LOSAT on a tracked vehicle.

[trose213]

I wonder how effective the CKEM would be against a ship. Could probably get a mission kill.

Not really. The rod would just go right through, and the body woudl damage maybe one compartment? There's a reason ship killing missiles tend to have big warheads. There's a lot of ship, and it tends to be blast hardened.

Was more thinking if it hit the mast or bridge.

 

[Yellow Palace]

I wonder how effective the CKEM would be against a ship. Could probably get a mission kill.

Not really. The rod would just go right through, and the body woudl damage maybe one compartment? There's a reason ship killing missiles tend to have big warheads. There's a lot of ship, and it tends to be blast hardened.

Was more thinking if it hit the mast or bridge.

Ships aren't tanks. If you hit a tank, you're guaranteed to hit something that will kill the tank. Most places you can hit a ship won't kill it. Quite a few will just annoy it. To deal with ships, you need to hit them in lots of places - which means a large fragmentation warhead, or lots of small weapons.

Any vaguely well-designed warship avoids single points of failure as far as possible, making anti-tank weapons very poor ship killers.

 

[bobbymike]

Unless you could have a pop-up manoeuvre where the hole through the ship breached below the waterline? That would put a hole though the vertical decks and out the bottom.

 

[Yellow Palace]

Unless you could have a pop-up manoeuvre where the hole through the ship breached below the waterline? That would put a hole though the vertical decks and out the bottom.

Still challlenging, most anti-armour weapons would only create a small hole (by ship standards) that would be restricted to a single watertight compartment and which would respond well to damage control measures. Something with the kinetics of LOSAT itself might be interesting, but shaping the trajectory would be challenging. Even then, I'm doubtful.

The warhead of a serious anti-ship missile is designed to send substantial fragments perpendicular to the missile's trajectory, in order to destroy watertight compartmentation, and to start fires. A kinetic energy penetrator won't do either.

 

[trose213]

I wonder how effective the CKEM would be against a ship. Could probably get a mission kill.

Not really. The rod would just go right through, and the body woudl damage maybe one compartment? There's a reason ship killing missiles tend to have big warheads. There's a lot of ship, and it tends to be blast hardened.

Was more thinking if it hit the mast or bridge.

Ships aren't tanks. If you hit a tank, you're guaranteed to hit something that will kill the tank. Most places you can hit a ship won't kill it. Quite a few will just annoy it. To deal with ships, you need to hit them in lots of places - which means a large fragmentation warhead, or lots of small weapons.

Any vaguely well-designed warship avoids single points of failure as far as possible, making anti-tank weapons very poor ship killers.

I'd think a direct hit to VLS cells from a CKEM would take a lot of mission capability away from a ship

 

[Sferrin]

I'd think a direct hit to VLS cells from a CKEM would take a lot of mission capability away from a ship

You'd have to go through the structure of the ship before you got to the bank of cell modules. You might take some of them out but I'd think it unlikely you'd take out the entire bank of 64 cells. Personally I'd shoot for the Aegis arrays and bridge. LOSAT could probably punch through the entire structure up there and, if you were lined up correctly, take out two arrays with one shot.

 

[trose213]

I'd think a direct hit to VLS cells from a CKEM would take a lot of mission capability away from a ship

You'd have to go through the structure of the ship before you got to the bank of cell modules. You might take some of them out but I'd think it unlikely you'd take out the entire bank of 64 cells. Personally I'd shoot for the Aegis arrays and bridge. LOSAT could probably punch through the entire structure up there and, if you were lined up correctly, take out two arrays with one shot.

That's what I thought, too.

I wonder how effective the CKEM would be against a ship. Could probably get a mission kill.

Not really. The rod would just go right through, and the body woudl damage maybe one compartment? There's a reason ship killing missiles tend to have big warheads. There's a lot of ship, and it tends to be blast hardened.

Was more thinking if it hit the mast or bridge.

I figure a 20km range is decent in a coastal artillery role or it could be longer with a booster.

