Thanks for the article Jonathan...
via Rianovosti...
Jumping up to a 57mm gun on an IFV? That's huge in more ways than one. Additionally its a throwback to work the Israeli's did with a 60mm Hyper Velocity Cannon on their upgraded Shermans.
This program deserves watching.
via Rianovosti...
MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Uralvagonzavod and France’s Renault are jointly developing a new infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) with an increased firing range of up to 16 kilometers, the Russian company said Wednesday.Uh wow.
“We [Uralvagonzavod and Renault Trucks Defense] unveiled today a prototype of a future IFV,” Uralvagonzavod general director Oleg Sienko said at Russian Arms Expo-2013, which opened Wednesday in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil.
“The French side provided us with the transmission, the engine, the concept and the fire control system,” he said.
According to Sienko, the new IFV will be highly competitive on global markets because it is equipped with a powerful 57-mm gun, instead of the 30-mm variant that is standard for current IFVs.
“With its maneuverability and fire power, we are certain that this product will be in high demand on the market,” Sienko said, adding that a joint Russian-French venture could be formed to set up localized production of the new IFV in Russia.
Renault, France’s second-biggest carmaker, has made the Russian market one of its priorities for international development. Russia is already Renault’s fourth-largest automobile market.
In 2014, the Renault-Nissan Alliance will get a majority stake in a joint venture with the Russian Technologies State Corporation, called Alliance Rostec Auto BV, which will control AvtoVAZ, leader of the Russian car market.
Jumping up to a 57mm gun on an IFV? That's huge in more ways than one. Additionally its a throwback to work the Israeli's did with a 60mm Hyper Velocity Cannon on their upgraded Shermans.
This program deserves watching.
Well for me that's no surprise for two reasons. They announce that they will pack a 57 mm gun some time ago, caliber is rather controversial of course. The second thing is installing some serious caliber guns of IFV is a tradition in Soviet/Russian vehicles. BMP series or even the airborne carriers were always carrying good punch.
ReplyDeleteI can't help it, but I don't really care about the calibre, I am too fixated on the range of the weapon. I used to worry about Russian platforms having around double the range of my LAV thanks to their ATGMs, now we are talking 8 times the range, and with a far larger round to boot? I can only
ReplyDeletebegin to imagine how this could change mech warfare if accurate.
you get where i'm coming from.
Deletethink about it like this. in one move they just negated the Javelin teams. they just rendered every IFV common weapon today moot. if they have good ISR platforms, good optics etc...and make no mistake about it.
the 57mm can rip through everything except the frontal armor of a MBT. and it can do serious damage to the front.
this might be the demise of the tank or the evolution of it.
I'm no expert on weapons, but it strikes me something like this can't be a conventional IFV cannon, there must be something different about the design to give it such an extended range. I never believe it when I see mention of the end of tanks; if a 57mm can have a 16 km range, what can they do with a 120mm on a far larger and heavier platform?
DeleteIts due to the calibre and length of the barrel, its important to note that Europe and Russia is very flat, engagement ranges can be very long, and this should help keep assault helicopters and CAS from using stand-off munitions.
DeleteA 57mm won't be shooting 16 km just because it is a larger round, relatively speaking, or has a long barrel. I would imagine the Leopard 2 and T80 barrels are at least as long, and their rounds are a lot larger, but their range is only a few km at best.
DeleteA little correction Jacobite.NZ, Europe flat part start's near the eastern border of Poland. You can almost put a line of "flat" zone with the Vistula river, with the lakes of old Prussia in the north and Carpathian mountains in the west. The true "flat" land is where Belarus, Ukraine and Russia towards the Ural chain lies. Europe is very diverse in terms of topography with larger and smaller mountains, massive number of rivers and not that massive anymore number of forests.
DeleteMy understanding is much of Northern Europe is flat, its the ammount of charge and length of barrel relative to the bullet calliber. That round came from a soviet anti-air gun, similar to how the bofors 40mm in the CV9040 came from the bofors 40mm anti-air gun, hence they were both designed for high-range.
DeleteWell, North of Europe, mainly the Scandinavian country's are definitely not flat. The most "flat" piece of land are those near sea and Finland got the biggest ones. It's more complicated, many successful triple A guns were redesign in to anti "land" use because the high velocity aka armor penetration ability not really the range. You can notice that in fight it's rather rare thing to shoot something on the max range... war in Iraq was unique as being fight on almost flat land. The long gun is mainly for high velocity shoots with range a second role.
DeleteYou have me, they are indeed northern europe, I was using colliquial language, I bassically meant most everything north of the alps that runs along switzerland/austria and czech, most of france, and west from there into russia. Which is why I understand they are called these lands are refered to as the 'low lands'.
