Hey Jow Forums, Would you mind filling me in on the variety of artillery/explosives out there? I know nearly squat when it comes to the distinction between the long list of munitions that can be stuffed into a barrel.
What makes an artillery shell distinct from a regular rifle cartridge? Is it the explosive shell? The size? If it's about the explosive then what does that make an APFSDS? If it's size, then when does one become the other?
What separates a launched grenade from an artillery shell? Is it the amount of powder or casing size? Is it the piece of hardware launching it across the battlefield?
Is it possible to create a grenade-cartridge wider than 40mm? At what point does it cease to work? At what point is it no longer a grenade? Is there a hard limit at all?
I've searched before and found all sorts of interesting info but I want to know what YOUR take is. What do you Jow Forumsommandos think?
Artillery more or less = indirect fire. You want big boolets with big explosions in order to maximize damage when you don't actually see the people you're shooting at. Big gats r divided up into guns/cannons, howitzer;s and mortars. guns/cannons r for direct fire like on a tank. you point them at a target and shoot. howitzer's are for long distance fire on targets you don't see. you point them at like a 45 degree-ish angle towards the target and fire. mortars lob big boolets up high and they come back down on targedts you can't see. you shoot them at like an 80 degree angle.
Apfsds is armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot. it just refers to the projectile.
Launched grenades are generally fired from grenade launchers rather than towed artillery pieces. THey tend to be chambered in 40mm, cuz that's what nato picked lol. Eastern block countries and a few others will use 37mm grenades, cuz that's what they standardized on. idk. you ask retardo questions i give retardo answers.
Daniel Cox
>What makes an artillery shell distinct from a regular rifle cartridge the distinction between "rifle" bullets (including things like .50BMG or 14.5x114mm HMG rounds that aren't really for rifles inb4 light fifty and PTRSfags) and cannon munitions is generally that rifle rounds are solid slugs and cannon shells have a payload, the cutoff is usually stated to be 20mm because iirc some law of war prevents explosive bullets beneath that size.
>what about APFSDS APFSDS is a specialized cannon round because it's fired from a cannon. same with canister or other specialized cannon munitions, unless it's a gun-launched missile like the Shillelagh or the Refleks, in which case it's a missile (or if you want to split hairs, a GLATGM
>What separates a launched grenade from an artillery shell? grenade launchers typically have fairly low chamber pressures and projectile velocity compared to cannons.
>Is it possible to create a grenade-cartridge wider than 40mm? sure, but it'd be dumb because it takes up space and you gotta carry that shit around with you.
I'll pose a question of my own: My SKS quit cycling, doesn't seem to be the rod/spring unit and both of the pistons are still moving freely. Any ideas?
So it cycled fine in the first place then stopped? How long have you had it, do you clean it regularily, has your ammo or anything else changed with it recently? Could the gas hole be plugged?
Kayden Hughes
tried everything, I usually shoot tulammo (because 7.62x39, duh) but when the problem started I tried american eagle, hornady, even sprang for some S&B and PP, p. sure it's not an ammo issue because the bolt carrier is not moving AT ALL. it's not just FTE/FTF it's a full on failure to cycle like it's a straight-pull boltgun.
it's a Yugo M59/66, so of course the first thing that came to my mind (before the ammo issue even, tulammo/wolf being underloaded to shit and all) was that the gas port was set to launch grenades but it wasn't. can't for the life of me figure it out and it's very frustrating.
Camden Allen
i've had it 10+ years, I don't shoot it often but it's no safe queen and I clean it every time I use junk ammo
John Baker
I'm guessing you can cycle it by hand without much issue, not particularly stiff or anything is it? This really sounds like a problem with the gas system. Op-rod moves smoothly?
Brayden Morgan
WHAT?!?!??
Zachary Cruz
Hague Convention prevents the use of explosive rounds with a weight smaller than 400g.
Hudson Harris
yeah it runs by hand find, smooth as an SKS can be. i think it's a gas issue as well, honestly I think the switch to change it over to fire grenades is broke (it doesn't feel...right, idk) and the valve is stuck but i dunno just wanted second opinions, you know?
Kayden Miller
>Artillery more or less = indirect fire Ah, so something become artillery when you ditch direct-fire for indirect-fire. So a field gun could become an artillery piece if you start firing without line-of-sight to your target? Like at a steep arc? Oh, alright, I think I get what you're saying, user.
In that case, if a grenade launcher fires at a visible target then it is technically a gun albeit one with shitty range?
