MLRS

[gibsonm]

But if the Chinook (basically the size of a “side of a barn”) had in fact landed “yards away”, then he probably would have had a chance.

[Sixxkiller]

Well ya know, in the Army, no one fears the helicopter pilot when he isnt in his bird. I am pretty sure Marines feel the same way. And what does being able to land have to do with a knock down drag out? Hell he should have just landed on the guy if thats the case. :eek:

-Ray

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

Well ya know, in the Army, no one fears the helicopter pilot when he isnt in his bird. I am pretty sure Marines feel the same way.

As the article says - not suffering FOOLS .......

And what does being able to land have to do with a knock down drag out? Hell he should have just landed on the guy if thats the case. :eek:

It's the personal touch

[Sixxkiller]

LOL Mike.

-Ray

[ironbar]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Moronic Max:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Then there is the MOAB bomb dropped from a C-130

Something I've been curious about for a while: can MOAB realistically be used in an area where there're anything like significant AA threats? I may be way off base, but C-130s don't strike me as the safest plane to use in hazardous airspace. </font>

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

And Maverick ATGMs. Anything hit by one of those will die.

has anyone seen any evaluation of Maverick regarding their performance in Iraq? i have read of cases in which Maverick failed to penetrate T-72 turret front or Abrams side and i wonder if those were just some individual odd cases. </font>

[Michael Emrys]

You call 125 lbs smallish? Let me put it this way, could it have been a Hellfire instead of a Maverick? Hellfires, though good missiles in their own right, are quite a bit smaller.

Michael

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

You call 125 lbs smallish? Let me put it this way, could it have been a Hellfire instead of a Maverick? Hellfires, though good missiles in their own right, are quite a bit smaller.

i think they have been officially confirmed to be Maverick hits.

doesn't 125 lbs refer to the whole warhead, not the penetrator itself?

i wouldn't be totally surprised if the designers would have thought that Maverick would be very likely to hit weakly armoured parts of vehicles (because it is air-to-ground) so that a powerful penetrator would not be necessary. or perhaps they used a variant with a small penetrator. or perhaps it was just bad luck.

[MikeyD]

What would we do without Google?

Maverick warheads:

"The warhead is... either a 125-pound shaped-charge warhead or a 300-pound penetrator warhead. A contact fuse in the nose fires the shaped-charge warhead. The penetrator uses a delayed-fuse, allowing the warhead to penetrate the target with its kinetic energy before firing. The latter is very effective against large, hard targets."

And on the topic of TV guided Mavericks:

" [AGM-65A] uses an electro-optical (TV) guidance system. The picture of a TV camera in the nose of the missile is displayed on a screen in the cockpit. When the pilot has selected a target, the TV image is "locked" in the missile's seeker logic, and the Maverick is fired. After launch, the AGM-65A homes on the target by constantly matching the TV camera image to the locked target image.... One drawback of the AGM-65A was the relatively small TV image presented to the pilot, requiring an unnecessarily close approach to the target. Therefore the AGM-65B was developed, which used scene-magnifying optics doubling the image resolution. This allowed the engagement of smaller or more distant targets. Development of the AGM-65B, a.k.a. "Scene-Magnification Maverick", began in 1975, and the missiles were delivered during the late 1970s. Production of the AGM-65A/B TV guided Mavericks ended in 1978 after more than 35000 missiles had been built. "

[undead reindeer cavalry]

now that i am waiting to penetrate Hortlund's Main Line of Resistance, i wonder when BFC will release a list of included weapons systems.

Mikey, perhaps those strange cases featured Mavericks that didn't have penetrator warhead.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

The penetrator uses a delayed-fuse, allowing the warhead to penetrate the target with its kinetic energy before firing. The latter is very effective against large, hard targets.

That's also the version favored by the Navy. The delayed fusing would allow the warhead to reach the innards of a ship before detonating. I expect the increased weight is due to a heavier, penetrating casing. Should also be good against bunkers and the like.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

A couple of possible explainations for the lack of penetration.

The delayed fuse must work by either decelleration or a set time delay afy=ter contact to allow time for penetration. To do this effectively we would need the fuse to be set to extremely fine tolerances.

If for some reason the T-72 turret was to be "harder" than expected such as,just better than we thought, it hit reactive armour, slates or even an external storage box even, then the charge might detonate early or further out dispersing the blast over the turret rather than penetrating.

If this was an effect then you could have an odd saftey feature, in that you could design a warhead that would penetrate and destroy a T-72, but which not penetrate an M-1A2, because the charge would detionate prematurely because of the better armour.

Peter.

[Michael Emrys]

According to this page the weight of explosive of the shaped charge warhead is 86 lbs and of the penetrator warhead 80 lbs.

By comparison, this other site gives the weight of explosive for the TOW 2A as only 6.9 lbs.

