https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ordnance_L11A5#Design >The breech mechanism is a downward sliding semi-automatic breechblock. The gun was equipped with a hydro-pneumatic recoil system using two buffers. The gun recoils 37 cm (15 in) in most applications. This breechblock design was based on the breechblock on the Krupp/Skoda sFH 18/43 model 18 that the British studied extensively after the Second World War and perfected for use in the 120 mm gun. >Unlike most tank weapons which fire a single fixed round, the projectile and propellant are loaded separately. The propellant is in the form of a combustible "bag" charge (or later, a combustible charge case for armour-piercing rounds). This required the obturation to be provided by the breech rather than the cartridge case, as is the case in fixed rounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ordnance_L30#Design >The breech mechanism is a split sliding-block breech. One vertically sliding block holds the obturation ring (which is necessary because the propellant charges are combustible cases or bags) and is locked for firing by a second block. When the second block falls, the first is released to open the breech. Interestingly enough, some early Sharps rifles used a similar system to achieve obturation with a ring made of platinum alloy. But more importantly, it means that it's possible to make guns that use bagged charges that are just as fast to load as designs with cased ammunition.

>>13756 Or to go even further back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_sFH_18#Variants >A further modification was the sFH 18/43, which changed to a split breech that allowed for the use of bagged charges instead of requiring the gunners to first put the charges into casings.

>>13754 How important is artillery to an insurgency? I'd assume it's useful for them but are they able to use it effectively? Do mortars also count as artillery? image unrelated.

>>13765 >How important is artillery to an insurgency? Depends entirely on how sympathetic the locals are towards said insurgency and how willing the local governments are to retaliate against its use. In general, whoever relies on munitions greater than those required to deal with the threats of armor/personnel are the side that's going to be hated by the local populace and thus fall more easily.

>>13767 That's a good point, strelok. I guess it's kind of like carpet bombing. Once an explosive weapon detonates, its shrapnel is indiscriminate. How effective was artillery for an insurgency group like viet cong?

>>13765 >>13768 You should look at what the IRA did doing the Troubles if you want to see artillery used during an insurgency. In battle the Viet Cong was often closer to an irregular militia supported by regular military than what we think of as a classic insurrection.

This howitzer is not only a nice artillery piece, but with a muzzle velocity of 960m/s it should make a good modern AA gun, especially paired with an autoloader and guided shells. I also have to wonder how effective an APFSDS projectile fired from it would be.

>>13789 What's the viability of just hooking a FLIR/Quantum Imaging high-speed camera to one of these and letting it auto-fire shit out of the sky E.G. how Yemen shot down Saudi F-15s? I understand why it's difficult to use robotic/automated firing systems for robots/guns on the ground, but in an AA situation wouldn't it make more sense to just use computers that can auto-target/auto-adjust in conjunction with high speed cameras much faster than human instincts?

>>13793 Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but automatic gunlaying have been a thing since ww2, and we have systems like the Phalanx that are designed to shoot at flying targets without any human interference.

>>13797 I'm talking more target-tracking. Or rather how instead of becoming more accurate, current tracking systems are becoming cheap enough for a goat herding community to afford one.

>>13794 >Saudis so incompetent they bring down an airframe that was never brought down by enemy action for over 40 years

https://quarryhs.co.uk/152x2.htm >Russia has revealed a new 152mm gun, with two barrels, vertically stacked. Unlike the smaller Gast-type guns in Russian service (GSh-23, GSh-30, 2A38M) the mechanisms are not mechanically linked, but they are connected through the hydraulic recoil system, and fire alternately. This principle is called the 'boxer' system. It is being developed by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) TsceNII 'Burevestnik' in cooperation with public corporations NPO 'BTA', FSUE 'Uraltransmash', FSUE 'TsceNIIM', and FSUE 'Uralvagonzavod'. >This gun has initially been developed for an army SPG, based on the 'object 195' tank chassis and called the 'Koalitcia-SV' ('coalition'). In this form, the gun has a 50-round automatic loader (the turret is unmanned) and can fire at about 15-18 rpm. It is expected to enter service in 2007. >There is also a proposed naval version, possibly intended as a replacement for the AK-130. It is reportedly being developed by Arsenal (although that is not confirmed) and will use a 'stealth' cupola. >The range with existing ammunition is about 50 km, but NIIP is developing a new round capable of up to 70 km. By now we know that they went back to a single barrel, which is less cool but more logical. I honestly don't know what they were thinking in the first place.

