Precision Guided Munitions in RuAF

Luq man wrote:Guided glide bomb with range up to 120km tested onboard Su-34
Nice pics:
https://en.ppt-online.org/345832

Nice presentation, thanks! This are the Grom PGMs from what I see

More here:

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3241663.html

it is offered in 3 versions

As said some years ago the distinctive feature of this new class of gliding bombs is the unmatched destructive potential.

https://airrecognition.com/index.php/archive-world-worldwide-news-air-force-aviation-aerospace-air-military-defence-industry/global-defense-security-news/global-news-2018/june/4348-ktrv-advances-grom-air-to-surface-missile-acceptance-trials.html

https://en.ppt-online.org/345832


Somebody suggest to compare those glide bombs with GBU-39 SDB, those unpowered US bombs show surely lower size and mass (130 kg against the 487/594 kg of 9A2/A1-7759) but the destructive power of each GBU-39 is enormously lower (17 kg of explosive for GBU-39 against the over 200 kg for 9A1-7759, that for remain silent of the 9A2-7759 with a fuel-air warhead with the destructive potential of over 2 KAB-500OD !!).

Obviously this enormous difference in destructive potential and radius of assured destruction between the two systems do not only allow the destruction of all those targets totally out of possibility for GBU-39 class but also to assure with an high degree of chances to destroy targets even in highly jammed or multi-band obscurant saturated environment.

Mindstorm wrote:
As said some years ago the distinctive feature of this new class of gliding bombs is the unmatched destructive potential.

https://airrecognition.com/index.php/archive-world-worldwide-news-air-force-aviation-aerospace-air-military-defence-industry/global-defense-security-news/global-news-2018/june/4348-ktrv-advances-grom-air-to-surface-missile-acceptance-trials.html

https://en.ppt-online.org/345832


Somebody suggest to compare those glide bombs with GBU-39 SDB, those unpowered US bombs show surely lower size and mass (130 kg against the 487/594 kg of 9A2/A1-7759) but the destructive power of each GBU-39 is enormously lower (17 kg of explosive for GBU-39 against the over 200 kg for 9A1-7759, that for remain silent of the  9A2-7759 with a fuel-air warhead with the destructive potential of over 2 KAB-500OD !!).

Obviously this enormous difference in destructive potential and radius of assured destruction between the two systems do not only allow the destruction of all those targets totally out of possibility for GBU-39 class but also to assure with an high degree of chances to destroy targets even in highly jammed or multi-band obscurant saturated environment.  

As far as I understand it, the SDB allows a fighter to attack a significant number of targets with the internally carried weapons or to saturate a single one, the advantage of PGM is precisely that explosive load does not need to be big to be effective, at least in principle. Is an analogue to the SDB not being pursued by Russia? With the dimensions of the US product, a PAK-FA could carry 16 bombs internally, this could be useful for example against well defended SAM sites.

With 17 kg of explosives you can´t even destroy a small house. And the saturation is BS because the main target of air defence will be the plane. The SDB is really expensive for its size and that´s the main point of its development. Money to the MIC.

LMFS wrote:As far as I understand it, the SDB allows a fighter to attack a significant number of targets with the internally carried weapons or to saturate a single one, the advantage of PGM is precisely that explosive load does not need to be big to be effective, at least in principle.

An F-35, of any type, will carry internally at maximum 8 GBU-39 (130 kg each) , a single Су-57 will carry 4 9A1/A2-7759 bombs (about 500-600 kg each) the difference is that the latter weapon boast on average 14 times the explosive amount and even more destructive potential.

The average CEP of GBU-39 in a jamming free environment (without the Accuracy Support Infrastructure -ASI - that would be obviously totally unavailable in the attack against any advanced enemy) is about 5-8 m (50% of SDB will fall within this radius ) therefore taking into account its warhead potential , in absence of the ground based ASI , it will be necessary to aim at least 4-5 GBU-39 against even the most soft targets -obviosly of limited size for the very limited warhead potential - to obtain an acceptable level of PK.
It is not for a chance that all IOT tests of GBU-39 has been conducted with the presence of ASI.
In a GPS signal jammed environment (or worse corrupted signal...) likely the entire GBU-39 internal loadout of an entire squadron of F-35 will be necessary to obtain an acceptable PK against a single limited size targets.

