IMHO APKWPS laser guided rockets are greatest thing since laser guided swiss cheese(sliced)

[DmitriKozlowsky]

IMHO APKWPS laser guided rockets are greatest thing since laser guided swiss cheese(sliced).

No need to waste Sidewinders on helicopters. A pair will retire a tank. 4 will retire a heavy main battle tank, and a mobility kill on a corvette. But they cannot sink a Tarantull.

[Longiron]

Really?

I've never even tried them on anything more than an APC.

While they are nice, can carry a bunch but nothing like the A10, having to hold the laser and be uncomfortably close in has me using them to mop up light targets that I could basically do with unguided rockets and or guns just as well.

I don't see them as ground breaking new tech or abilities, such as SLAM could provide.

But I suppose in a world with budget concerns and collateral damage mitigation I can see their pros.

[Wdigman]

I find them great as a backup for other unguided weapons and a great way to clear Antiaircraft guns before strafing targets.

 

7 Guided shots on one pylon.

[Fri13]

Get behind a T-72B and you can take them out with 1-2 rockets. I wouldn't go from the front or the sides anyways.

Against a APC's they are great, as each rocket is like a M72 LAW rocket, with about 350-400 mm RHA penetration, so there is no reason not to use them against anything else than a MBT.

 

And no, the GAU-8 in A-10 does not deliver ANYTHING like a 2.75" rocket does. The 30mm cannon armor penetration is laughable compared to a HEAT warhead, it is 76 mm at best possible case at 300 meters and at 30 degree angle, at 1000 meters it is anymore just a 38 mm. You can't even penetrate a T-54/55 with it unless you come straight from the above, but considering you would need to be then at 6000-5000 ft altitude to start the dive, you are just a missile magnet that moment.

 

The APKWS rockets has launch altitude and speed variable maximum ranges. The limiting factor is the Mk.66 rocket motor itself that can only really put it fly up to 6.8 nmi in normal launch parameters. So flying slower and lower means less range than that, while faster and higher gives possibility reach those ranges.

 I have found that the APKWS II in a Harrier has a good 3-5 nmi range, that is enough to keep you away from many harmful things, and allows easy lobbying them by performing a nice circles that makes possible rapidly engage targets, especially if JTAC does the target designation.

 

There they are great, you get to use ARBS/LST to find where you are suppose to shoot at and just be sure to be inside +/-15, so basically the HUD (+/-10 degree) as the seeker FOV is only +/-20 degrees (IFOV 40 degrees) so there is plenty for aiming errors.

 

 

[Recluse]

Agreed. I am sure you COULD ripple them and move the laser spot around (when self lasing) to get 2 (close) targets in one pass but I haven't quite found the sweet spot to allow me to judge the interval between shots to have the time in flight staggered enough for moving the laser.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

They have similar range to Mav. Begin lasing lasing at 5.2 km slant range, fire when breaking 5km. Turn 45-60 degrees of target. 

Challenge when using LG rocketz, is finding , then holding target in TPOD, while avoiding air defense. But aside from. guns, and unguided rockets, APKWS has quickest reaction and target turn around time. 

Next up are laser guided 25, 27, and 30 mm gun ammo.

Just a friendly reminder.  WWII 40mm Bofors unit, can take down AV-8B with few rounds. Plus they are good in DCS. Inside 4km, 40mm AAA is a threat. Inside 3km, a deadly threat.

23mm AAA, in DCS, will activate Xmas tree , if u take few. But no biggie. 

30mm from Mig or BTR, or APC, will wreck your day, but u can still eject.

A 40 and new 57mm from WWII and 1950's. Well a single round, and my Harrier is instantly without a wing , on fire,  with unconscious pilot, spinning at ungodly rate into terrain. 

 

 

[Recluse]

Here's a video (NOT MINE) of Rippling APKWS in the A-10C, but even with that slow bird, you have to get mighty close. Probably could have offset from target after firing the second rocket. Have to try this in the AV-8B

 

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by Recluse
Not my video.. just found on YOUTUBE

[Sr.]

