to fact that they're gas operated. For the reasons why they're superior are 1.) Like you mentioned it takes very little time to get to top firing speed. 2.) They have higher firing rates, not just the GSH-6-23, but the Yak-B-12.7, GSH-6-30, GSH-7.62 all have higher firing rates than their analogues. 3.) Because they don't require an external powering source they're far less likely to fail in crucial moments.

The main case I'm trying to make is that they should keep their options open, as you said the 23 mm with HE-Frag rounds can act like an long range grenade launcher, but what the Yak-B-12.7 lacks (in power in comparison) it makes up in ammunition carrying capacity and 12.7 x 108 mm high explosive and armor piercing rounds can be still effective against concrete cover. They should have multiple secondary armament options on the table for different scenarios, for areas where there's need for more power and range they should go with a 23 mm and above armament, for closed in areas like city streets they could go with a vulcan chambered in either the 12.7 mm or 14.5 mm for the extra ammunition capacity.

magnumcromagnon wrote:
The main case I'm trying to make is that they should keep their options open, as you said the 23 mm with HE-Frag rounds can act like an long range grenade launcher, but what the Yak-B-12.7 lacks (in power in comparison) it makes up in ammunition carrying capacity and 12.7 x 108 mm high explosive and armor piercing rounds can be still effective against concrete cover. They should have multiple secondary armament options on the table for different scenarios, for areas where there's need for more power and range they should go with a 23 mm and above armament, for closed in areas like city streets they could go with a vulcan chambered in either the 12.7 mm or 14.5 mm for the extra ammunition capacity.

imo if they are worried about ammo capacity then simple lowering of burst fire rate would fix that. not that many units use yak-b-12.7 anyway plus they are kind of eliminating calibres and I think small calibres like 12.7 and 14.5 would be best relegated for small arms use.
@etaepsilonk 120mm gun/mortar as zivo said is mostly for direct fire with HE shells/mortar rounds. the 125mm HE round is powerful enough and with new guns and new rounds could even penetrate IFV armor, however it is still inefficient if we take into account HE carried in a round.
The 125 projectile has fins a quarter of its length and has a huge propellant charge, eliminate the fins and drastically reduce the propellant charge and you can have twice the ammo load of armata mbt. and as zivo said 120mm anti tank mortar rounds would be dangerous to most tanks out there (except of course armatas and other unmanned 4th gens) with top attack. you could have a round with rocket power to go through APS while executing vertical dive and punch throough the roof armor, then go boom. not to mention 120mm gun/mortar can have huge elevation range.

Why not 203 mm gun/mortar? Razz

A 120mm mortar shell is a very potent round that is very effective agaisnt a variety of targets. 203mm ammo is too large for the vast majority of targets and would greatly reduce available ammo due to its size.

Despite having a little less HE power, 125mm fires a far bigger variety of rounds (HE, AP, ATGM), and has more range, elevation wise.

Actually the 125mm round is handicapped by its enormous propellent charge and very high velocity... if you are familiar with small arms it is like comparing a .223 round with a .22lr. Both have similar calibre projectiles but the 223 has an enormous shell case to accelerate the round to much higher velocities. A tank needs high velocity ammo to defeat heavy armour. A BMPT is not supposed to be fighting tanks so a high velocity gun wastes space.

Considering tank hull is pretty expensive, it's pretty pointless to mount mortars on it, especially when they would be mostly used in indirect fire role anyway.

Mortars in the Russian military are used in the direct fire role... that is the point of the tank base. Mortars are very powerful and effective weapons but in the direct fire role are very accurate too.

The 120mm rifled gun/mortar can fire a wide range of 120mm mortar bombs including NATO/French rounds, as well as 120mm shells and laser homing missiles. I rather suspect there are more 120mm types of ammo than 125mm types as they can also fire the 122mm kitilov laser homing missiles too as well as the Gran missiles.

10,000 rounds a minute firing 23 mm rounds from the GSH-6-23 may'be overkill and maybe a smaller caliber equivalent (Yak-B-12.7, GShG-7.62) might be more appropriate; however with the GSH-6-23 you'll be able to fire well over a 100 rounds holding the trigger down for less than second, add a Shtora "soft-kill" apparatus and jihadists hiding in Dagestan will be running and wetting their pants simultaneously.

The number of fired rounds can be controlled and set via switches... a five round burst would sound like a single shot and all five rounds would land on target almost at once with a cluster bomb like effect... the main effectiveness is the HE capacity of the 23mm round which is generally better than for 20mm cannon.

