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Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 9

SpuriusMaximus said:
BTW, on September 3rd Ukraine has officially confirmed that they're using the Skyranger 35 turrets from Rheinmetall, mounted on a refurbished Leopard 1 hull. And have been using them since May. That thing fires a 35mm projectile that's programmed at the muzzle to explode in front of a drone into a cloud of tungsten balls that shred everything in their path. Essentially the shell becomes the mother of all shotguns, firing point-blank at the drone.
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Why the tungsten balls? Is it for range? The drones are AFAIK not armoured, so normal shotgun pellets should be able to down them.
 
steenkh said:
Why the tungsten balls? Is it for range? The drones are AFAIK not armoured, so normal shotgun pellets should be able to down them.
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I'm guessing it's for the same reason as why there are shotgun shells with tungsten pellets. They are 2.6 times denser than steel and 1.7 times denser than lead, so you can pack that many more in a given volume, and still have each carry the same energy (mv²/2), have higher penetration (the stressor in the penetration formula is energy divided by cross section surface), and since they're smaller they're also slowed down less in air. Not that the last one matters that much when it airbursts within metres of the target. But because of the penetration, from certain angles, that thing can shred even some helicopters, not just drones. But really I'm guessing the biggest factor is that you can pack more of them in a 35mm shell without making the shell twice as long or reducing the bursting charge by a lot.
 
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icerat said:
Pretty damn good reason, in my book
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I agre.
icerat said:
And it's stupid. The NATO "progressive escalation" policy in defence of Ukraine was never going to work and has clearly not worked.
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I mean... Putin is losing in Ukraine and around the world, and he hasn't nuked anybody yet.

icerat said:
Putin's entire strategy to the west is one of trolling and intimidation. Scare them into stopping support for Ukraine so Ukraine capitulates.
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When you have nukes, you get to try strategies like that. It's one of the main reasons nobody rational wants Iran to have nukes, or even nuke precursor industries. It's why Russia and China both have vetos on the UN Security Council. Europe can't only be concerned about what is fair and just, it also has to be concerned about what is and isn't.

icerat said:
The entire of the west stops supporting Ukraine tomorrow, Ukrainians will keep fighting. The entire of Ukraine is occupied, Ukrainians will keep fighting.
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I have no doubt, and I don't think I'd want it any other way. Not that it's up to me at all, of course.[

icerat said:
The war ends when even Russia admits Russia can't afford it anymore.
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That's one way to end it, sure.
 
www.theguardian.com

The Guardian view on Russian parliamentary elections: glimpses of weakness behind the facade | Editorial

Editorial: The Kremlin’s clumsy efforts to engineer the outcome reveal growing anxiety about the public mood and a war that is failing
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com


It ends:
So it is hardly surprising that the Kremlin has abandoned what was left of its flimsy pretence of permitting dissent. The machinery for delivering an election result to the president’s satisfaction is well oiled. There is no reason to think that it will fail this time. That doesn’t make the vote irrelevant. Mr Putin’s brutal record proves that he doesn’t care about the wellbeing of ordinary Russians, but he cares about the appearance of being supported by them. The harder the Kremlin is seen to work at constructing electoral proof of that support, the less confident it looks.
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SpuriusMaximus said:
I'm guessing it's for the same reason as why there are shotgun shells with tungsten pellets. They are 2.6 times denser than steel and 1.7 times denser than lead, so you can pack that many more in a given volume, and still have each carry the same energy (mv²/2), have higher penetration (the stressor in the penetration formula is energy divided by cross section surface), and since they're smaller they're also slowed down less in air. Not that the last one matters that much when it airbursts within metres of the target. But because of the penetration, from certain angles, that thing can shred even some helicopters, not just drones. But really I'm guessing the biggest factor is that you can pack more of them in a 35mm shell without making the shell twice as long or reducing the bursting charge by a lot.
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Spot on.
 
steenkh said:
Why the tungsten balls? Is it for range? The drones are AFAIK not armoured, so normal shotgun pellets should be able to down them.
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Because Skyranger wasn't invented to just shoot down small drones at the end of their flight. It's a full-spectrum short range air defense system. The same rounds have to be effective against jet fighters, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, artillery and mortar shells, attack helicopters, and so forth.

The fact that Skyranger's radar can find and track drones, that its computer can handle swarms of targets, and that its ammunition has already been designed, tested, and entered into mass production, is why it's being used in Ukraine. Not because tungsten is magic against drones.
 
Well hell, fellers, old Henri Pieper back in the 1880s-90s had his 7-barrel goose rifle in
.22 and .32 rimfire.* It was a single shot rolling block, but with sheet metal speed loaders
probably pretty fast at taking geese out to -- what? 200 meters? Market hunters in those days
(God blast and damn their souls if they had any) weren't bothered by cripples.

Until infantry squads can carry 35mm autocannons in their rucksacks, we might want to
think along Pieper's lines. An extended length 40mm munition for grenade launchers (break
action types, not slide actions I fear) incorporating, say, nine .22 caliber rifled barrels preloaded
with the highest pressure cartridges feasible, could augment the squad's loadout for trips
into FPV country. Three men with underbarrel launchers could keep up a pretty steady fire,
at least against single targets.

Yes, Andy, they could be adapted to use the highest-tech rifle sights money can buy.