I've successfully fired and gained hits well beyond the 5km mark. I simply start off dead on vertical to target, then nose up which puts the reticle just over the actual targeted vehicle. LASE, lob, fire, turn out while continuing to LASE.

 

I'm assuming by the time they finish their additional arc, they have acquired the LASER.

[Fri13]

14 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

They have similar range to Mav. Begin lasing lasing at 5.2 km slant range, fire when breaking 5km. Turn 45-60 degrees of target. 

 

The Mavericks in DCS seems to have a superior seekers to what the real data shows, where in reality the AGM-65D (to what the E, F, G are based to) has a 5000-10000 ft (0.9-1.7 nmi) lock ranges, in DCS they are 4-5 times of that. But AGM-65 requires a lock-on-before-launch, and that is impossible with APKWS II, hence they are Lock-On-After-Launch and have demonstrated capabilities to get to be fired on maximum rocket launch ranges (limited by the rocket motor) if lobbed.

 

14 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

Challenge when using LG rocketz, is finding , then holding target in TPOD, while avoiding air defense. But aside from. guns, and unguided rockets, APKWS has quickest reaction and target turn around time. 

 

What would get even more difficult it we would have a proper AI in the game, where many units would get the laser ranging (& guidance) warning, and they would know that from what direction it is coming from, pop a smoke to block the laser and move to cover while concealed by the smoke. The laser mavericks would be rendered duds as the mavericks has safety feature that once they lose a laser lock, they will disable their warhead and perform a high up-trajectory over-fly. This is why the laser spot direction is required to be well inside 60 degree angle from the weapon, and it is required to be pointed at strong reflection, from a proper ranges (like the MULE portable designator has only a 3.5 km maximum range in optimal scenarios, commonly well below that depending weather and material type that is designated). The smoke screen would be effective as well against APKWS II as it would deny the laser spot to be anymore visible as it is "sucked" and reflected into the smoke.

 

Same thing is with the common camouflage nets for vehicles that will deny the laser energy reflections (as well FLIR) and render the vehicles invisible if you can't visually spot them (and that is again one of their purposes to conceal from visual spotting) and that vehicle crews wouldn't be doing by leaving vehicles at wide open areas to be spotted.

The current tactics that are commonly seen are based to Gulf War and now Syria and so on, where targets are at wide open areas, even in urban areas and just doesn't have anything like the European warfare would have. So in maps like Nevada and Persian Gulf and most parts in the Syria, it is like shooting a fish in a barrel if they don't have camouflage nets and find digged covers and a like. But Caucasus, Channel and Normandy should be almost unusable for the FLIR and laser guided weapons use, if you have any competent enemy against you.

 

The APKWS great feature is that you can have the troops on the ground in contact with the enemy to designate target few seconds after you have launched rockets in the area. The 40 degree instant field of view of the seeker has change to capture the laser spot at couple kilometer distance and enough time (time to target) to turn on it. Well timed cooperative attack gives ground forces a good change to get more difficult targets destroyed.

 

14 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

Next up are laser guided 25, 27, and 30 mm gun ammo.

 

I think you mean just the cannon fire? Or radar guided cannons?

 

14 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

Just a friendly reminder.  WWII 40mm Bofors unit, can take down AV-8B with few rounds. Plus they are good in DCS. Inside 4km, 40mm AAA is a threat. Inside 3km, a deadly threat.

23mm AAA, in DCS, will activate Xmas tree , if u take few. But no biggie. 

 

A 23 mm shell is such that if you take a hit, the kinematic hole alone from AP round is about a fist size hole through the airframe. If it is a HEI then it is about 20 cm diameter, that is size of open hand. Basically that in a wing is high risk rip off the whole wing if hit in the support element and target pulls some G's..  A 40 mm HE shell is even more devastating.

