ZSU-23-4 and ZU-23-2 AA Guns: Views

Not really new, during the soviet invasion of afghanistan ZU-23 towed gun mounts were lashed to the flatbed rear of ural trucks to provide serious fire power when needed... normally with no extra armour at all.

A smaller lighter jeep like vehicle with remote control rear flat bed mounted twin 23mm cannon would be a very good solution too... especially if the ammo feed was rejiggered to allow several hundred or even thousand rounds for each gun to be loaded in place in enlarged ammo magazines fitted to the gun mount so the crew did not need to leave the cabin to reload.

they have learnt a lot in Syria, and its now obvious from this that they see how useful AA guns can be in direct fire role, just like they designing a new lightweight anti tank?material gun which with its cheap effective rounds is what you want in a prolonged war. A while ago Garryb posted a pic of a russian designed 4x4 with a zu-23-2 on the back it seemed like it was remote controlled from inside the cab, we both suggested that it would have been ideal to increase ammo load and encase the gun in metal capsule to protect ammo from shell splinters. cant remember which thread it was in. but obvious something they sw was useful from Syria.

they have learnt a lot in Syria, and its now obvious from this that they see how useful AA guns can be in direct fire role, just like they designing a new lightweight anti tank?material gun which with its cheap effective rounds is what you want in a prolonged war.

To be fair they have for some time used SPAAGs in the ground role... from the twin 14.5mm HMG mount in BTR-40s, through twin 23mm cannon on flat bed trucks as well as Shilka platforms and ZSU-57-2 vehicles and Tunguska vehicles they already have a good history of dual use AA guns as devastating weapons in the ground support role.

Together with the 30mm cannon equipped BMPs and well as 73mm gun armed BMPs for heavier HE direct fire power led to the BMP-3 with both 30mm cannon fire power and 100mm direct and indirect fire HE fire power there is no shortage of fire power in Russian units...

Their 120mm mortar units have been pretty famous since WWII and also providing serious front line fire power, together of course with devastating artillery in the form of Grad rocket batteries.

Older pics

Last years

Firstly would it be possible for the mods to change thread title to zsu-23-4 and zu-23-2 systems please.

Polish upgrade similar to Russian zom-1 etc etc

https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/zu-23-2-pilica-rocket-artillery-set-anti-aircraft-poland/amp/










South African SP version.
Werwolf Mk2 mine-resistant platform, a heavily glazed armored jacket is installed, in which the Soviet ZU-23-2 nests , in the front of the installation, above the driver's cabin, a Cup-T machine gun , caliber 12.7mm, is installed , covering, among other things, the dead sector of the anti-aircraft gun, because its turret does not rotate 360 ​​degrees.

Pay attention to the absence of any target search and guidance systems.


https://strangernn.livejournal.com/36981.html

Ukrainian upgraded version of ZSU-23-4 called Donets Ukrainian modernization developed by Malyshev Tank Factory in Kharkov. Improved turret from ZSU-23-4 armed with two additional paired man-portable air-defense systems “Strela-10” was installed on chassis from T-80UD main battle tank. Ammunition for 23 mm autocannons increased two times.



A few Iranian systems. One with enlarged magazine. SP mesbah, and a triple barrel gattling 23mm.




And couple of other zu-23-2 systems, notice last pic being used to cover a valley ideal for this type of defence.

A good clip of Russian and Soviet AD systems, including ZSU-23-4 upgraded version.

Showcasing the Zu-23-2 with a new radar to target drones and using the new programmable 23mm airburst. This will be similar to the ZOM upgrades which allows automatic functions and tracking.

Airburst rounds in 23mm is impressive....

We might see a resurrection of these systems as air defense as for years they were thought as redundant when it came to AD and used mostly as direct fire role. With the ZOM-1 and ZOM-2 upgrades etc that I posted earlier on this thread along with the airburst rounds would be a good a d cheap method of taking out drones as well as still having a capacity to take out aircraft that get to close for its Verba/SA-24 or Strela-10. I think it was Serbia who designed a Strela-10 missiles extended range (double) to 10km range could also be adopted. And such Iranian systems like I also posted earlier in the thread, the SP Mesbah (8 barrels),or the 23mm triple barrelled gattling gun, would be a step even further. Iran also adopted a larger magazine (also posted earlier) and of course a new lease of life for ZSU-23-4.