A single Гром will completely obliterate (instead of merely damage in a repairable way) any target in its mean error for target radius with a probability next to one and a single A3 version , the version with the fuel-air warhead (obviously not mountable at all in the very limited volume of a GBU-39 warhead) will obtain against area targets what not even 3-4 F-35 can hope to obtain with internal loadout of GBU-39.  
 
In a ГЛОНАСС jammed environment 3-4 Гром with only INS guidance will assure the complete large area destruction of the intended target, a truly enormous difference in efficiency against GBU-39.  

GBU-39 was developed as cost-effective "low-collater damage" weapons for permissive environments (the typical COIN or regional conflict ,against third world enemies, wherein the US usually like to interfere and bully) but it would hardly find any real employment against sophisticated enemies .
 
Also in the so called "COIN operations" ,such as also partially Syrian operation, the demand for increase warhead's potential is always growing to the point that majority of the most crucial and fast results are often achievable only employing warheads with high potential ; domestic high Command both of the Air Force that for Ground Forces in that operation has progressively employed warheads of ever growing potential also for high precise ammunitions (from 250 kg ,to 500, to FAE bombs to 1500 kg ones and from 100-120 mm caliber field guns to resurrection of 2S4 Tyulpan large employment of ТОС-1, УР-77 and locally developed Golan 1000)  observing a unproportionate increase of the results on the ground both in quantity and in speed of achievement.      

US developers are absolutely aware of those problems to the point that at the cost of a sharp decrease of the engagement range and a equally big increase of the costs have integrated a multimode seeker to attempt to icrease PK in GPS jamming-free environment.

@Hole: a maximum range of 110 km is stated for the SDB, therefore against short and medium range AD the bomb would indeed allow striking at stand-off distances and avoid putting the carrier at risk. A F-15 can carry 28 of those, so in absence of GPS jamming a single SAM system would be easily overwhelmed... at what cost is another issue but the SDB is not the most expensive weapon ($40,000 in 2006)

@Mindstorm: great explanation, many thanks. Agree that the SDB looks intended specifically for COIN operations or low intensity conflicts, with the new version allowing strikes even against targets of opportunity in movement. Since high weapons costs have traditionally been rather an advantage for the MIC than a problem, such systems are pursued that allow enemy suppression with impunity even when the target (i.e. a technical of $30,000) costs way less than the weapon (SDB II $130,000). But facing a capable opponent the number of munitions needed for each target would be prohibitive

Hole: a maximum range of 110 km is stated for the SDB, therefore against short and medium range AD the bomb would indeed allow striking at stand-off distances and avoid putting the carrier at risk. A F-15 can carry 28 of those, so in absence of GPS jamming a single SAM system would be easily overwhelmed... at what cost is another issue but the SDB is not the most expensive weapon ($40,000 in 2006)

No need to engage them. Just move. Glide bombs are good against fixed targets but against mobile ones not really. Mobility is a good defence against stand off weapons.

Isos wrote:No need to engage them. Just move. Glide bombs are good against fixed targets but against mobile ones not really. Mobility is a good defence against stand off weapons.

See above, SDB II is specifically devised to attack mobile targets. So if you are not going to engage them, you need to see them coming soon enough before its seeker finds you.

LMFS wrote:See above, SDB II is specifically devised to attack mobile targets. So if you are not going to engage them, you need to see them coming soon enough before its seeker finds you.

The decision to engage the incoming munitions or instead evacuate and cover/masking is not taken by the potentially engaged vehicles but by the Division's air defense command ,those days in an almost authomatic way.

Usually for unpowerd glide bombs like GBU-53 (up to 40 NM for high altitude supersonic delivery and naturally no 28 SDB bull....it loadout, unless you want to deliver merely from JDAM's ranges ) that, in order to achieve maximum engagement radius ,potentially in excess of some middle range/SHORAD systems must be delivered by aircraft proceeding at high altitude and high speed toward the targets , that situation can happen only against the parts of the ground forces that would be not directictly covered by medium and long range AD  (C-300V4, Бук-М3, for not taking into account defending Су-30-CM and Су-35 in facts would destroy the aircraft way before them would reach delivery point for its unpowerd ammunitions load).