 

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

https://flic.kr/p/2ii719f

 

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

unpublished video came to light

 

[jsport]

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2006/garm/wednesday/palmer.pdf

 

[Ronny]

LOSAT penetration apparently not as good as I expected it

 

[Scott Kenny]

Still challlenging, most anti-armour weapons would only create a small hole (by ship standards) that would be restricted to a single watertight compartment and which would respond well to damage control measures. Something with the kinetics of LOSAT itself might be interesting, but shaping the trajectory would be challenging. Even then, I'm doubtful.

The warhead of a serious anti-ship missile is designed to send substantial fragments perpendicular to the missile's trajectory, in order to destroy watertight compartmentation, and to start fires. A kinetic energy penetrator won't do either.

The flooding training we did in the USN dealt with directly plugging holes in the hull as large as 8" in diameter.

Anything bigger than that, you temporarily write off that compartment and prevent the flooding from spreading. Then you can fix it later when people aren't shooting at you.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

LOSAT penetration apparently not as good as I expected it

A greater L/D ratio would’ve countered that perhaps.
CKEM would’ve been faster but I’m not sure by how much. Also I don’t know if the video conveys the impact of the greater mass of the missile.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I've got to also wonder if any detailed analysis of Relikt ERA and it's performance is available in the public sphere. By now the specifics and performance of Kontakt-5 is probably pretty well understood but that doesn't mean Relikt is. I'd presume Western nations have received examples of Relikt cassettes recovered from Ukraine, but I doubt much information from the examination of it has leaked to the public despite whatever poor choices War Thunder addicts make with classified information.

But assuming how the 120mm M829 series has continually been upgraded to remain relevant against new armor I'd have to assume the penetrator within LOSAT could too.

 

[Sferrin]

Those are just educated guesses.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I think the biggest downside to LOSAT is the pretty long minimum range needed to get that penetrator up to speed.

 

[bobbymike]

“The projected operational CKEM is expected to have at least an effective range of 400-8000 m (440-8750 yds), and the weapon system will be able to attack multiple targets within a few seconds.”
——————
From the link I’m assuming LOSAT would have similar min range of 400m. How many tank on tank or APC v. APC, etc. are inside 400m?

Lockheed Martin CKEM

 

[Scott Kenny]

How many tank on tank or APC v. APC, etc. are inside 400m?

Depends on terrain.

Bocage hedgerows or cities, basically all antivehicle shots are within 400m. Some forests will also be that close.

Russian steppes or Middle Eastern deserts, things are going very wrong if you're within 400m of the targets.

 

[thanos.massias]

"[By FY99] Demonstrate the [Compact Kinetic-Energy Missile (CKEM)] missile KE Penetrator achieving M829A2 equivalent kinetic energy at 175 m and maintaining the energy to beyond 5 km, and achieving greater than 3 times the M829A2 penetrator energy at 450 m and maintaining it to 3.5 km. Demonstrate the missile delivering in excess of 30 MJ to the target at a range of less than 500 meters, as well as a range out to 4 km, and 25 MJ at 5 km."

Army Science and Technology Master Plan

www.google.gr

 

[Scott Kenny]

"[By FY99] Demonstrate the [Compact Kinetic-Energy Missile (CKEM)] missile KE Penetrator achieving M829A2 equivalent kinetic energy at 175 m and maintaining the energy to beyond 5 km, and achieving greater than 3 times the M829A2 penetrator energy at 450 m and maintaining it to 3.5 km. Demonstrate the missile delivering in excess of 30 MJ to the target at a range of less than 500 meters, as well as a range out to 4 km, and 25 MJ at 5 km."

Army Science and Technology Master Plan

www.google.gr

That is some serious acceleration for a missile.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

It seems like CKEM was cancelled before much visible progress was made. I think it's something worth continued research and development since any APS is going to have an extremely difficult time countering such a missile.

 

[Big_Zukini]

It seems like CKEM was cancelled before much visible progress was made. I think it's something worth continued research and development since any APS is going to have an extremely difficult time countering such a missile.

