M270 MLRS and M142 HIMARS Developments

DrRansom said:
NMaude said:
aonestudio said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1591150601156857857
View: https://twitter.com/in20im/status/1591150601156857857
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That is NOT good news.
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That was inevitable - anything sent into Ukraine has to be assumed compromised after some period of time. Which goes for both sides, by the way...

The post seems a bit odd though, as one would assume at least one of the GMRLS to have malfunctioned and crashed. And recovery would be a top priority for technical intelligence. So - propaganda to make people feel good? An attempt to scare off other weapon donations?

At least for the US/NATO, one has to assume that some version of mass-produced guided MRLS will be coming from the Russians/Chinese in the next 5-10 years. The difficulties Russia is facing now will be faced by Western forces in the future, but at least we get a chance to learn from Russia's experience to plan for that.
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The Russians make multiple models of satellite guided rockets already AFAIK. I believe BM27/30 Uragan/Smerch both have them. An M30 isn’t going to tell them anything they don’t know; it’s like capturing an intact JDAM.
 
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NMaude said:
aonestudio said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1591150601156857857
View: https://twitter.com/in20im/status/1591150601156857857
Click to expand...

That is NOT good news.
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Not really.

The tech been known since the 1980s, hell the Russians had the Uragan -1M back in 2000-ish which was basically the same thing as the GMLRS. With the Guidence singles being one one those things that Russia invented in the Soviet Union.

The Real sercet sauce is how to make them cheaply and reliably.

Which Russia cant do since the tech needed for that needs tools that they dont have, that factory literally went up in flames sometime back in June.
 
sferrin said:
paralay said:
:cool:
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Any idea why they don't appear to have been using them? I'd have thought Ukraine would be having a HIMARSx50 problem by now.
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They might have problems with recieving a good GPS signal over Ukraine, and Glonass is apparently so shit that the Russian airforce used civilian GPS recievers taped to the inside of their cockpits early on in the conflict.
 
MihoshiK said:
sferrin said:
paralay said:
:cool:
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Any idea why they don't appear to have been using them? I'd have thought Ukraine would be having a HIMARSx50 problem by now.
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They might have problems with recieving a good GPS signal over Ukraine, and Glonass is apparently so shit that the Russian airforce used civilian GPS recievers taped to the inside of their cockpits early on in the conflict.
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They have been used, seen videos and photos of them including that head and Ukraine captured a few intacted that they used to better effect.

Thing is where the US made a few hunderd thousands of GMLRS with more rolling off, russia made only a hunderd of them.

Which got used up fast.

Mostly doing terror attacks on Ukraine cities. Which is useless in the same way that the WW2 V2 strikes were. Terror bombing dont work and only serves to harden the people.

Doesn't matter how good the weapon is if you dont use it smartly.

Which Russia routinely hasn't.

As for why they made so few is corruption. Basically so many people took a slice of the money that they couod afford to make more of them. And they now cant, cause like I said.

The main factories for the parts burnt down. Which includes the main solid fuel rocket factory.
 
TomS said:
Moose said:
Some random twitter account who posts a lot of Russian propaganda posted some blurry photos with no sourcing. Maybe don't overreact.
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If that's Russia's Foreign Material Exploitation lab, I'm not losing a lot of sleep. Pretty sad set of lab bench equipment.

Also, reverse engineering technology like this isn't as straightforward as sounds. And with GMLRS, all they will learn is that it's GPS guided, which they knew already. Having access to a copy won't allow them to easily design some special countermeasure to GPS.
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Serbia got a near intact HARM and ALARM missile during the Kosovo War in 1999...they passed them on to Russia.

Has anyone seen a modern, reasonably sized anti-radiation missile in Russian hands in 2022? Enquiring minds would like to know...
 
Josh_TN said:
AFAIK Kh-31 is still the main ARM round. I think they’ve been used routinely.
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Exactly. Not a lot of HARM lessons learned there.

Though the more important thing to discover would probably be how long it takes for HARM to localize a radar for engagement after the radar goes dark.
 