So the Maverick has a little over 12 times the explosive in its shaped charge warhead than the TOW. That's why I am extremely sceptical of the claim that started this discussion. If the claimed Maverick hits were indeed Mavericks and failed to penetrate, it must have been a friggin' miracle. The crews inside those tanks must have been up to date on their prayers and good deeds.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

Only other explaination Ican think of then is that it just detonated on impact with the first thing it touched, ie a turret storage box and the blast disperesd over the surface.

Either that or it just didn't go off.

Peter.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

Only other explaination Ican think of then is that it just detonated on impact with the first thing it touched, ie a turret storage box and the blast disperesd over the surface.

Yeah, that could be.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

Oh on the heavy hitting thread, the Syrian do have a dozen or so highly mobile and hideable ss-21's.

With a range of about 60 miles, they can put a just under half ton warhead to within 100m of a target, so maybe the US player might have to face the occational one of these.

If you had a dozen or so Strykers supporting infantry advancing along a couple of hundred metres with about a 100 metres depth ( not unlikely given the scenario BFC is portraying), then an SS-21 landing anywhere amoungst it could really ruin your day.

Peter.

[John Kettler]

Peter Cairns,

I can confirm that flanges, grab irons, storage bins ands the like can and will detonate shaped charges, considerably degrading their penetration. Have seen the post impact shots from the 1967 War to prove it.

That said, I'm still astounded any of those things would prevent a Maverick from killing a T-72, especially a monkey model. The warhead is so incredibly powerful it's hard to imagine that or any tank surviving a direct hit.

As for SS-21s, while I agree they're quite nasty, I really have problems with the employment scenario you postulate. If they were to be used, I'd expect to see them used against CPs, preplanned chokepoints after being cued they're full, critical junctions, etc. Warhead type would also be a significant issue--unitary, bomblet, or maybe even guided submunitions.

Regards,

John Kettler

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Maverick hit the turret straight on from the front, just below the rangefinder (if i recall correctly) - it did not hit stowage bins, era or anything. the hole looked like a very typical Maverick hit - a huge hole with those "splashes" radiating mostly to a specific direction.

[Peter Cairns]

John,

I doubt that in the kind of mobile warfare that the CM:SF invisages that the Syrians would be able to find any US CP's at all, as they would be highly mobile.

They could however assign SS-21's to particular target areas covering either choke points or likely routes of approach. In this way it's not unlikely that a stryker force might become a target of opportunity for such an attack.

The plan might well be to use conventional forces to force an advancing US force to halt and debus in or around a predetermined position. Unlike conventional massed artillery the SS_21 has a far better chance to shoot and scoot as it is a single round long range attack rather than multiple vehicles that need to sustain fire to have an effect.

Peter.

Peter.

[Michael Emrys]

URC,

How did you happen to see the stricken T-72? Did you examine it personally?

Michael

[John Kettler]

URC,

Thanks for the clarification! Do you have any pictures you can post? Would love to see them!

Every Maverick live firing w/ live warhead against a tank which I've seen footage of blew the turret clean off the combat loaded tank. An IIR Maverick

w/ inert warhead completely smashed in the engine compartment and set the tank ablaze.

Peter Cairns,

Am not certain I agree with your assessment. For American units to get the most out of their computer technology, it seems to me that one or more TOCs will have to be deployed while others move. My now retired brother served in one (H&HT of the first Stryker Brigade deployed in Iraq), and it had lots of gear (huge situation displays, for one) which simply couldn't be run to full capability while on the move. Think tent city with vehicles attached.

His vehicle was a Hummvee carrying a big air conditioner for the TOC (to keep all those fancy electronics cool) and towing a generator (to power that big AC). In the TOC, his job was to run a radio net and monitor several others. Based on what he described and what I've read, I don't see how the Americans can conduct effective ops without setting up TOCs and the like. If they do, they're great targets for all kinds of attacks.

A single RPG round could prove devastating if it hit the main tent, never mind something larger.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

LtCol West,

Are you honestly telling me they pilot landed a cobra in a combat zone to apologies.....

hell the guy should have been court marshalled for that, Ok he made a mistake which could or could not be an offense, but to just decide to abandon your support mission to pay your respects is dereliction of duty.

It just sounds crazy to me.

Peter.

Yes, he did. And he was not court-martialed.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

no, i have not inspected the tank personally

i managed to re-find a pic of it:

[Peter Cairns]

Well I am no expert but that doesn't look like a Maverick hit.

Given the diameter of the hole compared to the gun or the smoke dischargers, I'd say it was a far smaller calibre shaped charge, more like a RPG or some sort.

If it had been a surfce explosion from over 50kg's of HE I doubt there would be much left on the surface.

Peter.

[MikeyD]

RPG hit??!! An RPG hitting a turret front would probably drill a hole about the diameter of a felt marker. It looks like you could practically fit your fist into that hole there! It looks like a side fuel bin was also blown off in the process. That was a BIG explosion and I doubt the tank was of much use afterwards penetration or not. T72 turrets do have double-wall construction with a filler material reported to be silica (sand), optimized - I believe - defeat a HEAT jet.