Recoilless Rifles superior to throw-away ATG?

[phavoc]

Yep. But best is the grid square remover, it ain't a party until Arty gets there.

Redlegs all the way! My old MLRS unit in the 1st Cav had the battery motto of "Steel Rain". I don't think we coined that (arty has been raining steel and iron and many other things for like forever). But I got a kick out of reading some of the news articles showing nighttime firing of MLRS calling it "steel rain".

Re: the training aspect - Man, I wish we had more training on the Laws, M-60's and even my 40mm grenade launcher I had to cart around. But they were always cheap with the training budgets, except at the end of the fiscal year when we had to go blow everything up all at once or lose our allocation for the next year. We got to go to the range once a year, and aside from basic we never got to play with the wanna-be LAWS. One rocket pod (training even) cost a couple hundred thousand dollars and we could have gotten a lot more smaller ammo for training, but that's not how the Army mind works sadly.

German RR art was called Leichtgeschütz, and used the same warhead as their howitzers, their rocket artillery was all over the place, many of them fired from wooden crates, like the Wurfrahmen. Russians used a lot of German weapons, that the Germans had dropped or taken from them when captured.

RR's have been figured to be mediocre at killing tanks, however, tanks are sort of a past-tense weapon in that just about any country that can make tanks, or modern mbt's, also has nukes. So in the modern battlefield, the RR as an art piece has many more advantages.

The Stackpole series on WW2 has a book on the Red Army and goes into great detail about their artillery systems, their tactics and how they would re-use captured German gear on a regular basis. As an interesting aside, the Germans did the same thing early in the war with captured Allied tanks, as the Pzkw1 and 2 were pretty crappy and outclassed. The Germans just knew how to use them better (though their MG42 was top of the line and remains essentially unchanged in today's Bundeswehr.

 

[Condottiere]

Training, morale, cohesion, and whatever else I'm overlooking.

Shock and awe is to overwhelm your opponent before he has time to react, which may be due equally as well to a archaic doctrines that can't cope with the ones being used against them, as much as better equipment.

MBTs survive understanding this and not standing around, inviting a missile; and then you have urban warfare.

 

[dragoner]

Yep. But best is the grid square remover, it ain't a party until Arty gets there.

Redlegs all the way! My old MLRS unit in the 1st Cav had the battery motto of "Steel Rain". I don't think we coined that (arty has been raining steel and iron and many other things for like forever). But I got a kick out of reading some of the news articles showing nighttime firing of MLRS calling it "steel rain".

Re: the training aspect - Man, I wish we had more training on the Laws, M-60's and even my 40mm grenade launcher I had to cart around. But they were always cheap with the training budgets, except at the end of the fiscal year when we had to go blow everything up all at once or lose our allocation for the next year. We got to go to the range once a year, and aside from basic we never got to play with the wanna-be LAWS. One rocket pod (training even) cost a couple hundred thousand dollars and we could have gotten a lot more smaller ammo for training, but that's not how the Army mind works sadly.

It is typical, then you finally learn how to use them in combat and the stock runs out. Sometimes you would get to see scary stuff in depot, like corroded smoke shells from the 1950's, who gets to touch that? If the truth be told, arty is the big show at getting the job done, but the guys then don't get respect. IIRC in Guderian's Panzer Leader he asked why the StuG's were still organized in independent battalions by the artillery and an artillery officer said it was the only way the artillery guys could be decorated. The Russian MLRS system was called "Grad" or Hail, interesting crossover for steel-rain.

German RR art was called Leichtgeschütz, and used the same warhead as their howitzers, their rocket artillery was all over the place, many of them fired from wooden crates, like the Wurfrahmen. Russians used a lot of German weapons, that the Germans had dropped or taken from them when captured.

RR's have been figured to be mediocre at killing tanks, however, tanks are sort of a past-tense weapon in that just about any country that can make tanks, or modern mbt's, also has nukes. So in the modern battlefield, the RR as an art piece has many more advantages.

The Stackpole series on WW2 has a book on the Red Army and goes into great detail about their artillery systems, their tactics and how they would re-use captured German gear on a regular basis. As an interesting aside, the Germans did the same thing early in the war with captured Allied tanks, as the Pzkw1 and 2 were pretty crappy and outclassed. The Germans just knew how to use them better (though their MG42 was top of the line and remains essentially unchanged in today's Bundeswehr.

The MG3, nice weapon, used by a lot of countries. Soviets created the modern army in a lot of ways, with their own corps level structure, but they were happy to take useful stuff from the Germans, like the RPG-1 was just the German Panzerfaust, Germans used a lot of Russian equipment, they esp prized the Russian F/Zis 76mm guns and 120mm mortars, and it is funny that the ptrs was prized as well, and is back on the battlefield as the anti-material rifle.

