Hezbollah Sagger killing most IDF on ground

Yeah, but the Kornet-E brokered the peace last summer.

Definitely a PKM GPMG, belt fed 7.62 x 54R.
Russian Anti material rifles are much longer and come in quite a few different models that seem to be in service. The OSV-96 folds in half and is a semi automatic 12.7 x 108mm rifle with a 5 round box mag, while the KSVK is a bullpup boltaction 5 shot rifle also in 12.7 x 108mm.

Any idea what the rifle is on the left side with the box magazine? A high caliber anti-material rifle maybe?

It seems to me that its a PKM machine gun 7.62x54R standart caliber

Any idea what the rifle is on the left side with the box magazine? A high caliber anti-material rifle maybe?

Quite a big weapon.

And quite heavy too. Not popular for exercises where the lighter, if shorter range RPG-7 is preferred. In combat however it is quite capable of taking out any tank from the side and any other vehicle type from any angle.

Last summer we had a discussion about the RPG-29 in Lebanon in this thread and recently some new pictures of the weapon in this theater surfaced:

Captured by Israeli troops:

Quite a big weapon. Pictures from the Fresh.co.il boards: http://www.fresh.co.il/vBulletin/printthread.php?t=312949

I agree with Jack that we can discuss this dispassionately without sarcasm or anger. After all, its just a bloody tank round. Just a general comment & not a slam at anyone.

I’m sorry… can’t guarantee no sarcasm… :diablo: … but there is certainly no anger from me.

Perhaps a little disbelief… this round is hardly a miracle, or too complex to work… from the test block it seems to work just fine…

Happy to wait for your reply… understand you have a life too… I had one somewhere a few years back at some stage I think…

Garry too less time to be asplitting amongst multiple threads, so hopefully you wont mind if I respond later?

I agree with Jack that we can discuss this dispassionately without sarcasm or anger. After all, its just a bloody tank round. Just a general comment & not a slam at anyone.

What I consider a miracle of Russian engineering is that they can get the back one (or for that matter even the front one) to explode first without disforming the front one.

Of course the explosion of the rear warhead will “deform” the front charge… it blow a hole right through it as it fires. But just like a magnifying glass sends a thin beam of focussed light in front of it the rear shaped charge will not do much more than blow a hole in the front warhead… that is why they fire the rear one first… I thought I explained it in the post I first mentioned the design in. They have the steel target to prove the penetration depth. What other evidence do you need to prove it works… and if it works then they must have made it work. They designed and built the round themselves… they didn’t just find it on the side of the road.

Finally, read the below from the famous naval fiction author Patrick O’Brian. Please.

Have read it and don’t understand your point. Are you suggesting that I am trampling you and Nick and others here? I am not angry over this issue, but am trying to understand your position. To me fitting another shaped charge in what is otherwise a normal and common design is not a big deal IMHO. The fact that it is shown with defeated armour suggests it is effective. The way it works is described and unlike a photo I have of an AA-8 Aphid hanging under the wing of a Hind, or another photo I have of 4 layers of ERA stacked on top of each other as fitted to a T-72 I can see how this round might function properly and improve performance without the huge expense and compromise of going to a larger calibre.

Quote:
JEH expressed polite skepticism about the manufacturing aspect, disagree if you must, but you are going off on a crusade here.

Garry> Yes, tank launched ATGMs are in production and use but a dumb unguided shell fitted with three shaped charge warheads is too hard to make…

Dear Garry,

You are totally missing the point. Making three HEAT warheads is not hard. It is not hard to have two HEAT warheads in the same projectile AS LONG as one is smaller and located a distance from the main HEAT warhead as is done on many ATGW to trip ERA on tank and other armored vehicles (with the TOW it is a collapasable probe and with HOT they of all thing eject the small HEAT charge forward when it approaches the target) But with the Russian triple HEAT 125mm shell you have two almost full size HEAT warheads almost pigbacked to each other like lego blocks. What I consider a miracle of Russian engineering is that they can get the back one (or for that matter even the front one) to explode first without disforming the front one. This has always been the problemm with pigback HEAT warheads — the explosion of one will disform the other one. This is the main reason that designers of ATGW have always went for larger diameter HEAT warheads.