Russia is now in a position to not only sell 23mm airburst rounds to export customers who still use these systems but they could also offer upgrades to these systems, or a step further dig out old ZSU-23-4 and produce Zu-23-2 and sell on export market. After seeing what FPV drones can do countries might be interested in such systems. Of course these systems would also work better with EW systems but not every country will have the money to buy EW systems in large numbers and Russia may not be ready to sell such sensitive equipment abroad. And FPV drones are very cheap and can be numerous so TOR and Pantsir could be an expensive solution.

I would certainly think as a minimum all existing countries using 23mm systems will want this new type of ammo.

Not just that, the 23mm cannon shell from the 23 x 152mm high velocity Shilka SPAAG and ZU-23 towed cannon is also used in the 23 x 115mm gun used in the tail gun of the Tu-22M3 and Il-76 type aircraft as well as the chin turret gun of the later model HInds.

The smaller propellant capacity means lower recoil, allowing a massive rate of fire at the cost of a low muzzle velocity of about 700m/s.

Rate of fire puts lots of projectiles on target at once even if they do take their time getting there and the smaller rounds means more ready to fire rounds can be carried on a give vehicle.

Equally interesting there is a version of the KPV 14.5mm HMG that can easily be converted to the KPVB in 23 x 115mm (from 14.5 x 114mm) which would be a single barrel machine gun with a 600 rpm rate of fire that would allow very short bursts or single shots to be fired easily enough (when you have airburst ammo you don't need an enormous rate of fire... but ironically in air defence you have your target box which is a theoretical box ahead of a moving target where the target will be when the shells fired at it arrive. For a stationary hovering target its target box would be its own dimensions where it is currently hovering, but even a stationary hovering target can suddenly decide to move so say the target is 1km away and the flight time of the cannon shells means those cannon shells will reach the target in 1.3 seconds... you can then extrapolate based on the known performance of the target where that target could move to in 1.3 seconds and that box which would include starting to fly backwards or forwards or left or right or climbing or descending or any combination of any or all of those manouvers... how far will the target move and draw an imaginary box around that airspace.

To shoot that target down what you need to do is fill that entire box with as many fragments as you can so airburst shells fired from 1km away in a burst of 10 shells spread around that box set to detonate in a scattered pattern inside that box so no part of that box is free of fragments... achieve that and you will assure your kill... remember your target might be the size of someones hand.

Now with 23mm cannon shells a target moving forward might slow down but will rarely head backwards and the chances of them climbing or descending are not high so you can concentrate your shots in directions the target is most likely to move but if they see you open fire they might drop down behind cover, but your shells don't fly straight and lobbing them over direct line of sight cover to explode in the safe area below the target will get a kill too.

The point is that airburst 57mm shells will have more fragments spreading over a greater area and the fragments can be heavier to deal with stronger targets, but 23mm rounds could be part of HMG loadout with an anti material 23 x 115mm version...

A SLAP round in 23 x 115mm would be very impressive.... you could use the larger calibre to have a heavier penetrator than used for 50 cal rounds which should enable the penetration to be maintained to greater ranges... the Europeans tried a 15mm anti material rifle based on the 14.5mm HMG round that could penetrate 40mm at 1km range so a 23mm cannon round based APFSDS round should do rather better, especially with improved propellants and penetrators etc etc.

There is a South African anti material rifle that uses a 14.5mm barrel for armour piercing rounds and 20mm cannon shells for HE effect on soft targets. I seem to remember the 20mm was the 20x99mm round or something similar, so a 14.5x114mm and a 23x115mm combo would be a vast improvement... especially with air burst HE rounds in 23mm.

I think with this new round they have great export potential. ZSU-23-4 barrels are still made, and the whole system ZSU-23-2 is still made also. And many countries still use these systems. And Russia must have loads of both systems in storage.

There was an article some years back where they upgraded the radar and electrics and this reduced the weight. And I am pretty sure with a more modern cheap radar and electrics make it even lighter. There was nothing really wrong with the chassis etc so they could potentially upgrade and sell these systems with the new rounds to poorer nations. They could also mount the ZSU-23-2 on various platforms trucks, BTR, BMP, MTLB, BPM-97, Typhoon series for example. They could do the same with the new twin barrelled turret that was showcased on BTR-80. That new turret could be also placed on a T-55 or T-62 making a cheap BMPT just add Kornet. Or you could make a series of new cheap AD system based around anti drone.

