"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (3 Viewers)

[manta22]

This discussion of radar, accuracy, command guidance, and missile trajectory is very interesting to me as it regards missiles that are far more advanced than the ones I was intimately involved with in '60 to '63, the Corporal Type IIB. This was the first field artillery guided missile ever deployed by the US. Much of its early development was based on the German V2 but with significant improvements. This 44 ft 10 in missile was liquid-fueled with red fuming nitric acid and analine with a slug of furfuryl alcohol to aid starting. It could carry either a conventional or nuclear warhead.

There was a combination of internal and external guidance systems:

1. Internal guidance consisted of a gyro and accelerometers to keep it upright during its launch phase and a pre-programmed timer to pitch it over to its proper flight path.

2. External guidance was fairly complex; an MPM-38 (SCR-584) pulse radar provided tracking of the missile in-flight- azimuth, elevation, and slant range while a 5-ton van with an analog computer (26 op-amps!) calculated the proper time to shut off the rocket motor so it would hit the target. At the same time a Doppler radar also fed velocity data to the computer. After the missile shut off, it flew ballistically out of the atmosphere but upon its re-entry the steering fins would again become effective. At that time the Doppler radar would send a final range correction and warhead arming command.

At that point we would tear down the whole system and haul ass since something was probably back at us very soon!

I thought you might like to hear what it was like in the "olden days".

Note: This was once Classified but has long since been Declassified. The Corporal IIB published range was 75 miles.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

We jest I know, but some cannon-equipped or capable LAVs would have been welcome. Former CAF CDS General Rick Hillier, now chair of the Unite With Ukraine Strategic Advisory Council, says it best:

"We've been very cautious, even selfish, on equipment. We could take a lot more chances — for example take 300 LAV111s, send them to Ukraine and challenge General Dynamics Land Systems to replace them with a better vehicle for the Canadian Army. We've done some good things, but the first $500 million is gone and my question is where is the next $500 million going?"

General Rick Hillier Says Canada Should Offer Training to Ukrainian Troops

In a new article published in Canada's National Post, General Rick Hillier, who is the chair of the Unite With Ukraine Strategic Advisory Council, said that the next step of Canadian support to Ukraine should be Canadian troops offering training to Ukrainian troops.

www.unitewithukraine.com

Good idea! The Mounties could drive the LAVs!

And yes, we jest…

 

[Admiral Beez]

Good idea! The Mounties could drive the LAVs!

And yes, we jest…

The RCMP is planning to deploy to or is already in Ukraine to assist with war crimes investigations. If our Mounties can help bring some of these Russians to Justice it will be a good Canadian contribution.

RCMP on the ground in Ukraine collecting possible war crime evidence

The investigation by the Mounties has been launched through the federal war crimes program to ensure important information and evidence is gathered from Ukrainians who wish to provide it upon arrival.

www.nationalobserver.com

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-more-investigators-to-hague-1.6401555

We Canadians have a long and strong relationship with Ukraine. I do wish we were sending more lethal aid to support the coming offensives. Such as LAVs.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

We jest I know, but some cannon-equipped or capable LAVs would have been welcome. Former CAF CDS General Rick Hillier, now chair of the Unite With Ukraine Strategic Advisory Council, says it best:

"We've been very cautious, even selfish, on equipment. We could take a lot more chances — for example take 300 LAV111s, send them to Ukraine and challenge General Dynamics Land Systems to replace them with a better vehicle for the Canadian Army. We've done some good things, but the first $500 million is gone and my question is where is the next $500 million going?"

General Rick Hillier Says Canada Should Offer Training to Ukrainian Troops

In a new article published in Canada's National Post, General Rick Hillier, who is the chair of the Unite With Ukraine Strategic Advisory Council, said that the next step of Canadian support to Ukraine should be Canadian troops offering training to Ukrainian troops.

www.unitewithukraine.com

I found it disconcerting, discovering today that Canada is sending AFVs to Haiti but won't do the same for Ukraine. I'm not casting any aspersions, just wondering about the difference in urgency. Reports are that the vehicles were sold to the Haitians, but I haven't seen anything about manpower deployments. At any rate, why not do the same for Ukraine?

 

[Admiral Beez]

I found it disconcerting, discovering today that Canada is sending AFVs to Haiti but won't do the same for Ukraine. I'm not casting any aspersions, just wondering about the difference in urgency. Reports are that the vehicles were sold to the Haitians, but I haven't seen anything about manpower deployments. At any rate, why not do the same for Ukraine?

Haiti is a mess and would be better if it sank into the sea. France, not Canada should be leading any aid there.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] red fuming nitric acid [...]

Thanks, found the name for my next band.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Haiti is a mess and would be better if it sank into the sea. France, not Canada should be leading any aid there.