Finally, read the below from the famous naval fiction author Patrick O’Brian. Please.

Jack E. Hammond

Few men like to be trampled upon, but it seems to me that some go to far in avoiding it, and try to assume a dominating postition from the start or at least as soon as the first civilities are over. Dr Johnson said that every meeting or conversation was a contest in which the man of superior parts was the victor. But I think he was mistaken: for that is surely wrangling or hostile debate, often self-defeating — it is not conversation as I understand it at all, a calm amicable interchange of opinions, news, information, reflextions, without any striving for superiority. (The Thirteen Gun Salute by Patrick O’Brian)

False analogy. The issue is of tandem charges not cluster munitions, different items required for different threats.

So 646 seperate anti tank submunitions each able to penetrate 120mm of roof armour in one 300mm rocket… packed as tight as you can get them for as dense a pattern on the target area of munitions is not the same as fitting three shaped charges into one round to defeat the current standard of enemy tank armour. Sorry, but are you suggesting that the rocket is OK because the target needs a dense pattern of munitions to make them more effective, but fitting three shaped charge warheads into one round is frivolous and too complicated and expensive to be viable. Are you saying three warheads are unnecessary?

I would suggest that the penetration of a HEAT shell is largely determined by its diameter (as well as the materials used, angle of impact etc etc) from a design point of view. Adding another Charge is MUCH cheaper and easier than increasing the calibre… which is the other standard way of increasing penetration.

And where have they started producing it in numbers?

Here is the prototype boys… marvel at it because you can only have one per army division… Dont think so.

Multiple HEAT warheads in ATGMs yes. A triple HEAT warhead in a tank fired shell, no.

So it is OK to fit Svir with multiple warheads but not the standard HEAT round fired through the same gun? With its guidance package AS WELL plus control surfaces that move and sensors that look back at the launching tank and guide the projectile one would expect Svir to rather more complicated than this HEAT-FS round… they still use that in large numbers.

JEH expressed polite skepticism about the manufacturing aspect, disagree if you must, but you are going off on a crusade here.

Yes, tank launched ATGMs are in production and use but a dumb unguided shell fitted with three shaped charge warheads is too hard to make… :rolleyes:

Single Shot ATGMs are by their nature expensive single shot rounds, we are talking of relatively inexpensive, to be mass produced HEAT rounds here, whose warhead design is more complicated than that of a single shot round!

There are no moving parts, no guidance systems, no control surfaces, no laser seekers. Why do you think a shell with three HEAT warheads is going to be that much more expensive?

Have you personally counted these rounds? When was the last time you were in the Soviet Army to say “ignorance”? Doesnt your knowledge only come from books , as well?

Orders of battle. Even their anti tank guns have standard ammo load ratios. For the 100mm MT-12R anti tank gun the ratio is given as 50% APDS, 20% HEFRAG, 30% HEAT… and this is for the ANTI TANK role. Russian and Soviet tanks rarely have such a specific role and carry more HE FRAG ammo.

The HEAT round is a solution looking for a problem, and against heavy armour it will do no better (if lucky) than the latest generation of Heavy Soviet ATGMs which without top attack, cannot take on frontal armour either. So whats the point in spending money on THIS,

The goal every tank designer strives for is armour that will stop the other guys best gun on his heaviest tank and a gun that can defeat the heaviest armour on the enemies heaviest tank. Sounds like you have answered your own question. The three charge warhead round is designed to enable Russian tanks to defeat the latest enemy tanks from the front.

So whats the point in spending money on THIS, when there are huge lacunae in their current APFSDS round lineup, design and production of which is firmly trailing the US, Germany, UK, Israel by a generation and more!

HEAT rounds are much more useful than APDSFS rounds. A truck hit by a 40mm calibre dart will continue on as if nothing happened unless that dart hits something vital like the engine or the driver. At least with HEAT it will likely catch fire and suffer blast damage. Equally an APC hit with an APDS round from a tank could survive if the round does not hit fuel or ammo. With a hit from HEAT rounds fire it very likely.

