An M61 Vulcan Cannon gun can fire 75 rounds a second. Bagram Airfield has 10 Vulcans. (The Washington Post)
Washington Post: Meet the impressive guns protecting U.S. bases from rocket attacks in Afghanistan
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Deep in the countryside, Taliban fighters take aim at U.S. military bases with indirect fire: in particular, cheap and ubiquitous Chinese-made 107mm rockets. The U.S. Army’s answer: A series of impressive six-barreled, 20mm Gatling guns that spew up to 75 rounds per second.
The M61 Vulcan Cannon is part of what is known as the C-RAM in the Army, short for Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System. It has been used successfully to take out numerous rockets, with a fireball typically lighting up the sky as bright tracer rounds from the gun find their target.
The C-RAMs here are run by Task Force Iron Shield, a group of soldiers with the Florida National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 265th Air Defense Artillery Regiment. The weapon was initially designed for use on Navy ships decades ago and is known by the Navy as Phalanx, but the Army eventually adopted it for use in Iraq. It made its way to Bagram closer to 2012.
WNU Editor: At 75 rounds a second .... and being able to locate and hit targets a good distance away .... I can see why these weapon platforms are a success.
16 comments:
75 ROUNDS HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE.
Taliban could line a mortar or rocket launch such that the base, their launch point and a village are in line.
What goes up must come down.
Lasers are almost there and when they are there will be less collateral.
Be assured that the American and only Americans will be blamed for any and all collateral.
Some people have dreams about it.
I'm sure they are great; when they're working.
Kind of a snarky comment.
They have been fielded since the 1980s.
Bugs have long since been worked out.
That said uptime won't be 100%.
The environment they are operating in is different than the sea salt, to which humidity they are usually subjected.
If you have large base like Bagram you could have 4 with overlapping fields of fire.
So if one goes down, another can cover.
It's not a matter of snark. It s a matter of fact. There was all kinds of gadgetry over there, proven and not. If the stuff was maintained, wonderful, war on. If not.... INCOMING!!!!!
You know yourself these systems rely on not only on their mechanical well being but on the well being of the networks that connect them. More and more these things rely on contractors to keep them up. You want your safety to be dependent on the lowest bidder?
And the heat....god.
Not this cat. There's no substitute for search and destroy or good ol face in the dirt awareness.
And the Taliban, or whomever, own laptops too.
Oh, and as for snarky...
With all respect,
Coming from The Lord of Snark himself, I'll take that as a compliment.
does it intercept truck bombs?
Caecus,
Nope, air defense only, and it is an automated system.
Against one's and two's, the system works well.
Multiple attacks from multiple directions, with a variety of different munitions, sub sonic and supersonic, can overwhelm the system.
The air defense system is adaptive. The enemy adapts and so do we.
The only reason it would not adapt is lack of willpower or money.
Anzino,
There are limits to the mechanical reactions, tracking time and CPU processing rates.
The last upgrade to the system was the Block1B in 1999, which added a FLIR system.
An upgrade contract was awarded in 2009, but it's not getting anywhere as the F-35 has sucked all of the air out of the room.
BTW, the land based version utilizes timed fuzing so that the excess rounds, self dentonate before hitting ground.
Thats why they multiple systems guarding the base more than enought agsinst a low threat
They have multiple systems to prevent "friendly fire" from crossing the interior of the bases.
If an OpFor were to utilize a Time On Target attack with low trajectory weapons, ( Koronet's say), ballistic Frogs, plunging mortars and artillary, Grads, and supersonic Kurgonets, they system would be overwhelmed.
The gun system cannot track and engage multiple targets coming from multiple directions at varying speeds, at the same time. It cannot shoot up, down , left and right simultaneously.
Luckily, so far, the Taliban have simply fired off a few rounds, the odd rocket, often on remote timers, as a form of harassment.
I kind of agree, but the bases and the defences are static, so no villages will suddenly appear next to the base which can be utilised for that strategy - so it will only work if the system becomes mobile
Jay, Thank you for the information.
"BTW, the land based version utilizes timed fuzing so that the excess rounds, self detonate before hitting ground."
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So Jay the solution is to not have the system?
Guys trying to improve for shipping containers were able themselves to defeat every way of securing the containers. Yet we still secure them to keep pilferage or shrinkage to a minimum.
Anzino,
A lot of this tech porn is put out as war propaganda.
During WWII the standard line was that the Mk.4 Sherman was better than any German Tank.
One needs to understand the systems, how they are deployed and why, and what the enemy's tactics are.
The Talib deploy a simple tripod rail system pointing in the general direction of a Base, attach a BM-21 unguided rocket to the frame, ($125), attach a pizoelectric igniter, ($0.99) wire that to a wind up kitchen timer, ($1.29), set it and leave.
Sometime, ususally at night, the timer goes off, the rocket launches and heads for the Base.
Shortly after launch, the sirens go off, base personel race to bunkers and slit trenches, the Alert Force races to the base peremeter and scans the dark for the Talib attack, the SAG crews man their systems, detect and engage the BM-21 several times as it ranges in, firing on average 3 5 second bursts, ($6,737.50), destroying the BM-21.
With the downing of the missile, and a clearing of the area by the Alert Force, when it is clear that there are no further attacks coming, the all clear is sounded, and people leave the bunkers and trenches and try to go back to work or sleep.
The deployment of the weapon system is not to stop a "serious" attack, as the system is not capable of stopping a properly planned attack, but to prevent the Talib "nusance" attacks from generating a drip, drip of casualties,
Which is bad PR for continued deployments to Afghanistan.
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