I agreed with your post not because I think Haiti should be gone but because France should pay the you-broke-it-you-bought-it bill.

 

[manta22]

Thanks, found the name for my next band.

Acid Rock!!!

 

[buffnut453]

I absolutely agree with this. Until we have such data (and we will realistically never have that) it is all speculation. I was speculating about and commenting based on the basic design and known performance of the system and similar systems. As it was designed, I could see it being very accurate on ground targets within its designed ranges. That was my point, within its designed ranges. If they changed something, or are using it beyond those designed limitations, that speculation goes out the window.




We have comments in various media that the S300 is being used against ground targets. We don't know which versions of the missiles are being used (that goes back to my first post on the subject) and we have no details on how they are being used, only that "they are". We have little in the way of confirmation as to what targets have been hit by what missiles. Targets that are being attributed to S300 might not be.

If they are hitting 100+ km from the launchers, then it would appear to me that one of several things, or combinations of those things, are possible. They are not using the original, early, missiles. They are using the original missiles in a way not originally designed, i.e. a different form of guidance or combinations of guidance. Or they are only guiding the missiles part way, and letting them be ballistic after that, which would probably also require modifications to the missile and the radar, although they may be minor changes.

Lets talk about the "45 km range" of the oldest missiles. I will reference imagery in Google searches and the document I mentioned before, https://u.teknik.io/qTeGr.pdf Visually, the 5V55K and the 5V55R missiles are very similar, in fact they look identical to me. The performance curves inside 45 km look identical. We know there is at least one difference in the missiles, the R includes either a TVM (Track Via Missile) or a SAGG (Seeker Aided Ground Guidance), the improvement is called both depending on which source you quote. The PDF I reference above calls it SAGG. That PDF argues that there are no other differences between the K and R missiles (page 11). It also argues that the kinematics between the missiles are the same, and did not change.

Now look at the engagement zone curves on page 18 combined with the speed/time plots on the same page. It seems to show that the 5V55R missiles have plenty of energy to get to 80+ km at very high altitude. That would argue that something else kept the original 5V55K missile from being used at longer ranges. Again to that PDF, if you look at page 11 you will see what I was saying earlier, although worded differently, "The 5V55K used pure RCG which restricted the engagement zone in distance to 47 km because as the target distance increasing as the measuring error does the same." Basically, due to radar tracking accuracy limitations, the radar cannot accurately command the missile to hit a maneuvering target at ranges beyond ~45 km, so the limitation of ~45 km is not necessarily a missile driven limitation, but may be a radar system driven limitation.

As I said above, the engagement zone curves seem to indicate the missiles can be at ~75,000 feet and 80 km down range, with still intercept level energies.

What if the CG in the radar was changed (or always had a mode that was never demonstrated) to allow the CG missile to be guided to a long range and then tipped over in a ballistic curve to hit a ground target? Looking at those curves it looks like it could get to 150 km pretty easy, maybe further. It might, or might not, be guided until loss of LOS. It could all just be modeled and the guidance simply tries to put the missile through a basket in space at a certain attitude and speed to reach the target form there.

Of course, what I describe above would not have the accuracy of the same missile commanded all the way to a target 20-45 km from the radar.

Comments have been made that they have "added GPS" to the S300, with no details of what this means. What if they drive the missile out with CG to mid course, and then switch over to GPS for terminal guidance? Potentially that could be accurate, but if it is a kludge maybe not.


T!

I can't disagree with anything you're saying, indeed it seems we're pretty much agreeing with the technical limitations that drove the 45km range on the earliest S-300 missile variants. TVM or even just basic SARH could enable substantial improvements in range because the receiver on the missile is a lot closer to the target than the receiver on the SAM radar.

The idea of CG remains an option to improve accuracy in surface-to-surface mode...but the problems I outlined, not least precisely timing the signal to hit the target, are still challenging and increase with distance. Alas, we're still in "what if" and "maybe they" territory.

If Russia has integrated GPS then, presumably, it's GPS-aided INS which is exactly the approach used on JDAM kits. If you have GPS-aided INS, then CG doesn't provide any additional increase in precision or accuracy. That said, it all comes down to how well the GPS is integrated into the INS, the frequency of GPS update and the rate at which the INS drifts over time.

If they are using GPS-aided INS, then I'd still expect precision and accuracy to be better than some of the missile strikes we've seen in Ukraine...again, assuming the weapon employed was the S-300/S-400 employed in surface-to-surface mode. However, there's no need to switch from CG to GPS-aided. They could just launch ballistically and rely on the GPS-aided INS to get it to the target.

 

[Wildcat]

Has there been any confirmation of the 4 Ka-52's claimed shot down the other day?

