This is your last chance to win this iconic SPAS-12!
https://www.fanathem.com/forgottenweapons
DEADLINE to ENTER is TONIGHT 11/22/24 @11:59 PM PST
I think a lot of people under appreciate the difficulty of making a reliable self-loading shotgun. Between the rimmed case, wadcutter-type cylindrical shape, varying shell length, and massive variations in loadings, the variability that a designer has to work around is insane…
Just as we appreciate the genius of John Moses Browning, who was responsible for the first workable self-loading shotgun, the Browning Automatic (as it was called at FN), we should also take note of the genius of the other two men who, along with JMB, really gave us the pump-action shotgun as we know it today.
Christopher Miner Spencer (yes, he of the Spencer repeating rifle and founding IBM) created the basic feed pattern of the tubular-magazine shotgun in 1882. The forearm-operated pump, Winchester-type lifter, and extraction system were basically his idea.
Andrew Burgess, who designed and patented his “haveness” action operated by a sliding pistol grip a few years later, was the father of the “flap-lock-in-top-of-bolt” locking system.
It was JMB who combined Spencer’s feed system with Burgess’ lockup, in the Winchester Model 1893, the first “modern” repeating shotgun. Then refined and strengthened it to handles smokeless-powder ammunition, resulting in the model 1897.
(ICYDK, you can tell the two apart by looking at the top of the receiver. The ’97 has a solid-top receiver, while the earlier ’93 has a larger cutout over the ejection port. No, a ’93 should never, ever be fired with smokeless-powder ammunition.)
As far as short-stroke gas-operated shotguns, I believe the Saiga is such a short-stroke design. But since it is after all essentially an Avtomat Kalashnikov redesigned to handle shotgun ammunition, this is hardly surprising.
clear ether
eon
The early recoil operated shotguns were designed to work with black powder loaded shot shells. The A5 design will work with BP loaded shot shells. BP loaded shells hung around until WW2, before disappearing for good as factory ammo.
Ian forgot one.
Due to the rapid decrease in pressure in the barrel, and so decrease in temperature, shotgun shells are ineherently dirtier than smallbore bottleneck ammo. That’s why recoil actions had remained relevant for so long in shotguns (and still are) while they had become little more than a curiosity in rifles, and that’s why gas action shotguns have complex self-cleaning pistons, often with multiple ribs, while rifles have much simpler ones.
There is also another obstacle for those who attempted to make self-loading shotgun in dawn of 20th century. Namely paper-walled shotgun ammunition, which might go back due to environment considerations https://gardenandgun.com/articles/paper-shotgun-shells-ripe-revival/ Now I wonder how various self-loading shotguns.
Also there were attempts at using different-shaped shotgun ammunition, but failed to gain traction, namely Close Assault Weapon System entrant https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_CAWS using belted design and RAS-12 https://modernfirearms.net/en/shotguns/u-s-a-shotguns/intrepid-ras-12-ar-12-eng/ using ammunition similar in shape to automatic pistol cartridge, but bigger in size.
One of the most successful of the semi-auto shotguns has to be the Remington 1100. With the way the gas system is designed it runs fairly light loads up to buckshot and slugs without a hitch.
[OFF-TOPIC so ignore if you wish]
Recently I learned about new-fangled revolver design dubbed RZMK-357
https://www.zenk.us/
most notably it has cylinder more aft, which result in higher barrel-to-overall lengths ratio.
It is vaunted as REVOLVER REVOLUTION, which prompts me to ask why it did appeared around 2022? Do it use some materials or solutions which were not available to manufacturers earlier? Does it outperform current designs to level that make it revolutionary?
That design has two problems to me.
1) High bore axis. Revolvers in general, (apart for the Chiappa Rhino) have high bore axis, but here the distance between the barrel axis and the thumb-index web (that’s what counts for perceived recoil) is even higher.
2) Long distance between the trigger and the sear usually means crappy trigger.
I can’t even figure out how you reload this thing without removing the cylinder.
The cylinder is basically an interchangeable, pre-loaded magazine. It’s almost a reversion to the way percussion and early cartridge conversion revolvers were reloaded in the 19th Century. You can see Clint Eastwood doing it with Remington New Model cartridge conversion revolvers in Pale Rider (1985).
