Thank you, these were the actual answers I was looking for and they represent our baseline to be effective, though I question the 2 seconds thing unless combat is taking place at much closer range in your example than I'm thinking about.

I don't know how much of the available ngsw FC and FWS I / FWS CS content you've watched or read but it appears that they have gotten the lazing and reticle adjustment time way down to actually useful time increments.

Time increments which very likely give a single guy peeking by himself the ability to put effective laser ranging assisted fire down.

This doesn't even get into what we can do with offboard cuing which ngsw FC appears to have to a decent degree even.

My point here is that given a digital enabler capable of accepting offboard targeting data sufficient for the disturbed reticle of the Gunner to be giving him an accurate firing point from the second his eye and body have leaned out enough to physically get the round to the target.

If we have this capability, and it appears we do, our hypothetical gunner has the ability to put down two or even 3 high accuracy hasty shots to Kentucky windage bracket his designated target and drop back behind hard cover before he's statistically likely to take a round.

Yes you've just spent 2-3 not particularly light grenades if you operate this way, but you have at minimum pretty much guaranteed at least one wounded enemy and more likely you have killed at least one and wounded a couple others if they're stupid enough to bunch up.

Compared to the number of small arms rounds statistics indicates you need to spend to do an equivalent amount of damage to enemy infantry this is freakishly low cost.

I think when we talk about and evaluate subjects like this it's important not to only discuss the worst case poorest possible employment scenarios and actually look at what a system can do if people use it right!

Western soldiers are after all quite professional, highly educated, and capable of using what they have to comparatively High levels of competency compared to both historic and average enemy core competence levels. This is not something that should be overlooked.

Western troops are pretty damn good at war compared to almost any other force on the planet even before you factor in their superior enablers and etc.

I understand people's skepticism, but I don't believe we do ourselves any favors by deliberately focusing on how a new system could be used wrong and employed in the stupidest way possible.

roguetechie said:

This other thing we see in Ukraine is Ukrainian SOF absolutely WRECKING Russian units at night because the ukies sof is extremely well supplied with quad tubes and thermals and can see the Russians at ranges where the Russians don't even know they're near them!

I am not convinced that something that specific can be simply used to draw conclusions for a general approach. Also the conclusion would not be weapon related but rather equip all our infantry with night vision to SpecOps standarts. While desirable its simply not feasable. Its way to expensive.

roguetechie said:

and blowing off organic capability to do things like this by blithely saying why not use a mortar is not helpful or useful.

I am not blowing off organic capability. My "use a mortar" was meant like: maybe issue light mortars at platoon level. Rifle grenades are organic in any way. Mortars currently are organic to the infantry batallion. They are the main firepower asset. Mabe issue additional ones to company level?
What we are seeing in UA as well is that the ability to trow massive amounts of indirect fire is a decisive factor.

gatnerd said:

STK used 330x 0.25g Tungsten balls in its LVER grenade concept: https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2005/smallarms/thursday/fong.pdf Performance as described - even against IIIA type protection - looks pretty solid.

Yes, the performance of this grenade is pretty solid, so let's summarize:

• With a grenade weight of 248 g, of which 82.5 g is tungsten balls (33%),
• Launched from a 40x53 mm HV system, with a MV of 242 m/s and an impulse above 60 N.s (a rifle grenade that brutally kicks is around 30 N.s),
• With a special muzzle device to measure the MV of the grenade, compute the ToF and properly time the fuze,
• Using a base-detonated fuze to eject most fragments forward,

=> You can expect a Pk of 0.35 at nearly 5 m against a CRISAT protected target.

schnuersi said:

roguetechie said: and blowing off organic capability to do things like this by blithely saying why not use a mortar is not helpful or useful. I am not blowing off organic capability. My "use a mortar" was meant like: maybe issue light mortars at platoon level. Rifle grenades are organic in any way. Mortars currently are organic to the infantry batallion. They are the main firepower asset. Mabe issue additional ones to company level? What we are seeing in UA as well is that the ability to trow massive amounts of indirect fire is a decisive factor.

bring back the 60mm commando mortar?

roguetechie said:

I don't know how much of the available ngsw FC and FWS I / FWS CS content you've watched or read but it appears that they have gotten the lazing and reticle adjustment time way down to actually useful time increments.

You can "try it at home".

Put a human-size target with low IR signature (maximum 30% reflectivity) at a known distance between 300 m and 400 m in a realistic environment (with foliage, trees, maybe cars...), take a hand-held range finder and record the time you need to lase this static target, and achieve a solid range measurement.