When direct coverage by part of middle/long range air defense and front line aircraft would be for any reason unavailable or insufficient  - usually that could happen for first lines of first echelon of ground forces in the offense - decision to retreat and search for coverage is taken authomatically by the air defense command when the following factors materialize :

1) The data coming from active and passive sensor network ascertain that the contacts represent real munitions and not decoys and classification of theirs class, speed and mean time before arrival in the defended area confirm theirs potential danger for the targets in the area.  
2) Amount of delivered AG munitions greatly exceed suppression/interception possibilities of all available EW and SHORAD systems    
3) No multi-spectral area-masking equipment is available or its use is computed too risky (at example for the dense presence of enemy artillery or mechanized /armoured battallions in the area) or impossible to realize before the time of arrival of enemy weapons  (usually that can happen for high speed powered AG ammunitions).
4) Only for new generation vehicles of the unified class Армата, Курганец-25 and Бумеранг if the algorithm for the unified AD command compute that average surviving AG munitions after EW and SHORAD would be enough to cause operationally relevant damages to those vehicles after action of both soft and active defense mounted on each of those vehicles .

Only when all those requisites are realized (unified AD program usually compute the result of the interaction of those variables in few seconds) an immediate order for retreat, dispersal and cover until communication of air attack's cessation is uttered to all troops in the areas potentially attacked togheter with overall direction of the incoming munitions and expected time of the arrival.

At this point all troops and vehicles (including eventual AD ones ) quickly disperse and retreat toward covering elements (usually ,where present in respect to the overall direction of the incoming AG munitions, behind buildings or hard landscape elements ) while all those capable deliver and saturate the area with smoke screens from exausts that would interfere with eventual optical man-in-the-loop guidance (like that usually chosen by Israeli mutions designers) and in the last dozen of seconds before computed arrival of the munitions all vehicles with the necessary equipment, deliver in the area multispectral aerosol to interfere with terminal radar/IR guidance.


As seen the operational use of unpowered glide bombs with a so high unitary cost and so low warhead's power - an element that above all what already said previously, will make a truly huge difference when soft and hard kill vehicles active defense systems will become standard among armoured vehicles - not only would have hardly any sense against any advanced enemy because effectively not employable at all against target with medium/long range AD/EW systems or frontal aviation coverage ,but would be also highly questionable even against enemies devoid of that coverage.


In facts in order only to plan a similar attack against those relatively "undefended" targets you must anyhow commit, already from the beginning, an amount of those high cost AG munitions much higher that the capability of suppression /interception of the available battallion-level EW and SHORAD (and modern ones between ever growing missile and guns engagement range, speed and single interceptor's PK can destroy an absurdely high amount, above all against low-subsonic unpowered munitions) and when it would be realized the enemy would not respond wasting uselessly its interceptors but would simply utter the command to dispersw ,mask and cover its forces so that at the arrival of those munitions wide majority of the vehicles would be completely unfindable or not engageable behind buildings, hills, crevasses, canals, dense vegetations, tunnels, etc...,. while the others would be covered under deep screens of multispectral aerosols and EW action that would render GPS guidance and weapon uplinnk and third party update practically impossible.

Mindstorm wrote:
The decision to engage the incoming munitions or instead evacuate and cover/masking is not taken by the potentially engaged vehicles but by the Division's air defense command ,those days in an almost authomatic way.

Usually for unpowerd glide bombs like GBU-53 (up to 40 NM for high altitude supersonic delivery and naturally no 28 SDB bull....it loadout, unless you want to deliver merely from JDAM's ranges ) that, in order to achieve maximum engagement radius ,potentially in excess of some middle range/SHORAD systems must be delivered by aircraft proceeding at high altitude and high speed toward the targets , that situation can happen only against the parts of the ground forces that would be not directictly covered by medium and long range AD  (C-300V4, Бук-М3, for not taking into account defending Су-30-CM and Су-35 in facts would destroy the aircraft way before them would reach delivery point for its unpowerd ammunitions load).