This one looks very much like a scaled-down Zhuk TOZ-81 Mars, a prototype cosmonaut survival revolver ;
https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/TOZ-81_Mars
It also strongly resembles the “snub” revolver in the old Traveller SF role-playing game. Itself inspired by a proposal by gun designer John Winter in 1979.
https://americanhandgunner.com/handguns/tomorrows-handgun-designs-today/
There really is nothing new under the sun.
clear ether
eon
I doubt that cylinder swapping actually occured in the percussion or old wesr era. Trying to swap a cylinder on a colt percussion revolver requires the barrel to be removed. It’s easier on a Remington type, but all the cased Remington’s that I’ve seen have a percussion cylinder and a metallic ctg cylinder not two ctg cylinders. The main reason I don’t think it was done is that is no contemporary carriers for extra cylinders. I’ve also never seen any contemporary descriptions of that in the literature dating from that period. I’ve also never seen any references to it prior to the 1970’s. I can’t see someone carrying a capped loaded percussion cylinder in their pocket. Or tring to remove the barrel off a Colt on horseback under fire.
The Remington and Adams revolvers were quite normally reloaded by changing cylinders during the American Civil War. In fact, other than having spare loaded revolvers (Mosby’s men normally carried four each in their saddle holsters) there really was no other practical way to reload a percussion revolver on horseback.
All Adams revolvers came with spare cylinders numbered to the revolver. The manual advised that the cylinder be carried loaded but not capped, for safety reasons.
As for the Colts, they could be reloaded similarly by simply leaving off the securing screw on the wedge that held the barrel on. Admittedly, this was best done when your horse was standing still.
cheers
eon
A bullpup revolver… Who would have thought?
A bit of a fever dream, to my eye.
Sort of like the old Remington XP-100 bolt action pistol in .221 Remington Fireball.
I have to admit that odd as it looked, it was better-balanced than the later “rear-grip” version, which more-or-less demonstrated why chopped bolt-action rifles are not a particularly good idea.
I always thought a self-loader like the original XP-100, maybe gas-operated with a Mannlicher-style rotary magazine, might have been a highly interesting “jackrabbit” gun. Say, in 6.5 Grendel?
cheers
eon
“(…)bullpup revolver(…)Who(…)?”
Luigi Cherubin, see 1st image from top https://littlegun.info/arme%20italienne/ancien%20artisan/a%20cherubin%20luigi%20gb.htm
“(…)varying shell length, and massive variations in loadings(…)”
Example of recent development to counter that is R12
https://modernfirearms.net/en/shotguns/u-s-a-shotguns/remington-r12-versamax-tactical-eng/
where gas ports are so arranged that 12/89 will block parts of them, whilst 12/70 does not. I am wondering if placing ports so close to breech does not result in accelerated war, or in others words if expected life (number of shots) is or is not shorter than with design with ports more close to muzzle?
You could also try a constant-recoil system, which at least gives the bolt extra travel for stronger loads, but lengthens the receiver.
“Constant recoil” is a thing that only really benefits a weapon when it is firing on full-auto. The typical shotgun scenario is semi-auto, so the fact that the recoil impulse for multiple shots is spread out really doesn’t do you much good. Just because the bolt carrier/bolt aren’t hitting the back of the receiver and it’s all sprung doesn’t do a lot to help the situation.
I’ll grant you that bleeding off some of the recoil energy and so forth into a recoil-lock system or a gas system does help, but… You get all that for free, without worrying about constant recoil.
Which again, really isn’t a thing until you’re firing bursts, anyway.
Speaking of fever dreams… At 1:40 in the video, Ian says that the SPAS-12 “…can run anything…”
Uhmmm… I’d beg to differ, on that. I’m pretty sure that Eon will, as well. SPAS-12 requires that the load be tuned to it, and if it ain’t, then it ain’t “running”.
Source: Somewhat extensive observation of a friend’s SPAS-12 choking on a wide variety of loads. Some, it wouldn’t even run as a pump.
As an observation… What we see with shotgun cartridges is pretty much another iteration of the “installed base” problem that keeps recurring throughout technological history. For examples, see the QWERTY keyboard and a host of other things technological. Once a certain critical mass of commonality is achieved, that sumbitch ain’t going nowhere until there’s compelling reason for it to be replaced. That’s just the way it is.
