Another complain about Syrian AT assets

[Secondbrooks]

I've seen video where similar equipment breaks something in gunner's head when fired from shoulder. Yup, barrel kinda flied few meters backwards after knocking gunner down. I'm not sure was it SPG-9 or that 107mm version of it. Could be something else as well, but i got impression that it was another of those two.

Brainz not functioning, again. So:

Or could be that it's just couldn't ease backblast's pressure (=something like dirt in way). So it had much more recoil than normally.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I've seen video where similar equipment breaks something in gunner's head when fired from shoulder. Yup, barrel kinda flied few meters backwards after knocking gunner down. I'm not sure was it SPG-9 or that 107mm version of it. Could be something else as well, but i got impression that it was another of those two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0MQcMCuYgM&feature=PlayList&p=7B7F730DA50F78E1&index=31

[cool breeze]

Besides being a dictatorship without free press the soviet union was a very major arms dealer/business. It seems to me that with the huge numbers of very expensive weapons sales to foreign nations over the years that if the info sent with the weapons was wrong about critical and easily testable data then that would be reported on somewhere. I argue that if the manual and sales brochure for the weapon say it should be done in 12-20 seconds but it really takes a trained crew an average of 1 or more minutes in field to set up then there would be complaints about it on the internet. But Ill be happy with whatever I get! Thanks!

[MikeyD]

U.S. equipment is often advertised to 'officially' be the best thing since sliced bread - until they want congress to fund its replacement. Then all of a sudden stories surface that the in-service weapon is barely adequate, almost a danger for for the operator to use. From hero to zero. Perhaps nobody's had a financial incentive to publically trash Russian ATGMs in the press.

The opposite is becoming true of older Soviet era equipment. Their reputation went from barely adequate to robust, functional and affordable. The ancient T55, for example - is it really all that inferior to MGS as a direct-fire infantry support weapon? This thread here could be used as an example of Russian equipment gradually being publically 'rehabilitated'.

[Secondbrooks]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0MQcMCuYgM&feature=PlayList&p=7B7F730DA50F78E1&index=31

Yup. That is the one. Doesn't seem to be SPG-9.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Could be a B-10, though it's hard to be 100% sure.

[Sergei]

B-10 is much heavier than SPG-9. Can a single man lift it on his shoulder? I don't know. Another possibility is the much lighter Chinese Type 65.

[MikeyD]

Dang, Sergei. I think you got it! Type 65 looks exactly like the weapon and your link contains the line "The gun can be fired either on the tripod or the gunner’s shoulder."

[Alex]

Maybe it's not SPG-9, and so? SPG-9 is longer and maybe it's hard to shoot by 1 man, but 2 mans can do it easier: 1st man can shoot from back/shoulder of the second man (how sometime it do MG teams), in game we have 4 mans. I think they can do it.

[MikeyD]

SPG-9 seems pretty formidable for a shoulder (or back) fired weapon. Perhaps Rambo could fire it on the shoulder - it weighs 104 pounds without the tripod. That's rather like me trying to aim and fire my sofa.

[dan/california]

Maybe it's not SPG-9, and so? SPG-9 is longer and maybe it's hard to shoot by 1 man, but 2 mans can do it easier: 1st man can shoot from back/shoulder of the second man (how sometime it do MG teams), in game we have 4 mans. I think they can do it.

Do it, maybe. Hit something, besides the odd overflying goose, I have doubts.

[Battlefront.com]

Heh... yup, just like a MG assistant could actually have a hot MG on his shoulder while the gunner fires. Looks great on paper, not so good in reality Not that I think a SPG-9 could possibly be fired from the shoulder by anybody other than a professional athlete/body builder.

Steve

[Alex]

I don't say that shooting from the back of the friend :-) it is necessary do always, I only mean that in emergency situation it's possibly, and also I mean that 5 minets to deploy the SPG-9 it's a VERY long time :-)

[Battlefront.com]

v1.21 has much reduced setup and breakdown times

Steve

[Alex]

I know :-) and wait it.