When direct coverage by part of middle/long range air defense and front line aircraft would be for any reason unavailable or insufficient  - usually that could happen for first lines of first echelon of ground forces in the offense - decision to retreat and search for coverage is taken authomatically by the air defense command when the following factors materialize :

1) The data coming from active and passive sensor network ascertain that the contacts represent real munitions and not decoys and classification of theirs class, speed and mean time before arrival in the defended area confirm theirs potential danger for the targets in the area.  
2) Amount of delivered AG munitions greatly exceed suppression/ possibilities of all available EW and SHORAD systems    
3) No multi-spectral area-masking equipment is available or its use is computed too risky (at example for the dense presence of enemy artillery or mechanized /armoured battallions in the area) or impossible to realize before the time of arrival of enemy weapons  (usually that can happen for high speed powered AG ammunitions).
4) Only for new generation vehicles of the unified class Армата, Курганец-25 and Бумеранг if the algorithm for the unified AD command compute that average surviving AG munitions after EW and SHORAD would be enough to cause operationally relevant damages to those vehicles after action of both soft and active defense mounted on each of those vehicles .

Only when all those requisites are realized (unified AD program usually compute the result of the interaction of those variables in few seconds) an immediate order for retreat, dispersal and cover until communication of air attack's cessation is uttered to all troops in the areas potentially attacked togheter with overall direction of the incoming munitions and expected time of the arrival.

At this point all troops and vehicles (including eventual AD ones ) quickly disperse and retreat toward covering elements (usually ,where present in respect to the overall direction of the incoming AG munitions, behind buildings or hard landscape elements ) while all those capable deliver and saturate the area with smoke screens from exausts that would interfere with eventual optical man-in-the-loop guidance (like that usually chosen by Israeli mutions designers) and in the last dozen of seconds before computed arrival of the munitions all vehicles with the necessary equipment, deliver in the area multispectral aerosol to interfere with terminal radar/IR guidance.


As seen the operational use of unpowered glide bombs with a so high unitary cost and so low warhead's power - an element that above all what already said previously, will make a truly huge difference when soft and hard kill vehicles active defense systems will become standard among armoured vehicles - not only would have hardly any sense against any advanced enemy because effectively not employable at all against target with medium/long range AD/EW systems or frontal aviation coverage ,but would be also highly questionable even against enemies devoid of that coverage.


In facts in order only to plan a similar attack against those relatively "undefended" targets you must anyhow commit, already from the beginning, an amount of those high cost AG munitions much higher that the capability of suppression /interception of the available battallion-level EW and SHORAD (and modern ones between ever growing missile and guns engagement range, speed and single interceptor's PK can destroy an absurdely high amount, above all against low-subsonic unpowered munitions) and when it would be realized the enemy would not respond wasting uselessly its interceptors but would simply utter the command to dispersw ,mask and cover its forces so that at the arrival of those munitions wide majority of the vehicles would be completely unfindable or not engageable behind buildings, hills, crevasses, canals, dense vegetations, tunnels, etc...,. while the others would be covered under deep screens of multispectral aerosols and EW action that would render GPS guidance and weapon uplinnk and third party update practically impossible.

Great read, the arguments show those weapons are not effective in such an environment. The more I learn the clearer is to me how Western militaries have shaped themselves towards interventionism and less towards facing the threat of near-peer rivals. This proves first and foremost that they don't even believe in the possibility of such countries actually attacking them, in total contradiction to the narratives spread by mass media.

Any idea, when the 57 mm autocannons are going to be deployed in Russian military or if this is related to the news that ground AD was going to be renewed short term? If as you suggested, the use of these is going to be widespread in the army not only in AA-specific hardware but also in IFVs, BMPTs etc, it is easy to see that the PGM suppression limits of even conventional units would be so high that the use of SDBs would be completely ineffective. Would be interesting to see how F-35 is expected to perform strike roles in such conditions...

LMFS wrote:Any idea, when the 57 mm autocannons are going to be deployed in Russian military or if this is related to the news that ground AD was going to be renewed short term? If as you suggested, the use of these is going to be widespread in the army not only in AA-specific hardware but also in IFVs, BMPTs etc, it is easy to see that the PGM suppression limits of even conventional units would be so high that the use of SDBs would be completely ineffective.

