• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

New Guns for 1 RCHA...

Armymatters said:
I would rather prefer to see the South African Denel G5-2000 gun in CF service...

...and in the Armour/"Cancel MGS" thread, you want us to buy the Rooikat. Since your profile is blank, should we start thinking that you're a lurking member of the South African Defence Industry Association?

(I'm kidding, by the way)
 
Journeyman said:
...and in the Armour/"Cancel MGS" thread, you want us to buy the Rooikat. Since your profile is blank, should we start thinking that you're a lurking member of the South African Defence Industry Association?

(I'm kidding, by the way)

I just love South African weaponry... they have such performance that is incredible.
 
Armymatters said:
but the range of the gun means no other tube artillery system can touch it

But its rate of fire is so bad (3 rounds per minute compared with M109 8 round per minute). I would rather saw that we put our M109 turrets on a Leo 2 chassis with the engine in the front. If we put the L52 gun it will have a range superior than 50 km when using Excalibur.
 
Clément Barbeau Vermet said:
But its rate of fire is so bad (3 rounds per minute compared with M109 8 round per minute). I would rather saw that we put our M109 turrets on a Leo 2 chassis with the engine in the front. If we put the L52 gun it will have a range superior than 50 km when using Excalibur.

The M109 has a max rate of fire of 4 rds/min for 3 minutes, then it is 1 rd/min for the next 60 minutes, and after that, it is 1 rd/ 3 minutes thereafter. The G5-52 (the newest variant, with a 52 calibre tube) has a rate of fire of 6 rds/min. The G5-52 has a higher rate of fire than the M109, and can easily out range it. And Denel also has developed the T6 155mm turret system, which can be fitted on a T-72 chassis (presumeably, we can fit the T6 on a Leopard hull easily with some minor modifications). The T6 can sustain 8 rounds per minute for 40 rounds, 3 rounds in 15 seconds burst mode, and can sustain 2 rounds a minute. The system has MRSI capability, and has a autoloader with manual backup, according to what I am reading in Denel literature.
 
Unfortunatley... our Leopard hulls are being sold.
Many have gone to a US company that is using the hulls as the basis for a forest fire fightin machine.... painted fire engine red...
 
geo said:
Unfortunatley... our Leopard hulls are being sold.
Many have gone to a US company that is using the hulls as the basis for a forest fire fightin machine.... painted fire engine red...

I have been hearing scrap heap... apparantly, there are issues with the hull armor cracking and needing welding at the unit level to stay intact...
 
Here's the fire-fighting tank thingies...

http://www.texogatech.com/gls.cfm
 
?
other than Wainright and a couple in Gagetown, all the Leos are gone now.
(mind you I saw one zippin around Longue Pointe's 202 Wkshop in mid Dec)
Dont think anyone is going to do much welding anymore.
 
Aren't the hulls we sold to that forest fire-fighting company the hulls that came with the "new" turrets we installed on our old hulls ??
 
Started off with those
Then there's a bunch that have already been mounted onto Concrete plinths across the country. No last minute reprieve for the Leos...
Though it would be great to keep the AVBLs and the AEVs... don't see that capacity being reproduced anywhere else
 
Jungle said:
Aren't the hulls we sold to that forest fire-fighting company the hulls that came with the "new" turrets we installed on our old hulls ??

I think they were the ex-Bundeswehr hulls that came with our turrets... pity we could not have used those hulls... something about them being older than our hulls, and having non-standard torsion bars...
 
Armymatters said:
I think they were the ex-Bundeswehr hulls that came with our turrets... pity we could not have used those hulls... something about them being older than our hulls, and having non-standard torsion bars...

The Bundeswehr baught them back after we took the turrets and put them on our Leo's.
 
Armymatters said:
The M109 has a max rate of fire of 4 rds/min for 3 minutes, then it is 1 rd/min for the next 60 minutes, and after that, it is 1 rd/ 3 minutes thereafter. The G5-52 (the newest variant, with a 52 calibre tube) has a rate of fire of 6 rds/min. The G5-52 has a higher rate of fire than the M109, and can easily out range it.

The M109 can fire 8 rds/min for the first min and 3 rds in 15 sec. The M109 with the L52 would have about the same range than the G5/6-52 and a higher rate of fire.
 

According to US Army, Global Security, and my copy of Jane's, the M109 can only do 3 rounds per minute max, and 1 round per minute sustained. That is for all variants, except the M109A6 Paladin, which has a inital rate of fire of 4 rounds a minute. Of all of our artillery guns, the LG-1 has the best rate of fire: 12 rounds a minute, tops.