TomS said:
Josh_TN said:
AFAIK Kh-31 is still the main ARM round. I think they’ve been used routinely.
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Exactly. Not a lot of HARM lessons learned there.

Though the more important thing to discover would probably be how long it takes for HARM to localize a radar for engagement after the radar goes dark.
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The HARMs circulating in Ukraine or Serbia circa ‘99 probably have little in common with Echo version outside motor and form factor. GPS, MMW, and new warhead were added at the minimum. Not sure if the passive receiver was redesigned as well.
 
Josh_TN said:
Not sure if the passive receiver was redesigned as well.
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It almost certainly has to take advantage of advances in electronics technology, production technology and with improved digital hardware comes improve G&C software.
 
Speaking of GMLRS and burying one's enemies wholesale, Finland has just recently decided to procure 400 GMLRS pods for our M270s at a cost of 535 US dollars. Appearently, this is the largest export ever of GMLRS pods. It comes in addition to a February decission to buy GMLRS-ER rockets at a price of 70 million euros. The link is to Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.

www.hs.fi

HS-analyysi | Suomi teki valtavat kaupat huippumoderneista raketeista – Harva taisi tajuta uutisen merkityksen

Yhdysvaltojen halu myydä Suomelle poikkeuksellisen paljon Ukrainassa käänteentekeviksi kuvattuja raketteja kertoo, että amerikkalaiset ymmärtävät hyvin tulevan Nato-liittolaisensa geopoliittisesti vaarallisen aseman, kirjoittaa HS:n turvallisuuspolitiikkaa seuraava toimittaja Jarmo Huhtanen.
www.hs.fi www.hs.fi
 
totoro said:
Firefinder said:
Thing is where the US made a few hunderd thousands of GMLRS with more rolling off, russia made only a hunderd of them.
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Didn't US make "only" 50-ish thousand gmlrs rounds so far?
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Yes, and I believe that is total production, not total inventory, so you can subtract Afghan/Iraq usage on top of Ukraine donations. But we’re still taking about tens of thousands of PGMs with more in production and a new version being produced in 2023.

What the US is even more prolifically armed with are the GPS guidance kits for 155mm; that is over 100,000 with a new M code model next year IIRC and a ERCA specific model shortly there after. US artillery is going to be the absolute kiss of death out to 500km inside a few years.
 
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Forest Green said:
What's worse than a 230mm GPS-guided rocket? A 230mm GPS and laser-guided rocket.
Now even moving targets are toast. A convoy could be moving along 80 km from the front, a little drone sees them, shines a laser on them and about 90s later bang, bang, bang......

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595183780024705027
View: https://twitter.com/m_nychyporuk/status/1595183780024705027?s=20&t=YmFvQHyoFlHH7nU-GtVWIg

www.roketsan.com.tr

Roketsan - TRLG-230 Laser Guided Missile

www.roketsan.com.tr www.roketsan.com.tr
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Apparently these can be launched from the air as well!?

Türkiye delivered to Ukraine TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles that can be launched from land or air | Defense News November 2022 Global Security army industry | Defense Security global news industry army year 2022 | Archive News year

Türkiye has delivered to Ukraine dozens of Turkish-made TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles produced by the Turkish company Roketsan that can be launched from land or air platforms.
www.armyrecognition.com www.armyrecognition.com
 
Forest Green said:
Forest Green said:
What's worse than a 230mm GPS-guided rocket? A 230mm GPS and laser-guided rocket.
Now even moving targets are toast. A convoy could be moving along 80 km from the front, a little drone sees them, shines a laser on them and about 90s later bang, bang, bang......

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595183780024705027
View: https://twitter.com/m_nychyporuk/status/1595183780024705027?s=20&t=YmFvQHyoFlHH7nU-GtVWIg

www.roketsan.com.tr

Roketsan - TRLG-230 Laser Guided Missile

www.roketsan.com.tr www.roketsan.com.tr
Click to expand...
Apparently these can be launched from the air as well!?