Likely within 2022-2023; in particular first batch will include only new 57 mm ammunitions with smart fuses, capable to destroy at middle range range both air targets (primarly PGMs and UAVs) and infantry in buildings and defilade, to be integrated in any vehicle, while special guided munitions with smart fuses, at now with letter O1, will follow briefly after and will equip air defense specialized vehicles.

As explained the huge improvement in range offered by the 57 mm autocannons is the major feature of the new line - much more than the increased lethality - in facts this allow also not specialized ground vehicles to participate in the AD cover of the brigade ; thanks to the increased range of the 57 mm guns each of those vehicles will get the necessary time and chance for re-engage any incoming munition survivng the long range salvo an opportunity absent for 30 mm guns.

Naturally the efficiency of the ammunitions with only smart fuses will be high at long range only against unpowered subsonic munitions ,in reason of the low speed and very limited capability to maneuver, while for more demanding targets ,such as high speed one with high capability to maneuver, the AD variant with guided ammunitions will be necessary to achieve high PK.

The aim is to place an ever growing and multi-faceted burden on enemy designers, pushing them always more far in the cost-efficiency balance through the forced integration in each of of theirs offensive means of features terribly costly that can be countered at order of magnitude lower prices.

Mindstorm wrote:
Likely within 2022-2023; in particular first batch will include only new 57 mm ammunitions with smart fuses, capable to destroy at middle range range both air targets (primarly PGMs and UAVs) and infantry in buildings and defilade, to be integrated in any vehicle, while special guided munitions with smart fuses, at now with letter O1, will follow briefly after and will equip air defense specialized vehicles.

As explained the huge improvement in range offered by the 57 mm autocannons is the major feature of the new line - much more than the increased lethality - in facts this allow also not specialized ground vehicles to participate in the AD cover of the brigade ; thanks to the increased range of the 57 mm guns each of those vehicles will get the necessary time and chance for re-engage any incoming munition survivng the long range salvo an opportunity absent for 30 mm guns.

Naturally the efficiency of the ammunitions with only smart fuses will be high at long range only against unpowered subsonic munitions ,in reason of the low speed and very limited capability to maneuver, while for more demanding targets ,such as high speed one with high capability to maneuver, the AD variant with guided ammunitions will be necessary to achieve high PK.

The aim is to place an ever growing and multi-faceted burden on enemy designers, pushing them always more far in the cost-efficiency balance through the forced integration in each of of theirs offensive means of features terribly costly that can be countered at order of magnitude lower prices.

Brilliant, how aggressor is left on the wrong side of cost structure through relatively inexpensive defensive measures.

Thanks for the info on the 57 mm autocannons. I assume the smart fused ammo is the one called "MFS" in the drawing below and the "UAS" is the one intended for AD



One doubt: SDBs can be launched apparently at 1,5 M. From terminal velocity simulations given their mass, section and conservative Cd estimation they could reach their target still at supersonic speed, is this a correct assumption? This, together with lack of rocket glare and small RCS would make them not "slow and easy" targets as far as I see...

LMFS wrote:SDBs can be launched apparently at 1,5 M. From terminal velocity simulations given their mass, section and conservative Cd estimation they could reach their target still at supersonic speed, is this a correct assumption?

Obviously not, it is a totally wronged assumption : unpowered glide weapons (even those without the volumetric limits imposed by SDB design, with significantly more effcient aerodynamic layout, like 9-A-7759 series delivered at mach 1.5 speed in the trials) after deployment of the folding wings decelerate to subsonic speed within just few kilometers ; at the very edge of theirs envelop footprint those ammunitions would strike ,at best, at mid-subsonic speed.

Take into account that just time of arrival to targets (in particular against moving or easily relocatable ones) has been the main reason behind UK MoD decision to reject the unpowered GBU-53 in favour of the powered SPEAR-3 for integration in theirs F-35s.

LMFS wrote:together with lack of rocket glare and small RCS would make them not "slow and easy" targets as far as I see...

Another myth : mean RCS of glide weapons with deployed wings are significantly higher than weapons much bigger devoid of them while IR signature , particularly in the ground-based sensors FoV, is mainly a function of the speed of the weapon and the time of flight in the more dense layers of the atmosphere.


