The army relies on 155 mm , or about a six inch round. This is proven, well established weapon. Would this be a n upgrade? This civilian is just asking.
If the “n” upgrade in question you’re referring to is “nuclear” capable, then the answer is yes, and has been since 1963 using the W48 (i.e XM454 AFAP) 100-tonne nuclear artillery shell! But the round was retired from service in 1992…
Fellow civvie here. Naval shells have more throw weight per projectile. But adapting standard Army/Marine 155mm would be not the worst thing; but your Anti-Ship capabilities will be less than of a true naval gun.
"Proven, well established weapon" for its target set. The current state-of-the-art 155mm artillery round is the XM982 has a nominal range of 12nm when fired by the M777 howitzer. But I don't believe it has a proximity fuze option for air and small high speed surface targets. As Army/USMC howitzers are not designed to engage targets while rolling and pitching, an entirely new weapon would have to be designed to use the 155mm rounds you ask about. DDG 1000 had a variation on the 155mm theme in the 155mm Advance Gun System, but that weapon was uniquely designed for much longer ranges and thus was too specialized for general shipboard installation. Things *could* have been different, but weren't.
Concur, Sal. The lack of surface ship gun firepower breaks my heart. Very short-sighted.
Reminds me of the F-4 Phantom II: Guns? What guns? Fighters don’t need no stinking guns! Uh huh, yeah, right. That got proved wrong; and just like that, fighters got guns again.
(F4 Pilot here - I flew C's, D's, E's and G's - my favorite was the E model with the gun, slats and less smoky engines. About a thousand hours all together).
A lesson the Navy never learned. No Navy F4's had integral guns, and the various gun pods were notoriously inaccurate (it was impossible to rigidly affix the gun to the airframe, so you could boresight the hell out of it and the first round fired knocked it sideways).
This is a surprisingly poor assumption. The firing of 160 rounds of 5" does not remotely suggest it was the most used weapon in these engagements. However, I am hopeful the 5" was used to flesh out the full capability of the system for further enhancements to the system.
Guns are economical, reliable, versatile, and proven. Did I mention economical? Any kind of guided missile/munition is expensive. 5-inch guns are good. Might 6-inch or 8-inch be better? And why only one turret? Granted going back to building ships around big-gun turrets probably isn't a good thing (although you have to wonder, has anyone ever done a cost-effectiveness study on updating, say, an Iowa-class?) but maybe two turrets?
My 71 prototype is reportedly still at Dahlgren. 8” round with modern fire control and fusing could be highly effective in a lot of situations. The new production lines for 155mm rounds are reportedly flexible enough to produce multiple sized rounds. Oh but wait. We could take 10 years, build something from scratch that would cost 20x as much be be 10% better.
Another problem is, is both the Explosive Charge and Propellant that the Mk.71 8” gun used, haven’t been in production since 1954! And the newer EX-99 propellant used by the U.S. Navy since 2000 is far to powerful for the Mk.71 to safely fire without possible bursting the barrel…
I’m not saying that we should take it off the shelf and slap in on a deck without updates. Modern materials (thinking titanium) and processes could probably take this model and produce an effective gun system in less time than starting from scratch. Didn’t intend to engineer it here, but I agree with you, at a minimum it would need some work. I didn’t know that they were firing rounds built in the early ‘50s for testing in the mid-70s. That’s scary in itself.
None other that John Lehman and Bill Stearman agree with you - at least 25 years ago. Fortunately, the needs of NGFS hasn't changed and the Houthi's are likely very thankful that the Navy doesn't have an operational 8" RAP round. Every hospitable part of Yemen is within 100 NM of the coast.
"Ironically, yet again, the already successfully tested-and-approved Mark 71, eight-inch rapid-fire gun firing a rocket assisted projectile (RAP) actually would be a much more effective gun for the DD-21."
Live testing of the HVP round? No? Too soon? Never mind... A certain Pink Floyd song that begins with a rhythmic sound of a cash register opening and closing seems fitting about now.
And apparently the Navy did testing during RIMPAC 2018 on the Dewey. Then by about '22 budget cycle, funds pretty much dried up. So basically 6 to 7 years later, things seem to picking up again. It would be really nice to be a fly on the wall for some of those "milestone" go/no-go decisions.
HVP round was tested in September 2020 at the White Sands Artillery Range, from an M109A6 “Paladin” and was successful in intercepting and destroying an BQM-167 “Skeeter” drone…
The Courtney (DE-1021) carried 3"/50 guns, which was OK for the time she was built in '54. I would not put anything less than 5" on a new ship. A 2" gun is just silly.