[Alex]

Some interesting video about "Metis" ATMG.

It's deploying time is 20-30sek, and it can be shoot from the hands.

[John Kettler]

Alex,

You forgot to include the vid.

Sergei,

Per my 1975 Brassey's Infantry Weapons of the World, p. 173, no. It has a four-man crew, weighs 85.5 kg and is usually fired from its tripod, but can be fired while on its two wheeled carriage. The SPG-9, by contrast, is permanently attached to its tripod, whose legs fold forward for packing (Ibid. p. 175). It has no wheels, but can be carried by two men.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Alex]

Ops! Sorry, here it is:

video about "Metis" ATMG.

[John Kettler]

Alex,

Fabulous video, with bonuses including new Russian 12.7mm sniper rifle and AGS-17 grenade launcher! The Metis/AT7 SAXHORN was all but unknown when I left military aerospace in 1989, so I have trouble wrapping my brain around the incredible detail I gained just from watching the footage without being able to understand Russian. Was particularly intrigued with the clearly evident anti ERA precursor charge and the unusual positioning of the main warhead. Beat the U.S. Dragon ATGM all hollow in just about every category, with 50% more range. Or is the vid for the Metis M /AT-13 SAXHORN 2? Nasty bit of kit!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Lanzfeld]

My guess is the AT-13.

Duel warhead and the vid was showing some bunker shots maybe to advertise the thermobaric warhead that is an option?

[Alex]

You can see on the video 12.7mm sniper rifle OSV-96, AGS-30 and small assault rifle 9A91, like a 'Metis' it's all "KBP" products. On the video showed "Metis"(AT-7) and "Metis-M"(AT-13) ATMG with 2 types of warheads tandem-HEAT and Termobaric.

http://www.kbptula.ru/eng/atgw/metism1.htm - some info

P.S. In Russia we have 3 types of "Metis" ATMG it's: "Metis" (1000m/550mm), "Metis-M" (1500m/850mm), "Metis-M1" (2000m/950mm)

[Bigduke6]

Yes, that is AT-13 or as the Russians call it Metis-M; "M" is for "modernized". Thermobarbic warheads are an option.

I notice the following from the company vid:

The vid makes clear, all you need to do, to set up a Metis-M/AT-13, if you happen to be walking with it and want to fire it, basically, is plop down the weapon and take the protective caps off the sights.

The thing transports with a loaded round and tripod attached. No assembly is necessary. The tripod is a single base leg which folds, the "feet" are fixed. All you have to do is fold down the tripod base leg, it locks, and then you plop the tripod feet on the ground.

The announcer says the weapon can go from carried mode to deployed and ready to fire mode in "15 - 20 seconds." In the vid from starting at about 5:18 they show how this is done, you get to watch a pair of Russian soldiers set the thing up. There is a cut but it appears from the vid setting up AT-13 could take even less time, maybe 10 seconds or so if you were in a real hurry and familiar with the weapon. They also show it in a firing position propped on a rock with the tripod folded up, so if we believe what we are being shown a crew willing to shoot on the fly would need about 3-4 seconds to go from movement mode to firing mode, i.e., however long it took the gunner to place his system on a rock, and then look into the sight.

Of course, realistically it would take more time than that in a war, you gotta make sure of your fire lane, check and make sure you aren't going to get shot, what about fences, has the ammo carrier brought along my vodka ration, stuff like that.

But in any case, looking at the weapon and what it takes to set it up, 30 seconds looks - to me anyway - a pretty reasonable time for a reasonably trained crew. Like I say, if they were in a big hurry it looks like you could do it a Hell of a lot faster than that.

The CMSF deploy time for a Veteran crew with AT-13, with the most recent 1.21 patch, is 90 seconds.

This is roughly three times as long as what seems reasonable (to me), and maybe six times as long as what at a guess appears to be the manufacturer firing range labratory condition minimum setup time.