If you have a truly modern KE round, you will have customers lined up for the cheap, heavily armoured, medium weight tanks which can slug it out with NATO heavies which cost double, and many times over in certain logistics. But here, this HEAT round will not address that gap.

So no further development of any round except APDSFS single use rounds? Would suggest that 99% of the worlds armies are not gearing up seriously to fight NATO as even if they had the perfect AP round it would mean zip as the F-16s flew over with laser guided bombs from 20,000ft. On the other hand a HE FRAG round using the ANIET fusing system plus a really powerful HEAT shell actually might be useful…

First, as someone with experience in manufacturing I can assure you that these rounds will be a b!tch to manufacture.

Why? Shaped charge warheads are, as I have mentioned not childs play to produce, but they are hardly miracles. Fitting three warheads is no different to fitting two warheads. You design it so that each explosion does not interfere with the remaining charge/s. Not rocket science. I thought it was rather simple myself.

You will have to upgrade your equipment, retrain operators, and change the processes PLUS spend more time per round- all these costs add up.

Compared to the cost of going to 152mm it is cheap. Most of the industry in Russia needs an upgrade anyway… this will be money well spent.

The second is that to spread out the costs, you need a substantial production run- there are simply no export customers out there who will want THIS round in lieu of spending it on more necessary KE ones!

So you are claiming they have squandered all their money on this round and spent nothing at all on an APDSFS round… interesting.
Wonder why they need hundreds of thousands of these rounds anyway… they are hardly likely to be fighting NATO any time soon, and from what I have seen it will be RPGs that will be doing the most damage anyway…

If the Russians ever did come up with an amazing APDSFS round the US will complain and claim the DU used was nuclear waste and they can’t export it blah blah blah. Of course they have had DU armour penetrators for some time but seem to prefer Tungsten as a penetrator. Less hazardous and only slightly less effective agaisnt most targets.

Later on, they can add fancy gold plated triple HEAT rounds and stuff.

So increasing the penetration of their HEAT rounds by over 50% is fancy gold plated stuff… are you serious?

I just disagree about the utility of this round vs the crying need for a truly modern FSAPDS round from Russia which can match the performance of the latest US/ UK ones or better them by far.

Again what are you basing your assertion that they are not developing APDSFS rounds too?

Being an athiest my interpretation of something being a miracle as being unbelieveable. This is no miracle… just good engineering and good design.

Oh ok, thats not what I am saying.

Why? If that were true then why do they put so many cluster munitions into cluster bombs? I mean putting 644 munitions into a single Smerch 300mm unguided artillery rocket must be really complicated… why dont they just put in 500, or 400?

False analogy. The issue is of tandem charges not cluster munitions, different items required for different threats.

3 warheads are needed to do the job. If it was a miracle then how could they produce it in numbers.

And where have they started producing it in numbers?

It is my understanding that a miracle is a one off exception. He has already stated that several other western weapons use multiple HEAT warheads, one assumes they work without deforming each other as that would make their inclusion into the design rather pointless otherwise… so actually multiple HEAT charges is quite common relatively.

Multiple HEAT warheads in ATGMs yes. A triple HEAT warhead in a tank fired shell, no. There are no assumptions to be made- from the POV of manufacturibility, and repeatability this will be a severe challenge.

So it costs money. Solid shot rounds aren’t free either… are they miracles too?

Did I say they were miracles? JEH expressed polite skepticism about the manufacturing aspect, disagree if you must, but you are going off on a crusade here.

Single Shot ATGMs are by their nature expensive single shot rounds, we are talking of relatively inexpensive, to be mass produced HEAT rounds here, whose warhead design is more complicated than that of a single shot round!

Ignorance is bliss. Count the number of rounds in a Russian or Soviet tank. Over half will be plain HE FRAG. Of the remainder more than half will be HEAT and the final quarter of the overall ammo load will be APFSDS. The Russians actually prefer HEAT to APFSDS.