CKEM died for good reason. The only feasible way of employment is within LoS. In that case, it's better to just use a tank, which can deliver the same firepower and also do a lot of other things.

 

[jsport]

CKEM should have continued r&d, Breaching fortification could use a two stage HV which only would kick in only on terminal. I would clearly would set a tone like TOS, RTX has TOW that does according to patents i v posted/
Big Army was disalioned w/ the large logistics so knew they could kill it by sending a 82nd ABL LTC to OSD to attempt Joint +OSD money for an even more of a logistics burden. . It was doomed from the start even a DSB Rapid force projection initiative support including michael o hanlon @ brookings could not save it.

 

[shin_getter]

Well, if someone gets the clever idea of putting an APS system on an air defense radar/launchers/etc, air power is doomed for a generation as missiles don't work anymore until they become hypervelocity~~~~ To be extra cute, add hundreds of mm of RHA-level plate launched by explosive to cover the radar from frag if detection times couldn't be solved even though the sensor is orders of magnitudes more capable.

Perhaps the fact that we are not seeing proposed-tank-fitting APS on air defense and ships and everything that is expensive and shot at by missiles should suggest that picture is not quite right, or that designers of systems not named tanks are just dumb.
---
If APS/CRAM/etc does work however, it would be a great basis for aircraft carried missile, which have LOS and more than enough standoff to utilize full acceleration and need fast missiles to deal with shoot and scoot and certainly have difficulty fitting full sized HV gun.

 

[Scott Kenny]

CKEM died for good reason. The only feasible way of employment is within LoS. In that case, it's better to just use a tank, which can deliver the same firepower and also do a lot of other things.

Line of sight from 200ft is a whole lot longer than most tanks can shoot.

If CKEM pops up to 200ft it could engage from 15km pretty trivially. Pop up to 500 or 1000ft and it's even better.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Line of sight from 200ft is a whole lot longer than most tanks can shoot.

If CKEM pops up to 200ft it could engage from 15km pretty trivially. Pop up to 500 or 1000ft and it's even better.

That would be a very beefy missile.
As a beam rider it's still quite vulnerable to APS, especially the more primitive type that pop smoke on cue from a LWS.

What size are we talking about that can deliver about a Javelin sized warhead out to 15km but at Mach 5 terminal speed?

 

[Cthell]

That would be a very beefy missile.
As a beam rider it's still quite vulnerable to APS, especially the more primitive type that pop smoke on cue from a LWS.

What size are we talking about that can deliver about a Javelin sized warhead out to 15km but at Mach 5 terminal speed?

Why would you put a HEAT warhead on a Mach 5 missile? At that impact speed building the airframe around a long steel rod would give you similar effects to an APFSDS round. (which is what LOSAT & CKEM did)

 

[Scott Kenny]

That would be a very beefy missile.
As a beam rider it's still quite vulnerable to APS, especially the more primitive type that pop smoke on cue from a LWS.

What size are we talking about that can deliver about a Javelin sized warhead out to 15km but at Mach 5 terminal speed?

CKEM is 1.5m long and 45kg. And it's more like an M892A2 sized dart, for the business end. Max speed of ~2200m/s, direct LOS range of 10km. Pop-up range would be better, but that would also require SAL or IIR not beam-riding.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Why would you put a HEAT warhead on a Mach 5 missile? At that impact speed building the airframe around a long steel rod would give you similar effects to an APFSDS round. (which is what LOSAT & CKEM did)

I'm not against the rod. I'm skeptical of the merit of a Mach 5 missile. Or rather the expenses and constraints involved.

CKEM is 1.5m long and 45kg. And it's more like an M892A2 sized dart, for the business end. Max speed of ~2200m/s, direct LOS range of 10km. Pop-up range would be better, but that would also require SAL or IIR not beam-riding.

Javelin's warhead is about 8kg. The M892A2 rod weighs about the same.
What kind of trajectory can a CKEM have? I assume a pretty shallow one even to its max range, which severely limits utilization and mostly for defensive purposes.