CAWS had a solution: Full-length brass, higher chamber pressures, and a belted cartridge case to prevent the idjits among us to stick one into an actual 12 gauge.
At the time CAWS was being bruited about, I had the opinion that a mere 12 gauge super-shotgun wasn’t going to cut the mustard. Still feel that way, and I still think that the XM-25 was another “bad idea”, due to the lack of payload/available mass for fusing. The newest attempt at this idea is apparently a 30mm, which I find hilarious because the ‘effing Russians, yet again, got here first: I believe that 30mm represents the current limits on materials and energetics to enable decent performance; anything smaller, and we just can’t cram enough “bang” into the projectile along with a capable fuse.
I’d like to submit that something like a 30mm high-low pressure system is the way to go, here… As they are doing, apparently. I’d also submit that such a weapon needs to be capable of and equipped with a suitable platform to fire from, which is not PFC Snuffy’s good right shoulder. Yeah, he needs to be able to fire it like that, but if you want good results at range, you’d better come up with a decently provisioned tripod or other support solution. Along with some remote sighting arrangements…
Wouldn’t be averse to two different weapons, either… One man-portable and the other meant for mounting on something like the US Robotics “Big Dog”, with suitable sights and remote operation capability.
12 gauge is pretty much a joke for real combat. Even against drones… I think you could easily make a much better 30mm shot or flechette cartridge that would be a treat for shooting at drones.
No arguments, on any of it.
The shotgun has a long history of combat use. It is also of very limited utility on a battlefield, due to its combination of short effective range, poor penetration, and low magazine capacity resulting in a very low effective rate of fire.
Confederate cavalry used sawn-off double-barreled shotguns not because they thought they were better than things like .577in Enfield musketoons. They used them because there just weren’t enough musketoons to go around. They’d have been a lot happier with Spencer or Henry repeaters, or even Sharps single-shot breechloaders, but their industrial base couldn’t supply any of the above. (Look up “S.C. Robinson Richmond Sharps” to see just how badly their “tech base” failed.)
Repeating shotguns were used in trench warfare in WW1 and in island campaigns in WW2 simply because our side (1) in WW1 was doing something nobody had ever really done before, and (2) in WW2 was fighting a type of war we’d never trained for, so in both cases (3) we had a serious shortage of weapons and doctrine for doing it the right way.
The Germans took one look at the situation in Flanders in 1915 and invented the submachine gun. We used shotguns while waiting for somebody over here to come up with something similar. John T. Thompson did- just after the Armistice. And the Army was no longer interested.
They got interested again real quick in 1941- only to find that almost every Thompson available was on its way to England. Leaving our troops with the much less reliable Reising. The Marines broke out the shotguns again on the “better than nothing” principle. My boss (Marine, Guadalcanal, Class of ’42) said they mainly used them for flank defense of the machine gun and mortar emplacements during Japanese night attacks. He called it “trench warfare minus the trenches”.
The automatic shotgun gained a reputation as an “ambush buster” with British and ANZAC troops in Malaya, and was deployed as such by U.S. Special Forces, Rangers and SEALs in Vietnam. Mostly on the mistaken assumption that it was an effective counter-ambush arm. Well, no, not unless the enemy was dumb enough to close to within ten to fifteen meters. And armed with AKs or the equivalent (Vz58s?) they’d have to be exceptionally stupid to get that close, when even in triple-canopy they could quite effectively engage from fifty to seventy-five meters out.
Every effort since then to make the shotgun, especially the twelve-gauge, an effective combat weapon has come a cropper on the facts of its inherent characteristics. To make the shotgun a combat weapon at least as effective as the rifle, you’d need to change it into something more like an LMG or an auto grenade-launcher. Trying to do that was where the H&K Close Assault Weapon System (CAWS) failed. The result, as always with “machine shotguns”, was simply too big, heavy, and unwieldy to be worth the effort to lug around on a battlefield. (Yes, I’m thinking of the USAS-12, too.)
Probably the least-worst “combat shotgun” around is the M26-MASS (Modular Accessory Shotgun System) under the M4’s barrel. I say “least worst” because it can’t really do anything a proper grenade launcher couldn’t do better, and probably for less mass. It mostly turns the only mildly overweight M4 (“overweight” due to all the tacticool gadgets attached these days) into a twenty-pound boat anchor. Gadgets are no substitute for training, I don’t care what anybody says. Most soldiers and Marines afflicted with it would be better off with a couple of rifle grenades with 23mm tail booms (especially WP), and four or five extra magazines of 5.56.