Have you personally counted these rounds? When was the last time you were in the Soviet Army to say “ignorance”? Doesnt your knowledge only come from books , as well? 🙂

For existing targets the current HEAT rounds is good- ask any informed ex SU/ R’n tanker on russian forums. To get to the point—

The HEAT round is a solution looking for a problem, and against heavy armour it will do no better (if lucky) than the latest generation of Heavy Soviet ATGMs which without top attack, cannot take on frontal armour either. So whats the point in spending money on THIS, when there are huge lacunae in their current APFSDS round lineup, design and production of which is firmly trailing the US, Germany, UK, Israel by a generation and more!

More importantly, these rounds dont fit the most essential need- to boost the exportability of Russian tanks!! If you have a truly modern KE round, you will have customers lined up for the cheap, heavily armoured, medium weight tanks which can slug it out with NATO heavies which cost double, and many times over in certain logistics. But here, this HEAT round will not address that gap.

So how much do they cost and how does that compare with standard HEAT rounds… or are you just assuming these rounds will be very expensive just because they have one more shaped charge cone than a standard round

.

First, as someone with experience in manufacturing I can assure you that these rounds will be a b!tch to manufacture. You will have to upgrade your equipment, retrain operators, and change the processes PLUS spend more time per round- all these costs add up. The second is that to spread out the costs, you need a substantial production run- there are simply no export customers out there who will want THIS round in lieu of spending it on more necessary KE ones! The present HE rounds themselves are quite capable, add an APARS (for anti infantry) to supplant the older HE-Frag and truly modern KE rounds for anti tank work and you have a capable loadout. In contrast, field obsolete BM series APFSDS (production of which is still unstable), a very modern fancy HEAT round but which cannot still compensate for the above and will it serve the purpose? Russia’s tank building plants, despite their recent “revival” are still tottering- ask Russians about it, and they are not too happy- in such a milieu, its best that they spend their money on eliminating weaknesses first. Later on, they can add fancy gold plated triple HEAT rounds and stuff.

I only ignore the rants of those with chips on their shoulders that believe anything Russian or Soviet must be crap. You don’t fall into that category.

Thank you. For the record, I dont believe anything Russian is necessarily crap. I just disagree about the utility of this round vs the crying need for a truly modern FSAPDS round from Russia which can match the performance of the latest US/ UK ones or better them by far.

I dont understand why you have to be arguementative for the sake of being arguementative.

Being an athiest my interpretation of something being a miracle as being unbelieveable. This is no miracle… just good engineering and good design.

Its pretty straight forward that a HEAT warhead with three charges squeezed into it, is going to be harder to manufacture and mass produce than one with only two,

Why? If that were true then why do they put so many cluster munitions into cluster bombs? I mean putting 644 munitions into a single Smerch 300mm unguided artillery rocket must be really complicated… why dont they just put in 500, or 400?

3 warheads are needed to do the job. If it was a miracle then how could they produce it in numbers. It is my understanding that a miracle is a one off exception. He has already stated that several other western weapons use multiple HEAT warheads, one assumes they work without deforming each other as that would make their inclusion into the design rather pointless otherwise… so actually multiple HEAT charges is quite common relatively.

The manufacturing is key to this weapon, and churning out a production batch of 100,000 rounds, each with the carefully assembled charges would require serious work at the process level, which requires money.

So it costs money. Solid shot rounds aren’t free either… are they miracles too?

And it is here that the round may remain as it is, a prototype, since it might not even offer any substantial advantage over current APFSDS rounds for the Russians to bother with it.

Ignorance is bliss. Count the number of rounds in a Russian or Soviet tank. Over half will be plain HE FRAG. Of the remainder more than half will be HEAT and the final quarter of the overall ammo load will be APFSDS. The Russians actually prefer HEAT to APFSDS.

Having said that, it is an excellent piece of engineering, only of somewhat dubious tactical value in terms of cost vs benefit.

So how much do they cost and how does that compare with standard HEAT rounds… or are you just assuming these rounds will be very expensive just because they have one more shaped charge cone than a standard round.

You are welcome to ignore this post if you wish.

