Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
That's an interesting concept, Chalk. The XM180 would make a great light assault gun for MOUT*, but it kind of loses the Sheridan's raison d'etre as an AT-capable light tank for Airborne forces.
Was there ever an AT round developed for 105mm howitzers? Something that could be used when the SHTF?
*And with "Beehive" rounds, it would be deadly against infantry in the open.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by micromachine
Seem to recall the M101 howitzer having a HEAT round. While not a sabot round, it can have a decent punch if used in the correct way.
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(A lot of this is cut-and-pasted from the FB page)
Importantly this whole process was reversible. You could swap guns and racks in a few hours.
The way I see this thing going down is that the ammo for the M81E1 is going to get used up and they simply don't make it anymore. At that point these weapons and racks are shipped out to divisional workshops and the systems swapped over. M81E1s in still good condition are shipped back up the chain to where the few remaining M551 units are that are near supply chains that have the ammo as spares.
Yes, it does lose tank-killing ability but hey, TOWs are everywhere. If the crew really want to go tank hunting they can keep a MILAN in the bustle rack
Otherwise they have two jobs; the first is skirmishing with other recon assets. Now the flyboys and the satellites are gone it's back to going-out-and-having-a-look. This means you'll be meeting PT-76s (which, as I posted earlier on a long micro-essay, isn't actually a scout vehicle but something entirely else), BRDMs and the odd BMP.
The second is infantry support. Unlike IFVs the big honking gun can drop entire buildings and break open bunkers. They were actually used like this in Panama.
The "beehive" rounds were the famous APERS-T. It was used extensively in Vietnam in anything that used a low recoil barrel.
It's been replaced with a special airbust setting on the various fuzes that lets you use standard shells, this is the mechanical time–super quick (MTSQ) fuze. With this you can set the shell to blast nearby targets but it also gets those in trenches, crawling or otherwise in cover.
Who'd be an infantryman?
I'd still put one or two APERS-Ts in the rack if I had a chance for targets of opportunity.
Elsewhere we've done some discussion on what the range and rate of fire would be.
Now, obviously the default information for this would be Paul's standard NATO 105mm howitzer. However I don't know which gun Paul based this on, and if it was a semi-automatic breech as is on the XM180 mentioned or the manual interrupted screw on the M103 105 mm Howitzer off the M108 (they tried to fit this originally and it would have meant moving traverse gear, something they didn't want to do). Also howitzer fire rates are based on "sustained fire" shooting, whereas direct fire rates are usually much higher as you're essentially in a shit-has-hit-the-fan situation. I'm not sure what if the direct fire range listed in Paul's rules are the same as something with a dinky little barrel like the XM180. I'll leave that answer for the specialist cannon-cockers here.