 

[shin_getter]

If APS kills all the other missiles, you use the remaining missiles that would work on platforms that can't carry a full sized tank gun.

If APS don't work that well, you don't bother fielding such a specialized weapon.
---
As for trajectory, just about any is possible if one is willing to spend money on multistage designs and seekers that can track at range and speed. One can totally make a high loft diving missile attacking top armor.

 

[Big_Zukini]

If APS kills all the other missiles, you use the remaining missiles that would work on platforms that can't carry a full sized tank gun.

If APS don't work that well, you don't bother fielding such a specialized weapon.
---
As for trajectory, just about any is possible if one is willing to spend money on multistage designs and seekers that can track at range and speed. One can totally make a high loft diving missile attacking top armor.

A compromise is EFP.

 

[jsport]

CKEM is 1.5m long and 45kg. And it's more like an M892A2 sized dart, for the business end. Max speed of ~2200m/s, direct LOS range of 10km. Pop-up range would be better, but that would also require SAL or IIR not beam-riding.

If logistics burden is accepted, and the range increased w/ low speed travel/HV terminal then all APSs would be incapable of stopping. Eliminating obstacles & shocking an adversary into leaving the area of the breach would be one mission. An area receiving such repeated shocking KE as to appear to be some sore of alien invasion would likely quickly empty the area of defenders.

 

[Big_Zukini]

If logistics burden is accepted, and the range increased w/ low speed travel/HV terminal then all APSs would be incapable of stopping. Eliminating obstacles & shocking an adversary into leaving the area of the breach would be one mission. An area receiving such repeated shocking KE as to appear to be some sore of alien invasion would likely quickly empty the area of defenders.

Slow midcourse is probably inescapable. Solely to allow an EO on tip, because you can't build the whole capability on just beam riding.

 

[Scott Kenny]

What kind of trajectory can a CKEM have? I assume a pretty shallow one even to its max range, which severely limits utilization and mostly for defensive purposes.

Same as a TOW or Javelin, though it sounds like LOSAT was running on ACLOS or laser beam riding (descriptions aren't clear).

IIR guidance is possible, as is SAL.

 

[thanos.massias]

Same as a TOW or Javelin, though it sounds like LOSAT was running on ACLOS or laser beam riding (descriptions aren't clear).

IIR guidance is possible, as is SAL.

LOSAT

Defense Acquisition Programs

www.google.gr

CKEM

https://ndia.dtic.mil/wp-content/uploads/2006/garm/wednesday/mccrum.pdf

 

[Scott Kenny]

LOSAT

Defense Acquisition Programs

www.google.gr

Thank you. ACLOS system.

CKEM

https://ndia.dtic.mil/wp-content/uploads/2006/garm/wednesday/mccrum.pdf

Okay, that makes the CKEM an ACLOS system as well.

Sticking an IIR seeker like Javelin on there would allow for more range, between longer sight lines and lofted flight path.

 

[Void]

The Army Science Board Report on 5the Generation Combat Vehicles, future tanks, mentions HVM I and HVM II concepts which are apparently non-line of sight kinetic missiles based on work done by Sandia National Laboratories/the Department of Energy. Depending on how the second bullet under "Opportunities" is interpreted Sandia may have an otherwise unknown HVM demonstrator with a terminal seeker.

 

[Sferrin]

CKEM died for good reason. The only feasible way of employment is within LoS. In that case, it's better to just use a tank, which can deliver the same firepower and also do a lot of other things.

You know how many CKEM vehicles you could fit on a C-17 compared to an Abrams?

 

[Sferrin]

The Army Science Board Report on 5the Generation Combat Vehicles, future tanks, mentions HVM I and HVM II concepts which are apparently non-line of sight kinetic missiles based on work done by Sandia National Laboratories/the Department of Energy. Depending on how the second bullet under "Opportunities" is interpreted Sandia may have an otherwise unknown HVM demonstrator with a terminal seeker.

 

[bobbymike]

View attachment 797639

Continue my rant about energetics R&D or lack there of seemingly over decades.

CL-20 invented by us 40 years ago.