Not that, to be fair, those differences in RCS or IR signature would anyhow generate any kind of relevant differences in range of engagement by part of modern SHORADS as has been fully and repeteadly proved not only in dozen of domestic exercises with the most modern systems, but also in Syria by part of very outdated SAMs modernized by our specialists in the last few years against almost the most modern US, European and Israeli built air to ground subsonic weapons.

The by far most important factors influencing interception chances by part of air defenses are speed and capability to maneuver erratically ,even more if we talk of the most modern SAM, integrated in fully developed IADS, those factors become practically the unique ones -.

You will have noticed that just after latests events in Syria ,Israel has forced the development of theirs first supersonic long range AG munition

Mindstorm wrote:Obviously not, it is a totally wronged assumption : unpowered glide weapons (even those without the volumetric limits imposed by SDB design, with significantly more effcient aerodynamic layout, like 9-A-7759 series delivered at mach 1.5 speed in the trials) after deployment of the folding wings decelerate to subsonic speed within just few kilometers ; at the very edge of theirs envelop footprint those ammunitions would strike ,at best, at mid-subsonic speed.

Take into account that just time of arrival to targets (in particular against moving or easily relocatable ones) has been the main reason behind UK MoD decision to reject the unpowered GBU-53 in favour of the powered SPEAR-3 for integration in theirs F-35s.

Another myth : mean RCS of glide weapons with deployed wings are significantly higher than weapons much bigger devoid of them while IR signature , particularly in the ground-based sensors FoV, is mainly a function of the speed of the weapon and the time of flight in the more dense layers of the atmosphere.


Not that, to be fair, those differences in RCS or IR signature would anyhow generate any kind of relevant differences in range of engagement by part of modern SHORADS as has been fully and repeteadly proved not only in dozen of domestic exercises with the most modern systems, but also in Syria by part of very outdated SAMs modernized by our specialists in the last few years against almost the most modern US, European and Israeli built air to ground subsonic weapons.

The by far most important factors influencing interception chances by part of air defenses are speed and capability to maneuver erratically ,even more if we talk of the most modern SAM, integrated in fully developed IADS, those factors become practically the unique ones -.

You will have noticed that just after latests events in Syria ,Israel has forced the development of theirs first supersonic long range AG munition

Terrific, no more questions sir!  

True, Rampage was unveiled on the 11th of June. The very manufacturer makes the need clear:

Boaz Levy, general manager and executive VP of IAI’s Rockets and Space Group, said, “We believe in the Rampage, since it is an important product that fulfils a true operational need in a very efficient way.”

http://www.imisystems.com/mediacenter/iai-and-imi-systems-unveil-innovative-co-development-the-rampage/

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/119808/

Новые управляемые авиабомбы массой 500 и 1500 кг начали поставляться российским Воздушно-космическим силам. Об этом сообщил генеральный директор предприятия-разработчика бомб ГНПП «Регион» (входит в корпорацию «Тактическое ракетное вооружение») Игорь Крылов.

«Предприятием разработаны новые изделия с повышенной дальностью калибра 500 и 1500 кг. Уже заключены как внутренние, так и внешние контракты на поставку этих изделий. Эти бомбы прошли полностью весь цикл испытаний и поставляются в строевые части ВКС», — сообщил Крылов.

RuAF is now receiving serialy produced new guided gliding 500 kg and 1500 kg bombs. Most probably they are K08B and K028B. Next year they will also be available for export.

True, Rampage was unveiled on the 11th of June. The very manufacturer makes the need clear:

Boaz Levy, general manager and executive VP of IAI’s Rockets and Space Group, said, “We believe in the Rampage, since it is an important product that fulfils a true operational need in a very efficient way.”

But hang on... the west is in the process of introducing the worlds best stealth fighter.... they have 300 and will get more than ten times that amount because it will allow them to penetrate Russian and Chinese air defence networks at will with impunity... the bad guys wont even know they are there...

But hang on, if F-35s can't enter Syrian air space, why are they spending well over 100 million dollars per aircraft... when older aircraft can also use standoff weapons for a fraction of the cost to buy and to operate...

Would add that there are two 57mm guns they are introducing... one is a low/medium velocity weapon that is practically a grenade launcher... a bit like a scaled down 100mm gun from the BMP-3 with a huge HE round for its calibre that should be a rather potent weapon for use against ground targets.
The 57mm gun we are talking about here is for IFV use and for air defence use to make up for the 30mm calibres deficiencies against modern targets.