DeleteYes that is why the bofors and this anti-air gun was repurposed for anti-vehicle purposes, because to achieve those high ranges, the munitions and the guns needed to be designed to fire at very high velocities, this also makes good kinetic penetrator gun against vehicles.
Thanks to improvements in technology, it should become more common to see engagements closer to maximum ranges when terrain permits, sensors are much better, optics are better, target correction through smart munitions which are guided is now possible, computer assisted fire control and laser range finders and more help achieve this.
They are "low" only by name, true open space with solid flat lands where you can use max range shoots is behind Polish border, hell even behind Belorussian border in open space of Russia. The main Europe in it's central part is rather not max range friendly, too many different natural and artificial obstacles. For sure you remember how solid panzer war was when Reich invade Soviets and how many kills those German panzer crews get on max range with high velocity acht-acht. When the war came to central Europe those kills start to be rare.
DeleteNow it's more a precise of shoot, if you outrange enemy it's good but when you need to fight inside main part of Europe range is not that important.
Yeah, that's was a trend that they start to notice in times of Spanish Civil War I think. That high velocity Triple-A gun was excellent also against ground targets. Even when they don't had proper ammo the share kinetic energy of flak round was able to penetrate and destroy early tanks.
With tech go in to full SF in those days, hell we just need a rail gun with solid kinetic penetrator to kill almost everything with a blood sniper shoot.
I don't think 30mm is really standard any-more, it is on its way out which was very predictable given that IFVs are armoured to withstand 30mm rounds on the frontal arc as a standard. Also the range advantages given by these larger callibers will improve effectiveness against aerial targets like CAS.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is, with that massive gun and its large turret, can this thing swim?
Still a standard, but indeed we see a trend to put a larger caliber like 35 or 40mm. In my opinion 40mm is the most logic choice, solid ballistic and range with the "intelligent" ammo sub types. But anything above that, it's start to be a support vehicle or just a light tank on wheels.
DeleteTle larger gun is the more space it take, even with good ergonomics design it's still a large piece of machinery. Then there is also problem with ammo, how much is ok and if this not put down grunts component in to one fire team or even less.
If that can swim... good question. For European and Asian theater it's pretty important thing, especial for Europe with massive numbers of small, large or huge rivers. For now the Patria/Rosomak is the heaviest wheeled IFV that can swim, but with all those new mods and electronic that was add for Iraq and Afgan missions it's lost that ability. Poles design a special displacement packages that can be mounted on the side in armored panels to reinstate swim ability to fully modded Rosomak.
Now we don't have a precise info of how much the Boomerang will weigh, for sure it has a screws for river crossing in every model. There is three solutions:
First: only lighter variants will be able to swim.
Second: the weight is lower then in most IFV's then it's armor protection is rather light. That is nothing new for Soviet/Russian wheeled vehicles as they had almost always paper thin armor.
Third: they will use similar displacement packages for river crossing.
With UK and Fra switching over to 40mm I think we can say that 30mm is on it's way out as a standard armament of IFVs, 40mm+ with increasingly intelligent ammunition will now dominate. Guns upto arround 60mm would be well suited for both anti-air (against CAS/Assault helicopters) and anti-vehicle usage but after that I think we see diminishing returns. As for munition payload I believe this Atom IFV stores about 100 rounds.
DeleteFrankly my biggest concern with the vehicle is whether or not it would be able to swim, the stated weight for this vehicle is 30 tonne, so from a weight perspective I don't see why a vehicle of this type couldn't be designed to swim, since the patria can. The base of this system is the VBCI chasis which is fairly light around 23-25t but uses some titanium in the armour, so armour may be comparable (but slightly worse) to Patria AMV, turret I believe weights arround 5 tonne.
Now it is important to note that if remade from scatch with a chasis utilizing a diesel-electric propulsion system and a 60mm gun based arround the CT40mm technology from CTA they could make a vehicle that is much lower profile, with a smaller gun system, that weighs less and offers more armour. I am sure they could also integrate better armour technology, using composite materials in their armour. But overall protection should already be reasonable.
This is unsuprising really. The eternal struggle between projectile and armor will continue unabated in the future.
ReplyDeleteand the US is still fielding the 25mm. Ha...
http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product4488.html
a interesting approach. Higher caliber 76mm gun with a "burst" capability.
I think it's a misprint. It should likely read 6000m, not 16000m.
ReplyDeleteLook at the Bofors 57mm Naval gun. It has a range of 17km with HE rounds at a 45 degree angle, but that's a larger gun in a Naval turret.
Now, let's look at the Soviet 57mm S-60 AA gun. It had a range of 6000m when cued by radar. 6000m. What that translates into in terms of aiming at ground targets, I don't know, but 16km is not realistic unless its indirect fire.
with computer and ballistic trajectory, you now can use almost the theorical range of rounds... The question is what effect on target ?
Delete