Army equipment that should have seen service

[Cryhavoc101]

No it wasn't. What killed her was the missile taking out much of the ship's electric system and the ship's water main. You can't do damage control with no water. British warship design changed after the war to make sure the water mains couldn't be completely taken out by a single hit again (I believe they started including cut off valves into the system so that even if a missile actually hit the main it would only remove a single section and not the entire circuit but I'm no expert on naval architecture).

It's also now believed that the Exocet did detonate.

Sheff wasn't covered by any other ship's radar because it was the southernmost radar picket, there was no other ship that could cover them. Sheffield's radar wasn't operating because they were sending a satcom message and you couldn't run radar and satcom simultaneously at the time.

Interesting when I did damage control and fire fighting training (early 90s) the understanding was that the missile would have passed clean through Sheffield had it not struck one of the funnel stack supports and broken up creating a large fire in the middle of the ship.

As you say I am still somewhat bemused why Sheffield who was acting as a picket ship was being used as the Satcom ship

There was a rumour that the ships CO was using it to call his wife but I also heard a probable more reasonable explanation that she was used so that if the signal was detected the true centre of the task force would remain unknown

But again why this job could not be given to a Type 21 and told to bugger off to the East to conduct it?

 

[McPherson]

Interesting when I did damage control and fire fighting training (early 90s) the understanding was that the missile would have passed clean through Sheffield had it not struck one of the funnel stack supports and broken up creating a large fire in the middle of the ship.

As you say I am still somewhat bemused why Sheffield who was acting as a picket ship was being used as the Satcom ship

There was a rumour that the ships CO was using it to call his wife but I also heard a probable more reasonable explanation that she was used so that if the signal was detected the true centre of the task force would remain unknown

But again why this job could not be given to a Type 21 and told to bugger off to the East to conduct it?

That is kind of a good set of questions. Almost as good as why wasn't Atlantic Conveyor given chaffe launchers and a torpedo decoy? I know the sea lawyer reasons but a fighting navy would have said, "Screw it, she's too important to take the risk not too."

======================================================================

But back to the M60E6. The engineering fixes to the Pig are about $ 2,700 dollars per US 2014 dollars, so why when they knew this crap in the 1980s did they not fix the Pig? Any ideas?

 

[Belisarius II]

Interesting. You are of course basing your comment about bolt action rifles on US Army use of them as against Commonwealth use of them. At the Battle of the Marne the BEF was so rapid in their fire that they overwhelmed the opposing German infantry. They could sustain a rate of fire of 30 well aimed shots per minute, each on the SMLE .303in. When the L1a1 SLR was first introduced it's rate of fire was given as being "twenty aimed shots a minute". That was basically the same rate of fire for a .303in SMLE rifleman. The difference was of course, any digger could achieve 20 rounds a minute whereas a trained digger was required to reach that rate of fire on the .303in SMLE.

Basically the Bren was intended to be an LMG but it did not form the "base of fire" (what an interesting American term) for the entire section. It was part of the LMG Group - a seperate part of the infantry section. The M60 OTOH was a POS as far as I could ascertain from using it. The pistol grip/trigger group used to fall off. It was subject to "run away guns". There was no comparison between the M60 and the Bren. You need a asbestos mitten to change the barrel. You name it was useless.

No actually I'm basing it on the common understanding of the limitations of bolt action rifles. The British Army in 1914 was a long service professional force, which explains how well they did against the mass conscription German Army in the opening battle of WWI. I use American terms because we're talking about an American Weapon, and how it was intended to be used. They was a reason the Germans, and Russians both wanted semi-auto rifles, to increase their volume of fire, and all armies eventually moved to them post war. I never said the M-60 was like the Bren Gun, I was contrasting the Bren with the BAR. The M-60 is a belt feed machinegun. If you mean by "You name it was useless" that the M-60 was useless, I think you should ask the VC, and NVA.

 

[PMN1]

That is kind of a good set of questions. Almost as good as why wasn't Atlantic Conveyor given chaffe launchers and a torpedo decoy? I know the sea lawyer reasons but a fighting navy would have said, "Screw it, she's too important to take the risk not too."

Also needing to be answered is why so much was put in one ship, as I understand it, there were another two or three ships include one of the Conveyors sisterships, Atlantic Causeway around 48 hours behind.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

That is kind of a good set of questions. Almost as good as why wasn't Atlantic Conveyor given chaffe launchers and a torpedo decoy? I know the sea lawyer reasons but a fighting navy would have said, "Screw it, she's too important to take the risk not too."

