Barracuda revived, or artillery tank destroyer for WP
2s14.blogspot.com 7 years ago
Almost six months ago, I prepared for you an analysis of the future of Polish armored troops. I described there on the basis of more or little authoritative sources, what Gepard and Wilk might look like as successors to the presently utilized primary tanks in the Polish Army. However, six months on the subject of weaponry is sometimes a real gap and during that time many things may become obsolete. It is, and in this case. On 22 May this year in an interview with the Polish Press Agency undersecretary of state in the MON Tomasz Szatkowski informed about the closure of the chepard program, which cost the payer PLN 35 million. In the context of method modernisation, this is simply a tiny amount (equivalent to the acquisition of 3 KBWP Rosomak with a manned tower), but in the case of R&D it is simply a large amount that could be utilized for something more sensible.
Therefore, I have decided for you 2 analyses, which will someway be linked together - the first 1 will concern the "light option" and I will describe it here, while the second 1 will be on the "heavy option" and it will be presented on the pages of Conflict.pl.
Introduction
My time in an article about the PTS successor I wrote to you about Barakuda being a legend that was created in 2013 so that the soldiers of the Suwałki anti-tank squadron would believe that they would get fresh equipment for their unit in place of the historical even tiny on the BRDM-2 chassis. Following the announcement in April by IU MON of the desire to conduct a method dialog (which is presently underway) on an artillery tank destroyer, I decided to compose an errata. However, since errata is usually short and on the basis of it you would learn little, I thought that this errata would be the article. But why do we request an artillery tank destroyer? If you don't know what it is, it's about money. And in this case, it's about buying fresh basic tanks. Currently, if you want to order fresh machinery (for example Leopards 2A7), you gotta number for spending of EUR 1-1.3 billion per tank battalion. This means that if we wanted to replace in our army all the T-72 and PT-91 tanks located in linear units in a ratio of 1:1, then the exchange price could exceed the estimated value of the Vistula (after changing requirements). There are besides vehicles intended for the equipment reserve, which should be equivalent to 60-100% of the number of vehicles in active service. The exits to this problem are 3 or four: - having more cash (theoretically unrealistic) - simplification of the army (harmful for PR, but beneficial for financial) - restructuring of armoured and mechanized units (cost-effective and thus unprofitable during the method modernization of the full army) - the acquisition of vehicles with a fire power akin to MBT, at the same time cheaper than them The concept of an artillery tank destroyer is an example of solution No. 4 on this list. There are also options like utilized MBTs or rocket tank destroyers, but there are certain buts. In the case of the MBT used, the problem is that Leopards (except Spanish ones) are no longer on the market, and those which are expected to be hidden in KMW magazines may be "monsters" in the early 1980s. Abrams may complicate logistics for us, and in addition there is simply a hazard that we will not get an option to usage components of Polish production or even worse Bumar or WZMot. they will not receive their method documentation, for at least the smallest repair of the machines will gotta take place on the another side of the Ocean, which will increase the cost of this renovation and the operation of tanks. And in the case of rocket tank destroyers, let's look at the tactical and method assumptions of our Barakuda. "Army equipment planned to be acquired is intended to combat armored and armored weapons of the latest generation equipped with active defence systems, including disruptive and incapacitating rocket guidance and combating rocket by firing anti-missiles. These requirements shall be achieved by the ability to fire straight by means of kinetic fire agents and guided anti-tank missiles." This means that Barakuda in its assumptions is to be an artillery-missile tank destroyer. However, do not imagine that it will be equipped with a tower with a large caliber cannon, and containers from the PPK will be mounted to this tower, due to the fact that this is the speciality of the plan from the 1950s and 1960s (example below)
Peruvian AMX-13PA5 Escorpion
The first ZTT shows that the main weapon of the tank destroyer is to be the cannon, but the PPK is to be only an addition and frequently unnecessary. Why is that?
Discussion of the problem
The essence of the problem lies in the current active vehicle protection systems (ASOP). Stereotypically, ASOP (exactly hard-kill) is considered to be effective only against anti-tank grenades and "classical" guided anti-tank missiles. However, the latest defence systems can besides cope with the PPK attacking from above as well as with APFSDS missiles - here are the possibilities of the German AMAP-ADS strategy in protection against "steel".