The customer would have multi options upgrades on their current vehicle pool or buy complete system from Russia. So basically the he new twin barrelled turret on any platform you want, then you can put add ons, such as Verba, SOSNA-R, Strela-10, Strela-10 extended range (NK and I think Serbia designed new missile with range of 10km) suddenly you have a vast range of combinations that can take out drones, and could also target ground targets and the various missile combinations allows anti aircraft and helicopters and larger UAV. I also wonder if a GSh-6-23 gattling type could also be used. As for the fuze size etc, I think it's very possible that they could design a fuze for the ever so slightly smaller round.

I wonder if the reason behind the new round being 23mm is because of the export potential. If you look at the number of Pantsir and Tunguska in service and compare it to ZSU-23-4 and ZU-23-2 systems a large difference. And I am sure Belarus could also help with the upgrades for export customers especially any upgrades to current vehicle pools. If your a nation will a small budget where Pantsir might be out your Budget and with the increased threat of drones especially the smaller type for not huge amounts of money you can turn your ZSU-23-4 into an anti drone killer and if add the missile combo's a fairly cheap and capable short range anti air system

What kind of price are we talking for these programmable 23mm and 30mm rounds?

Recent upgrades included additions of Sa-24 or Verba 4-8 missiles or 4 strela-10 missiles and small upgrades to radar and tracking

The Syrians removed all the radar and tracking equipment and with the weight saving added additional armour and used it as a fire support vehicle.

And the Iranians produced the Mesbah-1 which is based on the ZSU-23-2 although armed with four making it have 8 barrels they have since mounted this system on a truck.

Also North Korea removed the 23mm barrels on some of theirs and installed twin 30mm barrels. (No missiles added either)

The system is a fairly decent at taking on drones especially with the upgrades stated in this video. And why not use older systems which can be modified to tackle a new problem it makes sense and export users will want to upgrade theirs to this standard for this new threat. Win win situation if U ask me.

And just for the records. Take a look at the proportion of the fuze. It uses some 40% of the whole round. That is why I highly doubt if that will be possible to make 23x115. It is simply too small/short. Reducing the explosive charge or fragments load will inflict the round effectiveness in general. It is still the smallest caliber of the type in the world.

The round for the 23x115 and the 23x152 are the same size... the 23x115mm uses the same projectile as the 23x152m round.

The 115mm and 152mm are the dimensions of the propellant case and just indicate how much powder is being used to propel the round.

The rounds are defined by calibre and not by propellant case size.

A .22lr is not a smaller calibre than a 5.45x39mm round... in fact they are the same calibre roughly.

The performance is different and of course the 5.45 x 39mm uses different projectiles.

The 23 x 115mm and 23 x 152mm use the same 23mm projectiles.

An airburst round does not rely on velocity for effect, and nor does it rely on rate of fire for effect...

There is no reason why the air burst projectile of the 23x152 could not be loaded into the 23x115mm round.

What kind of price are we talking for these programmable 23mm and 30mm rounds?

The original rounds didn't have any electronics at all AFAIK, though the HE round did have a fuse that detonated the HE charge after a certain time period to prevent the rounds the missed the target from raining down HE death in the area you are supposed to be defending.

It was not so much an air burst feature as a self destruct mechanism.

If you look at FPs video you can see at a 2km or so distance the shells arrive a few metres apart so a tiny target would be almost impossible to hit... you would need to fire an enormous number of rounds to get a hit and anything less than a hit would not do anything. With airburst rounds you detonate the shell as it approaches and the spreading mass of projectiles fills the area a metre or two around the projectile itself meaning three or four rounds will ensure a lot of decent hits most of the time if you are on target.

So even if these airburst shells cost 100 times a standard shell cost they are worth it because you will be using thousands less rounds for each target.

Recent upgrades included additions of Sa-24 or Verba 4-8 missiles or 4 strela-10 missiles and small upgrades to radar and tracking

In Afghanistan in the 1980s the Russian soldiers were using them against ground targets only and ripped out all the electronics and radar equipment and just used the manual sights. The freed up space meant they could double the ammo capacity to 4,000 rounds and they made it rather more comfortable. It also meant they didn't need the radar operator. With the electronics gone it also didn't get so hot inside which made it better as well.