As for police use of the shotgun, we have a different set of requirements. Mostly called, “don’t injure innocent bystanders”. For us, the restricted range of the shotgun reduces the chance of that happening. And if all else fails, its slugs can burst car tires or disable engines. No, we don’t shoot holes in the engine block; we smash up the carburetor or fuel injector or whatever on top of same.
But today, most agencies know how limited the shotgun is. So instead, they have replaced them in the cruisers- with semi-auto-only M4s.
Minus all the tacticool frippery. At ranges under ten yards, it’s not needed, and beyond that, most of it is of no use anyway.
clear ether
eon
The delusional shotgun BS is just part and parcel of the apparent historical inability of the US military to really get to ground truth with regards to how the soldiers are actually fighting in combat.
I mean, seriously… I know they issued all kinds of cool shotgun-like “solutions” in Vietnam, but the majority of them all came back with “Yeah, that didn’t work so well” from actual combat actions. The majority of the vets who were still around all spoke to one thing and one thing only: The basic M16 and M60 combination, with the M79/203 as supplements. The guys who’d tried it out all told me that the shotguns were effectively useless, just like the buckshot/flechette rounds for the 40mm. Not enough range, not enough penetration.
They did look sexy, I suppose, and if they added some confidence to the life of the pointman, well… I can’t say too much.
The problem, as always, is that people keep looking at edge cases and then trying to extend them over the whole battlefield. When that doesn’t work, they get all ass-hurt when someone says “No, that’s not a good idea…”, mostly because they’ve married their preconceived notions.
I prefer taking a pragmatic approach; see what works, then adjust. Every war, every theater is different: Either because of terrain or because of the enemy. Things that worked well in the Pacific theater of WWII did not work out so well in Europe, and vice-versa. You have to enter into everything with an open mind, examine what is really going on, and then work from there. Unfortunately, we don’t do that… The idjit classes we have put in charge of everything all think that they’re God’s gift to the universe, and whatever they think is the solution.
It’s like with NGSW: Supposedly, that’s going to answer the question of “overmatch” and “body armor”.
Point the first, I remain entirely unconvinced that “overmatch” is really an issue, as they lay it out. Basically, the problem was that we were fired on by PKMs from range, and we weren’t able to respond and suppress those fires. Why? Because we were trying to do that with precision fire from individual weapons and machineguns fired off the freakin’ bipod. You can’t rely on your bursts being tight enough or consistent enough past 800m or so off a bipod, so the answer now is supposedly going to be an uber-Designated Marksman Rifle for everyone? With the resultant loss of “wieldlyness” and ammo loadouts? I don’t think so… The real solution here should have been “get MG teams better”, not “uber-DRM”. The problem you have is that you need to be dropping enough fire on that area downrange so as to suppress and/or kill the enemy firing those PKMs at your silly ass. Individual riflemen shooting single rounds at what few targets they can identify won’t be it, and if you try responding with MG fire off the bipod, your dispersion downrange is going to be murderously ineffective.
Body armor? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the observer, and point at Ukraine: Neither combatant is screaming for a heavier individual weapon. They run into armored troops, they just fire more and wound them in their limbs or whatever it takes. Most of the dead Russians I’ve seen are wearing body armor that didn’t really do them all that much good, apparently. My take on it is that the armor is more a security blanket than anything else, because you don’t see too many “Terminator”-type assaults being successful. I’m really starting to question the efficacy of the whole thing, to be honest. I’d lay you long odds that they’re getting more casualties from heat stroke and sheer exhaustion than they’re saving, and that overloading the troops at the pointy end might be a bad, bad idea. Do note that the Afghans who were running our guys into the ground during running gun battles were very lightly equipped… Just a couple of magazines, some flip-flops, and an attitude problem.
I don’t care what kind of fitness program you put your guys through, once you’ve loaded them down with 90lbs of the finest lightweight equipment, they’re basically slow, plodding turtles waiting for someone to come along and turn them over onto their backs.