I would also say that from what I can tell from watching the vid on how the weapon is set up and fired, it would be hard to argue that there is something about the weapon that makes it inherently complicated for a typical Syrian to operarate.

Glad to share my impressions of Syria and Russia if any one is interested on how I draw that conclusion.

So bottom line, unless we are going to assume that US/British weapons deploy exactly as the manufacturer says, or faster, while Soviet/Russian weapons deploy about three times more slowly than the manufacturer says, it appears to me the reduced deploy times for the 1.21 patch aren't enough. If we take AT-13 as a benchmark, red ATGM deploy times need to be reduced by about half - again - to get close to the actual deploy times.

Just being empirical here, whether or not BFI thinks it's worth it to go further down that road is up to Steve and the boys. But it personally it looks to like this red particular ATGM, at least, is suffering from something supsiciously similar to the ZiS-3 effect. I find it hard to understand the logic for concluding a well-trained crew would require 90 seconds to get that thing operating.

Moving right along, let the record reflect that the max penetration for this weapon according to the manufacturer's vid, is 850mm modern steel/ceramic sandwich. This is of course, theoretically speaking anyway, and rembering we are guessing about the armor too, sufficient to punch through just about an tank in the world, from any aspect, including the front. Yes, I know, maybe not the latest and greatest models, if you hit them where they're thickest. But on the other hand even the latest and greatest tanks don't always get hit exactly where they want to.

As it happens I have been playing around with AT-13 Saxhorn in fire lane testing.

As a rule of thumb, from what I can tell, you need to get about 4 AT-13 to hit the front of Challenger to get a kill. This seems, in part, to be a function of slight angles from the direct front of the tank, i.e. the tank turns its turret or hull a little this way, and a missile comes in that way and strikes the Challenger maybe 5 - 10 degrees off a perfect perpendicular to the bow. If you get the hits then the first one does nothing except degrade the optics a bit, but subsequent hits seem to start working on the engine and comms and radio and so on. After about 3 hits some of the systems are amber, and on the 4th to 5th frontal hit enough are red that the tank is dead.

(Which is, by the way, some brilliant computer modelling by BFI, I may have issues about how they simulate particular weapons, but their simulation of weapon effects in general is nothing less than amazing, like best in the world by far. Great job guys!)

AT-13 for practical purposes does not penetrate the front of a M1A1 at all in CMSF; although it seems possible that if you hit the front of a M1A1 about 7 or 8 times with an AT-13, you can beat up the optics and accessories enough the crew will decide the tank is a loss, and will bail.

So, you certainly can't say Challenger and M1A1 are invulnerable frontally to AT-13 in CMSF. But it seems very clear that the performace of AT-13 is alot worse against those tanks, than the manufacturer at least implies it would be.

In other trivia, the vid also says it takes 16 hours of training to fully qualify a soldier to operate Metis-M, and describes operating the weapon as "rather simple."

[Alex]

On this video you can clearly see how fast "Metis" can be deployed (on video says 15-20sec) and reloaded, also may see how soldier fire Metis from hands and how easy it can be moved on short ranges without undeploying.

- "Kornet" video

I'm again trying to say, that even 1:30min it's too big deploying time for russian ATMG, especially for "Metis"

[Lanzfeld]

Another great video!!

LOVE the russian accent mixed with the music!!!

[Pandur]

This should prove of some interest, despite its orientation on Iraqi insurgents. Call it meaty!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9228119/Us...2004-wikileaks

For our resident camouflage grog

http://strikehold.wordpress.com/2009...d-the-us-army/

Regards,

John Kettler

this is interessting stuff, especially the first link. is there a way to DL this as pdf without loging in, or someone got it allready and can up it somewhere?

"Kornet" video

in that vid one saw the kornet deployed on a UAZ!!!

oh, boy this is the perfect AT technical, at least reminds me on the TOW humvee but 1/10 of its price i guess