>THey tend to be chambered in 40mm, cuz that's what nato picked lol Wait, does that mean there is nothing, other than the extreme impracticality, of producing a launcher that fires grenades exceeding 40mm in diameter? So you could create a hella stupid 60mm grenade launcher?
>you ask retardo questions i give retardo answers Fair enough. The way I see it though, the more dumb questions I ask the less dumb my questions will be later on.
You could have an under-barrel 155mm grenade launcher, but that's just retarded. The general consensus is that something around 40mm is the best compromise between weight, recoil, and explosive mass, given that the Russians use 40mm Chinese use 35 and of course NATO 40mm as well
Xavier Robinson
>What makes an artillery shell distinct from a regular rifle cartridge? Is it the explosive shell? The size?
Those two are somewhat related. Once you hit about 20mm diameter then it becomes effective to put explosive inside. Except for some historical examples, once you hit 20mm you should assume the projectile contains some kind of explosive. The only exception I can think of is APFSDS, which user already explained.
>If it's about the explosive then what does that make an APFSDS? If it's size, then when does one become the other?
Usually, indirect fire is the definining characteristic. Lobbing shells in an arc rather than aiming straight at the target and firing.
>What separates a launched grenade from an artillery shell? Is it the amount of powder or casing size? Is it the piece of hardware launching it across the battlefield? The grenade is launched by a much smaller, lighter, piece of equipment. It has limited range (a few hundred yards max). Artillery can travel dozens of kilometers.
>Is it possible to create a grenade-cartridge wider than 40mm? Yes. around 40mm seems to be the limit for something man-portable though. it's not like there's some exact magic number where it suddenly fails if you exceed that diameter, but basically: the larger the diameter, the heavier the firing weapon and the ammo itself becomes. Before too long it gets so heavy that it's impractical to carry. Remember that the size of an object, which correlates to its weight, goes up by the cube, whereas diameter increases linearly. an 80mm grenade, for example, doesn't weigh double what a 40mm weighs, rather it weighs 4x as much. That applies to recoil too. Grenade launchers and rifle grenades are already infamous for their recoil, you can't go too much bigger before a man can't handle it anymore, which is why you have mortars for that role.
Artillery isn't just indirect fire, artillery really just implies a large caliber weapon to engage fortified targets and or emplacements either beyond the range of regular infantry or simply impervious to small arms. Old school artillery that just fired a large lead ball is still artillery despite having no explosive in it.
Wyatt Mitchell
>under-barrel 155mm grenade launcher I'm trying to wrap my head around how ridiculous that would look. Might make a mock-up at some point in the future.
Nolan Nguyen
So it's a more of a vague "I know artillery when I see it" sort of thing.
Thomas Cook
No. I just described what artillery is. There is no set numerical style of definition, generally everything over 20mm is considered a cannon. And most cannons are considered a form of artillery, so you could say a gun type weapon that fires a shell over 20mm is considered artillery. But rockets are also artillery. There is a fuck load of overlap. A large shell that is in someway propelled wether by a powder or rocket motor would be as good a definition as you can get. >Artillery is a class of heavy military weapons built to fire munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry's small arms. Is the definition on wikipedia and I think it's pretty good.
Henry Jenkins
yeah, it could even be argued that things like recoilless rifles are the successors of old-school direct fire artillery pieces (think pic related)
generally the defining characteristic of artillery is that it's a big crew-served gun that fires a shell with a payload
That definition falls apart when speaking of rocket artillery, which although is large and crew served is not a gun. Even an ATGM could be argued as artillery, a successor to an anti tank field gun.
is your pic a guided missile? I'd say things like Katy and Grad still fall neatly under the umbrella but I think land based PGMs would be stretching the definition a little bit thanks to their relatively small area of effect.
maybe add "unguided" and "area of effect" somewhere into my makeshift definition as well.
Ryder Adams
The only guidance they have is the direction you point them. I don't think AOE should have anything to do with the definition, or guidance for that matter. A 155mm Excalibur shell fired from a howitzer is still artillery, just very accurate artillery. If you wanted to be that guy, and I'll be that guy, you could argue an aircraft dropping ordnance is also in a form artillery. Not that I'm going to make that point, but it's food for thought
Really the idea of CAS as arty DOES hold a lot of water compared to things like horse artillery. The common nickname for horse arty was actually "flying cannon" different sort of "flight" of course but still.
Also didn't Excaliber get cancelled? If not awesome I thought it was a rad idea.
Jaxson Robinson
Nope, it's in service, something like 1400 rounds have been expended so far in combat.
Matthew Cook
>If you wanted to be that guy, and I'll be that guy, you could argue an aircraft dropping ordnance is also in a form artillery.