We really very badly need to run some damn tests and figure out if all this crap we’re convinced we need is really necessary: I’d submit that if you lose one or two more guys to “a lack of proper armor”, and win the war…? Well, that might be a better solution than to play myrmidon on the high Afghan plains.
Your mileage may vary… I think that if you’re doing mechwar on the Eurasian steppe, then that different considerations will likely apply. Observe, adjust, win. The OODA loop applies to more than aerial combat.
And, first things first, you have to be objectively honest with yourself about what you’re observing.
Shotguns were used effectively in WWI and the Pacific Theater in WWII. It depends on terrain and what you are trying to use them for and when. Urban combat the 12 Gauge is still useful and I have talked with Vets who disagree with the negative comments about flechettess and heavy buckshot. if you are trying to use them in place of rifles, no, they are not efficient. Shoot “soft” body armor not plates with slugs up to 50 yards and it f-cking hurts even with no penetration. Body armor deals with the idea of survivability at the expense of some mobility right now. Do you want to be the one or two guys lost due to lack of armore to complete the mission?
“Shotguns were used effectively in WWI and the Pacific Theater in WWII.”
Bullshit.
I defy you to provide proof of this assertion.
WWI documentation is full of contrary evidence. WWII documentation is also full of contrary evidence, aside from use as guard weapons in rear areas.
The biggest issue reported was that the cartridges were paper, and swelled in the humid conditions found in the trenches and jungles. Full brass-case ammo was rare and expensive.
The majority of shotgun use in WWII was training AA gunners on bombers and the ground; also guard and other rear-area duties.
I’ve heard the fairy tales about them all my life; the paucity of actual evidence, however? Speaks for itself.
Well said!
Think the M26 is mostly for door breaching. Chat w/ 03RN on AR15.com about his experience in fallujah w/ the Marines’ Benelli – he found it quite effective at the ranges he was using it in urban combat.
I’ve sold quite a few 20 ga Maverick 88 pump pistol grip smoothbores over the last couple of years, along w/ Rio #”1″ 9 pellet buck & low-recoil slugs – 3/4 oz @ around 1350 fps. It’s a very controllable combination, confidence inspiring to the noobs who plan to use it in their home, and about half the price of Mossberg’s shockwave. A proper stock would likely make it more effective, but the pistol grip makes it look cool and compact, and that sells.
Everybody I talked to that was in Vietnam, said the the main use of shotguns there was as bongs.
Pretty much. They’re great for that.
Combat? Not so much… Lots of use on guard duty, though.
I like the concept of Aguila mini-shells for home defense and maybe law enforcement. Design a gas-operated shotgun strictly around that hull length and payload. Think of how many would fit inside a 20 inch tubular magazine. Maybe use a vertical elevator-lifter like the Winchester 73 or Swiss Vetterli, which also use short, fat, blunt cartridges. Keep it simple and light without a bunch of clutter hanging off of it. The mini shells can also be used in single-shot fashion in other guns, so they aren’t completely useless without the new specialty shotgun.
Probably the ideal home-defense shotgun would be something like the Mossberg SA20 self-loader or the Savage 320 pump, with an 18″ cylinder bore barrel, rifle-type sights, and a simple fixed, synthetic stock.
In twenty-gauge, not twelve.
The 20 is more than powerful enough to get the job done at ranges under ten meters. And its recoil won’t beat an average homeowner senseless. Plus, both guns are quite reasonably priced.
For that matter, a 20-gauge version of the side-by-side, short-barreled “coach gun” beloved of Cowboy Action Shooting competitors would be a good choice, too. Especially the outside-hammer type that can remain loaded but uncocked, with no springs under tension, until needed, and simply be readied by thumbing the hammers back.
Of course, getting the MSRP of one of those back under $300 would help, too.
clear ether
eon
I agree: 12ga is great for getting enough pellets on deer or geese at 40yd, but unnecessary at bedroom ranges. As Schwensen alluded, the 12ga minishell gets you 20ga recoil with more capacity, and you have big-shell capacity should you ever need it with no downside.
If you need self-loading shotgun which is less than 12 gauge in size and is no-frills, then used Bekas Auto in 16 gauge http://modernfirearms.net/en/shotguns/russia-shotguns/bekas-avto-eng/
I’ve taken three defensive shotgun classes, all taught by ex-LEo trainers. I brought a dull-as-dirt 4+1 12-ga. Rem. 870 with an 18-1/2in. cylinder bore barrel, rated for 3-in. shells, but only ever used 2-3/4in. shells through it.
