MRL vs tanks

[SimFreak]

I've been watching a lot of videos from the current "conflict" and noticed overwhelmingly successful tactic against known armor locations. A 3-7 "Grad" launchers provide (estimated) kill zone of 50 x 150 meters with devastating results. A lot of targeted armor are ripped apart (k-kill) and it surprises me given that typical ammo is not shaped charged. Is HE/Frag really that effective vs armor?

 

Please do not discuss politics, but weaponeering.

[RIPTIDE]

Yep. Was standard doctrine for many years now. I wrote about armour vs armour before here and I said the heavy tanks 50/60+ ton was to be engaged in this way: Artillery Saturation, Artillery + cluster sub munitions, aviation.

 

Although the tanks in the current 'conflict' T-64BV variants are 50 years old, the results are total devastation and would be pretty much the same for current armour engaged in the same manner.

 

The Grad can use '9M217' rockets. These are specialised Anti-Tank Sub munitions that cut up the armor from the roof.

 

[NeilWillis]

50 year old technology doesn't include composite armour. Isn't that a factor?

[WinterH]

Most of large caliber MLRS systems have some rockets with an anti-armor submunition dispenser warhead. While I wouldn't think Grad rockets would have this additional feature, more modern ones usually have guided submunitions too.

 

These submunitions attack downwards, on an oblique angle to top side armour, which rarely is of much thickness, and hundreds of submunitions saturating an area, they would have pose a significant threat to most tanks.

 

Don't know how much they would threaten newest tanks, but I wouldn't rule it out, composite or not, tanks are always easier to hurt from above.

 

Surprised about primarily T-64 variants being used though? Shouldn't they be reserves already? :)

[dumgrunt]

They would be an EFP or shaped charge nature of munitions. And being sensor fuzed. It's no wonder it's tearing up older MBTs.

 

The weakest point on top are the crew hatches, by the virtue that they must be light enough for the crew to lift them. If an EFP hit the hatch it would bounce around inside shredding the crew and likely hitting the ammo bin, after which there will not be much left.

 

Thats the whole reason why the tanks get obliterated, the secondary explosion, a submunition (or even something substantial like a jav or Metis) would not disintegrate a tank on its own.

 

The t-64s were a formibable peice of kit, the Russians never exported them, I think even their issue within the USSR was restricted.

Edited September 5, 2014 by dumgrunt

[Bushmanni]

My instructor in the FDF had an interesting story. They were practicing direct fire using decommissioned T-55 as a target. Direct hit from 155mm round would bite a big hole in the side armor and send pieces of armor flying. I also saw in some magazine a result of a test fire of the Russian Krasnopol laser guided artillery round that had hit top of a more modern tank and showed similar results ie. a hole that you could crawl through.

[RIPTIDE]

My instructor in the FDF had an interesting story. They were practicing direct fire using decommissioned T-55 as a target. Direct hit from 155mm round would bite a big hole in the side armor and send pieces of armor flying. I also saw in some magazine a result of a test fire of the Russian Krasnopol laser guided artillery round that had hit top of a more modern tank and showed similar results ie. a hole that you could crawl through.

What we're seeing in this 'conflict' is minimal visible penetration from sides but plenty of de-turreted tanks. Which suggests top down small diameter penetrations and burn out of ammunition.

[Bushmanni]

I was just making a point that whatever the type of warhead, if artillery shell or rocket lands on top of a MBT it won't just shrug off the damage.

[Groove]

Im sure "the tourists" use modern MRLS ammunition and not some 30 years old scrapmetal - which should be more than sufficient for T-64s.

[SimFreak]

If they were using submunition / or EFP, I would think there be more videos showing it. I haven't seen any yet that display burn through.

[Emu]

I've been watching a lot of videos from the current "conflict" and noticed overwhelmingly successful tactic against known armor locations. A 3-7 "Grad" launchers provide (estimated) kill zone of 50 x 150 meters with devastating results. A lot of targeted armor are ripped apart (k-kill) and it surprises me given that typical ammo is not shaped charged. Is HE/Frag really that effective vs armor?

 

Please do not discuss politics, but weaponeering.

If you have enough of it, yes. I don't think the larger Mavericks use shaped charges either, or 155 artillery.

[SimFreak]

Here's a nice BDA video of rocket artillery vs tanks.

