British Tornados droping concrete weapons?

[Chris OFarrell]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s825478.htm

Well here is to pure KE weapons I guess

[Sokar]

A half ton of concrete will wreck a tank as surely as a 120mm HEAT round , but avoids the collateral damage to surrounding buildings. A Pilium for the modern age.....

[Chris OFarrell]

Hey, pure KE weapons are hela cool, but I just can't help but get the picture of a luny toons guy droping an anvil from some WW2 looking aircraft on some enemy toon :p

[Companion Cube]

Why go for thousands of dollars worth of explosices when you can drop some concrete on the enemy?

[Montcalm]

Hey, pure KE weapons are hela cool, but I just can't help but get the picture of a luny toons guy droping an anvil from some WW2 looking aircraft on some enemy toon :p

Opening umbrella for protection

[Stuart Mackey]

Interesting. Another reason perhaps is that the exchequer is horrified at the effectr the war is having on the public purse, and wishes to economise. wouldnt be the first time I would imagine...

[Sea Skimmer]

Both the USAF/USN and RAF have toyed around with inert bombs to strike targets in urban areas. However the effectiveness is very limited, and its hard to justify risking an aircraft to deliver one. It appears that the USN may already have used a few in Afghanistan.

[Alyeska]

The US military has actually been dropping concrete bombs on Iraqi targets for several years now. While they limit collateral damage they still utterly destroy the target. The problem is if the guidance system doesn't deliver it directly on target, then its almost useless because their is no shock to hit the target from the side that a normal bomb would cause.

[kojikun]

bah. war without explosions? No fun at all.

[Pu-239]

Cool.

How much explosive in a bomb do you need to kill a tank?

If it's pretty low, then they should make very small bombs that can be individually fired out of a dispenser (not clusterbomb)

[Pu-239]

500-2000lb bombs seems like overkill for an individual tank- maybe better for groups of tanks- but I don't think they are stupid enough to put all their tanks in one small area. Are cluster bombs effective against tanks, or only against soft targets?

[Warspite]

If it's pretty low, then they should make very small bombs that can be individually fired out of a dispenser (not clusterbomb)

That's the definition of cluster bomb.


There are cluster munitions (forgot the denomination) that are designed specifically to take out tanks, they posess a sensor and a shaped charge. When they are released, a small pirotechnic sets a rotation, increasing the arc of the sensor's coverage, if it detects a tank, it fires the shaped charge against the top, less vulnerable, part of the tank.

Others are less advanced (British BL 755, for example), when they land, or contact a vehicle, they detonate. These are more problematic, since they can be duds, creating a condition similar to mines (hence the public outcry for cluster munitions).

[Alyeska]

If it's pretty low, then they should make very small bombs that can be individually fired out of a dispenser (not clusterbomb)

That's the definition of cluster bomb.


There are cluster munitions (forgot the denomination) that are designed specifically to take out tanks, they posess a sensor and a shaped charge. When they are released, a small pirotechnic sets a rotation, increasing the arc of the sensor's coverage, if it detects a tank, it fires the shaped charge against the top, less vulnerable, part of the tank.

Others are less advanced (British BL 755, for example), when they land, or contact a vehicle, they detonate. These are more problematic, since they can be duds, creating a condition similar to mines (hence the public outcry for cluster munitions).

JSOW anti-armor version. Very effective weapon against formations of armor (includes APCs, IFVs, and other vehicles).

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-154.htm

[Sea Skimmer]

500-2000lb bombs seems like overkill for an individual tank- maybe better for groups of tanks- but I don't think they are stupid enough to put all their tanks in one small area. Are cluster bombs effective against tanks, or only against soft targets?

Actually a direct hit with a 500-pound unitary bomb is about the minimal for killing a tank. A 2000 pound bomb might manage to disable two or three, but its unlikely to ever destroy more then one.

Anti armor cluster bombs like the BL.755 and Mk20 Rockeye can disable tanks with a hail of small shaped charges, tracks will be blown off and the engine destroyed. But they generally don't destroy them. Thin skinned APC's and IFV's, along with artillery and air defenses are quite fucked.

There are also guided anti armor submunitions, bombs carrying them have 20 or so, while those carrying the unguided form could have 250+. These guided submunitions use infrared or acoustical sensors to find targets, then use fins to maneuver above them. The normal warhead is an explosively forged penatraitor, basically a spike of hot steel fires downward at mach five.

However such weapons are quite expensive. The US has a couple different projects, but the main one is Sensor fused weapon system, or SFW.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... cbu-97.htm

[Sea Skimmer]

JSOW anti-armor version. Very effective weapon against formations of armor (includes APCs, IFVs, and other vehicles).

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-154.htm

Use Globalsecuirty, the conventional weapons pages of FAS have not been updated since 2000 and are badly dated on many subjects.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... gm-154.htm

[Sea Skimmer]

Cool.

