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The systems tanks use for identifying and defending against incoming shells are also able to identify the origin of those shells. Artillery is more vulnerable

The systems tanks use for identifying and defending against incoming shells are also able to identify the origin of those shells. Artillery is more vulnerable to counter battery fire than ever? There are systems like Archer that fire and move long before the shell lands, but its still ratcheting up?

paganel 7y ago
By reading the technical details of the Krasnopol on its wiki page it looks like "moving before the shell lands" will do little when it comes to avoiding the incoming shell. At least that's what I can understand from this fragment on that page: > The system functions as follows. The observer determines the target location (e.g. map coordinates or bearing and distance from their own position), ensures that their laser target designator can 'mark' the target and requests or orders a fire mission against the target using Krasnopol. A gun is then aimed at the target location and a guided shell is fired. The firing unit uses their 1A35K command device to send a signal via a communications link confirming the firing of the projectile to the 1A35I observation post device with the observer. The laser target designator is then used to illuminate the target and the in-flight projectile detects the radiant laser energy reflected by the target and the navigation system steers the shell towards the point of greatest incident energy—the designated target with top attack pattern. The iris of the optical seeker head is protected by a cap which is ejected by a mechanical timer upon firing. Low visibility conditions are of course a deterrent against this type of attack. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system)
- iguy 7y ago
  I think GP's "fire and move long before the shell lands" meant the gun moves, to avoid counter-battery fire (based on the shell's trajectory). Which is an orthogonal problem to the target moving.
  - paganel 7y ago
    Yeah, I got it that the gun moves, but this part: > The laser target designator is then used to illuminate the target and the in-flight projectile detects the radiant laser energy reflected by the target and the navigation system steers the shell towards the point of greatest incident energy—the designated target with top attack pattern I think means that the shell basically hits where the drone-laser points at any one moment, not where the drone-laser was pointing when the shell was first fired. Which means that if the target moves then the laser can still remain focused on it for the shell to hit said target, even if the target is moving.
    - nl 7y ago
      No you have still missed the point. The counter-battery fire uses radar to calculate where incoming shells are fired from and shoots at that point. But now the original artillery tries to move away from that point before the counter fire hits it. That counter fire isn't laser guided.
      - wernercd 7y ago
        Then... presumably... the counter fire is tracked and counter-counter-fire is fired based on calculations about where the counter-fire is coming from. Is the counter-fire mobile as well? Has it moved from its original point of counter-fire? If not, there's only a couple rounds of this before counter-fire ends.
        logfromblammo 7y ago
        Unless the counter-fire has longer range, because it's a missile, rather than an artillery round. Or the counter-fire is protected by a C-RAM system like Phalanx, Iron Dome, MANTIS, or Porcupine/DRACO. Every counter has a counter. It's turtles all the way down.
    - quietbritishjim 7y ago
      The point is you can trace back the shell trajectory to its source and counterfire on that source location, unless the gun had already moved. I don't see how what you quoted changed that. Are you saying that because the trajectory is more dynamic that it's harder to trace back to its source, even if it's still there?
jvanderbot 7y ago
"The systems", would be highly unlikely to work at longer range. Small peturbations to down-ward arc trajectories are what make artillery pinpoint accurate (essentially GPS-guided shells or even better). You can't "Back project" a long-range guided munition, and even if you could, how would you map it to topology? A defense system in nullification phase needs to know really one thing: Bearing. Once it knows the direction to the incoming munitions, it fills the air along that direction with metal as quickly as possible. Some distance information is important for timing and relative velocity is important for acquisition of targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS Now, I speak from relative ignorance of a whole bunch of possible technologies that actually could back-project and actively sense shooters. I'd welcome an education on that. I base my assumptions on the "payload" model that most military aquistions take, in which you can't necessarily do the integrated sensing, computation, and real-time display that would be required to back-project an incoming shell or rocket onto local topology to provide an actionable estimate of the firer's location. I'm less skeptical of close-in / nonballistic, especially given TFA's claims, and very skeptical of longer-range / ballistic attacks. On this, I'm fascinated by the smart-munitions arms race described in the future pistol duels from Count to a Trillion, where a series of countermeasures, decoys, and guided munitions would be pre-loaded in an attempt to outsmart your opponent.
ryanmarsh 7y ago
counter battery fire The max effective range of a M1A2 is 3,500m. Max effective range of a Howitzer (155) is 18,000m. You don't set up artillery where you'll be overrun by tanks. People ITT talking about using the tank main gun as counter bat are confusing indirect fire with direct. Tanks cannot elevate the main gun like artillery (unless we're talking about mobile artillery). When infantry kills tanks (not using air or fire support) usually requires near line of sight for targeting (TOW, Javelin). If you shoot and scoot you're still within the max effective range of the main gun (but hopefully outside max effective range for the coaxial). Therefore, if the APS gives the TC (tank commander) a POO (point of origin) he's going to swing the main gun around and blast them, as there's little cover you can find that will protect you from a tank round. These TOW jockeys in Syria get such good kills on video because they're near max effective range for the TOW, in daylight (everything in the desert has roughly the same surface temp) challenging the sensors, shooting at old ass tanks. Count the flight time of the TOWs you see in those videos. Look where they're shooting from. Look what they're shooting at!