With a modern man portable radar system and EO turret and with air burst rounds and removing all the old obsolete electronics it could be a rather impressive vehicle again. A cage to protect it from drones would be important because it will be priority target number one for them and its armour is a little thin... perhaps some composite armour with lots of layers as well as caged armour would help without making it too heavy. A new engine in the 350hp range would help too... even just for commonality with the other vehicles it will be operating with.

Using air burst shells you could probably remove two of the barrels, or you could just use two barrels at a time so you can up the fire rate. The barrels are water cooled but only firing two and then firing the other two would allow them to cool down better.

With airburst shells you wont need to fire as many shells... you could fit two guns with airburst rounds in belts and two with normal HE rounds and just fire one barrel at drones and then the other to rest it, and use the other two guns for ground targets or heavier larger air targets.

Eventually you could take out the four 23mm guns and fit a single twin barrel 30mm 2A38M cannon if you want extra range and power with the larger air burst shells.

The EO turret on the Tunguska/Pantsir, and a new AESA based radar could allow excellent accuracy and performance.

The BTR based vehicle only uses two cannon with water cooling because with air burst ammo high rate of fire is not so critical.

The 23 x 152mm shells are high velocity flat shooting rounds that simplify the calculations for hitting targets at different ranges, but the 23x115mm would have less recoil and be cheaper to make and are used in twin barrel guns with much higher rates of fire, which results in very short bursts delivering a tight cluster of rounds on target, which would make them very effective against air and ground targets.

GarryB wrote:The original rounds didn't have any electronics at all AFAIK, though the HE round did have a fuse that detonated the HE charge after a certain time period to prevent the rounds the missed the target from raining down HE death in the area you are supposed to be defending.

Of course if you know how far away the target is, and you also know the angle at which you're firing and take gravity into consideration and the windspeed - then you can also work out the precise moment that the shell will close the distance to the target, regardless of whether it has missed or not.
In theory, with a timed fuse, you can set it to detonate in advance at that moment.

Of course that would have to assume that the fuse is programmable, and that the fuse is precise enough to be able to detonate within only a tiny error of the time that it's set for, and you'd probably want a warhead optimized for bringing down drones rather than an HE warhead.

But if you bring out a new round with all that in mind then it really shouldn't be expensive at all. Only electronics you'd need is just the programmable fuse. The rest is done by the Shiilka's computer

Because the 23mm spread issue is certainly a concern and I'm not sure how they'd get around that otherwise. I remember one of those military acceptance videos for one of the Russian TV programs on the Pantsir, this was some 10 years ago or so. They were demonstrating the Pantsir on drones live. It brought down drones with its missiles no problem. But when it tried to engage with its guns, it ended up missing the drone with some 4 salvos in a row. And the drone wasn't that far, anywhere from 500m to 1500m or so. The drone looked to be maybe an Orlan-10, so it was a good deal larger than the FPV kamikaze drones we see today. Of course, the Pantsir has 2x30mm guns rather than 4x23mm.

Of course if you know how far away the target is, and you also know the angle at which you're firing and take gravity into consideration and the windspeed - then you can also work out the precise moment that the shell will close the distance to the target, regardless of whether it has missed or not.
In theory, with a timed fuse, you can set it to detonate in advance at that moment.

You can, but that puts enormous pressure on the accuracy of your time keeping electronics inside the shell... the level of precision needs to be very very very accurate, which also means delicate and expensive and you need one in every shell.

In comparison a radio signal receiver means your vehicle with a radar and perhaps a lidar and laser range finder with an EO system that can not only track the target (optically with laser rangefinding for low RCS targets, and radar for things that can be tracked, or Lidar for ranging and tracking) Means you can track the target and the outgoing cannon round and as the numbers get to less than 20m apart the signal to detonate can be sent and momentum will blow a cone of fragments into the target... all the expensive stuff is in the gun platform and you can spend a fortune to make it super precise and it gets used over and over in every engagement.

Range and windspeed can be used with a conventional HE round for your first shot and tracked with precision to see where it is being pushed to and your next shot, an airburst round can benefit from that information to get a very precise shot. Of course after the round is fired at 2km to 3km range the flight time can be 2-3 seconds, so there is a chance the target will change path or speed... FPVs being difficult targets at the best of times...