 

[Condottiere]

Part of the issue is real life experience versus gaming the system.

The automatic rifle being the solution was one system, in another it was using variants of submachines guns as general issue, based on training a minimal military skillset and a wllingness on my part to to see each problem as a nail and close assault it.

 

[phavoc]

Part of the issue is real life experience versus gaming the system.

The automatic rifle being the solution was one system, in another it was using variants of submachines guns as general issue, based on training a minimal military skillset and a wllingness on my part to to see each problem as a nail and close assault it.

It used to be your riflemen were trained to a higher degree of accuracy. The US found that when they switched to automatic rifles in Vietnam the amount of ammo usage skyrocketed but the number of enemy kills didn't. The idea of "spray and pray" is alive and well in the future I am assuming.

 

[Anonymous]

Keep the happy switch on semi... you might actually hit something.

Too many action films with the happy switch in full glory have taught us it's easy to hit in full auto.

Unless you have a solid bipod or tripod, a barrel ready to change and someone feeding the belts, then you're gonna shred!

I like my RPG of the non cinematic kind, can you tell?

(Is that rocket propelled grenade or role playing games? You choose!)

 

[Somebody]

The heavy (100+mm) recoilless rifles have quite a few problems IRL that are either not present or far less serious in SciFi Universes like Pournelles CoDominion/Future History or (to some extend) 2300AD.

+ They are heavy (250+kg) so they need a jeep etc. as carrier
+ They have quite a bit of back-blast that gives away your position(1)
+ Their HESH and HEAT rounds became in-effective against spaced armor and ERA
+ They are rather low velocity making them less effective and shorter ranged against mobile targets
+ They are non-guided making them less usefull against tanks. Even more so once the tanks can effectively fire on the move

In the "real world" with "Tank battle in Fulda Gap / North German plains" as the driving force the anti tank missile in it's later incarnations (SACLOS "keep crosshair on tank, weapon does the rest) configurations like MILAN seemed the better idea for tank killing while bunker busting was a "won't happen" idea for western forces and a "bring a T55/62/72" idea for the BöFei. The final stage are "cold launcht" ATGM like the (never fielded due to theBöFei refusing to keep playing) TRIGAT-MR. (The LR-version is used)

The smaller (< 90mm) recoilless rifles are still around in various forms. The Panzerfaust-3 uses a throw away launch tube mated to a re-useable sight system, the older leichte Panzerfaust (Panzerfaust 44mm) was fully reuseable (and used till the 1990s) and various nations still use the 84mm "Carl Gustav" in various incarnations or the US M67. They where mostly retained by units that expected a lot of city fighting (I.e the Berlin units retained them till the end of the cold war) where wire guided missiles are not very useable. Also used in terrain with heavy undergrow (Again the guide wires do not like that). The final stage of this where "fire and forget" ATGM like Javelin and laser guided ATGM like "Trigat-MR"

Again the "cold war" did away with some of their uses since the vision was that frontline units would have a canon armed IFV (some late cold war plans hat 35/50mm guns based on the Gepard AA tank guns on the IFV, some current ones use 40mm Bofors AA based guns) or at least a APC plattform with a 12.7mm maschine gun or a 40mm Automatic grenade launcher that could do the job "just as well" when it comes to killing infantry.

In fictional universes some of these stuff does not exist or is not available to the heros. In the CoDo STL flight uses fuel and transporting large mass between systems therefor is costly and complex. Same for the spare parts. And with many world being (often deliberatly by the controlling states/corporations) kept low tech the local production is not up to making the spares for a "Leopard 2A7" equivalent tank. Add in effective anti air (Pournelle has "cheap, german greenie useable AA missiles" for everyone, basically a LAW against airciraft, 2300AD has lasers) that renders combat helicopter a none starter and the heave RR comes back for various reasons.




(1) One could use a counter-mass system like the german Bundeswehr Panzerfaust-3 but that would lead to a heavier round

 

[Nobby-W]

Found an interesting article about the Carl Gustaf that is being issued to regular army troops and not just special forces.
...
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2012/01/27/Army-expands-use-of-recoilless-rifle/UPI-72791327676147/?st_rec=72791327676147

Back in the cold war, recoilless rifles could fire anti-tank rounds that were effective against the tanks of the day. They could also fire HE, smoke, flechette and other rounds that made them effective as a general support weapon.

