Re: DSII for the 2020s

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, David Brewer wrote:

> In message <199911292217.XAA11670@mailg.telia.com> "Oerjan Ohlson"
writes:
>
> >   - Flechette rounds: Counts as HEF against Militia and Line
infantry,
> > as MAK against PA, and completely ineffective against armoured
vehicles
> > (armour level 1 or more *in the front*). (Flechettes are very good
at
> > penetrating cloth, kevlar fibres, earth, timber etc, but literally
> > piss-poor against hard armour). In addition, flechette missions will
> > NOT set fire to things like woods or buildings.
> 
> In my (very) limited understanding, current arty submuntion are
> usually dual-purpose with both fragmentation and a shaped charge
> attacking any vehicle unfortunate enough to be hit directly.
> Wouldn't this still be the case for a flechette submunition?...
> that they would be equally as effective against vehicles as HEF?

if the flechette round does include a HEAT component, then yes, but it
might not - that would help it out against armour.

i'm all for a single type of explosive artillery round (more or less). i
can't remember what it was called, but US army boffins have developed a
round which is an extension of the EFP; it has a metal disc at the
front,
and explosive behind, like a normal EFP, but there are many detonators,
all under computer control (a bit like the detonator for a nuke).

by varying the pattern of detonation, the computer can control the shape
of the blast wave which goes into the disc, and, thus, the shape it
takes
when it shoots out of the front. they can make it long and thin, to
penetrate armour effectively, or short and fat, to fly well, allowing
the
round to detonate further from the target and thus evade PDS, or it can
make it break up into lots of little pieces, to attack infantry.
presumably it could make it break up into several medium pieces to
attack
PA or light vehicles if needed.

anyway, the point is that this one type of round can engage all types of
target. it's not too pricey (how much does a microprocessor, some wires
and some detonators cost? how much will it cost once this technology has
been in use for 200 years?) and it's easy to use (press the button
marked
'tank' or 'infantry' as appropriate, or have your computer do it for
you).
i can see this type of ammo replacing current AP and AT rounds fairly
soon.

now, that doesn't mean it will be equally effective against tanks and
infantry in any one salvo - you still have to choose a tradeoff between
the two (eg 20% of the salvo in AT mode, 60% in AP mode and 20% in
Anti-PA/softskin mode) - but how often do you fire a salvo at infantry
and
armour together?

tom