C-RAM Sent to Iraq

Edward Yee · Post by **Edward Yee** » 2005-10-23 02:30am

Oh man, I didn't think of that, FSTargetDrone! That's certainly original! However, there's hopefully an upgrade kit of the M2HB or the M240 series for this, since a 20mm that expends even faster is gonna be of little use, when there's already a Commander's Remote-Operated Weapon System (CROWS) kit that lets an Abrams commander fire his .50-cal from inside...

Funny thing, but SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs has a Convoy escort-to-safety mode.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2005-10-23 10:39am

I'm impressed at how they managed to get a weapon system designed to shoot down anti-ship missiles the size of small aircraft to take out mortar shells the size of a coke can.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-10-23 08:30pm

While the Soviets did have big anti ship missiles the size of small fighters, those are hardly the only threat Phalanx was meant to stop. In fact, it doesn’t work well against those things at all because of how big and fast they are, they dive down near vertically at mach 3+ from 80-120,000 feet. =

Those big high flying missiles where easy pray for SAMs anyway, it was smaller low-level missiles which Phalanx was really needed against. The US Harpoon missile for example is only 13.5 inches in diameter, the French Exocet is about 13.7 inches, and some anti ship missiles are even smaller then those two. I’m only using diameter of the missile body, since Phalanx was meant to shoot them down head on, via penetrating the warhead to explode it.

So basically the leap to intercepting a 60 or 82mm mortar bomb isn’t as big as your thinking. Those mortar bombs are subsonic, and that combine with there high trajectories means they have long times of flight relative to the range from which they are fired. Shooting down an anti ship missile is probably hard in most ways, since a low flying missile has to be picked out from the background clutter of the ocean, while the mortar bomb is high in the sky with nothing behind it to cause confusion for the radar.

Edward Yee · Post by **Edward Yee** » 2005-10-23 09:42pm

Ah, so the C-RAM will be employed as an anti-"first strike" (instead of anti-followup) weapon for sure? That would be simply wonderful.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-10-23 09:50pm

Edward Yee wrote:Ah, so the C-RAM will be employed as an anti-"first strike" (instead of anti-followup) weapon for sure? That would be simply wonderful.

The system is fully automatic; it should work just fine against the first incoming round. Also one of the things C-RAM adds to the basic Phalanx is warning lights and sirens, which sound the alert, went it detects incoming fire. However since the radar system it uses can’t scan the whole sky at once, its simply not going to be total protection against mortar attacks. But some defense beats no defense, and we’ve got a considerable wait before those anti artillery/mortar/rocket lasers are available.

Edward Yee · Post by **Edward Yee** » 2005-10-23 09:58pm

A wait on the lasers, unfortunately, agreed... but it's the first strike that counts, isn't it. (Or am I presuming that the OPFOR likes to "fire for effect" first instead of spotting rounds first?)

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2005-10-23 10:37pm

As I said above, most mortar attacks involve no more then 1-3 rounds being fired. Also, a very large number of all insurgent mortar attacks don’t even hit the base they are aimed at with those 1-3 rounds, they miss and often land on Iraqi homes or other such things. The insurgents are smart enough to try to aim, and they pre plot firing positions using maps, but they almost never stay long enough to actually correct fire, assuming they even have a forward observer. Attacks like that do happen, but the tend to be the ones which are hurt the most by US counter attacks. Correcting fire can't help but increase the amount of time they are exposed in a firing position.

This video, you will need bittorret though, shows a mortar attack on a US base in Afghanistan in which the attacker do take there time to correct there aim. The video was filmed by a member of the bases perimeter patrol and the file is 13 megs. Such attacks are more typical in Afghanistan because of the rougher terrain and the more sparely spread nature of US forces, and the higher skill level of the enemy.
http://www.militaryvideos.net/torrents/ ... pg.torrent

You can probably find a non torrent link to it though, I just don’t know of one off hand.

Edward Yee · Post by **Edward Yee** » 2005-10-24 01:25am

So in a twisted sense, in regards to mortar attacks troops in Iraq are better off than troops in Afghanistan?

Thanks for the video.

I go there a lot but stay unregistered to stay away from flame wars and even non-flame arguments, just when members or mods use harsh language against one another, a pet peeve of mine.