======================================================================

But back to the M60E6. The engineering fixes to the Pig are about $ 2,700 dollars per US 2014 dollars, so why when they knew this crap in the 1980s did they not fix the Pig? Any ideas?

Time and money I suspect - not enough of each

On the M60 front - I expect it was 'good enough' and the 'fix' was the M249 SAW

 

[Rickshaw]

No actually I'm basing it on the common understanding of the limitations of bolt action rifles. The British Army in 1914 was a long service professional force, which explains how well they did against the mass conscription German Army in the opening battle of WWI. I use American terms because we're talking about an American Weapon, and how it was intended to be used. They was a reason the Germans, and Russians both wanted semi-auto rifles, to increase their volume of fire, and all armies eventually moved to them post war. I never said the M-60 was like the Bren Gun, I was contrasting the Bren with the BAR. The M-60 is a belt feed machinegun. If you mean by "You name it was useless" that the M-60 was useless, I think you should ask the VC, and NVA.

Well I only served in the Australian Army. Yes we were a little old fashioned about things and "base of fire" was AIUI an American term, used exclusively by the American Army. However leaving that aside for the moment, the M60 was used by the Australian Army I doubt you'd find an Australian soldier of that generation didn't give a sigh of relief when it was announced to be replaced by the FN MAG58 the weapon that actually won the competition in 1960 but was replaced as a political decision by the M60. I mean by the late 1980s the US Army had decided to replace it themselves with the FN MAG58. As for what the NLF or the VNPA thought about the M60, how many did they pick up and reuse themselves?

 

[Mike D]

The design of the fire mains is part of the damage control system. The cruiser I served on was built in the early 60's, more then 10 years before the Sheffield. It had 6 fire pumps, and the system was sub divided into 3 sections, to prevent a single hit from disabling the whole thing. The electrical system was also decentralized, and we had 2 emergency generators, one forward, and one aft. The USN has placed a higher premium on DC then any other major navy. The USS Stark was hit with 2 Exocet's that did detonate, and the ship was saved. There's a reason the USN hasn't lost a major ship since WWII.

The USS Stark was hit a few miles from a friendly dock, rather than 8,000 miles from home. A slight difference.

How many times has the US been in a war against a power with any realistic chance of successfully sinking a warship since 1945?

Not being able to receive satcom, while running radar is an operational limitation, but you can work around it. If the Sheffield was on radar picket duty she shouldn't have been that concerned with satcom, but on her job as eyes for the fleet.

Maybe so, but it's easy to judge things like that in hindsight.

 

[Mike D]

Interesting when I did damage control and fire fighting training (early 90s) the understanding was that the missile would have passed clean through Sheffield had it not struck one of the funnel stack supports and broken up creating a large fire in the middle of the ship.

The initial Board of Enquiry concluded that the missile didn't explode but there was a reassessment with more modern damage assessment software in 2015 which said that the missile probably did explode.

 

[Belisarius II]

Well I only served in the Australian Army. Yes we were a little old fashioned about things and "base of fire" was AIUI an American term, used exclusively by the American Army. However leaving that aside for the moment, the M60 was used by the Australian Army I doubt you'd find an Australian soldier of that generation didn't give a sigh of relief when it was announced to be replaced by the FN MAG58 the weapon that actually won the competition in 1960 but was replaced as a political decision by the M60. I mean by the late 1980s the US Army had decided to replace it themselves with the FN MAG58. As for what the NLF or the VNPA thought about the M60, how many did they pick up and reuse themselves?

I'm sure you right about the M-60, and it's replacement, my point was it was an improvement over the BAR. I have no idea how many NVA used it, but I know a lot of them were killed by it.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The design of the fire mains is part of the damage control system. The cruiser I served on was built in the early 60's, more then 10 years before the Sheffield. It had 6 fire pumps, and the system was sub divided into 3 sections, to prevent a single hit from disabling the whole thing. The electrical system was also decentralized, and we had 2 emergency generators, one forward, and one aft. The USN has placed a higher premium on DC then any other major navy. The USS Stark was hit with 2 Exocet's that did detonate, and the ship was saved. There's a reason the USN hasn't lost a major ship since WWII.

Not being able to receive satcom, while running radar is an operational limitation, but you can work around it. If the Sheffield was on radar picket duty she shouldn't have been that concerned with satcom, but on her job as eyes for the fleet. Messages. and data should have been feed to them from other ships via short range communications. The USN had Navy Tactical Data System NTDS in the 1960's, what other ships spotted on their radars would be plotted in your CIC. That the RN had no airborne radar was a serious deficiency, which is what I meant by them have no real carriers. Later the RN used helicopter mounted radar, and they now have the F-35B, which can act as a mini AWACS.