I was surprised that every single shotgun in the classes… All of them… Were pump-action, manually-operated repeaters. Never a Saiga. Never a Benelli. Certainly never a SPAS-12.
I have greatly enjoyed firing Browning A-5 and Remington 11 shotguns with the reciprocating barrel. I flat loved shooting clays with a Benelli inertia-operated shotgun. That is probably the closest to using an anti-aircraft gun as I’ll ever get.
The sheer expense of self-loading shotguns is prohibitive for a great many people. The attenuation of recoil is one factor that people who like semi-autos appreciate.
Shotguns have been historically very widely used in law enforcement scenarios, but seldom in military settings, primarily because they are low-capacity, low-firepower weapons with limited range. In certain tactical niches they are awesome and highly effective, but the utility tapers off outside of that niche. There is the much hyped use of Winchester 1897s, Remington Model 10s, and so on as “trench brooms” in certain battlefields in WWI. Ian M’Collum has noted that during the highly mobile period after the Hindenburg Line/ Siegfriedstellung was breached, they were too lacking in range. In triple canopy jungle terrain they had another lease on life. The most famous appraisal from army usage involved the counterinsurgency by the UK in Malaya post-WWII. There, a full-length barrel Browning Auto-5 loaded with plain 9-pellet 00 buckshot was used to counter ambushes, and to engage MRLA rebels fleeing contact after a mine detonated or ambush was initiated. Mag dumps at fleeting targets in jungle canopy. This was found to be very effective, but the low-firepower of the shotgun and cumbersome reload were not.
I would agree with @eon that for most defensive usage in homes and households or farms and so on, that the engagement ranges are likely to be very short and that the 20-ga. loaded with No. 4, No. 3, or No. 2 buckshot would be very potent. I once bought a bunch of 20-gauge ammunition touted as “No. 1” buckshot, but when I disassembled the shell and measured and weighed the lead pellets, I found they were closer to No. 2. You’ll find some 00 buck is similarly really 0 on closer inspection. For black-powder musket shot cartridges, all brass for a repeating shotgun with 82-grains of FFg or 3 drams, and paper for a .69 cal. musket with 90 to 100 grains of FFg, I’m using 12x .310 lead pellets. That’s sort of like 0-1/2 buck, if such a thing existed. Between No. 1 and 0 in any case.
“I was surprised that every single shotgun in the classes… All of them… Were pump-action, manually-operated repeaters. Never a Saiga. Never a Benelli. Certainly never a SPAS-12.”
To me, it’s because many of the trainees will use pump action shotguns anyway, and so better to train them to avoid operator induced malfunctions. Autoloaders don’t care if you are under stress while firing.
How useful can a shotgun be against “fpv” drones ?
I see a niche that autoloading ones could fill.
The drone would have to be at very low altitude. As in “migratory bird landing approach altitude”, meaning under 20 meters vertical. (You can really only hit them when they’re coming in to land and feed.)
Drones tend to stay above 50 meters- well out of shotgun range. Except when doing a dive to blow up in your face- and shooting them at that point simply makes it more likely that they will succeed in blowing up in your face.
Also, depending on an individual soldier’s prowess at what amounts to pass shooting requires that you (1) identify which recruits have the knack for it in Basic and (2) train Hell out of those recruits in AIT. In short, exactly the way the U.S. Navy trained AA gunners in WW2.
Also, you can’t do this sort of shooting with an M26 stuck under an M4. It needs an actual shotgun, long-barreled, probably 12-gauge 3 1/2″ Magnum, full choke. Plus a s#!tload of ammunition and the ability to reload fast, because drones tend to arrive in swarms, not singly.
That all adds up to weight. About twice what a typical duck hunter or goose-getter carries. He’s probably going to need an assistant just to haul the ammo.
So you have a single soldier (or a pair of same) in each squad whose job is killing drones. And he/they are not equipped to do anything else.
Congratulations. You’ve created another “manning” problem, as if we didn’t have enough already.