In the anti-armor roll the Gran 120mm mortar round would be devastating against any MBT out their and has significantly farther range than any GLATGM in service. As a plus, it hits with a top attack flight profile.

Indeed... 9km for Gran from standard mortars and perhaps up to 13km from Vena (120mm rifled gun mortar), and 12km from Kitolov in standard 122mm guns.

The GSh-6-23 has no windup and an instantaneous jump to high fire rate due to its gas operation. On the BMPT it would fire for a fraction of a second at a time and the HE laden 23mm shells would contact like a massive explosive shotgun blast. It would be a brutal weapon for the anti-infantry roll.

There is a thread where there is a ground unmanned vehicle platform with a 6 barrel gun mounted... a devastating weapon...

I'm well aware of the advantages, the gas operated Russian gatling guns are vastly superior to the western analogues due to fact that they're gas operated.

Not to mention the GSh-23-6 weighs about 75kgs and has twice the rate of fire the US equivalent 20mm Vulcan has... with a much lower velocity but much heavier HE projectile. Of course with a lighter projectile it could be high velocity too.

The main case I'm trying to make is that they should keep their options open, as you said the 23 mm with HE-Frag rounds can act like an long range grenade launcher, but what the Yak-B-12.7 lacks (in power in comparison) it makes up in ammunition carrying capacity and 12.7 x 108 mm high explosive and armor piercing rounds can be still effective against concrete cover. They should have multiple secondary armament options on the table for different scenarios, for areas where there's need for more power and range they should go with a 23 mm and above armament, for closed in areas like city streets they could go with a vulcan chambered in either the 12.7 mm or 14.5 mm for the extra ammunition capacity.

Actually the 23mm GSh-23-6 uses the 23 x 115mm round which is based on the 14.5 x 114mm round case so in actual fact the ammo for the 23mm cannon is very compact and very similar to the size and shape of the 14.5mm ammo.

If you had an ammo box able to hold 1,400 12.7mm rounds, that same ammo box could probably hold perhaps 1100 14.5mm rounds and 600 23mm cannon shells. The 23mm cannon shells would be far more effective than the 12.7mm rounds in the HE role. The 14.5mm rounds would be more useful with a SLAP round but then a SLAP round for the 23mm cannon shell would be even more powerful still.

Analysis from WWII showed that 20mm cannon shells were 4-5 times more effective at damaging and destroying aircraft than HMG calibres.

Here is a comparison of a 23 x 115mm round and the 30 x 165mm shells:

GarryB wrote:

Why not 203 mm gun/mortar?  Razz

A 120mm mortar shell is a very potent round that is very effective agaisnt a variety of targets. 203mm ammo is too large for the vast majority of targets and would greatly reduce available ammo due to its size.

Despite having a little less HE power, 125mm fires a far bigger variety of rounds (HE, AP, ATGM), and has more range, elevation wise.

Actually the 125mm round is handicapped by its enormous propellent charge and very high velocity... if you are familiar with small arms it is like comparing a .223 round with a .22lr. Both have similar calibre projectiles but the 223 has an enormous shell case to accelerate the round to much higher velocities. A tank needs high velocity ammo to defeat heavy armour. A BMPT is not supposed to be fighting tanks so a high velocity gun wastes space.

Considering tank hull is pretty expensive, it's pretty pointless to mount mortars on it, especially when they would be mostly used in indirect fire role anyway.

Mortars in the Russian military are used in the direct fire role... that is the point of the tank base. Mortars are very powerful and effective weapons but in the direct fire role are very accurate too.

The 120mm rifled gun/mortar can fire a wide range of 120mm mortar bombs including NATO/French rounds, as well as 120mm shells and laser homing missiles. I rather suspect there are more 120mm types of ammo than 125mm types as they can also fire the 122mm kitilov laser homing missiles too as well as the Gran missiles.

10,000 rounds a minute firing 23 mm rounds from the GSH-6-23 may'be overkill and maybe a smaller caliber equivalent (Yak-B-12.7, GShG-7.62) might be more appropriate; however with the GSH-6-23 you'll be able to fire well over a 100 rounds holding the trigger down for less than second, add a Shtora "soft-kill" apparatus and jihadists hiding in Dagestan will be running and wetting their pants simultaneously.

The number of fired rounds can be controlled and set via switches... a five round burst would sound like a single shot and all five rounds would land on target almost at once with a cluster bomb like effect... the main effectiveness is the HE capacity of the 23mm round which is generally better than for 20mm cannon.

In the anti-armor roll the Gran 120mm mortar round would be devastating against any MBT out their and has significantly farther range than any GLATGM in service. As a plus, it hits with a top attack flight profile.

