Question about artillery shells

Sorry… no estimates are given, though it does say that the current 9M521 HE round has a twofold increase in HE power (in addition to twice the range… the standard 9M22U has a range of 20.1km).

Regarding the S-23… they thought it was a 203mm weapon before it was captured and examined… quite a respected weapon.

Thanks Garry- would you happen to know what the blast radius of a single 122mm Grad is? I estimated from a Vietnam War photo for it to be about ~4m radius.

Yah, the Russians had a S-23 M-1955 180mm gun howitzer, you’re absolutely correct. Monster of a gun, adapted from a pre-war naval gun I believe. One was captured by the Israelis from the Egyptians.

I don’t have any info on 170mm ammo… the Russians never used such a calibre (though they did have a 180mm long range gun, while the US used a 175mm weapon for counter battery fire).

Regarding the 240mm weapon I am not much more help I’m afraid, though the 122mm Grad with 9M521 rockets has a range of 40km and a 21kg HE warhead.
If they have any Smerch rocket launchers then warhead weights of 100kgs with types ranging from single HE or FAE warheads to 5 sensor fused warheads (IIR and MMWR) through to 646 HEAT cluster bomblets are fitted. Two rocket types (weighing 800kgs and 815kgs each respectively) offering ranges of 70km and 90km are available for export.

Ah, I haven’t counted the ballistic missiles yet. I’m not sure if NK would use those in a retaliatory strike, well, perhaps they would use some, but not all. Probably not with a high explosive warhead, but a CW one. Ah great, more calculations to do.

regards,

google

Then again your looking at a lot of scuds, frogs, etc, etc (with conventional warheads) as well as arty

The Larry Bond book on a conventional Korean war, Seoul is built with this in mind and is sturdily built with bomb shelters, etc, etc but I don’t know for sure

rabie 😉

Hi Alastair,

Thanks for the reply. From my initial research so far, the media reports of 500,000 shells an hour on Seoul are grossly exaggerated. Only the Koksan 170mm gun has the range with a 60km RAP shell, and the 240mmMLRS may just be able to make it.

google

Hi Google,
I don’t have any actual figures for the population of Seoul , the website address I’ve attached has a few links from it and somewhere it gives you the figures of what artillery is where and where it’s targeted at . On the FAS site it gives figures for the DPRK armed forces broken down into arty,tanks,APVC’s etc , they still seem heavily dependant on 1950’s technology T34 tanks , Mig 17-19’s , or more correctly the Chinese versions , interesting stuff . If you find anything interesting drop me a mail at
[email]ageorge@haemonetics.com[/email]

Thanks

Alastair

http://ncafe.com/northkorea/index.html

I’m not so sure- the only guns that can reach Seoul appear to be from their CAG (corps artillery group), and these are only the Koksan 170mm SPGs and 240mm MLRS. I haven’t been able to find any detailed maps of Seoul, so my best estimates are that the outermost edge of Seoul is about 48km from the DMZ. The Koksans have very long reload times, so they would be vulnerableto counter battery fire.

I think the damage to Seoul would be in panic, and infrastructure- more so than actual casualties.

What’s your take?

Do you know how many buildings/high rises are in Seoul? Can’t find figures anywhere…

Regards,

Google

Re: Question about artillery shells

Originally posted by google
Hey anyone who can help,

I’m trying to do some calculations on the potential casualties from a DPRK conventional weapons strike, and I have a few questions for anyone who can help.

Typically for a HE shell, how much does the casing weigh or how much does the HE part weigh?

Is the HE in an artillery shell usually made from RDX?

Thanks very much!

google

Google , I’ve been looking at the same thing over the last couple of months and all I can say is that you could say that they have the capacity to flatten Seoul without even crossing the demilitarized zone !!!!!!!!!