I only ignore the rants of those with chips on their shoulders that believe anything Russian or Soviet must be crap. You don’t fall into that category.

I dont understand why you have to be arguementative for the sake of being arguementative.

Its pretty straight forward that a HEAT warhead with three charges squeezed into it, is going to be harder to manufacture and mass produce than one with only two, and that given HEAT rounds are generally to be massproduced at lower cost than single shot ATGM rounds, getting them to be churned out in large quantities off a regular manufacturing line is no joke. Having some fair experience of this field of work myself, I can clearly make out what Jack Hammond is saying makes sense. The manufacturing is key to this weapon, and churning out a production batch of 100,000 rounds, each with the carefully assembled charges would require serious work at the process level, which requires money. And it is here that the round may remain as it is, a prototype, since it might not even offer any substantial advantage over current APFSDS rounds for the Russians to bother with it. They are better served in stabilizing their KE rounds and getting them upto scratch- they have had serious problems in that arena since the fall of the Soviet Union and with the state defence industry requiring some reorganization.
Having said that, it is an excellent piece of engineering, only of somewhat dubious tactical value in terms of cost vs benefit.

You are welcome to ignore this post if you wish. I just said all that I had to, and I see no point in continuing this discussion/ sidetrack vs the original thread.

He’s speaking of the machining. Such a HEAT warhead would be pretty hard to manufacture and get consistent performance out of.

If you want serious penetration then manufacture is already demanding. You can’t just stuff wine bottles into blocks of HE and put tin foil on it to get a decent HEAT warhead.

To work they have to be extremely precise, because if off any at all the back will interfer with the front distorting it as it goes off.

That is the same for existing HEAT weapons… if the warhead detonates too early or too late then penetration will of course be effected. The manufacturing is one aspect but what the weapon actually hits and how it hits also effects the result. Is it wet, is it minus 30 degrees C, is it dusty, what angle does the tip of the weapon hit, is the first thing the weapon hits hard or soft… the unknowns are endless… but not really worth worrying about.

To work they have to be extremely precise, because if off any at all the back will interfer with the front distorting it as it goes off.

It blows a hole through it as it explodes… I would say it does distort the middle charge when it fires… however if you look at a HEAT penetration there is a hole in the centre but no large cavity from the explosion. That would suggest that the focussing of the blast by the shaped charge focussed the energy into a narrow area which should reduce or even eliminate the effect of the blast… at least in the forward direction at other angles.

He’s speaking of the machining. Such a HEAT warhead would be pretty hard to manufacture and get consistent performance out of.

Dear Member,

Thank you. Also the detonation of the warhead. To work they have to be extremely precise, because if off any at all the back will interfer with the front distorting it as it goes off. How the Russians do it is nothing again as I have stated “a miracle”. Now the front warhead in the front that trips any ERA is another matter because of its location away from the main HEAT warheads.

Jack E. Hammond

He’s speaking of the machining. Such a HEAT warhead would be pretty hard to manufacture and get consistent performance out of.

To say it is complex is an understatement. And I stand by my statement. To get this complex of a HEAT warhead to work is nothing short of a miracle.

Complex? There is no electronics, no moving parts. It is a standard round of ammo. So what it has three seperate charges. Big deal. Considering the complex armour structures it is supposed to defeat it is rather simple.

Dear Garry,

To say it is complex is an understatement. And I stand by my statement. To get this complex of a HEAT warhead to work is nothing short of a miracle.

Jack E. Hammond

Here is a picture of the round.

Here is the direct link to the article the picture came from:

http://armor.kiev.ua/fofanov/Tanks/ARM/heat/ammo.html

The front charge in the nose probe blows of any ERA, while the rear charge fires next to initiate the armour penetration. The Middle charge then fires and continues the penetration started by the rear charge.

The rear charge fires through the middle charge but does not set it off. The blast ahead of the rear charge is concentrated into a thin beam so as to not destroy the charge in front of it. The middle charge can then detonate without worrying about damaging the rear charge as it has already done its work.

Not a miracle… just smart engineering.