And sticking a L52 tube on a M109 won't work. The Germans stuck a L52 tube on their PzH 2000 155mm SP howitzer, and they can only get a maximum range of 40km with assisted rounds, 36.2km with base bleed. G5-52 can do 40km with bleed base rounds, and with assisted rounds, do 55km. The original G5 with its 45 caliber tube can do 50km with assisted rounds. It is the special design of the G5, using Gerald Bull's Extended Range, Full Bore principle, that gives it is range. Sticking a L52 barrel doesn't do much in the way of improving range. It has been shown that sticking a longer tube, above the 45 caliber that is common on some of the newer 155mm systems, provides negligible improvement in range. Firing the Exalibur shell in the G5-52 will give a range of 60km, meaning that it can out range any other 155mm system using the Exalibur shell, except the Bofors FH77B05 L52, which matches its range (which also uses the Extended Range, Full Bore principle).

Bofors FH77 Archer SP 155mm
http://www.boforsdefence.com/images/archer.pdf

Denel G5 and G5-52
http://www.denel.co.za/Landsystems/LS_ArtillerySysG5.pdf
 
Armymatters said:
According to US Army, Global Security, and my copy of Jane's, the M109 can only do 3 rounds per minute max, and 1 round per minute sustained. That is for all variants, except the M109A6 Paladin, which has a inital rate of fire of 4 rounds a minute. Of all of our artillery guns, the LG-1 has the best rate of fire: 12 rounds a minute, tops.

And sticking a L52 tube on a M109 won't work. G5-52 can do 40km with bleed base rounds, and with assisted rounds, do 55km.Firing the Exalibur shell in the G5-52 will give a range of 60km, meaning that it can out range any othe

Paladin M109A6 achieves a maximum firing rate of up to 8 rounds per minute or 3 rounds per 15 seconds (from Army Technology)

a semi-automatic loading system is optional
(Also from Army Technology) This would help increase the rate of fire even more.

The L52 can also be integrated on other existing artillery platforms like the M109.
( from Rheinmetall Defence)

Excalibur will enhance the range of the system to reach beyond 50km
(Again from A. T.)

G5-52 has better range, OK. But it seems to me that 50 Km seems acceptable since not long ago the max range for all arty piece was 30 km (apart for Russian and Chinease MRLSs) and in our Army it is still only some 20 km.
 
M109 is normally a manual loading gun. Any howitzer with an autoloader can fire fast. For example, the Bofors FH77BW L52 Archer SP 155mm system has a autoloader, and it has the ability to fire in salvo mode, which is 3 rounds in 15 seconds. It also has the ability to fire off its entire magazine (20 rounds) in 2.5 minutes. Comparing a system with an autoloader to a system that is manually loaded in the same size catergory is comparing apples to oranges.

And as I said before; it is not the length of the barrel that affects the range (it does, but not by much), it is the design of the entire system (breech, tube, etc) that gives it the extra range. The main issue with most of the 155mm systems is the way the gun is rifled; the shell rides on raised "lands", and uses a soft, metal driving band on the shell to spin the shell. The ERFB system takes a completely different approach, as the design uses "reversed rifling", grooves cut into the barrel. The shell rides the rifling via small "fins", and had no soft-metal area where the propellant could "blow by" the shell, allowing much more powerful propellants to be used. The resulting ERFB ammunition is key to G5's and other ERFB designs, as the shell is now a "pointy" looking shell that carried more explosive than conventional designs, had much lower drag at supersonic speeds, and was more accurate. Due to the fact that more powerful propellant is used, and the improved accuracy of the rifling, when using "zone 11" propellants (as opposed to maximum "zone 7" for the M109), the GC-45 (the gun that the G5 was based off of) could place base-bled rounds at 39,000 m with the same accuracy as the M109 at its maximum range of 18,200 m. At shorter ranges the GC-45 could easily repeatedly place rounds into 10 m circles, and could be used in the direct fire role to about 3,000 m.

The design has been demostrated to be a headache and a serious thorn in the side of anyone who is at the wrong end of the system. When the G5 first saw service with the South Africans in 1982, the gun as put against Cuban and FRELIMO forces in the Angolan conflict, where they soon completely wiped out FRELIMO artillery in the border areas. With highly accurate and long range artillery pouring down far behind the front lines, any offensive actions by the FRELIMO and Cuban forces were impossible, and led directly to the ending of active hostilities.