Türkiye delivered to Ukraine TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles that can be launched from land or air | Defense News November 2022 Global Security army industry | Defense Security global news industry army year 2022 | Archive News year

Türkiye has delivered to Ukraine dozens of Turkish-made TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles produced by the Turkish company Roketsan that can be launched from land or air platforms.
www.armyrecognition.com www.armyrecognition.com
Click to expand...
I do wonder what the range of a TRLG-230 rocket would be launched from a supersonic aircraft flying at 50 000 feet...
 
Topi said:
Forest Green said:
Forest Green said:
What's worse than a 230mm GPS-guided rocket? A 230mm GPS and laser-guided rocket.
Now even moving targets are toast. A convoy could be moving along 80 km from the front, a little drone sees them, shines a laser on them and about 90s later bang, bang, bang......

https://twitter.com/x/status/1595183780024705027
View: https://twitter.com/m_nychyporuk/status/1595183780024705027?s=20&t=YmFvQHyoFlHH7nU-GtVWIg

www.roketsan.com.tr

Roketsan - TRLG-230 Laser Guided Missile

www.roketsan.com.tr www.roketsan.com.tr
Click to expand...
Apparently these can be launched from the air as well!?

Türkiye delivered to Ukraine TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles that can be launched from land or air | Defense News November 2022 Global Security army industry | Defense Security global news industry army year 2022 | Archive News year

Türkiye has delivered to Ukraine dozens of Turkish-made TRLG-230 laser-guided missiles produced by the Turkish company Roketsan that can be launched from land or air platforms.
www.armyrecognition.com www.armyrecognition.com
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I do wonder what the range of a TRLG-230 rocket would be launched from a supersonic aircraft flying at 50 000 feet...
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I’d wonder how long the test and integration programme would take.

Then again, this is Ukraine, you could possibly take a normal programme duration and divide it by 20!
 
finance.yahoo.com

Exclusive-U.S. weighs sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine -sources

The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more arms. U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking...
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com
 
shin_getter said:
finance.yahoo.com

Exclusive-U.S. weighs sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine -sources

The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more arms. U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking...
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com
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This is long overdue, it should've been under serious consideration once the Biden administration gave the go ahead to send HIMARS units to Ukraine.
 
Kinzhal is a lot more expensive piece of kit with a very low inventory compared to how many M26 rockets and GBU-39s(corrected designation) are just lying around in storage and how relatively inexpensive integration would be. If GMLRS didn't change Russian policy it is hard to see how GLSDB would. ATACMs is still off the table.

It seems to me that Boeing is desperately trying to get some mileage out of its ground launched SDB idea after being rejected by the US. I think for the US, GLMRS-ER fills that role and does it better in the sense of travel time and evading air defenses. So I think they hard passed on reusing boosters with bombs given that it didn't buy them a lot except for some different geometry options on the receiving end and a hard target capability, at the cost of slower delivery and AD vulnerability. But for other countries that won't have access to GLMRS-ER, at least until the US builts up its own stocks, it makes a lot of sense in terms of availability.

What launcher would GLSDB use? I can't imagine HIMARS would accept the round without a heavy modification to how it talks to the rocket, unless they just use some kind of wireless offboard tablet to program the glide bomb and let HIMARS fire the rocket dumb like it was an old M26. Presumably even then there would need to be custom launch pods for the dimensions of the final product; it would likely be of different diameter than a standard rocket and that would probably limit the rockets per pod.
 
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Josh_TN said:
Kinzhal is a lot more expensive piece of kit with a very low inventory compared to how many M26 rockets and GBU-37s are just lying around in storage and how relatively inexpensive integration would be. If GMLRS didn't change Russian policy it is hard to see how GLSDB would. ATACMs is still off the table.

It seems to me that Boeing is desperately trying to get some mileage out of its ground launched SDB idea after being rejected by the US. I think for the US, GLMRS-ER fills that role and does it better in the sense of travel time and evading air defenses. So I think they hard passed on reusing boosters with bombs given that it didn't buy them a lot except for some different geometry options on the receiving end and a hard target capability, at the cost of slower delivery and AD vulnerability. But for other countries that won't have access to GLMRS-ER, at least until the US builts up its own stocks, it makes a lot of sense in terms of availability.