Indeed... 9km for Gran from standard mortars and perhaps up to 13km from Vena (120mm rifled gun mortar), and 12km from Kitolov in standard 122mm guns.

The GSh-6-23 has no windup and an instantaneous  jump to high fire rate due to its gas operation. On the BMPT it would fire for a fraction of a second at a time and the HE laden 23mm shells would contact like a massive explosive shotgun blast. It would be a brutal weapon for the anti-infantry roll.

There is a thread where there is a ground unmanned vehicle platform with a 6 barrel gun mounted... a devastating weapon...

I'm well aware of the advantages, the gas operated Russian gatling guns are vastly superior to the western analogues due to fact that they're gas operated.

Not to mention the GSh-23-6 weighs about 75kgs and has twice the rate of fire the US equivalent 20mm Vulcan has... with a much lower velocity but much heavier HE projectile. Of course with a lighter projectile it could be high velocity too.

The main case I'm trying to make is that they should keep their options open, as you said the 23 mm with HE-Frag rounds can act like an long range grenade launcher, but what the Yak-B-12.7 lacks (in power in comparison) it makes up in ammunition carrying capacity and 12.7 x 108 mm high explosive and armor piercing rounds can be still effective against concrete cover. They should have multiple secondary armament options on the table for different scenarios, for areas where there's need for more power and range they should go with a 23 mm and above armament, for closed in areas like city streets they could go with a vulcan chambered in either the 12.7 mm or 14.5 mm for the extra ammunition capacity.

Actually the 23mm GSh-23-6 uses the 23 x 115mm round which is based on the 14.5 x 114mm round case so in actual fact the ammo for the 23mm cannon is very compact and very similar to the size and shape of the 14.5mm ammo.

If you had an ammo box able to hold 1,400 12.7mm rounds, that same ammo box could probably hold perhaps 1100 14.5mm rounds and 600 23mm cannon shells. The 23mm cannon shells would be far more effective than the 12.7mm rounds in the HE role. The 14.5mm rounds would be more useful with a SLAP round but then a SLAP round for the 23mm cannon shell would be even more powerful still.

Analysis from WWII showed that 20mm cannon shells were 4-5 times more effective at damaging and destroying aircraft than HMG calibres.

Here is a comparison of a 23 x 115mm round and the 30 x 165mm shells:

Thanks, +1 for the info!

  Happy to discuss...

To GarryB:
Actually, 203mm was just a hyperbole, for tank mortar platform, I was suggesting something like this:
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/eng/M728.html

It provides a much bigger HE punch than any 120mm or even 6-inch artillery, ammo is pretty compact, short barrel allows easy maneuvering in urban environments, and the vhole vehicle doubles-up as engineering vehicle as well. What do you think about it?   

etaepsilonk wrote:To GarryB:
Actually, 203mm was just a hyperbole, for tank mortar platform, I was suggesting something like this:
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/eng/M728.html

It provides a much bigger HE punch than any 120mm or even 6-inch artillery, ammo is pretty compact, short barrel allows easy maneuvering in urban environments, and the vhole vehicle doubles-up as engineering vehicle as well. What do you think about it?   

it looks like sh!t. prolly very short range and very inaccurate for anything xcept that too.
also too much HE power, it would demolish buildings if used against the kind of targets in urban combat(peek a boo rpg crews, machine gun nests, sniper positions etc.) which is a big no-no since you create a lot of debris.

collegeboy16 wrote:

etaepsilonk wrote:To GarryB:
Actually, 203mm was just a hyperbole, for tank mortar platform, I was suggesting something like this:
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/eng/M728.html

It provides a much bigger HE punch than any 120mm or even 6-inch artillery, ammo is pretty compact, short barrel allows easy maneuvering in urban environments, and the vhole vehicle doubles-up as engineering vehicle as well. What do you think about it?   

it looks like sh!t. prolly very short range and very inaccurate for anything xcept that too.
also too much HE power, it would demolish buildings if used against the kind of targets in urban combat(peek a boo rpg crews, machine gun nests, sniper positions etc.) which is a big no-no since you create a lot of debris.

Max range is 2400 metres. But if you want more range, why don't use non-LOS artillery, for which, the tank level armor is unneccessary?

And please, explain, why ability to demolish buildings is a disadvantage?

It provides a much bigger HE punch than any 120mm or even 6-inch artillery, ammo is pretty compact, short barrel allows easy maneuvering in urban environments, and the vhole vehicle doubles-up as engineering vehicle as well. What do you think about it?

