hello

Hey, I'm no military expert, especially in land systems.

Garry

neither me.... I am not pushing an idea that salvo weapons was Iraqis remedy. I just wanted hear some other versions why it was not used. Mine - Iraq has lost salvo weapons in 1st war.

but somebody (american millitary) who fought in Iraq may now tell me that salvo was prevented and explain how it was done..... that would be quite educating.

Officer of Engineers

The speed of advance is reason. The Iraqi recee was never up to par in relaying fire mission to the gunners. Even with SMERCH, unless you know where to look, you're not going to waste a round looking over empty dirt.

When the Americans hit the Iraqi recee, the speed of advance and combat was such that the Iraqi recee lacked the time to relay proper info to the gunners.

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Garry

Good reason. Probably Iraqis did not prepare an observation posts or artilery intelligence units....

Garry

I read this today. I guess Indian defense really become stronger

Russia also sells new rockets for Indian Grad's which have range of 40km - against old 25km range. One Smerch can destroy everything (tanks, infantry, transports) at the area of 50 hectares..... at the range of 90km..... the system also assumes that Smerch can shoot a UAV to the area to target its prey preciselly.... Deadly thing!

http://defencejournal.com/jan99/smerch.htm

Garry

Just learned that the size of this contract is around $500mln and it includes significant stock of shells for Smerch and Grad as well as training of artillery personnel in Russia. The number of launchers is 28 - two regiments (14 launchers each).

It is hard to estimate the price per launcher from this due to unknown contribution of other contract parts. If we simply estimate $500/28 it will make around 18mln... though such approach is wrong.

The power of this new Indian force is really significant.... One salvo of a Smerch regiment would kill anything unfortified or not armored heavily on the 12 square km area at the range of 90km. The regiment can make 3 Salvo's in an hour...... This can kill DIVISIONS in the attack. Smerch has two special SALVOs solutions against MOST HEAVE TANKS - an expensive one i.e..... a parachuting shells which find their target and shoot to them automatically. and a cheaper - cluster bombing with heavy antiarmor mines/bombs. In any conventional war against India - SMERCH launchers must be found and destroyed first!!!

http://www.artillery-mz.com/en/products/05/300-2/

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lurker

Afaik it's 2 regiments, consisting of 3 batteries (divisions) having 4 launchers in each section + one separate battery (for training?)

i.e. 2 x 3 x 4 = 24 + 4 = 28.

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Garry

with these 28 giving SALVO they can cover more than 2000 hectares with one shot (around 20 square km). It alone can stop massive enemy advance.

Kontakt Era

But multi launching rocket systems like smerch and grad are only effective if there is poor air support for the opponent. India could definetly use it against pakistan in the mountains or the desert. How can you use smerch or grad against the american in Iraq? Even though Iraq is desert, and the rocket systems could have been useful against the abrams and other ground units, the Americans and British already had 60% control of the air space. You guys were right when saying the grads would have been hidden in the cities. But that would have literally turned the city into a battlfield after the first salvo shot. Am I right?

lurker

Remember how long it took to hunt down all Iraqi SCUD's? This is the same chassis.

Bluesman

This is a WWII-style weapon, and it is largely ineffective against AirLand Battle doctrine, where aspeed and indirect attack is the way business is done.

Barrage weapons are a thing of the past. POINT weapons, PRECISION delivery - THAT is the wave of the future. Catch the wave, or get swept away.

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lurker

Those things, for example Smerch, are designed to serve exactly the same role as BB's were serving for US marines. Inexpensive and powerful fire support.

12 300mm rockets is enough to clear any bridge.

Garry

I agree with Lurker.... you may spend long time chasing for those trucks which look nothing special unless on fire position. And it takes just 3 minutes for them to prepare to fire.... 1 minute to fire and 1 minute to leave.

Air support will spend time killing all the trucks around..... and actually when it starts chasing them it would be too late.... the devastating salvo will do HUGE HUGE DAMAGE.

MLRS nees just one thing - know enemy's positions and type of armor/fortification to destroy

Garry

LOL. Smerch is a PRECISION weapon. Its shells use GPS or Glonass.... that is why used to destroy fortifucations. What happens to a bunker when 16 of 300mm shells hit with 20m precision to its position simultaneously?