Not dissagreeing with what you said but I understood that only the 2nd 'USS Stark' missile exploded?

Another reason for her survival was the leanings (relearning) from 1982 where disseminated among the NATO allies

US Ships of this period do seem to be 'fatter' than other nations warships - the Type 42s where shortened and reduced in capability from the original design all due to being built in a period of austerity in the UK at a time when the Military budget was quite rightly being spent on the BAOR and RAFG in Germany.

 

[Belisarius II]

The USS Stark was hit a few miles from a friendly dock, rather than 8,000 miles from home. A slight difference.

How many times has the US been in a war against a power with any realistic chance of successfully sinking a warship since 1945?



Maybe so, but it's easy to judge things like that in hindsight.

The stark was never in danger of sinking. Other American ships have suffered serious damage from mines, suicide boat, and accidents. The British were trying to tow the Sheffield to South Georgia, a few hundred miles away, not 8,000 miles. No matter how you slice it the Sheffield was defective in damage control design. Yes any ship can be destroyed by a critical hit, but the fact that the RN had to rethink their subsequent designs is proof their 1970's designs were lacking in that area. The Sheffield wasn't the only ship loss in that conflict, the RN took serious losses, that would have been a lot worse if the Argentinians had been better prepared, or even just a little luckier.

 

[Crowbar Six]

Thanks for the clarification on the decoy tactics. That makes much more sense then what I understood their tactics to be. That the Sheffield wasn't operating it's radar, or being covered by some other platforms radar doesn't say much for the tactics, or capabilities of the RN at that time. That an important asset like the Atlantic Conveyor didn't have an escort to protect it seems more proof of the same. What actually sunk the Sheffield was poor damage control. The Exocet's warhead didn't even detonate, rocket fuel, and a galley grease fire destroyed the ship. By all accounts the RN fought the Falklands War on a shoestring. Without real aircraft carriers the RN was operating under some real disadvantages. Argentina started the war with 8 Exocet missiles, if they'd had 20, and properly fused bombs they would have won the war.

I don't think it was poor damage control per se. More it was a conflation of several factors, the water mains were wrecked by the missile so it took longer than normal to get fire fighting started, the ship had a lot of aluminium ladders as a weight saving measure some of which melted making it harder for damage control crews to get around the ship, the MOD had just replaced their cotton and wool uniforms with polyester which just melted causing serious injuries, the missile partially detonated which scattered burning solid rocket fuel and explosives through the ship making DC harder.

The RN certainly took damage control a lot more seriously after the Falklands and built a big damage control simulator which my brother had to go through when in the RNR, he came back from that training looking like he had been down a mine. They could move the simulator and fill it with water, flames and smoke so the crews got hands on experience of working in smoke and flood conditions.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The initial Board of Enquiry concluded that the missile didn't explode but there was a reassessment with more modern damage assessment software in 2015 which said that the missile probably did explode.

Thanks - what I learned was back in 91

 

[Catsmate]

No reason it couldn't be made into one.

There are laser guided rounds for the CG, and smart fused 40mm rounds so there's no reason both types couldn't be developed for the RPG.

And never adopted. Your fantasies aside, it never lived up to it's design goals.

Indeed. Small calibre explosive grenades are a limited used weapon, unsuited to most combat missions and of limited effectiveness due to the lack of payload.

 

[Catsmate]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Either a mortar OR an RPG, not mating them together.

CG's have been used for indirect fire, there were direct-fire mortar experiments in WW2 and the us 90mm recoilless had a HEFrag rounds that was basically an 81mm mortar bomb. There's room for commonality...

 

[Catsmate]

RPGs are still pretty hot shit considering what can get through tye side of an MBT. The new Airtronics tubes are about half the weight of the original, so that starts to get into LAW territory.

Six and a half kilos unloaded is not in LAW territory.
Unless you start developing new rockets you're limited to the capabilities of standard rounds.

 

[Catsmate]

That is why they split the weapon into the XM8 Rifle/Carbine system and the XM25 grenade launcher. The XM8 worked really well but the XM25 was a poor, the grenade was described as lethal in a phonebox and nowhere else. Marrying the fusing/ranging to a larger grenade in the 30-40mm range would have given a much more useful weapon.

