Netfires - Tube Artillery - MLRS

[kaur]

Wilf said:

the vast majority of ATGMs Hezbollah fired (80%+), missed!

Quality of training, quality of weapon etc?

ATGMs can be beaten. The issue is cost versus effect.

IED's can be beaten, but they are not beaten.

I like Netfires type weapon because that you can hide it and it is precice against conventional armoured units. You are stupid if you chose dumb artillery with dumb munition and start to fight Cold war style artillery duel. Georgians tried and failed. Hezbollah used older generation rockets that demanded you to crawl to the line of sight of enemy tanks and they failed. Hezbollah rockets flew till the last day of war. In theory there is remedy against every tactics and every weapon. In practice it depends how many troops and what technologies it demands to root out different weapons. For example, if Taliban swarms all it's units to attack conventionally Kabul, this is like gift for US B-52 squadron. Taliban uses IED's and we need huge number of troops to root them out.

[William F. Owen]

Quality of training, quality of weapon etc?

Both and much more.

IED's can be beaten, but they are not beaten.

Being stupid is not an excuse. The British Army defeated (made irrelevant) the IRA's IEDs in South Armagh, by staying off the roads.

Hezbollah used older generation rockets that demanded you to crawl to the line of sight of enemy tanks and they failed.

Spike and specifically Spike-LR. Fraction of the cost of Netfires.

[kaur]

Wilf proposed:

Spike and specifically Spike-LR. Fraction of the cost of Netfires.

In tank batallion there is approximately 30 tanks. How many Spike-LR platforms and what time do you need to kill it? In some conditions time is precious thing.

[William F. Owen]

In tank batallion there is approximately 30 tanks. How many Spike-LR platforms and what time do you need to kill it? In some conditions time is precious thing.

Soviet Tactical doctrine states that a density of 20 ATGM post per kilometre and depth of frontage, will stop a Tank battalion (45 tanks) stone cold dead. I don't know where those figures come from but they date from about 1979, and have some semblance to Anti-tank numbers used in 1945.

It' not time! It's the employment in time. if a Soviet MR BN is advancing at 1 kilometre every 90 seconds, then OK, but that rate of advance is VERY rare, and you cannot do it through a minefield or when it costs you 30% of your force per kilometre driven.

[kaur]

Wilf said:

It' not time! It's the employment in time. if a Soviet MR BN is advancing at 1 kilometre every 90 seconds, then OK, but that rate of advance is VERY rare, and you cannot do it through a minefield or when it costs you 30% of your force per kilometre driven.

I prefer "mobility of fire" to "mobility of shooter". Spike fire is limited to max 8 km. Netfire has triple more. Instead of dragging Spike, sensors by the aveanue of approach are swithching to next. This means that enemy chooses the place of your ambush.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs, would you motivate you argument that WWII is better example that 2006 war? Why shouldn't we learn from Georgian war last year?

Do you expect the Russians to fight like the Israelis of 2006? Even the Israelis of 2009 wouldn't do that.

Why should we emphasize the lessons of the South Ossetian War? It looked A LOT like WW2 to me - but just as a 1/10,000th particle of it.

All conventional wars post-195 were very short and can only offer fragmentary lessons.


Studying the art of war is about discovering the many individual mosaic pieces and learning about they add to each other and become one.

Think of a mosaic picture filling a 10x3m wall.
A few stones have been exchanged with new ones during the last two generations. Now what should you do?
Go very close to see the few new stones close-up, look at large parts of the picture that are of greatest interest or step back and look at the whole masterwork?

- - -

You don't need to "kill" a tank battalion, especially not with total kills.

It's enough to degrade its effectiveness, possibly up to the point of no direct effect (when they're kept in reserve because an employment would be too risky at the time).
You can alternatively succeed through Pyrrhic defeats. Sell them ground for hardware. That doesn't require a total annihilation either.


The range of guided missiles (Spike vs. Netfires) isn't very important in most terrains. There's rarely an opportunity to shoot and hit beyond 1.5 or at most 2 km. Long-range hits were historically only common in deserts and/or against incompetent opponents. Netfires won't change that by much.
More range simply doesn't add much net advantage to the table; the time of flight increases, the communication becomes less reliable, the munition becomes more expensive and heavier, target data becomes less reliable and the system tends to become allocated to higher echelons (Bde instead of Bn).

Netfires' greatest advantages (and it's very different to the apparently cheaper Israeli Jumper system) are
- its ability to engage 'rear' targets (jammers, CPs, mortars, artillery) and
- indirect fire (non line-of-sight advantage over most ATGMs)

Both is available in other systems that stay necessary anyway.


About the photo:
There was only one road and the terrain around it was mostly non-negotiable. The valley was a single long bottleneck that cold have been sealed easily with artillery, obstacles, mines and other tools for days - without a single RPG/bazooka/Panzerfaust or ATGM.

[Xenophon]

...I'll sink my teeth into the full thread later.


120mm is a great platform. Especially the ungodly accurate EFSS (although I was FDO for the test battery, so it may just have been my well-oiled FDC). However, 120's just don't have the range or the sustainability to take a big chunk out of the M777's job market. Great weapon for Direct Support, not so good for general support.

The M777 may not last long, but some 155mm Howitzer will. It's a good middle range weapon between mortars and rockets. There's a company working on a high speed piece of gear that creates a "vacuum" of hydrogen inside the bore and the tube of the gun. Since a round travels easier through 100% hydrogen than through normal air, you can get 30+ clicks with an unassisted projectile. Only problem is getting it small enough to mount on a gun. Should be good for business. Plus, nothing can do illum as well as cannon arty.

HIMARS are a great general support asset and can't be beat when you need dead balls accuracy.

Netfires. Limited utility that can't be more easily provided by other assets, not worth the money.