 

[WARSPITER]

Has there been any confirmation of the 4 Ka-52's claimed shot down the other day?

Ukrainian sources claim to have video and photographic evidence that they downed four of those and may have hit more.

Haven't seen any of the evidence though.

 

[J_P_C]

My point was that with so few Ukrainian aerial sorties being mounted, there may not be as much a need for medium-caliber AAA, although they could perhaps prove useful against drones flying low and slow. I suspect it's more a matter of "look at this big cannon we've brought you" and then the grunts press it into service as needs fit. Those guns would make good APC/light-AFV killers even over open sights.

Against modern fighters, probably not so much. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are bringing in NASAMS, the IRIS-T, systems designed to shoot down planes and/or missiles. If your backstop for ADA in 2022 is a 57mm with questionable radar for a modern battlefield, I guess you gotta shoot what you have ... poke and pray.

how to convince 1970's radar system to work again???? this is not mechanical hardware, WD40 and hammer will not be enough....

 

[Jabberwocky]

The Russians advertised a new SP AAA vehicle in 2018 or 2019, using the S-60 and a BMP 3 chassis. I think a few have even made it into service. So, there might be a relatively modern radar being built that these old S-60 ground guns could be teamed with?

It's honestly not a bad concept for the medium range AD role. The S-60 is a hell of a gun - high velocity, accurate, relatively high rate of fire (~2 rounds per second) and able to put a hole in anything that's not an MBT. Plus, it has a multiplicity of ammunition types - there's proximity airburst, timed and graze fused ammunition for AAA roles, basic instantaneous fuses for ground roles and AP-T/API for engaging light armour.

The Ukrainians have also put some of their S-60s back into service. There was video back from July or August of them using it as mid-range artillery. Bang off a couple of clips of HE and then tractor the gun to a different position.

EDIT: Adding video link


It's an OLD tactic - the Bofors 40mm was used as an indirect fire gun by the Allies during WW2 (mostly because there weren't very many German aircraft to shoot at). Sometimes en masse.

 

[GTX]

Russia's displays of destroyed Australian bushmasters

Russia has displayed a destroyed Australian-made Bushmaster outside Moscow as part of a war trophy exhibition of vehicles captured from Ukrainian forces defending their country.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Denniss]

What a fake show at Moscow, the Ukrainians can fill entire cities with all the russian scrap metal and another city with all the vehicles captured intact.

 

[Admiral Beez]

What is Iran's motivation for providing drones to Russia? I know they like to be a global sh#t disturber, and maybe some Russian money is welcome, presumably not rubles. But with Russia becoming a pariah state with significantly declined prestige and global street cred, one that is increasingly embarrassing itself on the battlefield, this does nothing to strategically strengthen Iran.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

What is Iran's motivation for providing drones to Russia? I know they like to be a global sh#t disturber, and maybe some Russian money is welcome, presumably not rubles. But with Russia becoming a pariah state with significantly declined prestige and global street cred, one that is increasingly embarrassing itself on the battlefield, this does nothing to strategically strengthen Iran.

"Tyrants of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your heads!"

 

[buffnut453]

"Tyrants of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your heads!"

Not to derail the thread but things are not going well for the Tehran regime right now:

2022 Iran protests - BBC News

All the latest content about 2022 Iran protests from the BBC.

www.bbc.com

 

[macharvard]

I found it disconcerting, discovering today that Canada is sending AFVs to Haiti but won't do the same for Ukraine. I'm not casting any aspersions, just wondering about the difference in urgency. Reports are that the vehicles were sold to the Haitians, but I haven't seen anything about manpower deployments. At any rate, why not do the same for Ukraine?

Not a really great or somplete answer, but it appears, from a CTV news iitem, that the US and Canada sold these units to Haiti. "Today, Canadian and U.S. military aircraft arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to transfer vital Haitian government-purchased security equipment, including tactical and armoured vehicles, and supplies to the Director General of the Haitian National Police (HNP)," the statement reads.

 

[Admiral Beez]

This article helps to explain why Iran is supporting Russia against Ukraine. In short, oppose the US everywhere.

A zero-sum game: How the war in Ukraine is helping Iran achieve its national security objectives | Milwaukee Independent

www.milwaukeeindependent.com

Not to derail the thread but things are not going well for the Tehran regime right now:

True, but unless the praetorian-like Revolutionary Guard can be convinced to turn, which is to most considered impossible, the rebellion in Iran will almost certainly be crushed. Iran is more a military state than a theocratic one nowadays.

Iran's Loyal Security Forces Protect Ruling System That Protesters Want to Topple

The only hope is that the 420,000 members of the regular Iranian army rebel against the 200,000 strong Revolutionary Guard and the ayatollahs they protect. Perhaps Ukraine can find some way to return to favour and smack down Iran.