 

http://youtu.be/U10dDRKh_lU

[OutOnTheOP]

Here's a nice BDA video of rocket artillery vs tanks.

 

http://youtu.be/U10dDRKh_lU

 

Clearly a submunition warhead; you can see numerous small craters from the submunitions around the area. The only large crater is to the right of frame (left of the tank's direction of motion), and from the blast pattern on it, that one came in at a VERY steep angle; either mortar or aerial munition, but almost certainly not a rocket. Could have been a mine, too.

 

Quite obviously a pre-planned mission, too: the intersection was likely a registration point.

[RIPTIDE]

Clearly a submunition warhead; you can see numerous small craters from the submunitions around the area. The only large crater is to the right of frame (left of the tank's direction of motion), and from the blast pattern on it, that one came in at a VERY steep angle; either mortar or aerial munition, but almost certainly not a rocket. Could have been a mine, too.

 

Quite obviously a pre-planned mission, too: the intersection was likely a registration point.

They are sub munitions dispensed by rocket artillery.

[OutOnTheOP]

They are sub munitions dispensed by rocket artillery.

 

Yes, I know there is such thing. However, you cannot say that with any certainty; at least from the footage I saw, I could not identify any rocket casings (or CBU canisters, or cargo shell carriers for ICM, or...). I'll admit I didn't watch the entire clip, though.

 

I was a fire support officer (artillery spotter) for half a decade, including time in Iraq. I do know a thing or two about weaponeering and crater analysis. It is, you realize, quite possible to have a target hit by both ICM rockets AND conventional mortars.

 

*edit* having gone back and watched the whole thing again, I still see no readily identifiable rocket casings. The only possible items that are the right dimensions both appear to be snorkel cases (normally mounted on the rear of the turrets), because they are both in the immediate vicinity of the rear of the tank turrets.

Edited September 30, 2014 by OutOnTheOP

[Weta43]

Somewhere on this forum is a picture of a large callibre MLRS casing that has just cut a groove through the skin of a truck, and then embedded itself in the ground.

 

There is no obvious destruction from the sub-munitions anywhere in sight.

 

It appears that the munitions fall on quite a different trajectory to the casing (as you'd expect).

 

Presumably, if you looked at the area where the sub-munitions landed, you wouldn't see any rocket casings either...

 

Edited September 30, 2014 by Weta43

[OutOnTheOP]

Somewhere on this forum is a picture of a large callibre MLRS casing that has just cut a groove through the skin of a truck, and then embedded itself in the ground.

 

There is no obvious destruction from the sub-munitions anywhere in sight.

 

It appears that the munitions fall on quite a different trajectory to the casing (as you'd expect).

 

Presumably, if you looked at the area where the sub-munitions landed, you wouldn't see any rocket casings either...

 

 

This is true, cargo shells (rocket and tube artillery) tend to jettison their munitions at some couple hundred meters altitude, and would overfly their target significantly (unless at near max range, in which case their angle of fall is quite steep indeed). For either rocket or tube submunition rounds, the shift in center of gravity from the submunitions departing will destabilize the projectile, and it's pretty much impossible to know *exactly* where the casing is going to go (just a big elliptical pattern where it might go!).

 

I'm not saying that lack of rocket airframes means it was NOT rockets, I am saying that since there are no carriers in the video (be they rocket, aerial, or tube), it's hard to assess if it was in fact from MRLs, or some other submunitions dispenser.

 

Heck, I never even said that it wasn't MRL to begin with. The real point I was getting at is that the damage was clearly done by submunition warheads (of some kind)- rather than unitary HE rockets, which were the topic of the OP- and that the only possible unitary warhead crater in the film is the one left of the columns direction of march, which appears from the spill pattern was a high-angle impact, as it does not have the characteristic "V" shape of shrapnel patterning from a low-angle impact. It is, I suppose, possible that it was a unitary warhead rocket that either had a delay fuze, or which was fired at near-max range- but in that case, I *would* expect to see the propulsion portion of that rocket, as they tend to survive the detonation of the warhead in the nose surprisingly intact. Anyhow, even if that were the case, the unitary warhead one isn't what did the damage: it probably was not fired as part of the actual fire mission, but rather well ahead of time, as a registration round (to accurately "zero" the battery onto the crossroads)

Edited October 1, 2014 by OutOnTheOP