I view this in the same way a terminal attack controller on the ground does. Sometimes you want a JDAM through a window. Sometimes you want a BUF to lay waste to a whole tree line with a stick of dumb bombs.
Artificial sweeteners are good for you, there were WMD’s in Iraq, and Anna Nicole married for love. Oh…we don’t need naval gun fire..or guns on the ships of the line in the fleet, in any capacity, you old thinkers need to go to the old soldier’s home and find rocking chairs. Really? Like the current Commandant of the Marine Corps saying the Marines don’t need armor (tanks) because they are too heavy, too slow and only have an effective range of 4000 meters with a 120mm main gun that shoots multiple forms of rounds down range like say at a building full of bad guys? Ask the Marines at the Battle of Hue’ and both battles for Fallujah, if they needed to fire a projectile further than 500 maybe 1000 meters and how many danger close rounds and danger close aerial bombs were dropped in the last 20 years in two battle spaces? A lot…amazing, the more things change the more they stay the same. If you can be seen, you will be hit, if you are hit, you will be killed. bring back the surface fleets guns.
Why not just buy the Italian 5” 64? Shoots twice as fast, auto loads direct from pallets with no human intervention, simultaneously load two types of rounds, the extended range gun rounds we shoot now were designed by the Italians for their gun, after multiple program failures here, the Italians sold the successful design to us. Gun barrel is water cooled-no hot gun even if you mag dump the entire ship. The FREMM frigate design in Italy has this gun, so we went with the weak sister….the 57mm….
I think they are looking for ASUW/AAW guns. I don’t an 8” is responsive enough for AAW. The 777 155mm mounted in a turret with an auto loader would be great. A titanium gun like that would do great in a salt water environment.
The army relies on 155 mm , or about a six inch round. This is proven, well established weapon. Would this be a n upgrade? This civilian is just asking.
If the “n” upgrade in question you’re referring to is “nuclear” capable, then the answer is yes, and has been since 1963 using the W48 (i.e XM454 AFAP) 100-tonne nuclear artillery shell! But the round was retired from service in 1992…
Fellow civvie here. Naval shells have more throw weight per projectile. But adapting standard Army/Marine 155mm would be not the worst thing; but your Anti-Ship capabilities will be less than of a true naval gun.
"Proven, well established weapon" for its target set. The current state-of-the-art 155mm artillery round is the XM982 has a nominal range of 12nm when fired by the M777 howitzer. But I don't believe it has a proximity fuze option for air and small high speed surface targets. As Army/USMC howitzers are not designed to engage targets while rolling and pitching, an entirely new weapon would have to be designed to use the 155mm rounds you ask about. DDG 1000 had a variation on the 155mm theme in the 155mm Advance Gun System, but that weapon was uniquely designed for much longer ranges and thus was too specialized for general shipboard installation. Things *could* have been different, but weren't.
Concur, Sal. The lack of surface ship gun firepower breaks my heart. Very short-sighted.
Reminds me of the F-4 Phantom II: Guns? What guns? Fighters don’t need no stinking guns! Uh huh, yeah, right. That got proved wrong; and just like that, fighters got guns again.
(F4 Pilot here - I flew C's, D's, E's and G's - my favorite was the E model with the gun, slats and less smoky engines. About a thousand hours all together).
A lesson the Navy never learned. No Navy F4's had integral guns, and the various gun pods were notoriously inaccurate (it was impossible to rigidly affix the gun to the airframe, so you could boresight the hell out of it and the first round fired knocked it sideways).
This is a surprisingly poor assumption. The firing of 160 rounds of 5" does not remotely suggest it was the most used weapon in these engagements. However, I am hopeful the 5" was used to flesh out the full capability of the system for further enhancements to the system.
Guns are economical, reliable, versatile, and proven. Did I mention economical? Any kind of guided missile/munition is expensive. 5-inch guns are good. Might 6-inch or 8-inch be better? And why only one turret? Granted going back to building ships around big-gun turrets probably isn't a good thing (although you have to wonder, has anyone ever done a cost-effectiveness study on updating, say, an Iowa-class?) but maybe two turrets?
Wasn't one of the bigger issues with the 8" Mk71 during testing, was the barbette was cracking or, not being stable enough?
My 71 prototype is reportedly still at Dahlgren. 8” round with modern fire control and fusing could be highly effective in a lot of situations. The new production lines for 155mm rounds are reportedly flexible enough to produce multiple sized rounds. Oh but wait. We could take 10 years, build something from scratch that would cost 20x as much be be 10% better.