>>13816 "Allegedly" the Saudis believe the pilot "thought he was dealing with a heat guided missile when the reality was he was being tracked by a surface-to-air missile" and that the pilot was "doing routine procedures having mistaken his location as being in safe airzones" even though the plane had been out for quite a while.

The obvious dawned upon me: a 210mm gun could fire both 152mm and 155mm shells with sabots, and you could go even lower for 127mm naval shells. Or even 122mm and 130mm soviet shells. Or go bigger for the 175mm US and 180mm soviet shells, or even the 203mm shells from either side of the Cold War. Not that this would be the best solution, but a country could use up whatever old stocks of shells they have lying around and save some pennies, especially if they can recycle the powder charges too. And it also cuts down on initial R&D if you already have access to a wide variety of fancy guided shells that just need a sabot to work with a new gun.

The obvious dawned upon me: a 210mm gun could fire both 152mm and 155mm shells with sabots, and you could go even lower for 127mm naval shells. Or even 122mm and 130mm soviet shells. Or go bigger for the 175mm US and 180mm soviet shells, or even the 203mm shells from either side of the Cold War. Not that this would be the best solution, but a country could use up whatever old stocks of shells they have lying around and save some pennies, especially if they can recycle the powder charges too. And it also cuts down on initial R&D if you already have access to a wide variety of fancy guided shells that just need a sabot to work with a new gun.

>>14038 I have no sources to confirm this whatsoever, but I believe that the thinking was that they could have a self propelled artillery platform that could hypothetically have a similar alpha-strike capability in a battery to a rocket artillery piece, with smaller logistical footprint when compared to traditional artillery pieces.

>>14557 Speaking of 210mm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fao >Al-Fao is a self-propelled artillery system designed for the former Iraqi Army by the late Canadian weapons engineer, Gerald Bull. It is one of the world's most powerful artillery pieces, with a caliber of 210 mm (8.3 in) and a range of 56 km (35 mi).[1] The Al-Fao system weighs 48 tons and can drive on roads with a top speed of about 72 km/h (45 mph). It's gun is claimed to be able to fire four 109 kg (240 lb) rounds a minute. The projectiles could be filled with chemical weapons such as sarin, mustard gas or phosgene, or with conventional high explosives. And unfortunately this is all the information I could find scouring the internet. >>14622 That makes sense, and I guess they could revive the idea by trying to make a better autoloader for a design with a single tube. But why would it have a smaller logistical footprint? Simply because they wouldn't need both tube and rocket artillery units for these two different applications?

I've tried to find some info online about how the Schwerer Gustav was operated, especially about how the breech was opened and closed. Sadly there is nothing written about that, this is about the best article I could find: https://oldmachinepress.com/2017/05/20/krupp-80-cm-schwerer-gustav-dora-railway-gun/ Then there is this piece of 'tism about the breech: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=yWBOtU5ejfo A propaganda video about heavy guns: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=DBvAni3TsKs A finally the closest thing I could find was this footage of the breech of a K5 being opened (around 0:55): https://yewtu.be/watch?v=PrsWaHex_BU It really is frustrating how people can repeat the same basic things about a piece of technology ad nauseam, and yet nobody can be bothered to get into the actual details of how it works.

I recall that there was some ww2 vidya (maybe Company of Heroes) where using artillery to create cover was a legitimate tactic (although maybe not intended by the developers). They simply ordered an artillery strike to an empty field, and sent in infantry to occupy the craters. Was something like this ever happened in real life? If you used shells or cluster munitions that contain the right amount of explosives I can see it work, and yet I don't think the pattern of random craters would be that useful.

>>13789 >105 on a stryker i hate it. strykers are already never functional and their suspensions are already constantly being destroyed by m1129's. arty guns are fine on tracks but are just pretty bad on wheels. >>19921 it could in theory work with soft ground like a desert or very wet dirt but even then the craters might not be deep enough. i feel like artillery is more suited to anti-armor/hardstructure while mortars are more effective at killing infantry.

>>19921 I don't think anyone had infantry occupy deliberately formed artillery craters since they were probably too shallow as >>19948 said. The times infantry did occupy craters were mostly in the case of the broad and deep ones formed by detonating explosives at the end of a mining operation. The closest thing would be a creeping barrage.