The GPS and Glonass coordinates are transmitted by a UAV which is shot like a normal 300mm rocket to target area and hangs there for 30minutes...... giving you the immage of what you salvo does to enemy.....

Altenativelly the targeting might be done by a soldier with lazer.... then shells got a krasnopol targeting on them.... THIS THING IS VERY PRECISE

But most of Smech shells/rockets are unguided.... and VERY VERY INEXPENSIVE

And as I said there are VERY expensive shells which go down to target area on parachutes..... search their targests with small radar and then propell to them.

Gun Grape

Just my 2 cents worth. How did this thread slip under my radar earlier?

An answer to some of your questions Garry.

I’ll give you 1 reason that MLRS is more advanced (and survivable)
Fire control: the M-270 MLRS is a self contained firing unit. Capable of receiving, processing and firing a mission with no outside support. They can conduct a technique that use to be called roaming gun. A launcher can ride around (or hide in a garage) until it receives a fire mission, pull into an open space, push a button and fire all 12 rounds in less than 2 min. No need to establish comm. with a command vehicle. No need to survey the position. Then it can move to a reload/firing site. A place where another 2 6 packs have been dropped off. There it can drop the empty 6 packs. An empty launcher can reload both 6 packs of rockets, fire a mission, and be moving to another position in under 5 min.

The Smearch relies on a separate command vehicle to plug into all the launchers. It takes 2 mins from reception of fire mission to fire, and this from a position that they are already surveyed in and hooked up to the command vehicle. Which BTW displays a pattern on the ground that can be identified as a Smearch unit. Pretty high on the target list.


BLASPHEMER. Artillery is the GOD OF WAR. All others bow down to the King Of Battle Someone read this to him as I'm sure he has been struck blind for typing such words

That and their fire computations sucked. We would pull up in front of the grunts (FLOT) prior to the ground war and shoot a few rounds. Their Counterbattery response would always be a few clicks off. (Thank God) Part of it is how they split a circle. Soviet fire support and survey use a circle with less mils than the US/English standard.

And our response would either be MLRS or grab something from the CAS stack.


No, unfortunately with the fire control and communications being with a separate vehicle, that controls the 6 launchers Smearch Batteries will have to set up and survey the launchers in a set pattern with the Command vehicle. We know that diagram and as soon as we ID it we will fire on it. You make it easier if you launch one of your RPV rockets.

Predator is more survivable. And its not the only long range sensor available.

Not a good idea if they are moving. Smerch , US MLRS and ATACMs are better suited to 2 different missions. 1 being counter battery. The other large C4I targets (div CPs) and staging areas. They are not weapons that you use against moving targets

OoE gave the answer to that. For the units that were loyal to Saddam I would only add that being div and corps assets they were not responsive enough. And that’s what modern warfare is all about, causing your enemy to become OBE.

Nothing much, most ICM AT bomblets are good against a few inches of steel if they hit at the proper angle and force. All these systems have a high dud rate (up to 70% depending on terrain) If they don’t hit solid, the striker will not hit the primer hard enough to work. According to the Army Tech site you gave Smerch only uses AP (HE) bomblets so little or no damage to the structure but will shread any antennas that the unit was stupid enough to have colocated. The Unitarian blast warhead is the same as hitting with a ground burst HE. Most of the explosive force will go everywhere except against the bunker.

Within 2 minutes of you launching that UAV, a MLRS salvo or a JDAM/JSOW will be coming your way. The US excels at battlefield surveillance. The Smerch launched UAV was a very bad idea in a high CBR environment. You will notice that we don’t do UAVs that way. We know better. A Q-37 radar/MLRS team can have rounds downrange before the enemy’s rounds impact their target. And I’m talking 152/155mm cannon TOF

Not according to your references you do not have laser guided Smearch rockets. We also have the parachute antiarmor rounds , SADARM, that have been used in Iraq. And BAT.

What does the US care about expensive rockets? A drop in the bucket to a country that operates the B-2, F-22 and CBGs. We will run out of targets before we run out of money