Of course that would have to assume that the fuse is programmable, and that the fuse is precise enough to be able to detonate within only a tiny error of the time that it's set for, and you'd probably want a warhead optimized for bringing down drones rather than an HE warhead.

Actually I would say a cost effective choice might be an airbrake that can deviate the path of the shell by a degree or two in flight... once you have tracked a target and knowing the flight speed of the round you could continuously calculate an intercept point, that point is going to be very close to where the target will be when your round arrives. With a non airburst round even a miss by 2cms is a miss, but having an airbrake on the round to get it to turn in one direction or another could lead to direct hits which means rather more damage for heavier targets than fragments from an airburst shell.

Whether you add an airbrake or even a deformable nose that turns towards the target and the aerodynamic flow leads to the round changing course ever so slightly to achieve a hit when otherwise it would have been a miss would be rather interesting... the manouver information could be passed to the round in flight like the airburst command could be passed to the round in flight.

But if you bring out a new round with all that in mind then it really shouldn't be expensive at all. Only electronics you'd need is just the programmable fuse. The rest is done by the Shiilka's computer

A command detonated round would be cheaper than a round with a high precision timer on board... unless they can massively increase the precision of electronic timers and improve their reliability.

It is important to point out the critical importance of accurate timers... GPS and GLONASS simply wouldn't work without them...

Because the 23mm spread issue is certainly a concern and I'm not sure how they'd get around that otherwise. I remember one of those military acceptance videos for one of the Russian TV programs on the Pantsir, this was some 10 years ago or so. They were demonstrating the Pantsir on drones live. It brought down drones with its missiles no problem. But when it tried to engage with its guns, it ended up missing the drone with some 4 salvos in a row. And the drone wasn't that far, anywhere from 500m to 1500m or so. The drone looked to be maybe an Orlan-10, so it was a good deal larger than the FPV kamikaze drones we see today. Of course, the Pantsir has 2x30mm guns rather than 4x23mm.

The thing is that the solution for that would be airburst rounds in 30mm which they have developed AFAIK. But airburst rounds in general are better for airborne targets, and together with the increase in armour for light armoured vehicles was making the 30mm cannon marginal in the anti armour role has led to them going to the 57mm calibre weapons whose AP and HE rounds are vastly superior and their airburst rounds makes the very high rate of fire of 30mm rounds redundant too.

Drones are not easy targets... you might hit it first time with a burst or you might fire 10 bursts and hit nothing... the pattern of the cannon rounds fired is not consistent and can't be predicted... it is like a shotgun blast at extended range... the further away the more gaps in the pattern. With a shotgun you can fill the gaps by using smaller lighter pellets so there are more pellets in each shot but smaller lighter pellets slow down faster and do less damage when they do hit.

If you are hunting a rabbit you don't use tiny pellets like number 7 or number 9 shot because it might not penetrate the rabbits skin. Against birds and clay birds they are very light build targets that shatter when hit so light pellets still work but again they don't retain speed well and have shorter range.

A heavier pellet like number 3 gives decent penetration so you get clean kills at useful ranges.

23mm and 30mm are still very good for conventional targets and airburst shells gives them a capacity to take down very light small targets too, but 57mm is going to be the new BMP round because it combines guided and air burst shells for hitting highly manouvering targets, and also has a nice big HE round, while also having a nice big fast armour piercing round for armoured targets. It ticks all the boxes.

In fact Pantsir might revert to single barrel 2A72 cannons (like the ones used in the BMP-3) because airburst shells against very small targets and radar and optics and systems designed to hit small fast drones should actually be more accurate at getting conventional rounds on bigger targets like helicopters or aircraft.

Pantsir does have two twin barrel guns but they put out more rounds than the Shilkas four guns and they both have four barrels and both are water cooled.

The two twin barrel 2A38M cannon fire at between 2,000 an 2,500 rpm so that is 4,000 to 5,000 rpm for the two guns. The Shilka fires at 800-1000 rounds per gun so that is 3,200 to 4,000 rpm, which is slower and with a much lighter shell.

The point is that with airburst shells 23mm and 30mm are still useful and likely cheaper too... but new 57mm guns will be even better with more range and more fragments and also guided shells too.