Another problem is, is both the Explosive Charge and Propellant that the Mk.71 8” gun used, haven’t been in production since 1954! And the newer EX-99 propellant used by the U.S. Navy since 2000 is far to powerful for the Mk.71 to safely fire without possible bursting the barrel…
I’m not saying that we should take it off the shelf and slap in on a deck without updates. Modern materials (thinking titanium) and processes could probably take this model and produce an effective gun system in less time than starting from scratch. Didn’t intend to engineer it here, but I agree with you, at a minimum it would need some work. I didn’t know that they were firing rounds built in the early ‘50s for testing in the mid-70s. That’s scary in itself.
None other that John Lehman and Bill Stearman agree with you - at least 25 years ago. Fortunately, the needs of NGFS hasn't changed and the Houthi's are likely very thankful that the Navy doesn't have an operational 8" RAP round. Every hospitable part of Yemen is within 100 NM of the coast.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2000/january/keep-big-guns
"Ironically, yet again, the already successfully tested-and-approved Mark 71, eight-inch rapid-fire gun firing a rocket assisted projectile (RAP) actually would be a much more effective gun for the DD-21."
Live testing of the HVP round? No? Too soon? Never mind... A certain Pink Floyd song that begins with a rhythmic sound of a cash register opening and closing seems fitting about now.
And apparently the Navy did testing during RIMPAC 2018 on the Dewey. Then by about '22 budget cycle, funds pretty much dried up. So basically 6 to 7 years later, things seem to picking up again. It would be really nice to be a fly on the wall for some of those "milestone" go/no-go decisions.
HVP round was tested in September 2020 at the White Sands Artillery Range, from an M109A6 “Paladin” and was successful in intercepting and destroying an BQM-167 “Skeeter” drone…
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
Shore and harbor bombardment might have helped shut down the Houthis, which is why we didn't do it.
Mk.54, yes; but a Radar-controlled Mk.110 would be very useful as well.
As my hero coach Woody Hayes said; "The best defense is a good offense"
The Courtney (DE-1021) carried 3"/50 guns, which was OK for the time she was built in '54. I would not put anything less than 5" on a new ship. A 2" gun is just silly.
Have you written a blog about the Two-Ocean Navy Act, also known as the Vinson–Walsh Act, of 1940?
I view this in the same way a terminal attack controller on the ground does. Sometimes you want a JDAM through a window. Sometimes you want a BUF to lay waste to a whole tree line with a stick of dumb bombs.
The sum total of all the gun rounds expended likely was less than the cost of one of the least expensive missiles (ESSM?) too.
And it's reloadable at sea.
But what is the better upgrade? 8" 6"?
a faster, more accurate, or smarter 5?
just layin out some other dimensionalities
Artificial sweeteners are good for you, there were WMD’s in Iraq, and Anna Nicole married for love. Oh…we don’t need naval gun fire..or guns on the ships of the line in the fleet, in any capacity, you old thinkers need to go to the old soldier’s home and find rocking chairs. Really? Like the current Commandant of the Marine Corps saying the Marines don’t need armor (tanks) because they are too heavy, too slow and only have an effective range of 4000 meters with a 120mm main gun that shoots multiple forms of rounds down range like say at a building full of bad guys? Ask the Marines at the Battle of Hue’ and both battles for Fallujah, if they needed to fire a projectile further than 500 maybe 1000 meters and how many danger close rounds and danger close aerial bombs were dropped in the last 20 years in two battle spaces? A lot…amazing, the more things change the more they stay the same. If you can be seen, you will be hit, if you are hit, you will be killed. bring back the surface fleets guns.
The USMC should not have been at the Battle of Hue’ or either battle for Fallujah. The marines should project naval power ashore.
OK, lets stir it up some more:
A DD should be able to carry at least 2 5" guns....but we give up the aft gun for a helideck.
What about the notional CG(x)? One, two, (superposed?), three guns?
Why not just buy the Italian 5” 64? Shoots twice as fast, auto loads direct from pallets with no human intervention, simultaneously load two types of rounds, the extended range gun rounds we shoot now were designed by the Italians for their gun, after multiple program failures here, the Italians sold the successful design to us. Gun barrel is water cooled-no hot gun even if you mag dump the entire ship. The FREMM frigate design in Italy has this gun, so we went with the weak sister….the 57mm….
Sounds good to me. But as a competitive shooter, I prefer big, heavy rounds, pushed fast.
What have you got in the 8" range?
I think they are looking for ASUW/AAW guns. I don’t an 8” is responsive enough for AAW. The 777 155mm mounted in a turret with an auto loader would be great. A titanium gun like that would do great in a salt water environment.