The 20x28mm rounds of the SABR/OICW/XM29 were deemed ineffective and too expensive. The weapon was expensive, heavy and ineffective having a poor grenade launcher and a mediocre carbine. Hence the project was canned in 2005
The XM29/OCSW originally used the 20x40mm grenades (also ineffective) before developing a larger 25mm rounds.
This project is now defunct due to limited effectiveness, cost, weight (6.5kg unloaded, 16kg with basic load of 36 rounds) and the reluctance of units to lose a rifle in exchange for the weapon, especially given the limited close range usefulness of the weapon.
Interestingly the M4/M320 combination with basic load of ammunition masses approximately 17kg.

Given that the US appears to have given in and started developing smart fused 40mm rounds (based on the Boford 3P) s several countries and suppliers have done already it seems that the idea of the 25mm "smart" round is dead,

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I don't think it was poor damage control per se. More it was a conflation of several factors, the water mains were wrecked by the missile so it took longer than normal to get fire fighting started, the ship had a lot of aluminium ladders as a weight saving measure some of which melted making it harder for damage control crews to get around the ship, the MOD had just replaced their cotton and wool uniforms with polyester which just melted causing serious injuries, the missile partially detonated which scattered burning solid rocket fuel and explosives through the ship making DC harder.

The RN certainly took damage control a lot more seriously after the Falklands and built a big damage control simulator which my brother had to go through when in the RNR, he came back from that training looking like he had been down a mine. They could move the simulator and fill it with water, flames and smoke so the crews got hands on experience of working in smoke and flood conditions.

I believe it was called 'The Drew' just on the outskirts of Portsmouth - great fun when you are an 18 year old

I was a lowly RNR MEM2 and being 'keen' had volunteered to be first down the ladder with the bag of wedges and a hammer as part of a DC team

I was told 'very clearly' by the highly experienced veteren to not go down the ladder 'front first' but to turn around and gingerly go down backwards (facing the ladder) as a simulated damaged water main would be spraying water down the hatch at about a million PSI and if I attempted to go 'front first' the water pressure would knock me off the ladder and basically propel me into the lower compartment 'head first'

I did mention being keen?

......luckily for me there was the best part of a meter of water to cushion my landing and more importantly none of my 'ship mates' to witness it - although the training staff probably got a good laugh as I spluttering with shock and confusion as I emerged from the water frantically looking for the bag of wedges and hammer I had been entrusted with.

Ahh good time....

I also conducted firefighting at a place I think was called HMS Phoenix?

A great deal of emphasis was placed on the fear nought suits being made of compressed cotton (jokes of 'have you ever seen a sheep burn?'*) and to ensure that our underwear was not made of polyester etc and given graphic illustrations as to why!

The first thing the training staff did when we were all suited up in our firefighting gear including anti-flash hood and BASCA mask with tank was to heard us into a big metal compartment close the doors leaving us in darkness with only a small fire at one end to provide light and then without warning what so ever from them or the older hands one of the staff threw a bucket of petrol on to it - instantly engulfing everyone in a fire ball - that was so quick that I think I managed to get about 5 cm's into my 'Holy fuck' attempt at a duck.

The doors where then opened we were herded out (laughing our heads off) and told that the fireball was 1000 degrees C or some such and that we should have confidence in the kit as it obviously works!

As I said, great fun when you are an 18 year old

 

[Not James Stockdale]

Six and a half kilos unloaded is not in LAW territory.
Unless you start developing new rockets you're limited to the capabilities of standard rounds.

There are new tubes made with titanium and polymer that get down to about 3 kg unloaded, not including sights.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The 20x28mm rounds of the SABR/OICW/XM29 were deemed ineffective and too expensive. The weapon was expensive, heavy and ineffective having a poor grenade launcher and a mediocre carbine. Hence the project was canned in 2005
The XM29/OCSW originally used the 20x40mm grenades (also ineffective) before developing a larger 25mm rounds.
This project is now defunct due to limited effectiveness, cost, weight (6.5kg unloaded, 16kg with basic load of 36 rounds) and the reluctance of units to lose a rifle in exchange for the weapon, especially given the limited close range usefulness of the weapon.
Interestingly the M4/M320 combination with basic load of ammunition masses approximately 17kg.

Given that the US appears to have given in and started developing smart fused 40 mm rounds (based on the Boford 3P) s several countries and suppliers have done already it seems that the idea of the 25mm "smart" round is dead,

I once suggested a smart grenade launcher sight for the existing 'estate' of 40 mm grenade launchers and ammo that works in combination with the mounted laser

The laser provides the range to the sight which then tells the grenadier where to aim

More advanced ammo might allow for an airbursting grenade?