paganel 7y ago

By reading the technical details of the Krasnopol on its wiki page it looks like "moving before the shell lands" will do little when it comes to avoiding the incoming shell. At least that's what I can understand from this fragment on that page: > The system functions as follows. The observer determines the target location (e.g. map coordinates or bearing and distance from their own position), ensures that their laser target designator can 'mark' the target and requests or orders a fire mission against the target using Krasnopol. A gun is then aimed at the target location and a guided shell is fired. The firing unit uses their 1A35K command device to send a signal via a communications link confirming the firing of the projectile to the 1A35I observation post device with the observer. The laser target designator is then used to illuminate the target and the in-flight projectile detects the radiant laser energy reflected by the target and the navigation system steers the shell towards the point of greatest incident energy—the designated target with top attack pattern. The iris of the optical seeker head is protected by a cap which is ejected by a mechanical timer upon firing. Low visibility conditions are of course a deterrent against this type of attack. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnopol_(weapon_system)

iguy 7y ago
I think GP's "fire and move long before the shell lands" meant the gun moves, to avoid counter-battery fire (based on the shell's trajectory). Which is an orthogonal problem to the target moving.
- paganel 7y ago
  Yeah, I got it that the gun moves, but this part: > The laser target designator is then used to illuminate the target and the in-flight projectile detects the radiant laser energy reflected by the target and the navigation system steers the shell towards the point of greatest incident energy—the designated target with top attack pattern I think means that the shell basically hits where the drone-laser points at any one moment, not where the drone-laser was pointing when the shell was first fired. Which means that if the target moves then the laser can still remain focused on it for the shell to hit said target, even if the target is moving.
  - nl 7y ago
    No you have still missed the point. The counter-battery fire uses radar to calculate where incoming shells are fired from and shoots at that point. But now the original artillery tries to move away from that point before the counter fire hits it. That counter fire isn't laser guided.
    - wernercd 7y ago
      Then... presumably... the counter fire is tracked and counter-counter-fire is fired based on calculations about where the counter-fire is coming from. Is the counter-fire mobile as well? Has it moved from its original point of counter-fire? If not, there's only a couple rounds of this before counter-fire ends.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        Unless the counter-fire has longer range, because it's a missile, rather than an artillery round. Or the counter-fire is protected by a C-RAM system like Phalanx, Iron Dome, MANTIS, or Porcupine/DRACO. Every counter has a counter. It's turtles all the way down.
  - quietbritishjim 7y ago
    The point is you can trace back the shell trajectory to its source and counterfire on that source location, unless the gun had already moved. I don't see how what you quoted changed that. Are you saying that because the trajectory is more dynamic that it's harder to trace back to its source, even if it's still there?

jvanderbot 7y ago

"The systems", would be highly unlikely to work at longer range. Small peturbations to down-ward arc trajectories are what make artillery pinpoint accurate (essentially GPS-guided shells or even better). You can't "Back project" a long-range guided munition, and even if you could, how would you map it to topology? A defense system in nullification phase needs to know really one thing: Bearing. Once it knows the direction to the incoming munitions, it fills the air along that direction with metal as quickly as possible. Some distance information is important for timing and relative velocity is important for acquisition of targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS Now, I speak from relative ignorance of a whole bunch of possible technologies that actually could back-project and actively sense shooters. I'd welcome an education on that. I base my assumptions on the "payload" model that most military aquistions take, in which you can't necessarily do the integrated sensing, computation, and real-time display that would be required to back-project an incoming shell or rocket onto local topology to provide an actionable estimate of the firer's location. I'm less skeptical of close-in / nonballistic, especially given TFA's claims, and very skeptical of longer-range / ballistic attacks. On this, I'm fascinated by the smart-munitions arms race described in the future pistol duels from Count to a Trillion, where a series of countermeasures, decoys, and guided munitions would be pre-loaded in an attempt to outsmart your opponent.

ryanmarsh 7y ago

counter battery fire The max effective range of a M1A2 is 3,500m. Max effective range of a Howitzer (155) is 18,000m. You don't set up artillery where you'll be overrun by tanks. People ITT talking about using the tank main gun as counter bat are confusing indirect fire with direct. Tanks cannot elevate the main gun like artillery (unless we're talking about mobile artillery). When infantry kills tanks (not using air or fire support) usually requires near line of sight for targeting (TOW, Javelin). If you shoot and scoot you're still within the max effective range of the main gun (but hopefully outside max effective range for the coaxial). Therefore, if the APS gives the TC (tank commander) a POO (point of origin) he's going to swing the main gun around and blast them, as there's little cover you can find that will protect you from a tank round. These TOW jockeys in Syria get such good kills on video because they're near max effective range for the TOW, in daylight (everything in the desert has roughly the same surface temp) challenging the sensors, shooting at old ass tanks. Count the flight time of the TOWs you see in those videos. Look where they're shooting from. Look what they're shooting at!