How much explosive in a bomb do you need to kill a tank?

If it's pretty low, then they should make very small bombs that can be individually fired out of a dispenser (not clusterbomb)

Employment of such a weapon would be far too difficult for a fixed wing aircraft, and specialized guided anti armor submunitions already exist. But that doesn't help very much in urban areas, since the submunitions might go for civilian vehicles, and the concentration of hostile armor targets would rarely warrant using one of them anyway. In addition building will often block the submunitions LOS to the targets engine.

Really, attacking armor in a city requires a man in the loop and a big weapon, for now. Eventually this program might take care of that issue

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... locaas.htm

[Pu-239]

If it's pretty low, then they should make very small bombs that can be individually fired out of a dispenser (not clusterbomb)

That's the definition of cluster bomb.


There are cluster munitions (forgot the denomination) that are designed specifically to take out tanks, they posess a sensor and a shaped charge. When they are released, a small pirotechnic sets a rotation, increasing the arc of the sensor's coverage, if it detects a tank, it fires the shaped charge against the top, less vulnerable, part of the tank.

Others are less advanced (British BL 755, for example), when they land, or contact a vehicle, they detonate. These are more problematic, since they can be duds, creating a condition similar to mines (hence the public outcry for cluster munitions).

I meant not a conventional clusterbomb with everything fired out at once.

[Warspite]

I meant not a conventional clusterbomb with everything fired out at once.

Yeah, ok... Well, Skimmer has already answered that part.

[Pu-239]

Essentially small unpowered bombs that are just small enough to disable a tank, as opposed to 500lb bombs. I was thinking they were too small to be carried on a hardpoint, so put them in a dispenser- sort of like a rocket launcher. Hey, can't we use those and rig them with HEAT warheads or something? Wait, we have those. Just add a small GPS guidance system or something, rather than IR/laser/whatever.

[Pu-239]

LOCASS sounds like a better idea though.

[Sea Skimmer]

Essentially small unpowered bombs that are just small enough to disable a tank, as opposed to 500lb bombs. I was thinking they were too small to be carried on a hardpoint, so put them in a dispenser- sort of like a rocket launcher. Hey, can't we use those and rig them with HEAT warheads or something? Wait, we have those. Just add a small GPS guidance system or something, rather than IR/laser/whatever.

And watch the bomblet do nothing at all. GPS is not accurate enough to get a direct hit on a tank. If you want to kill armor with a GPS for guidance, you need a big unitary bomb. However in such a case it makes far more sense to use a LGB.

[Warspite]

There are already small bomblets like that (JSOW and SFW).
GPS guidance isn't the all-wonderfull targeting system, it needs target coordinates, and is shit for a moving target. IR, TV, or microwave radar are better targeting systems.

(You're falling in the trap of some news reporters I have seen lately, claming every bomb dropped by an aircraft, or hanging on the pylons, are JDAM's, when there are a lot more systems, with varied guidance systems, each best suited for a specific target.)

[Pu-239]

Essentially small unpowered bombs that are just small enough to disable a tank, as opposed to 500lb bombs. I was thinking they were too small to be carried on a hardpoint, so put them in a dispenser- sort of like a rocket launcher. Hey, can't we use those and rig them with HEAT warheads or something? Wait, we have those. Just add a small GPS guidance system or something, rather than IR/laser/whatever.

And watch the bomblet do nothing at all. GPS is not accurate enough to get a direct hit on a tank. If you want to kill armor with a GPS for guidance, you need a big unitary bomb. However in such a case it makes far more sense to use a LGB.

[Pu-239]

Essentially small unpowered bombs that are just small enough to disable a tank, as opposed to 500lb bombs. I was thinking they were too small to be carried on a hardpoint, so put them in a dispenser- sort of like a rocket launcher. Hey, can't we use those and rig them with HEAT warheads or something? Wait, we have those. Just add a small GPS guidance system or something, rather than IR/laser/whatever.

And watch the bomblet do nothing at all. GPS is not accurate enough to get a direct hit on a tank. If you want to kill armor with a GPS for guidance, you need a big unitary bomb. However in such a case it makes far more sense to use a LGB.

You mean 100lbs of explosive dropped a couple meters away from a tank won't damage it? (Yes I think a bomblet can't carry that much, so lets call it a superbomblet. Might be big enough not to require dispenser). Anything that can damage a tank with a near miss is likely to cause collateral damage, which is against the whole point anyways. .

Then again, IR sensors can be made small enough to put on stinger missiles, so maybe they can be put on a rocket/bomb, to guide it after GPS has got the rocket/bomb close enough.

Great, this is getting as bloated and large as conventional munitions. Ok screw this idea.

[Sea Skimmer]

There are already small bomblets like that (JSOW and SFW).

JSOW works by spewing out 147 bomblets over a football field sized area, and gives you the same problem as using cluster bombs. SFW's limitation I already covered.