I'm not saying that issuing a properly designed HE launcher (along with a properly designed FCS) is a stupid idea.

I'm just saying that issuing a semi-automatic grenade launcher with a FCS and a rifle, to every soldier, is maybe not the most effective way to achieve our goals.

EmericD said:

I'm just saying that issuing a semi-automatic grenade launcher with a FCS and a rifle, to every soldier...

Who said anything about issuing each soldier a semi-auto grenade launcher and a rifle?

My thinking is to issue the grenade launcher instead of a rifle to the squad's riflemen.

Like the OICW concept.  No more riflemen in the squad.  Riflemen become grenadiers.

stancrist said:

EmericD said: I'm just saying that issuing a semi-automatic grenade launcher with a FCS and a rifle, to every soldier... Who said anything about issuing each soldier a semi-auto grenade launcher and a rifle? My thinking is to issue the grenade launcher instead of a rifle to the squad's riflemen. Like the OICW concept.  No more riflemen in the squad.  Riflemen become grenadiers.

Do the French thing? One fireteam of grenadiers, one of fusiliers?

EmericD said:

Yes, the performance of this grenade is pretty solid, so let's summarize: With a grenade weight of 248 g, of which 82.5 g is tungsten balls (33%), Launched from a 40x53 mm HV system, with a MV of 242 m/s and an impulse above 60 N.s (a rifle grenade that brutally kicks is around 30 N.s), With a special muzzle device to measure the MV of the grenade, compute the ToF and properly time the fuze, Using a base-detonated fuze to eject most fragments forward, => You can expect a Pk of 0.35 at nearly 5 m against a CRISAT protected target

Thank you for crunching the numbers.

How would it look performance wise as a Medium Velocity (40x51) grenade? This likely being the food for the Squad Support Weapon or a Milkor.

MV is the same 248g grenade from the x53, but fired at a more sedate 100m/s.

schnuersi said:

So that is 82 g of W per grenade... in this case I think W core AP bullets are the better choice. As long as only a few of these grenades are used the use of W may be fine but since the idea we are talking about is wide spread distribution and mass use I think there is a problem here. Furthermore 1,6 mm Ti plus 20 layers of Kevlar is CRISAT. STANAG 4512 does not define protection levels but targets for testing. So it can not be assumed that these fragments will penetrate Lvl 3A which is significantly better than CRISAT

CRISAT (or anything with a hard metal sheet) is tougher than a IIIA vest. 5.7x28 can zip through IIIA with subsonic 55gr lead core FMJ, but requires a steel core AP load to pierce CRISAT. 

Helmet penetration is a different, unknown quantity. It's a sort of plasticized, rigid kevlar thats a good bit tougher then a IIIA vest, even if its also sold as 'IIIA.' Some of the newer helmets are using UHMWPE as a solid, which is also pretty tough.  

...

In terms of tungsten expenditrure, I dont think grenades would be that much of a problem. Pretty much all the modern PFF he munitions are using tungsten - in much larger quantities (the latest M72 LAW airburst uses 4000 tungsten pellets). And tungsten is a staple of all manner of autocannons and tank shells as well. 

If a squad had more than 40x 40mm shells to fire, I'd be impressed.

stancrist said:

Like the OICW concept. No more riflemen in the squad. Riflemen become grenadiers.

The OICW concept was to provide a KE weapon to fight from 0 to 300 m, and a semi-auto grenade launcher for the longer range (300 m to 600 m), where the rifle is supposed to be ineffective.

One conceptual problem (there were others) was that a semi-auto grenade launcher, light enough to be carried all day long, and with a recoil light enough to be fired from the shoulder, is also ineffective at those longer range.

The warhead is simply not large enough to compensate for the dispersion and the large ToF.

Of course, you can provide a rocket instead of a grenade to allow for a large payload & a decent ToF, without the large recoil, but the ammo will be much more heavier (a rifle grenade is propelled by a 12 g or 24 g cartridge, a rocket motor will weight 10 times more) so the soldiers will carry only a very limited number of ammo.

We already know how to "make every rifleman a grenadier", simply issue rifle grenades to every rifleman.

If you want to punish yourself with a grenade launcher, you could issue a M32 and 18 grenades (around 9.44 kg without FCS).

For the same weight, you could issue a M16, 210 rounds in magazines and 6 AP/AV40 rifle grenades, but at least with the M32 a single grenadier will have the capability to saturate a zone in less than 3 seconds, which will not be a needed capability if every one is a grenadier...