ZSU-23/4 Super Deadly

[MOS:96B2P]

On 5/27/2021 at 7:21 PM, Halmbarte said:

For Airborne and Air mobile I believe.

Yep.  In the 82nd Airborne (1980s) our air defense unit would set up their towed Vulcans in the ballfield in front of our barracks (313 MI Bn).  They would track airplanes taking off and landing at nearby Pope Airforce base.  Of course they had no ammo but we always found it a little amusing that they were practicing on our own Airforce.     

[Artkin]

Is it really a smart move to have a vehicle that does it all? This is a strange design... Totally new direction for the military.

It's not even an APC anymore. It's a straight up combat machine.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Artkin

[db_zero]

Be interesting to see how the new Stryker based AA vehicle does against drone swarms which will likely be a serious threat as the technology proliferates. Most if now all the civilian drones are made in China so the technology is widely available. 

The other potential threat is UAPs. So far it seems to be mostly a US Navy thing, but who knows. Awaiting the report that is slated to be released. Not expecting too much.

 

[fireship4]

As an aside, the A-10 should be able to defeat the Shilka.  If I remember from early LOMAC days, the procedure was to fire the GAU-8 at 1.2Km or something and break off before reaching 1Km, in theory staying out of range.  I wonder if a real life Shilka commander might try and scare off an A-10 with innacurate/ineffective fire outside of this range if they thought they were about to be attacked though.  I myself would probably jump out.

[Geoff-Ludumpress]

Funny cos I had a ZSU in a quick battle and fast air (or maybe Cobra) knocked it out before it had even blinked. Will have to remember to turn down the vodka settings for the crew in game setup

[Probus]

I love AAA Gatling vehicles.  They hammer everything in CM.  If you were to replace the main gun on an M1 Abrams with those Gatling cannons , then let it pivot up 90+ degrees and add an armored ammo cart behind it, I think you might have a Mk. 1.0 Bolo (or maybe a Mk. 0.5).  The cannons don't kill tanks, but they blind them.  They chew up APCs and I won't even mention what they do to infantry, poor bastards.  They are a must have for clearing out city blocks.  But as was mentioned before, their Achilles heal is their ammo supply.

I once used a 1/2 dozen of them to help defend a town against an attack/assault QB.  I was doing great until some enemy helicopters showed up.  Dang AAA shot down all the helos and used up practically all of their ammo.  There went my uber-defense.  Lost the battle, but did I ever make the enemy pay for it.

[Erwin]

5 hours ago, Probus said:

I love AAA Gatling vehicles.  They hammer everything in CM. 

The BTR 80 series (CMBS) with its fast firing 30mm is rather like that.  But, the min 15 sec TARGET interval is too long to let it fire.  It runs out of its 300 (HE+AP) rounds of ammo in well under 60 secs IIRC.  5 seconds fire is usually enuff for satisfactory results.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Erwin

[John Kettler]

On 5/24/2021 at 5:18 PM, Gary R Lukas said:

Just a heads up, but if you have air support coming in and there are some ZSU-23/4's on the battlefield, well your in for a rude awakening. If you don't take them out first, then you are just throwing away your Air Assets. I made me a little test range with the newer Soviet Armor to test the American tank guns to get an idea of how powerful the tank guns were and at what ranges they could penetrate the Soviet tanks. Mind you I removed all of the Soviet tank crews and positioned different tanks starting at 500 meters out to just over 3,000 meters. Then I wanted to throw in a bunch of American Airpower to see their effect, after that 2 ZSU's with the crews manning them at the conscript level. I had 4 A-10's and 2 F4-Phantoms all coming in at the same time, only one aircraft even got close enough to drop its ordinance, the other 5 aircraft perished rather quickly. Being in a TOW Unit for 8 years now I see why we were told to knock out the ZSU's first, otherwise we would be getting ZERO Air Support. Now I know why, those things are NO JOKE!! 

Gary R Lukas,

Was a Soviet Threat Analyst in Military Aerospace for 11+ years (1978-89), during which the ZSU-23/4 was a very big deal indeed. We used to call it the airplane eater, which the Israeli Air Force learned the hard way during the Yom Kippur War in which SAMs forced IAF planes down into its firing envelope and it shot down planes in droves. From a real world perspective, the A-10 gun drill was to open fire on these deadly weapons from 4000' slant range, since the armor on it could be easily penetrated, whereas tanks couldn't be engaged until 2000' slant range max, preferably closer. Having the AGM-65 Maverick adds an extremely valuable standoff capability to kill the ZSU while staying outside of its engagement envelope. Would further observe the US Army learned to coordinate artillery with air strikes to suppress them or, better, kill them. DPICM would eat them alive, given one or more submunition hits.  