What launcher would GLSDB use? I can't imagine HIMARS would accept the round without a heavy modification to how it talks to the rocket, unless they just use some kind of wireless offboard tablet to program the glide bomb and let HIMARS fire the rocket dumb like it was an old M26. Presumably even then there would need to be custom launch pods for the dimensions of the final product; it would likely be of different diameter than a standard rocket and that would probably limit the rockets per pod.
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I imagine they figured that out when they designed GLSBD to be compatible with HIMARS/M270 launchers.
 
Forest Green said:
I imagine they figured that out when they designed GLSBD to be compatible with HIMARS/M270 launchers.
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Presumably, but I've never seen how it was handled. I suspect for testing purposes the glide bomb got preprogrammed somehow; I wouldn't think HIMARS would have the software or physical connections to interface with the SDB in the tube. But presumably however they handled it could be translated to the field, even if it was inconvenient. The Excaliburs get fused apparently with a hand held device since the canons provided don't have a built in wireless fuse setter like M109A7.
 
Josh_TN said:
Forest Green said:
I imagine they figured that out when they designed GLSBD to be compatible with HIMARS/M270 launchers.
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Presumably, but I've never seen how it was handled. I suspect for testing purposes the glide bomb got preprogrammed somehow; I wouldn't think HIMARS would have the software or physical connections to interface with the SDB in the tube. But presumably however they handled it could be translated to the field, even if it was inconvenient. The Excaliburs get fused apparently with a hand held device since the canons provided don't have a built in wireless fuse setter like M109A7.
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That handheld device is the same one used for all modern electronic fuses.


From the GPS Excalibur and PGK, to the simple Go boom in X time uses the new Enhanced Portable Inductive Artillery Fuze Setter to do it.

Standardization is fun like that.

In all likelihood hood the GLSDB gotten a modification, somewhere either physically or Coding, to enable it to talk.

Especially since those Pallets are sealed at the factory and you cant get in unless at the factory or after its fired. And it handles all the shipping and connecting needs with one cable.

Its literally a load up on launcher, lock it in, plug one cable into launcher to connect it and you off.

Thats it.

Thats how you make a M270 type MLRS ready to fire.

The rest is load up the target coordinates with the truck militrope and driving to a spot within range.

If Boeing and SAAB did their jobs, and they had to get the thing certified which it is...

It work just fine.

At most you might need to flip a setting or charge tge harddrive with one that has the new stuff on it. Which is, basically like changing a USB drive.

That is legitimately the worse case, as in Boeing SAAB lied about everything bout the GLSDB, scenerio.

A 1 minute fix.

It longer to full the truck up with fuel then it be to mod it for GLSBD launch.
 
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www.rt.com

Russian troops get upgrade against HIMARS – RIA

Russian forces can now easily destroy US-made HIMARS rockets in the air, a military commander has said
www.rt.com www.rt.com
Russian air defense systems will now have no problem detecting and destroying missiles fired from US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) due to new software, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing an unnamed Russian military commander.

According to the officer, who is serving in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, Ukrainian forces initially used Soviet-era weapons, but have now switched to arms provided by NATO countries, including HIMARS missiles.

However, he said Russian troops can now easily repel such strikes due to “a new program update.”

“Now we have no problems in detecting, tracking, and destroying them,” he noted, adding that his unit had taken down about 10 HIMARS missiles, four of them in the past month.
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aonestudio said:
www.rt.com

Russian troops get upgrade against HIMARS – RIA

Russian forces can now easily destroy US-made HIMARS rockets in the air, a military commander has said
www.rt.com www.rt.com
Russian air defense systems will now have no problem detecting and destroying missiles fired from US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) due to new software, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing an unnamed Russian military commander.

According to the officer, who is serving in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, Ukrainian forces initially used Soviet-era weapons, but have now switched to arms provided by NATO countries, including HIMARS missiles.

However, he said Russian troops can now easily repel such strikes due to “a new program update.”

“Now we have no problems in detecting, tracking, and destroying them,” he noted, adding that his unit had taken down about 10 HIMARS missiles, four of them in the past month.
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It seems that Russia's calendar has been showing the 1st of April since the 24th of February...
 

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