Obviously for the Russians it is non standard ammo. The short barrel and mounting of the gun suggests very short range which makes tank level armour necessary which will reduce performance and increase cost.

To be brutally honest instead of one of these vehicles I would have a proper engineer vehicle and replace the short range heavy firepower with something like the 2S4 Tulip. A 240mm mortar firing a 130kg HE mortar bomb 9.5km with a standard shell and 18km for an extended range bomb would be rather more useful for leveling a building in a single shot (especially with the new electronic GLONASS guidance packages/fuse systems) than any old engineer vehicle from the 50s or 60s.

BTW the HE Plastic warhead of that 165mm calibre gun is basically the equivalent of HESH.

Another aspect is that Russian Engineers have other assets at their command... if they needed to level a few buildings or even an enemy minefield they have TOS-1... which has tank level armour and some much heavier fire power...

If they need it of course they can call in an air strike or artillery.

In the BMPT role they don't need this level of HE power, but decent power is useful at modest cost. The 120mm gun/mortar is a good compromise between fire power and ammo size and weight. A 120mm mortar round is not tiny but doesn't take up nearly as much room as a 125mm MBT gun round and propellent stub. It has slightly less HE performance at 16kgs, but the 120mm shells are comparable to 122mm and 125mm rounds and would include both HE and HEAT rounds, as well as various guided missiles already in standard use in the Russian military.

Indeed in the armata divisions the distinction between Mortar carrier and BMPT could be fairly blurred as both will likely carry very long barrel 120mm weapons, though the latter could include other weapons like grenade launchers (40mm Balkan) and gatling guns (23mm GSH-23-6) to allow it to engage a range of target types.

GarryB wrote:

It provides a much bigger HE punch than any 120mm or even 6-inch artillery, ammo is pretty compact, short barrel allows easy maneuvering in urban environments, and the vhole vehicle doubles-up as engineering vehicle as well. What do you think about it?

Obviously for the Russians it is non standard ammo. The short barrel and mounting of the gun suggests very short range which makes tank level armour necessary which will reduce performance and increase cost.

To be brutally honest instead of one of these vehicles I would have a proper engineer vehicle and replace the short range heavy firepower with something like the 2S4 Tulip. A 240mm mortar firing a 130kg HE mortar bomb 9.5km with a standard shell and 18km for an extended range bomb would be rather more useful for leveling a building in a single shot (especially with the new electronic GLONASS guidance packages/fuse systems) than any old engineer vehicle from the 50s or 60s.

BTW the HE Plastic warhead of that 165mm calibre gun is basically the equivalent of HESH.

I would seriously love to see a modernized version of the 2S4 Tulip on the armata platform. Usually with that much firepower the need for a fast firing rate would be diminished, but why not? Lets collectively fuel the fires of everyones inner sadist.    

Maybe a faster firing rate combined with GLONASS shells, a modern target acquisition suite that could reposition quickly to fire upon different targets. A modernized version should also come with support vehicles like target acquisition radar such as Zoo-1M and ammunition supply vehicles (which would aid with the firing rate). Maybe new rounds that could contain a small gliding UAV, or a small UCAV with a small RCS that could scout wide areas and pin-point locations of militants or even fire a munition to take them out by itself (assuming that the electronics would not be ruined by the initial mortar propellant charge).

etaepsilonk wrote:

Max range is 2400 metres. But if you want more range, why don't use non-LOS artillery, for which, the tank level armor is unneccessary?

And please, explain, why ability to demolish buildings is a disadvantage?

its because its already covered by other stuff garryB just listed plus as I said the kind of targets most commonly met in urban combat dont need that HE power, if you cant manage to hit them directly you want to just take off parts of cover with HE shells then switch to gsh-6-23. In that way you kill whats inside but dont bring the building down which would be a problem as it would severly restrict mobility and you need a lot more 165mm HE rounds to pulverize them.

Well there is a reason why these short snubbed monsters are thing of the past. Even if they would probably prove themselves in urban warfare against insurgents. Engineering vehicles based on modern tanks usually don't have heavy armament at all. There is nothing wrong with ability to demolish building and use dozers to work on the rouble. But with advancement in artillery and bombs You can have such luxury without extra risks and there is no need for new calibre. I really doubt that snubbed nose low velocity gun has effective range bigger than 1 km.

Of course, such short barrel cannon has it's disadvantages, but I'm pretty surprised, that no one of you are pointing to it's advantages.

In BMPT role, such cannon like 165 mm I mentioned would be superior to Nona mortar in pretty much every aspect, except, maybe, range, but even that isn't going to be significantly different.

etaepsilonk wrote:Of course, such short barrel cannon has it's disadvantages, but I'm pretty surprised, that no one of you are pointing to it's advantages.