The G5 (in the version of the GHN-45) was also sold to Iraq, who had been on the wrong end of artillery exchanges during the early days of the Iran-Iraq War, and wanted a new weapon that would completely outrange the older U.S. 155mm designs in Iranian service. They had the same effect that the South Africans saw in Angola; they stopped the Iranians from being able to conduct offensive movements whenever a battery of GHN-45's were nearby. The GHN-45 was a serious worry for Allied commanders in the first Gulf War, as almost the entire U.S. Marines air corps had to be dedicated to wiping them out or supressing them.

Most nations are starting to move towards the G5 or guns that use the EFRB formula. Systems using the EFRB formula in the L52 length are becoming the de-facto standard in 155mm artillery, and even the Chinese now are slowly adopting a version, albeit in the L45 caliber; the Chinese apparently will adopt the NORINCO PLZ05 155mm SP system, and they have already adopted the NORINCO PLL01 155mm towed system, of which 54 howitzers have been adopted that are known, and have been issued to an independent artillery division in Beijing Military Region. During the military parade in Beijing on 1 October 1999, this division demonstrated the howitzer to the public.

If Denel decides to put an autoloader on their G5-52, the G5-52 will match the M109A6 Paladin's autoloader fire rate. In fact, Denel has two systems using the G5 on a autoloader; one is currently available (the G6 SP 155mm system) and the other is the T5/T5-2000 system. Both can do 8 rounds a minute. The G6 is a 46 ton system, so I doubt that the CF will ever express interest in it, but the T5-2000 will probally be of some interest, as it is a truck mounted system, a-la Bofors FH77BW Archer or GIAT CAESAR.

Also, using the Excalibur round in the G5 or Bofors gun will result in the range being increased even further; 60km.
 
Annyways, whatever we get which is better than this MAVS shit is just fine for me. The reason why I said modified M109s and not PZH 2000 is because I don't think that autoloaders are compatible with GPS-guided ammo like Excalibur (someone can clarify me here). I know that autoloaders can fire sensor-fused shells like SMArt and BONUS. Would G5 or G6 be better? Rheinmetall is developping a GPS guided shell which would logically be compatible with PZH 2000 and AGM. This will be interesting
 
Clément Barbeau Vermet said:
Annyways, whatever we get which is better than this MAVS crap is just fine for me. The reason why I said modified M109s and not PZH 2000 is because I don't think that autoloaders are compatible with GPS-guided ammo like Excalibur (someone can clarify me here). I know that autoloaders can fire sensor-fused shells like SMArt and BONUS. Would G5 or G6 be better? Rheinmetall is developping a GPS guided shell which would logically be compatible with PZH 2000 and AGM. This will be interesting

Apparantly, the keyword around the DND is air-portability. The M109 is not airportable with the C-130 or the A400M. So they are looking at LAV III based systems, and other truck systems, like the GIAT CAESAR, Bofors Archer, and the Denel T5-2000. I prefer the truck based systems, primarily the Bofors Archer or the Denel T5-2000 as they carry a heavier weapon that can do a lot more damage to the enemy, while being air portable in a A400M.

Edit: And yes, the G5 would be better for GPS guided shells as it is a manually loaded system. The G6 is an autoloader using system. The extra range the G5 brings to the table won't hurt as well.
 
I prefer the truck based systems, primarily the Bofors Archer or the Denel T5-2000 as they carry a heavier weapon that can do a lot more damage to the enemy, while being air portable in a A400M.

"Prefer" in what context? Are you a Gunner? Combat Team Commander?  Just curious as to your level of experience in artillery. Not calling you out, just curious - you're posting quite authoritatively across a broad spectrum of topics, and your profile doesn't give us any clues as to your experience....
 
muskrat89 said:
"Prefer" in what context? Are you a Gunner? Combat Team Commander?  Just curious as to your level of experience in artillery. Not calling you out, just curious - you're posting quite authoritatively across a broad spectrum of topics, and your profile doesn't give us any clues as to your experience....

My experience with artillery has been talking with current and ex artillery servicemen from the CF and some foreign services that I personally know, and from DND statements and plans. The reason I recommend a truck based 155mm system is due to a mix of portability and firepower concerns that arise out of MAVS. I am hearing about concerns regarding the range and firepower of MAVS, while wanting a air-portable, shoot and scoot platform. Using a truck based 155mm system would offer the best of both worlds; firepower and range, plus portability. I am well aware that Bofors Archer is A400M transportable, and the Denel system is also apparantly air-portable using the A400M. However, I am worried about the Denel platform's suitability, as according to Denel, it requires a 8x8 Tatra truck or something similar, and the Tatra 8x8 trucks are huge, while the Bofors Archer is using a Volvo 6x6. Then again, the other choices is some LAV III based 105 system, and we are getting new airlifters, so size can be a moot issue until we figure out what airlifter we get.
 
Back
Top