By the 1980s tank armour (particularly with the advent of Chobham armour and its descendants)[1] had moved on to the point that much larger and more complex warheads were needed to penetrate a modern MBT. Anti-tank missiles and launchers tended to diverge, where the much larger warheads needed for anti-tank work necessitated more and more specialised anti-tank weapons. Some disposable launchers topped 10kg and had warheads that could penetrate 800-1000mm of RHA.

These were great for providing basic anti-tank defence but this type of system is much too heavy and expensive for an infantry fire support weapon. Weapons such as the Carl-Gustav and even the RPG fire relatively light, cheap ammunition and are much better for this sort of work, while retaining some anti-tank capability. Horses for courses.

There are also a surprisingly large number of forces still using the old M40 106mm recoilless rifle, plus a number of third parties making uprated ammo for it.

The emergence of brushfire wars against irregular forces has made these weapons far more useful - to the extent that the U.S. is even dragging old M67 recoilless rifles[2] out of mothballs as a stopgap measure. There's even an outfit in the states making a knockoff of the soviet RPG (with nice tacti-cool rails of course). There is also a spec out for an improved C-G.

This sort of weapon (or a higher tech version) would be absolutely spot-on for the sort of battles a mercenary unit might get involved in. Combined with higher-tech ammunition and fusing/guidance systems such as target designated rounds or a timed detonation fuse like the XM25 this type of weapon probably has a few tech levels left in it. A thermobaric round might also be effective against troops in heavy armour due to the concussion effects, prompting a TL11-13 renaissance of the tech.

[1] Fun fact - the factory where this was first made is now leased out to Pinewood Studios and even has its own train station called Longcross (Source: I used to live just down the road).
[2] The M67 is a recoilless rifle of roughly similar specification to the Carl-Gustav.

 

[simonh]

Keep the happy switch on semi... you might actually hit something.

Too many action films with the happy switch in full glory have taught us it's easy to hit in full auto.

To be fair, most action film combats take place at pretty close range and often within buildings even. In that context automatic fire has a place.

I had the pleasure of firing a LAW 80 when I was in the Territorial Army back in the 90s. Loads of fun - I scored a direct hit below the base of the turret at 200m against a static target, whch I was very happy with. We also fired simulated rounds at moving targets and boy is that hard. The LAW 80 has a built-in 5 round 9mm spotting rifle you use to get range and distance to the target before firing. The idea is that the 9mm tracer rounds have similar ballistic characteristics to the rocket round. I think I might have hit a moving target with a spotting round once out of 10 shots, but it was as much luck as judgement. The chances I'd have hit a moving target with a real round are very low unless I'd got a lot more practice. So for your ordinary infantryman, the weapon having a maximum effective range of about 500m isn't much of a disadvantage I don't think. You want to get as close as possible to a static target before you've got much chance of an effective hit anyway.

The Carl Gustav is better suited as a specialist support weapon, after all the CG gunner is typically only armed with just a pistol as a backup weapon. Also the load of launcher and ammo takes a big chunk out of the carrying capacity of a small unit. One-shot AT systems are much more suitable for opportunistic use by your average fire team.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

This sort of weapon (or a higher tech version) would be absolutely spot-on for the sort of battles a mercenary unit might get involved in.

Completely agree. If you don't have specialist artillery or anti-tank units available something like the Carl Gustav becomes very attractive.

Simon Hibbs

 

[phavoc]

As an ATG weapon, the Carl Gustaf is only really effective with side shots that target the treads and track system. It's not powerful enough to penetrate the hull armor.

But used as an infantry support weapon against protected targets, or even lightly armed vehicles it does pretty well. Tanks really need to be taken on with dedicated anti-tank weaponry. But when you are a soldier and all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!

Unless you are in artillery... then everything is just a grid coordinate. Just don't lose your left-handed grid square... those are such a bitch to get from supply.

 

[Condottiere]

Logistics matter.

I think that with the event of PGMP-12, that sort of finishes off hauling about semi-effective heavy support weapons by then modern infantry.

There are a number of other factors involved, such as costs, industrial capacity, training, availability, etcetera.

The Afghans seem to love RPGs, it provides effective longish range firepower. The Syrian insurrectionists find the the jeep mounted recoilless cannon effective at reaching out and touching their competing insurrectionists who've fortified themselves on a nearby hillside.

The Marines mounted six of them onto a small armoured vehicle, the Ontos, and were quite happy using it to fire it at dissenting Vietnamese.

In terms of Traveller, you look at what's available, how effective it is and what it will cost you, and how easy it is to train the troops in it.

There are two interesting variants to consider.

A modern version of the PIAT.

Mass driver version of the recoilless cannon.

 

[Nobby-W]

...
There are two interesting variants to consider.

A modern version of the PIAT.