>>19921 >Was something like this ever happened in real life? It might flatten the earth a little, but artillery ain't gonna form those kinds of craters. The first seismometer ever created used a giant steel ball that was like an artillery strike hitting the same spot sometimes several times a day, and all it did was pack down the dirt. >>19948 Wet dirt I could see in the right conditions, but outside of dredged beach sand/silt, most sand particles are course enough that the force of impact is just dispersed, with the remaining force displacing sand in a fairly meaningless way.

>>19921 Yes, it was a real tactic back in WW2. You simply needed to have artillery with delay fuses, such as any AP shell. Once the shell digs into the ground, it's an excavation charge and is going to make a crater - even a humble 105mm shell dug in will do it, although you're going to need to hit the same spot multiple times to actually allow infantry to hide in it (thinking back to records I've seen of 105mm Shermans making improvised foxholes). The Russians, who had plentiful AP shells for their artillery, were extremely fond of this. The Americans also were fond of it, but required either naval guns or their larger artillery do pull it off quickly; the Marines made extensive use of this in the pacific since they were almost always around naval guns. These other Streloks seem to be thinking of impact or air burst only, for some reason. >>19948 Strelok, Mortars are a form of Artillery. There are three types of Gun Artillery: Mortars, Howitzers, and Field Guns.

>>19981 German terminology is better: mortar is Mörser, but there is also Minnenwerfer (mine thrower), which covers trench mortars and spigot mortars, but not the ˝proper˝ artillery pieces. The terms was invented in the late 1900s for various muzzle loaded guns meant against field fortifications, but later it was applied to weapons inspired by the Stokes mortar. In English people usually use mortar even when they think exclusively of the trench mortar, and that causes confusion. My guess is that he was thinking of trench mortars only, as those belong to the infantry.

>>19983 Infantry Mortars are still artillery; native artillery support for the infantry, that is the role of Infantry Mortars and every mortarman knows very well he's using artillery. >German terminology is better I disagree with the fury of a hundred thousand Anglos ready to Dresden your ass again. The Artillery Trifecta is superior.

>>19981 Does this tactic has a name? Although it sounds somehow situation, and I'm not sure how well could you integrate it into modern combat, but it's strange that it was apparently so common, yet so few people are aware of it. Pic unrelated, I just find it cute.

What do anons think about Vasilek? I remember seeing combat video of it being used in War in Donbass mounted on truck for use in hit and run tactics. Basically, soldiers would floor it close to enemy lines, fire off few four round clips in rapid succession, then pull back. I think that tactics is pretty neat way to increase firepower, especially if you're facing better equipped opponent. Can any anon enlighten me further in the way of the ordinance?

>>20012 All I know is that the chinks were most likely inspired by that to mount that mortar on a light vehicle.

>>20014 I know of some more sophisticated version of this concept like Partia NEMO, didn't read much into it, but it seems like it does have some use since military is looking into development of it. But the sheer simplicity of making a basically mortar technical that is almost as effective is amusing to me. On one hand you have what is probably a multi million dollar piece of hardware that took years to develop, on the other hand you have something that Boris came up with after chugging down a bottle of vodka. Also, fuck, that's some fast counterbattery fire.

Is it possible to turn smoke or star shells into delivery systems for cluster munitions? I don't mean some sort of a conversion in a depot, but to develop a shell that can delivery any of those three payloads, so that you can circumvent that homosex international treaty that bans cluster munitions and at least keep producing the shells. And if need to be you just switch the payload to bomblets.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/m1156.htm >Precision Guidance Kit (PGK), formerly known as Course Correcting Fuze (CCF), is a program that will enhance the accuracy at mid to max ranges of all 155-mm and 105-mm artillery projectiles. The Precision Guidance Kit (PGK) is a low cost fuze sized module that is used in lieu of a standard fuze on existing stockpile artillery projectiles to reduce ballistic delivery errors, improving artillery terminal effectiveness. The amount of improvement is dependent on the magnitude of the uncorrected errors and the error reduction capability of the PGK approach. PGK is a fuze-sized "module" that will have GPS to provide the location of the round and time during its flight while an inertial navigation system (INS) will determine the trajectory and continuously correct the round for increased accuracy. That's pretty cool (assuming that it works as intended, and the overall costs are bearable), but my big gun fetishism makes me wonder if it could deal with the higher kinetic energies of a 8 inch shell.