The 30x165mm is no longer effective against enemy IFVs that can be 32 tons or more in weight (ie about the weight of a T-34).
Against air targets firing lots of small rounds is effective to a point but at a specific distance you need a very high rate of fire and you need to fire a lot of rounds to get a dense enough hit pattern to ensure small targets are hit.

With a shotgun you use a small pellet size like a number 7 or 8 for shooting small birds or clay targets. A 7 or 8 size pellet is tiny which means each shell contains hundreds of pellets. The pellets themselves are not very lethal but birds by their nature have very light structures that are easily damaged so a few hits with pellets would often knock them out of the sky. Against rabbits such small pellets are cruel because they will barely penetrate the rabbits skin and will cause infection that might kill the rabbit over a period of days or weeks. For a rabbit you need a heavier pellet like a 3 or a 4, and that has pellets several mms across that will go right through a rabbit, so a good hit should kill it nice and cleanly from 20-30m range. The spread of pellets means they will hit an area of about 1m across so if the rabbit changes direction just as you fire you still should get pellets on target in the half second it takes the pellets to reach the rabbit. Against a goat or pig or heavier animal number 3 or 4 pellet is ineffective and cruel because they wont penetrate deep enough through the heavier body to reach important organs so you need either a solid slug or ball bearing rounds for a clean kill... so now we are talking about 5-6mm diameter balls of led right up to a single lump of lead the diameter of the barrel. Firing a solid slug at a bird is silly because of the low chance of getting a hit, but firing number 7 pellets at a goat is a waste of ammo because you will hit it with hundreds of pellets but they likely wont penetrate skin and will seriously upset the goat or pig.

What I am saying is that there is a combination of number of shots fired and rate of fire and weight of projectile that suits different targets.

In the 1970s a 23mm cannon was effective against most targets and most targets needed to get close to get hits so its range of 2km was not a problem.

Increases in armour and standoff weapons meant that the Soviets moved from 23mm to 30mm which had a higher rate of fire and a heavier projectile with a much longer effective range, but that was OK because targets were harder and needed to be engaged from greater distances.

These days the rate of fire of the 30mm guns is fine for helos or aircraft, but smaller targets like UAVs and bombs or missiles will fly through the gaps in the bursts of rounds.

This can be compensated for by using air burst rounds because while a burst of 50 30mm calibre rounds at 2km might miss a target the size of a cruise missile coming directly at the air defence vehicle most of those rounds will miss and therefore not explode so the cruise missile will keep coming.

If you had a simple cheap air burst mechanism like radar tracking the incoming missile and the outgoing rounds and you flashed a laser at the outgoing rounds just as they were passing the target which made them explode and send showers of fragments into the incoming target then you have a cheap way of making 30mm rounds effective again.

The other option would be timed fuses which needs a very highly accurate time measuring system inside each round which makes them enormously expensive... often too expensive to use...

The problem for the 30mm is that it is still limited to about 3.5-4km range, and they don't have enormous HE payloads so they still need to be close to the target when they explode. Also such fragments have poor armour penetration capability so protected targets would be safe too.

Going for a 57mm calibre weapon means much more powerful HE capacity and more room for more effective fragments and much better flight speed and engagement range.

It also means guided rounds become an option which is critical for manouvering threats otherwise the number of rounds you need to fire is enormous for any reasonable change of a kill.

The requirement for engaging small targets and heavily armoured ground targets makes the increase in calibre necessary.

Regarding the speed of gliding bombs... most small calibre rifle bullets leave the rifles muzzle at about mach 2.6 or more but within about 600m or so are bordering on subsonic... it is like swimming in water.... the faster you go the harder the medium you are travelling through pushes back.

A high energy projectile like a 50 cal HMG bullet or a 223 will shatter when it hits water, but a mach 1 9mm bullet will not... they all certainly rapidly slow down in air and water unless they are basically a javelin or nail with tail fins like a Flechette which will maintain velocity rather well over distance and time.

Guided analog to the unguided S-13 rocket in the works...