Maybe something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nOkO8Sh2xs (high impulse shoulder-launched cannon). Not an A-T weapon, but a big grenade launcher that can be used for the same sort of targets a C-G is good for. One could imagine a weapon like this being used with powered armour.

...
Mass driver version of the recoilless cannon.

Given the role of the exhaust gasses in counteracting the recoil of a recoilless rifle, I don't think you could do that sort of thing with a mass driver. You might be able to have a secondary accelerator firing a counterweight backwards to counteract recoil but this would have to disperse at least as quickly as the backblast from a recoilless rifle.

 

[phavoc]

I am wondering if the CSC catalog is going to have hyper-velocity throw-away ATG / bunker buster rockets. It would certainly replace the need for a portable grenade launcher. Though the RPG (or its future equivalent) big advantage is that it's going to be cheap, and relatively effective against a lot of things.

RPG's are easy to aim, easy to shoot and require very little training. Easy to miss your target too, but they are so damn cheap that quantity can make up for quality.

 

[wbnc]

I am wondering if the CSC catalog is going to have hyper-velocity throw-away ATG / bunker buster rockets. It would certainly replace the need for a portable grenade launcher. Though the RPG (or its future equivalent) big advantage is that it's going to be cheap, and relatively effective against a lot of things.

RPG's are easy to aim, easy to shoot and require very little training. Easy to miss your target too, but they are so damn cheap that quantity can make up for quality.

RPG-7s have a nasty quirk...they fire the projectile out of the tube like a low velocity recoiless rifle, and then the rocket kicks in giving it an odd flight profile...people not experienced with them can actually hit the ground or obstacles they are firing over if they haven't been taught about the odd dip the round takes coming out of the tube

Now this was true with older types..not sure if that still holds true for modern models.

Also the rounds sometimes don't fly true, if a fin, or venturi is flawed, or the round was damaged..it can hop spin and arc wildly

 

[-Daniel-]

Also the rounds sometimes don't fly true, if a fin, or venturi is flawed, or the round was damaged..it can hop spin and arc wildly

In other words someone rolls a 2. :mrgreen:

 

[wbnc]

Also the rounds sometimes don't fly true, if a fin, or venturi is flawed, or the round was damaged..it can hop spin and arc wildly

In other words someone rolls a 2. :mrgreen:

With the "wildly dangerous" add on..... mean the gun going clik in the middle of a gun fight is a 2 the car going.."ka-chunk-ca-chunk..........sputter" in the middle of a chase after you roll a 2 on the repair check three days earlier.....dodging a wildly spinning, and tumbling high explosive projectile you just fired......... is a 2, rolled after the GM finds out your dating his kid sister...and ate the last of the cheetos

 

[Condottiere]

I'm quite sure that high tech ATGWs will exist, since they have some advantages over a straight line beam weapon.

A PIAT will have to be used at suicidally short ranges, but no signature, and the troops could be stealthed, and earmarked to take out battle suited opponents.

A recoilless cannon will have a low muzzle velocity, but the shell could have a second stage that will allow it to accelerate to hypervelocity. Could also be gyro-stabilized so that when the rocket ignites, it follows the intended route.

 

[wbnc]

I'm quite sure that high tech ATGWs will exist, since they have some advantages over a straight line beam weapon.

A PIAT will have to be used at suicidally short ranges, but no signature, and the troops could be stealthed, and earmarked to take out battle suited opponents.

A recoilless cannon will have a low muzzle velocity, but the shell could have a second stage that will allow it to accelerate to hypervelocity. Could also be gyro-stabilized so that when the rocket ignites, it follows the intended route.

A basic spigot mortar is better for a short range lobbing of HE and frag into positions than precision fire. But if you loaded a smart round with a motor of some kind into it.fired it upward then let the seeker warhead pick it's own target...ouch....add in an explosively formed projectile style warhead and then you get "ow, ouch, oh my god why!!!"

The self propelled round idea is what a lot of modern shoulder fired launchers use, and initial powder charge to get the round out of the tube, then the rocket kicks in and boosts to high speed.

The problem with a rocket is that if the motor is still firing when the round leaves the tube the ground crew get a face full of rocket exhaust...which means most rocket propelled rounds have to burn completely in the tube, or ignite after reaching a safe distance from the firing crew....so most Rocket systems are actually hybrids of recoiless rifles, and rocket launchers.

 

[phavoc]

My rocket rounds were going supersonic before it cleared the tube. But I had about an inch of aluminum armor protecting me in my over pressurized cab.

I'm pretty sure if you scraped off the paint you would found a patchwork of Pabst blue ribbon cans underneath.