This causes that the ASOP tank can be protected in the event of first contact of the vehicle not to be destroyed. In the case of tank destroyers, this is simply a very unfavourable situation, due to the fact that specified a way of combat (also known as shoot-and-scoot) is the basis for the endurance of vehicles of this kind on the battlefield. Due to the spread of APS (they are or were already equipped with Israeli and Russian tanks, and there are already another states in line) and the cost of ammunition specialized rocket tank destroyers are a completely unprofitable solution. Fortunately, overseas, software-based APFSDS missiles were started to be developed to combat armored weapons with the option to cheat hard-kill systems. How? It is presently unknown, but suspects that these missiles may have a precursor separating in flight, so that alternatively of 1 bullet in the mark they will fly de facto 2 missiles, the erstwhile (precursor) would go to the execution due to the fact that he would activate the APS. There's an American solution for today. M829A4, but besides Nexter works on missiles of this kind and it is possible that besides Rheinmetall. Solutions that increase the effectiveness of PPK besides begin to appear on the market, but this will already be mentioned in another article.
Concept
The artillery tank destroyer (in case of a project) will most likely be built on the chassis of a fresh fighting infantry car, on which a light tower with large caliber weapons will be used. However, in my opinion, Barakuda would not only be a bewuep with a cannon, only a tower would be in itself a Barakuda and would be utilized on both caterpillar and wheeled carriers. Therefore, the concept must focus mostly on the tower module alternatively than on certain vehicles. This anticipation appears to be confirmed by taking part in the analytical and conceptual phase of both OBRUM and HSW (responsible for caterpillar vehicles and towers) and Rosomak (from wheeled vehicles). Therefore, I will decision on to the subject of the tower.
Fire support wheeled Wolf with Cockerill XC-8 120HP tower
The biggest limitation will be the full mass of the vehicle resulting from the burden capacity of the BWP chassis - semi-officially it is to be maximum 40 tonnes. This means that on the 1 hand you will gotta bet on lowering the tower mass, and on the another hand this limits the choice of main weaponry. Such a mass of the vehicle prevents the usage of a high-pressure kal tank cannon. 120 mm - the recoil force of Rh 120 is approx. 71 tonnes, which is almost twice the value of the tank destroyer DMC. Therefore, the only solution here is the usage of a tank cannon with reduced recoil force. For the Polish Army, smooth-bore cannon is proposed in this respect Rh 120 LLR L/47where this force has been lowered to about 26 tonnes. The advantage of this cannon is to be able to shoot with the same missiles as the classical tank cannons utilized in Leopards, while maintaining akin parameters, so that specified tank destroyer would become an identical threat to enemy tanks like Leopard 2. However, investigating of the 120 mm caliber for tank cannons began more than 4 decades ago and now it is expected that the guns of this caliber will be replaced in fresh generation tanks by larger calibers - 130 or 140 mm. 1 example is the cannon presented last year Rh 130 (more about it will be in the second article), but it will be a strict tank cannon. For lighter Rheinmetall platforms (or individual else) will gotta plan a "low-jet" version of this cannon. Fortunately, the LLR L/47 was designed for vehicles with a mass of 20-25 tonnes, so I believe that the plan of the "130" with reduced discard force for a 35-, 40-ton vehicle, which will be an artillery tank destroyer, will theoretically not be a challenge.
"Low jet" tank cannon Rh 120 LLR L/47
The second part of the puzzle is guided anti-tank missiles. These would be 100% fired from the cannon barrel, but there are very fewer proposals in this. Exactly two. The first is Ukrainian Conus - it is simply a variety of another tank ppk called Kombat adapted for firing from tank kal cannons. 120 mm, it has a scope of 5000 m and pierces the armor with a conversion thickness of 750 mm RHA, additionally covered with ERA. The second proposal is Israel LAHAT. It is more advanced than the PPK from Konus, due to the fact that with almost 3 times little weight (12.5 kg compared to 30.4 kg Konusa) it has a more effective combat head (800 mm RHA per ERA), a larger scope (up to 8000 m) and can be led indirectly utilizing another mark indicator. As it will include the fact that there is simply a rocket attacking the mark from above (top-attack), it can be seen that it is simply a weapon suitable for tank destroyers. The only drawbacks of this solution are the price of specified a projectile, which respective times exceeds the value of classical tank ammunition (LAHAT costs PLN 50-60 thousand, and the cost of adapting the tank to fire it is an additional expense of PLN 100-150 thousand) and the time of flight of the projectile - for a journey of 4000 m requires 14 seconds. Therefore, specified ammunition as LAHAT would only be utilized by Barakuda if the anti-tank sub-unit interacted with the reconnaissance component (see drones) and attacked targets outside the scope of enemy tank ammunition, utilizing covered fire stations. Despite the fact that I only decision here the expected offensive qualities of the tank destroyer, we should besides mention the protection of this tower. As in the tradition of many vehicles of this type, it is not besides colorful in this subject, and the biggest limiter as in the case of weapons is the mass of the tower system. This means that the passive armor of the tower should defend it 100% from anti-tank firearm ammunition, possibly besides tiny caliber artillery ammunition. In another cases, additional reactive armour and, of course, ASOP, both hard-kill and soft-kill will play the main role.