 

But again our problem in DCS is that we can be lobbying weapons well beyond their real capabilities. Now, a JDAM or a GBU-12 are ones that could be released from a 20 000 ft altitude safe from those guns, or lobbied behind a hill or come in at low altitude and lob it at target while going quickly back to 200-300 ft altitude, but we do not have again the proper AI.

 

The ground units like a ZSU-23-4 is firing all the time in a pure lead, while they should be changing their targeting methods depending target altitude and vector. Mainly they would be shooting a barrage method, placing a short burst ahead of you and let you to fly to it, and not try to hit you by aiming at you. So when you would be coming to a attack run, they would deny your capability to fly as you want on the target, but instead cause you to try spot the shells positions and then avoid them by maneuvering, but pre-maneuvering would be bad as you likely fly to stream of shells. So this increase the pilot stress as he needs to be able spot the shells and then maneuver and same time try to keep an eye on the target and try to maneuver for the weapons release. Now the control is in the pilot, while the control should be on the Anti-Air. And from the Air-Defense perspective, I wouldn't fly anywhere near 4-5 km of the target zone if I would need to fly anywhere toward the ZSU-23-4 that is 60 degree from the attack vector.

 

And this doesn't even include the dozens of a MANPADS that are defending the air space 10 km radius from it. Example for a one MBT platoon (3-4 MBT) there is about 40-60 MANPADS missiles, distributed to about 5-10 km wide area. Now each MANPAD will create about 5-7 km wide denied area. That means 3-5 km toward enemy and 5-7 km to sideways and 10 km to rear of the launcher position. All the way up to 4-5 km altitude. That means about 15-24 km wide protected area. Now add a 1-2 SAM on the area.

 

And they do not need to hit you, just keep you from completing the attack run or denying accurate weapon release.

 

So the idea about getting close is fairly bad from the air.

 

14 hours ago, DmitriKozlowsky said:

30mm from Mig or BTR, or APC, will wreck your day, but u can still eject.

A 40 and new 57mm from WWII and 1950's. Well a single round, and my Harrier is instantly without a wing , on fire,  with unconscious pilot, spinning at ungodly rate into terrain.

 

Would be nice if we would have a such threat to pilot that they do not want to enter so willingly to protected area, or just be capable to do so.

[Dragon1-1]

11 hours ago, Fri13 said:

What would get even more difficult it we would have a proper AI in the game, where many units would get the laser ranging (& guidance) warning, and they would know that from what direction it is coming from, pop a smoke to block the laser and move to cover while concealed by the smoke.

For most units we have, this isn't true. LWR on tanks is a recent innovation, and most other vehicles still don't have it. They would pop smoke when they spot a launch, but not before.

[Fri13]

22 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

For most units we have, this isn't true. LWR on tanks is a recent innovation, and most other vehicles still don't have it. They would pop smoke when they spot a launch, but not before.

 

Not for all, but most that are targets like MBT's and many SAM systems. It is not so recent, it is a 80's tech.

It is installed on important vehicles, not to all APC's or IFV's, but command vehicles, and such it can be installed.

There are many other systems as well in our arsenal that isn't available to be used, like Strela-10M4 that we have, does have a "Fat Box" system that is capable to detect air radars (IIRC at 15-20 degree accuracy in azzimuth) so they will get early warning from the fighters on the area that has their radars active. Those are even in the 3D models of those, but not usable. In Combined Arms we should get a "radar" direction warning for direction so we could concentrate search for given area.

 

Still, we would have many other means for tank crews to receive warnings, like infantry outside that can visually spot the threat or hear something around, but typically the basic training is that vehicles are kept in the cover unless required to engage something, and then they will retreat back to cover for a moment, instead staying visible all the time. So the common attack helicopters and CAS aircraft in the area has very little changes to engage targets as air threats warnings are issued very early.

 

This is common tactic requirement for the ground designators that they need to be aware when not to point the laser on target or range the target as they can alarm their existence in the area. The older systems issued just warning that they are lazed, so the commander and driver were aware and could pull in cover. While later on the direction finding became possible.