The Chinese do indeed have drone hand grenades that can also be hard launched from 60mm countermeasures tubes and mortars giving it a range boost.

Also MIT Lincoln labs has just made a very relevant advance to this sort of thing which will very quickly bring the cost down on some things like this...

Anyone who wants more information can PM me, I don't necessarily want to attach this advance to this topic in the minds of anyone who can read this thread though. 

Oh and here's a way better picture of SSW I pulled from a Russian site.

roguetechie said:

Oh and here's a way better picture of SSW I pulled from a Russian site.

As Crocodile Dundee might say, that's not a way better picture of SSW.

Now this is a way better picture of SSW.  

schnuersi said:

       stancrist said: OICW sought to improve his effectiveness.

Yes and that was dumb.

???  Since when is it "dumb" to seek to improve combat effectiveness? 

schnuersi said:

If the effectiveness is 0,01 and I double it it becomes 0,02. Which is such a marginal improvement it is hardly worth any resource invenstment.

Now you are just making up numbers.  The actual improvement would have varied with target distance.  

schnuersi said:

The effectiveness of a rifleman or better infantry man goes up significantly from 100 m and closer. So doubling a significantly larger number would have yielded significant results... most likely for less resource investment.

Yes.  IMO, they made a mistake in trying for such long-range capability.  They should have gone with a much bigger caliber, and much shorter range.

schnuersi said:

       stancrist said: I see no need for an arcing trajectory with airburst rounds. Indeed, I think that in most infantry vs infantry combat scenarios, a flat trajectory would be preferable with airburst munitions.

Why? The rifle/small arm has a flat trajectory. Why have two weapons with the same profile?

There would not be.  As I said, replace the rifle.  Every rifleman a grenadier.  

stancrist said:

Since when is it "dumb" to seek to improve combat effectiveness?

Its not dumb to seek to improve something. But its dumb to start with a weak characteristic. Its far more sensbible to try and improve strong characteristics first.

stancrist said:

Now you are just making up numbers. The actual improvement would have varied with target distance.

Yes the numbers are made up. Its just an example. Never the less the variation with range is actually rather low above 100 m and 0,01 is way to high. Its orders of magnitude lower.

stancrist said:

Every rifleman a grenadier.

I am not convinced that this works. Who does the main job of the rifleman then? Carrying ammo, providing additional eyes and ears, replacement personell and short range fighting?

schnuersi said:

       stancrist said: Every rifleman a grenadier.

I am not convinced that this works.

That's understandable.  I am not certain that it would work.  It would depend upon whether or not a viable weapon system can be developed.

At this point it's only a theory, a concept, based in large part on video evidence.  Like this, for example:  https://youtu.be/4UolMYY7QaA?t=174

schnuersi said:

Who does the main job of the rifleman then? Carrying ammo, providing additional eyes and ears, replacement personell and short range fighting?

Ammo bearer may be the main job of the German rifleman, but employing his assigned weapon in infantry combat is the main job of the American rifleman.

stancrist said:

That's understandable.  I am not certain that it would work.  It would depend upon whether or not a viable weapon system can be developed. At this point it's only a theory, a concept, based in large part on video evidence.  Like this, for example:  https://youtu.be/4UolMYY7QaA?t=174

Hum...

First, let's have a look of a 120 mm canister shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riy4EaoR76U

• "Whoa, that's impressive, no-one could survive a single shot, so let's replace rifles with shotguns!"
• "But, Sir, a 12 gauge shotgun will never be able to deliver this kind of results."
• "I know, but that's simply because 12 ga. not big enough. The concept is solid, we just need a bigger gun!"

???  I don't get the connection.  Are you saying it's impossible to make a 30mm (or larger caliber) grenade launcher?

stancrist said:

I don't get the connection. Are you saying it's impossible to make a 30mm (or larger caliber) grenade launcher?

He is saying that a 30 mm GL will not be comparable to a 30 mm AC.

For starters the shell of a 30x173 carries a lot of KE. This makes shrapnel type ammo very effective. A 30 mm GL will not have this and thus can not use this kind of ammo effectively. It will have to be a HE-Frag. Which works different and has a different effect.
A 30 mm HEI shell weights >350 g. That is roughly one third more compared to a 40 mm grenade. You can do the math easily to figure out the possible MV with a still barable recoil.

stancrist said:

???  I don't get the connection.  Are you saying it's impossible to make a 30mm (or larger caliber) grenade launcher?

No, I'm saying that you can't make a man-portable grenade launcher with the destructive power of a 30 x 173 mm AC, just like a 12 gauge shotgun will not deliver the destructive power of a 120 mm canister shot, even if the concept is "the same".

EmericD said:

I'm saying that you can't make a man-portable grenade launcher with the destructive power of a 30 x 173 mm AC...

Okay.  The only trouble is, I never said a grenade launcher would have the same destructive power as a 30mm cannon. 

What I said is the video is an example of airburst fragmentation which makes me think the concept could possibly work.

The 30mm cannon airburst videos show fragmentation effect much better than, for example, 40mm grenade airbursts.

40x53    https://youtu.be/BPaC1LTrHy0?t=545

30x113  https://youtu.be/yuV7Pd4dheI?t=47