Shotguns are not the solution to the drone problem. I’m not sure what the Hell even might be a solution, although the idea of the MICV giving up its externally-mounted ATGW in favor of a MetalStorm or even laser-based dedicated drone-killing system looks less loony than it appears at first glance. If nothing else, it would give the MICV commander something to do and discourage him from trying to play Rommel. (I can already hear the howls of indignation from wannabee Pattons…)
Drone defense pretty much has to be an “overwatch” thing. It’s a support unit function. It’s area defense, not point defense. The best way to do it may be to use ECCM to track back and localize the drone controller, and have arty 155 his ass.
Sticking a duck hunter in the infantry squad is not the answer.
clear ether
eon
“(…)shotgun(…)against(…)drones(…)?(…)”
If you have humongous stockpile of 12 gauge ammunition which you wish to use for said purpose then use Anti-drone turret from Lobaev Z see https://en.topwar.ru/239936-ispytanija-sredstv-dlja-borby-s-frv-dronami-na-youtube-kanale-krupnokalibernyj-perepoloh-i-protivodronovaja-turel-ot-lobaev-z.html
Wow, turret looks very cool !
The drone presents new cheap way to wage war and thats horrifying. During Vietnam you needed 50 000 rounds to shot the only one enemy; now you need a couple hundred dollars for the damn thing and grenade strapped to it, and could kill a footsoldier “for breakfast”.
After fpv drone chasing a guy near/around a tank that was news few months ago, craziest thing I’ve seen lately was drone throwing a grenade that landed sideways and fell inside the cellar opening, and effed up several poor fuckers who hid in it.
Its almost turning into some kind of bizzare skill contest – but with tragical consequences.
Whatever the hell the “solution” to the drone issue is, I see two things happening, for sure: One, the squad size is going up, and two, there’s going to be another couple of key specialist positions added in to it.
My guess would be that eventually you’re going to see composite combat elements, consisting of “some people” and a bunch of add-on semi- and fully-autonomous drones of all sorts. Likely, something is going to be added in to serve as micro-level ADA, you’re going to have a replacement for the MG team in a self-mobile Remote Weapons Station, and whatever else proves to be necessary.
I’d say that the human component of the “combat element” is going to spend a lot of time in command/control of drones and other remote assets, along with maintenance and getting the drones out of trouble when they get themselves stuck or blocked somehow.
As well, they’re going to have to be on-scene in order to really deal with any counter-measures as they come up. Nothing quite replaces a switched-on combat infantryman when the unexpected occurs…
I think we’re in for a period of composite elements that will gradually become more and more drone than operator/support. When the fully automated systems come on-line? No idea; I suspect that there’s going to be a lengthy period of development and then countermeasure vs. countermeasure, until the whole thing shakes out.
Right now, we’re at about the Russo-Japanese War level of things. The lessons are there, the techniques are being applied, but the actual implications are not being either recognized or dealt with. Hopefully, we’ll bypass the charnel house of a WWI-equivalent conflict, and never find a lot of this stuff out the hard way. A really major war would tend to develop things a lot quicker, but… I’d really rather not.
I think one of the things that is going to have to happen is that we have to get a handle on the electromagnetic spectrum, and start treating it like something we can visualize. What’s badly needed is some sort of synthetic EM spectrum intelligence tool that enables the operator to quickly identify and counteract anything going on near them, like drone signals. Right now, they’re basically taking frequency analyzers out there and kinda going on a “Well, this is the freq for the drone video channel that comes from the factory… Block that, see if it works…” We have to be able to identify and apply countermeasures in real time, dynamically. “Oh, look… That’s the signal and frequency for a garage door opener, like they’ve been using to trigger IEDs…”
Right now, it’s all too high up in the kill chain, for it to really do the guys down in the squads any good. That has to change.
One possible (add a few underlines to that word) answer might be to borrow an idea from Vietnam by way of David Drake’s “Hammer’s Slammers”. Claymorettes on the IFV, but aimed upward at an angle. Sensors detect inbound drones, computer crunches numbers, and then fire control fires claymorettes on the correct side so that drones run into a cloud of tungsten “birdshot” or the equivalent.
A claymorette can throw a considerably larger “pattern” of shot to a considerably greater range than any shotgun a soldier can carry.
