Normal US artillery has a range of 20-30 kilometers (12-18 miles) but new ramjet artillery will be able to reach 150 kilometers. The weapons will be able to farther, faster and higher.
150 kilometers means that if you were fighting in Belgium, then you could fire from Brussels to Bastogne. Bastogne was a famous area of fighting in World War 2. Brussels is in the center of Belgium. Ramjet artillery batteries around Brussels would be able to target almost anything in the entire country.
A shell fired at mach 2.5 enables air intakes to take in oxygen that will ignite the fuel. Removing the need for missiles and shells to carry oxidizer increases fuel capacity by five times. This can mean a mix of longer ranges and higher speeds.
Ground-based missile ranges could go from 60-70 km to go to 300-350 km (210-280 miles). air-launched missile ranges could go beyond 500 km (300 miles).
The US was converting to hypervelocity projectiles, which were just extremely aerodynamic. Hypervelocity projectiles can triple the range of artillery. The ramjet artillery would still have nearly double the range of hypervelocity projectiles.
Having primary weapons with shorter effective ranges is a huge military disadvantage.
Russia has focused on longer range artillery and missile batteries.
Russia’s BM-21s have an effective range of 20-45kms. This range depends on the rockets used. Russia has always like variants of the Katyusha multiple rocket launcher.
Russia has many longer range artillery systems:
9A52-4 “Tornado” MLRS: up to 90km range
BM-30 “Smerch” MLRS: 70 to 90km range
2S7 “Pion” 203mm heavy artillery: 37,5 to 55km range
TOS-1 220mm MLRS and thermobaric weapon: 0.5 to 6km range
2S19 Msta 152.4mm howitzer: 45 to 62km range
2S35 “Koalitsiya-SV” 152.4 or 155mm artillery: 40 to 80km range.
The US has had longer-range multi-rocket systems but they are far more expensive than the Russian versions.
Israel Rafael Bolt On Guidance for Missile Artillery
In 2018, Rafael (Israeli weapon maker) was working on an add-on upgrade package, known as the Electro-Optical Precision Integration Kit, or EPIK. It could turn any Soviet-standard 122mm Grad artillery rocket into a precision-guided round capable of hitting stationary or moving targets.
Artillery Costs and HVP Costs
Anti-cruise missile weapons currently cost $1 to $2 million while hypervelocity shells are 25,000 to $100,000 range. The HVP that cost $75,000 to 100,000 are the fanciest version with an onboard seeker. Regular Artillery shells cost about $600-7000. The cost variance depends upon adding in more explosive or chemicals.
SOURCES – Nammo, Rafael, TheDrive, Wikipedia
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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They always come to the same conclusion: the added complexity doesn't help, and renders the system more expensive + fragile than need be. In a multiple stage rocket system, the only thing you usually need to change propulsionwise (oversimplifying, I know) is the geometry of the rocket exhaust nozzle. That's it. So, easier to mass produce, less contractors, etc., resulting in a cheaper product that is as effective as the more sexy sounding alternative. Bigger but cheaper.
Militaries in a full out war are immune to these kind of weapons. This was demonstrated by the Germans, who actually produced more weaponry at the end of the war than at the beginning, becoming immune to air raids, where even BOT, Bombs on Target, proved to be ineffective as a tactic, as it also proved to be in the Vietnam war. Quality over quantity is a useless doctrine in full out war, otherwise the Germans would have won in WW2 and the USA in the Vietnam war. We shall not mention the forgotten war continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where such weapons are useless in impressing or subduing the adversary.
Militaries in a full out war are immune to these kind of weapons. This was demonstrated by the Germans, who actually produced more weaponry at the end of the war than at the beginning, becoming immune to air raids, where even BOT, Bombs on Target, proved to be ineffective as a tactic, as it also proved to be in the Vietnam war. Quality over quantity is a useless doctrine in full out war, otherwise the Germans would have won in WW2 and the USA in the Vietnam war. We shall not mention the forgotten war continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where such weapons are useless in impressing or subduing the adversary.
Gyrojet was a technically interesting idea that, with more work, might have become viable.
At the moment, (and arguably for over a century) handguns have apparently topped out in performance. To get more effectiveness you either get recoil that most people can't handle, noise that injures the operator, problems like that.
The gyrojet approach might have been able to bypass these issues, but early production quality issues, combined with a minimum effective range issue and the US Government deciding to ban any of the versions that actually could outperform a standard hand gun combined to stomp on this branch of weaponry.
Sometimes cheaper is better. This is true for artillery. If you want to kill one target use a missile. If you want to suppress a battle field use cheap artillery shells.
This really is just the natural progression from base bleed projectiles, to rocket assisted projectiles. Originally ramjet rounds like this were air augmented ejector rocket ramjets functionally, where there is a blurry line around what the work share between the ejector rocket (gas generator) part and the air burning part. Is this a solid fueled ramjet, or a ducted rocket is the question.
Naturally this only really helps at longer ranges. See gyrojet rounds for why they suck at short range.
Soviets had the Gnom ICBM that used a ramjet of sorts.
Normally rockets headed for orbit go mostly straight up through the dense part of the atmosphere in order to escape it as soon as possible, then start thrusting sideways. I suppose a ramjet first stage would go up at a shallow angle, instead, picking up as much tangential velocity as possible while still deep enough in the atmosphere to run the ramjet.
NASA did look at a system that used a turbofan first stage, a ramjet second stage, and pure rocket third stage. But it never went anywhere.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/DR-0025_DRC-010-039_Ram-Booster_TOP-2012-03-31_ONLINE.pdf
I'd guess that a ramjet system might be suitable for a single stage to rotovator launcher, which only had to reach moderate altitude and speed compared to a rocket.
In a theater like Iraq or Afghanistan where the U.S. has overmatch that sort of artillery would render air support moot. With a 90 mile radius surprisingly few artillery bases could cover the whole country. Time on station is effectively indefinite, response time is low single-digit minutes, and cost is drastically lower.
Because once a rocket is at a speed where a ramjet would be effective it will be mostly out of the atmosphere already and a ramjet doesn't work in space.
Quite interesting.
With the lower weight (not needing to carry oxygen), why no one uses a Ramjet as a rocket first stage ?.