>>20713 >but my big gun fetishism makes me wonder if it could deal with the higher kinetic energies of a 8 inch shell. Not sure if that exact fuse would stand up to that, but if you're just wanting similar purposes it absolutely would be doable with 8in artillery. The US developed an almost identical, larger scale version of that fuse for their 16in naval rifles; I personally suspect that this is actually just a smaller version of that one made possible by advancements in miniaturization technology.

The frogs started to standardize their artillery in the 17th century, and kept improving the basic ideas until the middle of the 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Keller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florent-Jean_de_Valli%C3%A8re https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gribeauval_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_XI_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val%C3%A9e_system Alas, it looks like wikipedia has the most detailed descriptions of them on the English language internet.

Could modern 155mm guns (and their Warsaw pact equivalents) deal with an old school star fortress? I know they were a problem for German field artillery during ww1, and they were still a somehow though nut during ww2. And you can actually find a few of them in Eastern Europe even today, so it they have a small chance of ending up in the front lines soon.

>>21332 Fairly easily, really. I mean, it'd be a question of amassing enough of the guns to have the desired effect within a quick time frame, but it's something virtually any of the third tier powers or higher could pull off. Any of the second and first tier powers, however, would instead just bomb the place to obliteration.

>>20870 Speaking of French artillery, vbbsmyt finally uploaded a new video, and it's about their 75mm gun.

Could use just collapse trench systems with big enough guns? What I mean is to put a rather long delay on a HE shell and aim at the trenches so that it explodes under them, and then the hapless enemy soldiers end up buried in the sinkhole.

>>35896 >Could use just collapse trench systems with big enough guns Unfortunately ground is one hell of a shock absorber. Underground nuclear launch test site holes to produce negligible atmospheric radiation are less than a kilometer deep (in comparison hydraulic fracking wells are about 1.5-3km deep) and those are city-busting bombs. I'm not sure hoe well it would work or if it's doable without smart munitions. If you have smart munitions I'm more in favor of a delayed-onset aerosol bomb since the trench is below ground level and will lose all of its oxygen first.

>>35899 What if you ˝scaled down˝ it quite a bit, so that a near miss still turns the sidewalls of a trench into a mess? Although that would still give some cover to the enemy, but turning a well set-up machine gun position into a hole filled with soft earth seems to be useful. >If you have smart munitions I'm more in favor of a delayed-onset aerosol bomb since the trench is below ground level and will lose all of its oxygen first. Is bombarding the trenches with napalm comparable in effectiveness? Although I'm not sure if filling artillery shells with napalm is a good idea, but then you just need a proximity fuse so that the shell explodes over the trench system and sprays it with napalm.

>>36067 I think it would still depend on the material properties of the ground like grain size or moisture content, but I'm sure other anons are better versed on these things. Even if the hole is busted in, they may be able to fill it in or just carve out a new pathway into the earth before a siege is possible. >Napalm Napalm's reactions are... Octane: 2C8H18 + 25O2 ---> 18H2O + 16 CO2 Benzene: 2C6H6 + 15O2 ---> 6H2O + 12CO2 The Styrene in napalm slows down the consumption of oxygen, so I don't know if that would be a good or a had thing.

>>36067 It would be more efficient to blast/burn out the inhabitants of said trench that to obliterate them entirely. For one it enables your forces to use them afterwards in addition to any improvement upon them and secondly you'll waste less munitions trying to blow the dirt up which artillery is really inefficient at doing. See the first world war on how a basic and wellmade trench can nuetralize the danger of indirect artillery on your army. >>36078 It's a good thing for persistancy, but if you're just trying to deliver as much heat and shock as possible the more oxygen is consumed in that reaction the better the results.

Considering that the US converted cluster munitions into training shells by replacing the bomblets with concrete and a bit of explosives, I wonder if you could use the same shell body to deliver HE, smoke, and all kinds of submunitions (including illumination). If yes, you could just design an extended range, full bore shell with different payloads and optional base bleed or rocket assistance, and just produce the same shell body. With something like >>20713 you don't even need a different shell body for guided projectiles. Not that this would revolutionize artillery, but maybe you could get rid of one bottleneck if you make a big stockpile of shell bodies in advance, and then choose the payload, fuse, and optional ranger extender modules based on what you need and have. After all, a cylindrical steel object should last for a few decades with proper storage, especially if it's not filled with chemicals and whatnot.