AHC: the big-caliber cannons still useful for air defense

tomo pauk

Even in 21st century, some people will use the big guns to, at least, scare the enemy aircraft. Eg. the ISIS supposedly used the 122mm howitzer to tackle the US P-8 aircraft. Hi-tech proposal was the Otomatic - self-propelled and with radars.
Thus the task is to have guns of 75mm and above still viable for anti-aircraft use, after Korean war on. No need for spanking new guns, the historic guns will do, along their ammo and FC suitably modified to be a part of air defense. Advantages and disadvantages vs. guided missiles and fighters used for same purpose, price tag, suitability for different countries?
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
Advantage: they're cheap as hell. You can buy multiple tubes for the price of one missile launcher.
Disadvantage: they're basically useless. Their only use is to serve as target practice for the opposing air force. They would have to get very, very lucky to take down modern first line combat aircraft. But only do they need to get the shell close enough (an almost impossible task right there) they need to survive long enough for enemy aircaft to enter it's engagement envelope.

Honestly, by the end of WWII, heavy flak guns were off questionnable value against high end piston aircraft. Asking them to stop supersonic fighter bombers is never gonna happen.
 

Ato

The British Army actually put some research into large calibre, high rate of fire, radar guided AA cannon post world war II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mace

Green Mace and the smaller Red Queen would have been capable of engaging the jet aircraft of the 50s, but comapred to the effective SAMs that were develoepd at the same time they had a much shorter range and so were not pursued as an effective solution.
 

steamboy

In reality whilst the big flak barrages we saw during the Gulf war look impressive, really they are of very little use, especially against something like a cruise missile. large caliber guns just don't have the ROF to make them dangerous unless you have literally hundreds of them all with a VERY good radar and traversing system as well as full auto loading etc, and then you might as well use a SAM.

I guess you could basically build gun batteries round this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-130

But by the time you've built the site and equipment to mount it, you'd probably be saving money using a SAM.
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Wait a few years and they'll be viable again with guided rounds, US is planning on tying 155mm Howitzers into their air defense network once Hypervelocity Projectile comes on line. If you want an actual POD have a few more Des Moines class CA built, so there is more rationale not to cancel SAM-N-8 Zeus, so you have gun launched surface to air missiles in the early 50's. Possibly you could have the Army buy a land based version for their 8" guns, but rather focus on the Navy having a gun launched 8" SAM would likely lead the navy to keep the 8"/55 Mark 71, and the 8" SAM is still kept and upgraded. By the 90's electronics has reached the point that 8" is no longer needed and 5" and 155mm versions are deployed as needed, and the datalinks introduced at this time allow any unit to be connected to the air defense network so you do not need to attach an expensive Radar. Thus you have an unbroken line of heavy guns used for AA to present day
 

tomo pauk

Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps some of these can work:
- 75mm Skysweeper in self-propelled form. In absence of air targets, or/and whan air superiority is achieved, can be used against surface targets using 'ordinary' ammo.
- Soviets going with 76mm instead of twin 57mm - ie. ZSU-76 instead of ZSU-52-2, installing radar once available (1960s)
- different SP artillery pieces, like the 2S1 or Abbot, receive an update of fire control (whether local, like laser rangefinder, or in-unit, via radar network) and ammo with proximity fuses.
- use as much of technology from naval guns as possible.

While this basic proposals will not relegate the fighters and LR SAM superfulous, they might be competitive vs. Crotale/Shahine, Roland, SA-8 and similar, and much better than SA-9/13 or self-propelled Chaparral, while still dangerous for enemy infantry and non-tank vehicles?
 

HMS Warspite

Basically this discussion is flawed as it suggests using artillery to down an aircraft. Basically it does not matter what you use as tool to put an object in the air to make it collide with an aircraft of some kind, as even a slingshot with a stone would suffice in that role, as long as you hit the aircraft where it hurts.
 

steamboy

A SPAAG armed with a Skysweeper (one that worked) would probably be lethally effective against Helicopters and would be a good counter for the Soviet Hind swarms they planned on deploying, but of very little use against jets, the turret just don't traverse fast enough and the ROF is too low.

Perhaps you could mix a Skysweeper with a Vulcan to provide a mix of AA fire.

The 2S1 and Abbot simply fire far too slowly and traverse too slowly to do anything save perhaps a box barrage in the path of a target, but it would literally have to be as slow as WW2 bombers to do that.
 

pdf27

Ato said:
The British Army actually put some research into large calibre, high rate of fire, radar guided AA cannon post world war II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mace

Green Mace and the smaller Red Queen would have been capable of engaging the jet aircraft of the 50s, but comapred to the effective SAMs that were develoepd at the same time they had a much shorter range and so were not pursued as an effective solution.
Click to expand...
I think they were probably viable as AA guns for naval use for rather longer - the 3" on the Lion, Tiger and Blake certainly appears to have been considered viable as a point defence AA weapon. Naval gunfire has a big advantage over land-based gunfire that it is much more likely for the gun and the target of the incoming aircraft to be very close to one another, thus radically reducing the relative motion of the target and making a gunnery solution (at least with proximity fused shells) much easier. It's worth noting here that CWIS guns are getting much bigger over time as the incoming missiles get faster - 20mm is pretty much never used nowadays, and 40mm is a rarity with the 3" OTO MELARA and similar guns finding a lot of favour.
 

tomo pauk

HMS Warspite said:
Basically this discussion is flawed as it suggests using artillery to down an aircraft. Basically it does not matter what you use as tool to put an object in the air to make it collide with an aircraft of some kind, as even a slingshot with a stone would suffice in that role, as long as you hit the aircraft where it hurts.
Click to expand...

I don't think that this is a flawed discussion.

steamboy said:
A SPAAG armed with a Skysweeper (one that worked) would probably be lethally effective against Helicopters and would be a good counter for the Soviet Hind swarms they planned on deploying, but of very little use against jets, the turret just don't traverse fast enough and the ROF is too low.

Perhaps you could mix a Skysweeper with a Vulcan to provide a mix of AA fire.
Click to expand...

RoF of the Skysweeper was much faster than of the contemporary short range (7-15 km?) missiles. Rate of traverse seems to be enough for jets - video.
Granted, light AA is still needed.

The 2S1 and Abbot simply fire far too slowly and traverse too slowly to do anything save perhaps a box barrage in the path of a target, but it would literally have to be as slow as WW2 bombers to do that.
Click to expand...

600 km/h plane has pretty low angular velocity from the point of view of ground observer that is 5 or 10 km/away.
 
DrakonFin

DrakonFin

The Finnish Navy used the Bofors-made 120 mm guns on the Turunmaa class corvettes to succesfully shoot down P-15 Termit missiles in exercises. It would have been possible to use those guns with their radar targeting against aircraft if need be.
 
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