* Again, I'm sorry I can't post a link. But Google is still our friend.
 
theprestige said:
The fact that Skyranger's radar can find and track drones, that its computer can handle swarms of targets, and that its ammunition has already been designed, tested, and entered into mass production, is why it's being used in Ukraine. Not because tungsten is magic against drones.
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I'm guessing it's also valuable test data. On a Rheinmetall firing range, all things are under control. On an actual battlefield, with unpredictable weather, electronic warfare, drones coming at unpredictable times from unpredictable directions, etc, everything is out of your control. So it's the perfect test data for Rheinmetall to improve it, and invaluable marketing material.
 
sackett said:
Well hell, fellers, old Henri Pieper back in the 1880s-90s had his 7-barrel goose rifle in
.22 and .32 rimfire.* It was a single shot rolling block, but with sheet metal speed loaders
probably pretty fast at taking geese out to -- what? 200 meters? Market hunters in those days
(God blast and damn their souls if they had any) weren't bothered by cripples.

Until infantry squads can carry 35mm autocannons in their rucksacks, we might want to
think along Pieper's lines. An extended length 40mm munition for grenade launchers (break
action types, not slide actions I fear) incorporating, say, nine .22 caliber rifled barrels preloaded
with the highest pressure cartridges feasible, could augment the squad's loadout for trips
into FPV country. Three men with underbarrel launchers could keep up a pretty steady fire,
at least against single targets.

Yes, Andy, they could be adapted to use the highest-tech rifle sights money can buy.

* Again, I'm sorry I can't post a link. But Google is still our friend.
Click to expand...
As I was already saying, if you just need to put more lead into the air, Ukraine already has Soviet-era 12.7mm heavy machineguns in quad AA mounts on trucks, and a few former Warsaw pact countries even had quad-mount 14.5mm AA machineguns they probably don't need any more. And if they thought a shotgun was better, then they can already make a Saiga-12 automatic shotgun. It's literally just an AK-47 scaled up to 12 gauge. Same long stroke gas system, and everything. They have the technology and no patents to stand in the way.

But here's how Ukraine's layered air defence system works: they don't just want to shoot down a drone that comes at YOU at 200m, but also a Shahed or even cruise missile that comes 2000m above your head and is aimed at a town 20,000m behind you. A shotgun won't save that town. Unless you want to place a few guys with automatic shotguns on every roof, I guess. It's more like defending against a V-1 aimed at London in WW2. You don't want to take your chances shooting it from a rooftop as it comes down over London, you ideally want that thing down long before it's anywhere near London.

So yeah, they have a very good reason to want systems that can do that.
 
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sackett said:
Well hell, fellers, old Henri Pieper back in the 1880s-90s had his 7-barrel goose rifle in
.22 and .32 rimfire.* It was a single shot rolling block, but with sheet metal speed loaders
probably pretty fast at taking geese out to -- what? 200 meters? Market hunters in those days
(God blast and damn their souls if they had any) weren't bothered by cripples.

Until infantry squads can carry 35mm autocannons in their rucksacks, we might want to
think along Pieper's lines. An extended length 40mm munition for grenade launchers (break
action types, not slide actions I fear) incorporating, say, nine .22 caliber rifled barrels preloaded
with the highest pressure cartridges feasible, could augment the squad's loadout for trips
into FPV country. Three men with underbarrel launchers could keep up a pretty steady fire,
at least against single targets.

Yes, Andy, they could be adapted to use the highest-tech rifle sights money can buy.

* Again, I'm sorry I can't post a link. But Google is still our friend.
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No that's not going to happen.

Standard Infantry squad weapons with data sighting and sensors is the way to go, they are already being issued to special forces for use against ground targets.
Burdening a squad with special weapon just for drones or a special cartridge to reload with in addition to their existing weapons and equipment is not the way to go.
 
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SpuriusMaximus said:
I'm guessing it's also valuable test data. On a Rheinmetall firing range, all things are under control. On an actual battlefield, with unpredictable weather, electronic warfare, drones coming at unpredictable times from unpredictable directions, etc, everything is out of your control. So it's the perfect test data for Rheinmetall to improve it, and invaluable marketing material.
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Which is why other turreted gun, lader and microwave systems are being field tested in Ukraine. Use in battle accelerates development.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise! The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran. President DJT
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"It's not my fault you guys, it's theirs. Sure we had the opportunity and power to make this problem significantly less, but Biden, Obama and I didn't wanna. So, thank you for your attention in this matter."
 
Andy_Ross said:
No that's not going to happen.

Standard Infantry squad weapons with data sighting and sensors is the way to go, they are already being issued to special forces for use against ground targets.
Burdening a squad with special weapon just for drones or a special cartridge to reload with in addition to their existing weapons and equipment is not the way to go.
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I mean, there are special rounds for the 40mm NATO grenade launcher that have IIRC 7 .22 LR cartridges in a steel shell, much like a revolver's cylinder, except rigged to chainfire, so you could just give the soldiers a couple of those if you wanted to. It still wouldn't help you kill a drone flying 2000m above and targeted at a town, though.
 
In the trenches:

"Captain Murray! Sir, we're seeing a white flag over the Dwarf lines! Some guy's
waving a towel on a stick!"

Capt. Murray looks up from crocheting salvaged drone wires. "What? Some sort
of rouge de guerre? It's a trick for ruddy sure!"

"No, sir, he's already showing himself. Got a civvie look to him."

"Stand by, me ruddy phone's bleating. 'Allo? Oo? Sackett? That's you over there?
Wotcher!" He listens for a moment. "Surrender, you say? Oh that's just lovely. What
'appens to our war then?" Pause. "'Ang about." Covering his phone. "He says that
we're not fighting the same war! He gives up!"

"Uh, yessir. Should I alert Colonel Spurious?"

"Arr, let the poor bloke take his nap. He earns it, like the rest of us." Taking up his crocheting
again, he adds, "And pipe the bloody grog! I've 'ad me bilges full of this ruddy land service!"

"Yes sir! Runner! Grog ho!"

Dusk settles over the trenches, and over No Man's Land.
 
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