In BMPT role, such cannon like 165 mm I mentioned would be superior to Nona mortar in pretty much every aspect, except, maybe, range, but even that isn't going to be significantly different.

well it would even be superior to Koalition in terms of HE power of its rounds.    aside from being too powerful for the job(and with other such tools present), it wont be very accurate(slow and comes from a short barrel?), and would prolly have less than 30 rounds carried. didnt include logistics since no one will think of putting one on a BMPT.

etaepsilonk wrote:Of course, such short barrel cannon has it's disadvantages, but I'm pretty surprised, that no one of you are pointing to it's advantages.

In BMPT role, such cannon like 165 mm I mentioned would be superior to Nona mortar in pretty much every aspect, except, maybe, range, but even that isn't going to be significantly different.

Such a vehicle specialized for urban combat has been tried and rejected, German WW2 Brumbar is a good exampel.

runaway wrote:

etaepsilonk wrote:Of course, such short barrel cannon has it's disadvantages, but I'm pretty surprised, that no one of you are pointing to it's advantages.

In BMPT role, such cannon like 165 mm I mentioned would be superior to Nona mortar in pretty much every aspect, except, maybe, range, but even that isn't going to be significantly different.

Such a vehicle specialized for urban combat has been tried and rejected, German WW2 Brumbar is a good exampel.

WW2? Man, M728 was successfully used up until the first gulf war  


To GarryB:
Stating that MLRS vehicles are somehow superior to cannons is wrong. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In this case Buratino is an area weapon, so removing some small barricade with 24 missile volley would be a bit of waste of ammo, don't you agree?   

Tiulpan is also hardly comparable. M728 would be able to move more closely, and therefore, it's fire would be much more accurate, and VERY expensive guided rounds would be unneccessary.



To collegeboy16:
Koalitsija and this are weapons of entirely different categories (although I could probably argue that 6 inch caliber is becoming a bit small and it would make sense to increase it to about 170mm or so, but that is a different matter). In this case we are comparing M135 and Nona cannons, mounted on a tank chassis. Right now I see that the former is clearly superior in almost all aspects. Feel free to prove that I'm wrong  

And BTW, with modern FCS, M135 accuracy is hardly an issue. On the contrary, actually. Shorter range weapons' ballistics are a bit easier to calculate and with less probability of error  

So far, using a snub gun to shoot HE, HEAT, and ATGM's hasn't been a very successful layout. I doubt the next-gen BMPT would repeat those mistakes.

Just so you know, there is an Armata based engineering vehicle planned that has a 30mm autocannon, and a large rack of 24 thermobaric rockets.

BTW, first pic I see of BMPT sides without ERA attached:

http://al-datr.livejournal.com/74100.html

I would seriously love to see a modernized version of the 2S4 Tulip on the armata platform. Usually with that much firepower the need for a fast firing rate would be diminished, but why not? Lets collectively fuel the fires of everyones inner sadist

Arguments for and against can be summed up as:

For:

Very powerful projectile would be devastating against most targets with a single shot.

Large calibre = longer range than smaller calibre mortars.

Large calibre leaves lots of space for electronics for missiles development.

Less ammo needed to meet goals because of their power.

New more accurate guided shells cheap and offer level of performance not possible before.

Against:

Large and heavy ammo means fewer shells carried.

Large shell excessive for most targets.

Low rate of fire.

In BMPT role, such cannon like 165 mm I mentioned would be superior to Nona mortar in pretty much every aspect, except, maybe, range, but even that isn't going to be significantly different.

Non standard new ammo type, with low rate of fire, and low ammo capacity.

Extremely short range puts vehicle in enemy fire range.

Stating that MLRS vehicles are somehow superior to cannons is wrong. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In this case Buratino is an area weapon, so removing some small barricade with 24 missile volley would be a bit of waste of ammo, don't you agree?

It can be used in the direct fire mode... in which case a single rocket can be used.

Tiulpan is also hardly comparable. M728 would be able to move more closely, and therefore, it's fire would be much more accurate, and VERY expensive guided rounds would be unneccessary.

Laser homing missiles worked out at something like the cost of 5 standard rounds, so they weren't that expensive. The new guidance packages are $1,000 US each so they are very cheap and offer all weather day/night accuracy.

TR1 wrote:BTW, first pic I see of BMPT sides without ERA attached:

http://al-datr.livejournal.com/74100.html

Is that T-72 chassis or something else ?

Do you have pics of T-72 or T-90 being loaded on IL-76 ?