As an ambush buster in ‘Nam, the claymorette belt was only indifferently useful, as it depended on the reflexes and judgement of the vehicle commander. In the modern day, handing the job to the onboard computer might actually make it effective enough to be worth the effort.
Naturally, the computer would have to “know” where your own troops are to avoid “backshooting” them by accident. But full-time individual IFF is coming, anyway, if it isn’t here already.
Still, you are absolutely correct in that we need to learn how to properly use the EM spectrum. Including figuring out how the “other guy” is doing it.
So far, all I’m seeing is a bunch of higher-ups sitting back with their feet up on their desks, smiling and saying “Oh, we don’t have to worry; our opponents aren’t tech-savvy enough to do anything like that”.
Tell that to any company that’s been hacked recently. Most of it is “political”; they’re not just doing it for the lulz anymore.
clear ether
eon
The “claymore on the tank” deal was really only a good idea if you were absolutely, positively certain that none of your own dismounts were around…
The other problem was “collateral damage” to other vehicles and your own. Detonating a few pounds of C4 right up against your own armor is not a free act… Can you say “spalling”? I knew you could…
I’ve been playing around with the idea of how you’d counter aerial RPVs, and about the best one I could come up with for the current threat environment would be a mini-CIWS firing something relatively tiny, like maybe .22 LR. Lots of ammo capacity, effective out to the distance that a shaped charge or EFP is lethal… And, potentially easy to “grow” from the actual full-house 20mm CIWS we already have. Problems I could see would be the radar, which would basically be putting yourself out there with a damn beacon lit for the enemy to launch HARM at…
What I do see the necessity for is an all-inclusive network operating to mesh in all sensors and weapons, prioritizing fires on threats. You’re going to have to have an extremely robust set of cyberdefenses going all the time, because imagine what could be done should someone manage to suborn your net-fires? Hell, it’d be enough for it to start taking out just a fraction of your assets, because then you’d have to take it down for repair, or watch your entire force get attrited by your own weapons…
Whatever happens, war is about to get a whole lot more complicated, expensive, and intellect-driven. The weapons are not going to be the “big deal”, anymore: It’s going to be the C3I stuff that matters most.
I’m guessing that somewhere, even now, somebody is working on a fully-autonomous computerized “expert system” that can integrate sensors, threat analysis, and weapons prioritizing, and hooking it up to something like a leftover Vulcan cannon plus a couple of Miniguns off a scrapped AC-130.
All of it fitting into the hull and turret of a leftover ex-Saudi M1.
And yes, they probably have a dogeared copy of Bolo by Keith Laumer on their workbench.
cheers
eon
A drone is a cheap, slow and fragile missile. Any APS that can protect a vehicle from AT missiles, included those coming from high angles, does it from drones too.
In the future, the specific anti-drone protection will be an automated turret. Probably laser. There are already several working prototypes. The competition is on who will be able to compact it more.
You left out the other key characteristic of drones: There are a lot of them.
APS systems have finite magazines. They’re predicated on relatively rare occasions when a tank is targeted by a relatively high-value weapon system. If that tank is targeted by a swarm of drones…? How long until the APS is depleted?
You’re going to have to have something with an extremely deep munitions well. Laser? Maybe… Depends on how long it can fire before needing parts replacements and how much power it drains. These things ain’t magic, you know…
Kirk;
That’s another reason I think the first land vehicle powered by a reactor will be an MBT. It can handle the weight without badly increasing ground pressure, it’s armored so breaching the containment by enemy fire is less likely, it certainly has more internal volume than just about anything else, and going back to the Sherman and Panzer IV every tanker has complained that it just doesn’t have enough electric power to run everything at once.
A space-probe type one would handle most of those requirements, and still have enough excess kWh to run a laser remote weapon platform on top of the turret.
Then the main worry would be the laser’s heat dump requirements. Oddly, the simplest solution might be one consisting of six to ten “ruby” lasers firing sequentially, to allow cooling in between pulses.
Yes. A laser “Gatling gun”.
cheers
eon
@ Kirk
That’s why I said the future defense will be an automated turret. Raytheon’s H4 laser turret is claimed to be effective on small and medium drones, even swarms, with a 10kw laser, that’s in the possibility of any LUV.
However, there are contermeasures to lasers, IE smoke.
6:19 – “Sometimes most of them will work.”
Sheesh.