MINSK, may 18. /TASS/. The group "tehmash" (part of rostec) negotiates with the Ministry of defence technical parameters for the newest precision guided air missiles "Monolith" of 122 mm caliber. Reported to TASS the Deputy Director General of the concern Alexander Kochkin at the exhibition of arms MILEX in Minsk in 2019.

"Monolith" is a guided missile, belongs to the class of precision weapons. This aircraft rocket with a caliber of 122 mm.

The work goes on at the initiative and at the expense of the company. At the moment we are coordinating with the customer technical requirements," said Kochkin.

According to him, the bearers of the new missile will be all the planes and helicopters that can apply unguided rocket S-13.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/6445450

Nice.

They had a rather huge S-25 with a laser guided model... it is the very large single rocket in a pod with what is basically a 100kg warhead on the nose that is often carried by the Su-25 as a potent direct fire rocket that largely replaced the finned S-24 rocket previously widely carried.

The S-25L has a laser homing seeker and nose mounted fins for use against point targets.

The S-13 is the five shot 122mm calibre rocket pod used against protected aircraft shelters and other strong structures, so having a guided model should greatly extend its effective range to much safer distances.

There was a system called Ugroza that was supposed to be able to be attached to all unguided rockets (57mm, 80mm, and 122mm) but it seems to have stalled... it could be used by any platform that can carry rocket pods without modification...

A similar system for 80mm rockets would be useful too.

In a conflict like Syria where the enemy might be all over the place a volley of rockets will spread shrapnel all over the place but there could be gaps and targeting everyone with ATGMs gets expensive and an issue in the number you can actually carry.

On the other hand an 80mm rocket carries a decent HE payload and lots of effective fragments and will destroy most vehicles on the battlefield quite easily... especially the Toyota utes with a single rocket but you pretty much need a direct hit and it is almost impossible to get direct hits from more than 1km range or so.

With laser homing you can get hits with lofted shots at extreme range and with twenty rockets per pod you can take on a lot of enemy positions at extended ranges where you are mainly safe from small arms fire... and even at night which makes you even safer...

Excellent idea... and relatively cheap.

I remember reading about the "Ugroza" years ago.....For whatever reason it wasn't adopted in service....perhaps it didn't meet the MOD parameters

I think part of the issue was that it was a whole new range of rockets rather than a package to fit to existing rockets.

I suspect they will come up with an alternative... they have pretty much dropped the 57mm category rockets because their light warheads were not so effective, but with the accuracy of guided rounds even rather small payloads can be very effective in some cases.

For instance with a very light vehicle you could carry 16 shot rocket pods with 57mm rockets instead of the 7 shot 80mm rocket pods for light aircraft, so you get more than twice as many shots.

The issue of getting direct hits is solved with the guidance, so a direct hit with a 57mm rocket will kill the driver and passengers of a toyota light truck effectively enough, while an 80mm rocket would obliterate it and possibly kill people in traffic coming past in the opposite lane...

Of course when hitting targets in Idlib where women could be suicide bombers and their children are going to grow up wanting to kill Russians anyway... and more importantly western sources will claim they are hitting hospitals and schools and churches... the more kills you get the better it probably will be.

A Hind with four weapon pylons allowing 20 shot rocket pods in 80mm calibre or 32 shot rocket pods in 57mm calibre, means you can have 80 rockets in 80mm calibre or 128 rockets in 57mm rocket calibre... the point is that you could have two of each and get the choice of which calibre to use against the target depending on the target at the time... and accurately placed airburst 57mm round would be effective against infantry and light targets like cars and light trucks... accuracy makes up for the smaller payload, while the much heavier 80mm rockets can deal with quite substantial targets including IFVs and even tanks from the side and sandbag protected buildings and trenches...

Hell if they are accurate enough you could use the 57mm rockets as anti UAV rockets for self defence...

dino00 wrote:

KAB-1500LG from a Su-34...presumably in Syria

Luq man wrote:Guided glide bomb with range up to 120km tested onboard Su-34
Nice pics:
https://en.ppt-online.org/345832

Tests have been reportedly completed for the GROM-E1 (missile) and GROM-E2 (Glide Bomb)....they can be carried internally by the Su-57

https://topwar.ru/160919-raskryty-tth-rakety-grom-je1-i-pab-grom-je2-dlja-su-57-i-ne-tolko.html