LAHAT-controlled anti-tank missile
Summary
At the end of the day, we request to measure the legitimacy of an artillery tank destroyer. Yeah... why artillery tank destroyers? After all, I posted pictures of a light tank and a alleged "wheel-drive fire support car". Well, the issue of naming most likely lies in the question of who would usage these vehicles - "light tanks" and "circular fire support wagons" - would be the arming of armoured sub-units under the Board of Armoured and Mechanized Forces (as armored units), but "artillery tank destroyers" would be the arming of armored (and in rule anti-tank) sub-units under the Board of Rocket Forces and Artillery (as artillery units). Consequently, the tasks of de facto identical vehicles would be completely different - the erstwhile would service as offensive weapons and the second as defensive weapons. I think I messed you up a bit, so I'm gonna cut to the chase. Barracuda in caterpillar version (theoretical Barracuda-G) is simply a good solution, but provided it is an artillery tank destroyer. With the usage of the BWP caterpillar chassis as a base, it would be perfect as equipment of brigade and division-level anti-tank units. The problem with these units, however, is that with the simplification of the Polish Army after the systemic transformation, brigades of anti-tank companies and anti-tank squadrons, which were part of the divisional artillery regiments, were simply disbanded and the only specified unit remained the sliding 14th Anti-tank Artillery Division, which was besides to be liquidated due to tiny size. For this reason, mechanized brigades endure from a chronic deficiency another than tanks of anti-tank weapons. If it were decided to re-form anti-tank units, the request for artillery tank destroyers would be advanced (with the current structure) at least 202 pieces* + equipment reserve. On the another hand, there is simply a fear that Barakuda-G would become the successor of tanks of east origin, and for "esthetic" purposes, the existing tank battalions would be renamed tank destroyers squadrons or anti-tank artillery squadrons, which would be average nonsense. But I might mention that another time. But the circular version (Barracuda-K) is completely unprofitable for 2 crucial reasons. The current Rosomak chassis is not suitable for the function of ArtNCz due to the low DMC (26 tons) and advanced base, which would make the vehicle poorly armoured, would have mediocre field mobility, and the service on this vehicle would not be pleasant in any aspect. It is so essential to make a fresh chassis with increased burden capacity (DMC >30 tonnes) and an additional axle to improve ground ownership. However, the improvement of specified a chassis could consequence in a version of 8x8, on which the successor of Rosomak would be created. This would improve the logistics and operation issues of the vehicle, but it is already fun for billions of PLN. In addition, the request for specified a vehicle would be very low, due to the fact that it would only be 42 vehiclesWhich is not necessarily a game worth a candle. Nevertheless, the full analysis may be purely theoretical, as there are voices that Barakuda's program can be closed with the completion of the analytical and conceptual phase. In my opinion, the unmanned or residual tower with large caliber weapons should be developed by the Polish manufacture as a modular strategy utilizing experience in designing MAHSW (Rak) and ZSSW-30 towers. Therefore, we will have no problem implementing specified an artillery tank destroyer for service, and we will have an emergency option for "heavier" programs. specified a tank destroyer could become rather a curiosity, due to the fact that despite mediocre armor it would be effective to combat armored vehicles from both exposed fire stations (using APFSDS missiles) and hidden fire stations, while being out of scope of enemy fire (thanks to PPK). There is besides a second, faster option - acquisition from the Belgian tower Cockerill XC-8 120HP, but it will no longer benefit the same as the plan of the national tower and the tank destroyer itself will no longer be as effective, due to the fact that for this tower ppk is proposed Falarick 120also known as Konus.