The game is entirely correct in modeling the ZSU-23/4 as a severe hard kill threat, but in reality, it would create a lot of virtual attrition, too, by severely degrading delivery accuracy (jinking and/or higher ordnance release altitudes) on the one hand and putting strike aircraft in the position of dumping stores (bombs and rockets), putting the pedal to the medal and getting out of Dodge forthwith--or dying.  Thus, though the plane came back, the mission was nullified, creating the exact same effect, in terms of mission success, as if the aircraft was shot down inbound on the target. Also, The ZSU-23/4 wasn't alone in the SHORADS role, for it worked intimately with the SA-9 and later SA-13 mobile SAMS. The message here is brutal and simple. If you can't or won't learn to deal with Soviet mobile air defenses, don't buy air support, buy fire support!

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[John Kettler]

On a separate note, back when I was at Hughes Missile Systems Group, maker of the Maverick, the classified Ph, given an in-parameters launch, was 93%. The day after I'd finally gotten the Ph, there was a two-page Aviation Week ad trumpeting it to the world! This led to a friendly reminder from my boss "Just because it's published doesn't make it Unclassified." This left me in the surreal position of having to guard that number in all my documents while knowing full well anyone who saw the ad had the exact same info I was required, under penalty of law and my job, to protect. During the Yom Kippur War, the US received a complaint from an IDF General, the gist of which was the Maverick was too good. It hit what it was aimed at and killed the tank hit so thoroughly the Israelis couldn't later fix it and use it themselves. Back then, the Maverick had a fire-and-forget TV seeker. The solution arrived at was to have the pilot lock the weapon onto, not the tank, but its shadow, generating a very close near miss. The blast of the 173 pound shaped charge was enough to M-Kill the tank via detracking, road wheel removal, etc. This mollified the Israelis, who could now repair and reuse immobilized Egyptian tanks. This isn't some yarn but was presented verbatim, complete with the general's name, in the SECRET level WSEG (Weapon System Evaluation Group) report on the Yom Kippur War.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[John Kettler]

As some or all of you may've noted, even the 4000' slant range quoted for A-10 cannon engagement with the ZSU-23/4 put the aircraft squarely inside the ZSU's engagement envelope, in turn necessitating NOE tactics prior to popup, firing and remasking. Those of you who've watched A-10 CAS gun runs in Afghanistan have a real appreciation of how low low could be and how agile the plane was at altitudes where a bank practically scraped the wingtip on the ground. 

Another thing to know is that Soviet air defense doctrine, for SPAAG accompanying a force, was to rely on primary weapon alignment on the expected threat axis. Do not know how the game deals with simultaneous multi-axis attack. Unlike now, in the timeframe of the game, the ZSU and SA-9/SA-13 had no dedicated accomanying radar in support, though higher did have transportable acquisition radars with little capability against ground hugging air targets. Thus, all there was were eyeballs, FC optics and onboard radar for the ZSU, eyeballs and FC optics  for the SA-9, and the same for the SA-13, but it had radar ranging as well, in order to avoid out of envelope shots. Every APC and IFV platoon had a MANPADS, too, and in expecting air attack conditions, those vehicles would be unbuttoned.

Also, there would be full 360 degree visual surveillance, flares and radio alerts if a threat was detected by any part of the protected force. BMP-2s were NOT to be trifled with, for the 30 mm auto cannon with considerable reach and ability to fire near vertically provided considerable  built-in force defense, and I should tell you that J-CATCH (Joint Counter to Attack Helicopters) revealed a shocker when review of video tapes found several instances in which an A-10 was engageable by tank cannon firing hypervelocity KE!  

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited November 21, 2021 by John Kettler

[John Kettler]

On 6/29/2021 at 6:23 PM, Erwin said:

The BTR 80 series (CMBS) with its fast firing 30mm is rather like that.  But, the min 15 sec TARGET interval is too long to let it fire.  It runs out of its 300 (HE+AP) rounds of ammo in well under 60 secs IIRC.  5 seconds fire is usually enuff for satisfactory results.

Erwin,

Having watched hours of footage of live fire footage at the Alabino Poligon shot during the 2021 Army Games, I wholeheartedly agree. Three-round bursts are the go to for all 30 mm armed AFVs which aren't SPAAG, because full auto fire causes marked, severely accuracy degrading, barrel whip. And even the SPAAGs don't fire full auto much, save in unusual circumstances. Most of the time  it seems to be a couple of seconds. Believe BFC needs to figure out and implement some sort of in-game logic that results in sane behavior for 30 mm armed AFVs. Not sure what form that might take, though. Maybe treating Target Light as also including the 30 mm on AFVs so armed?

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited November 21, 2021 by John Kettler

[John Kettler]

fireship4,

The procedure you describe still places the A-10 way inside the 3000 meter range of the ZSU-23/4., more like heart of the envelope! That's why NOE flight is essential to survival prior to engagement and upon egress. In turn, this is why well-trained FACs are integral to CAS in this highly non-permissive air environment. And all this MUST be done in coordination with FS. It's all about combat synchronization.

Regards,

John Kettler