"81 mm? Hold my hummus.

https://www.army-technology.com/projects/spear-mk2-mortar-system/

120 mm mortar, 200 kg with manual reloading, Humvee-friendly."

Now that, that is fucking cool. 

The US should definitely be snagging those, and that does seem like a more versatile system then the Mini MLRS. 

Probably the ideal setup would be to have the SPEAR as the dedicated 'fire support' vehicle for the platoon, and then have the Fletcher 4 shot APKWS mounted on regular troop transport vehicles. 

"30 meter CEP" I think is the problem for adopting the SPEAR Mk. 2.

And missiles have>cool factor than mortars.

Farmplinker said...

"30 meter CEP" I think is the problem for adopting the SPEAR Mk. 2.

Yeah, the 81 mm I mentioned has a CEP of 2 metres. I really don't think the rocket will go anywhere, as its trajectory is much too flat. It's practically a LOS weapon.

And an excellent discussion of guided mortars by one of my favorite military authors:

http://quarryhs.co.uk/Mortar%20systems.pdf

The 120mm is attractive a) because there are more guided 120mm kits available and b) the ability to use the 120mm THOR from SAAB:

https://saab.com/land/weapon-systems/warheads/thor/

Combined with the more vertical impact of the guided mortar round, which further increases fragmentation effect compared to mortars that impact sideways...

.

IF you want "cool" then the obvious way ahead (5 to 10 years" is a simple box with opening lid containing small autonomous drones which can be programmed to search beyond certain boundaries and attack any defined target that they find.    It will mean that every truck, IFV and tank will need 5 inches of armour on their roofs !

The network "swarms" ideas of drones in the navies will have a devastating effect when translated to land warfare. 

gatnerd said...

CEP of 2 meters doesn't sound possible.

Both the 81mm Roll Control Guided Mortar and 120mm Guided Mortar talk about having ~10m CEP. 

"GD-OTS’s RCGM has been successfully demonstrated on both 81mm and 120mm Mortar platforms – Demonstrated end-to-end Guidance, Navigation and Control – Demonstrated Accuracy – Less than 10m median miss distance for both systems."

Why a guided bomb though?  A dedicated low collateral guided projectile might be needed for some engagements, but otherwise dumb proximity fused bombs will work for everything else. 

gatnerd said...

Combined with the more vertical impact of the guided mortar round, which further increases fragmentation effect compared to mortars that impact sideways..

You were happy with a point detonating 8 kg warhead that throws all its fragments back into the air a few posts ago. 

"Why a guided bomb though?  A dedicated low collateral guided projectile might be needed for some engagements, but otherwise dumb proximity fused bombs will work for everything else."

In general, I think everything that can be guided should be. 

But specifically, for the vehicle application I think it's essential. The reason being the relatively few mortars that a small vehicle can carry. 

I'm not sure about the SPEAR, but the Marine's EFSS had a 30 shot capacity:

With a relatively limited number of rounds, its essential that each round be as accurate as possible:

Given the relatively low cost of guided mortars ($10-15k) there's really no reason not to use them. 

"You were happy with a point detonating 8 kg warhead that throws all its fragments back into the air a few posts ago."

Ideally I'd like to see a airbursting MAPAM fragmentation shell developed for the 70mm rocket as well. MAPAM/ pre-fragmented is really how all HE should be designed.

Along those line's I'm quite curious how the 70mm Flechette rockets perform.

I would say that airburst at 2-3m height, with an umbrella pattern, would be more important than a guided projectile for a 6km range shoot, for instance. And an altimeter should be cheaper than a guidance system

poliorcetes said...

I would say that airburst at 2-3m height, with an umbrella pattern, would be more important than a guided projectile for a 6km range shoot, for instance. And an altimeter should be cheaper than a guidance system

They burst higher than that but yes. There are cheap turbine driven proximity fuses for mortar bombs that are perfect for this sort of lowbrow system that is needed in numbers. Because of the low personnel requirements it should be possible to expand a 8 mortar platoon to 12 automated vehicle mounted mortars with the same manpower. A battalion is unlikely be manning more than 10 locations with it actively patrolling companies so this should be sufficient without needing to go outside the existing force structure.

Call in the Super Tucanos if the target is big enough to need a 120 mortar with guided munitions.

"I would say that airburst at 2-3m height, with an umbrella pattern, would be more important than a guided projectile for a 6km range shoot, for instance. And an altimeter should be cheaper than a guidance system."

The US Army has been using programable airbursting fuses on mortars since the 1970's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M734_fuze

While that is very helpful, I don't see it overcoming the utility of a guided shell. Even an airbursting projectile is not going to overcome a 30-60m miss, which is typical for a 6km firing. 

Airbursting is also not helpful if the goal is destroying a structure.

Example, enemies firing from inside a building:

In order to get the occupants inside, it needs a point detonating delay + direct impact with the roof. This would require a mortar barrage of 10-18rds, whereas a guided mortar could make the shot in 1-2 rounds.