Would 122mm BM-21 cluster DPICM be useful for Pakistan?

[UmairNawaz]

I think Pakistan is using BM-21 variant in service and could find indigenous Yarmuk rocket in service, but only with HE variant which isn't effective at anti-armor and anti-vehicle warfare.
I know there are anti armor and anti personnel dual purpose variants from China, and Egypt at the minimum and was wondering if they would be useful against staging bases, and armor formations in motion, or stationary.

They could also be used against Western air command bases because of the ability to hit runways and really F*ck them up and crater them.

At least some of the bases are in range of the longer range rockets(45 km)

The best information on the 122mm cluster is from Egyptian sources that are produced by a company in Egypt. There are 3 variants which are 10km, 36 km, and 45 km with 54-98 DPICM submunitions each. Each of the submunitions can penetrate 50mm with shaped charge which may not kill tank but will mess up optics and gun possibly and be able to take out most other vehicles in Indian service.

Skip to 23 seconds for impact testing.

So for a full barrage of 40 rounds if KRL-122 has that many tubes is roughly 3900 or 2160 submunitions depending on range which can be effective against any armor push against Indian forces.

Sounds like a good idea for Pakistan? If Pakistan can indigenous develop for license from China or Egypt it would create jobs and increase lethality of MLRS.

 

[UmairNawaz]

Also, special forces or infiltration groups inside India if we have that could be used. A few soldiers could easily launch these and abandon it because it is man portable.
This doesn't seem very hard to conceal in a house, or forest somewhere.

 

[Itachi]

I'm sure PA has long range artillery. Personally, I don't consider 45 km long range, it's medium range.

You have to think that the arty piece won't be sitting at the border. It'll be sitting well within our side anywhere from 1-10 km+.

So that further reduces the range of the artillery.

But nowadays, other nations are working on 50-70 km+ ranges artillery such as the US ERCA (Extended Range Cannon Artillery) which is 155mm.

Then there are other projects working on 100+ km range weapons, like railguns etc. Which we should look into.

 

[UmairNawaz]

I'm sure PA has long range artillery. Personally, I don't consider 45 km long range, it's medium range.

You have to think that the arty piece won't be sitting at the border. It'll be sitting well within our side anywhere from 1-10 km+.

So that further reduces the range of the artillery.

But nowadays, other nations are working on 50-70 km+ ranges artillery such as the US ERCA (Extended Range Cannon Artillery) which is 155mm.

Then there are other projects working on 100+ km range weapons, like railguns etc. Which we should look into.

45 km is very far for 122mm, Yarmuk is claimed 20 km for POF brochure.

 

[Itachi]

45 km is very far for 122mm, Yarmuk is claimed 20 km for POF brochure.

Well if it's 20 km for Yarmuk than that's a sitting duck...and it won't be able to penetrate far into enemy land either say if it was 1-5 km from the border.

 

[UmairNawaz]

Well if it's 20 km for Yarmuk than that's a sitting duck...and it won't be able to penetrate far into enemy land either say if it was 1-5 km from the border.

Wdym? If a rocket was launched from border cities it could probably travel 40 km into India with long range 122mm.

 

[Itachi]

Wdym? If a rocket was launched from border cities it could probably travel 40 km into India with long range 122mm.

I was talking about the Yarmuk, which you stated had 20 km range.

Nothing is fired "from the border"....that's asking to be counter dropped on yourself...

 

[UmairNawaz]

I was talking about the Yarmuk, which you stated had 20 km range.

Nothing is fired "from the border"....that's asking to be counter dropped on yourself...

Shoot and scoot tactics?

 

[Fawadqasim1]

The only useful artillery for Pakistan in my
Naqis openion is longer range mlrs e.g
A100 A300 M20 etc
@The Deterrent @Zarvan

 

[Zarvan]

The only useful artillery for Pakistan in my
Naqis openion is longer range mlrs e.g
A100 A300 M20 etc
@The Deterrent @Zarvan

We need to buy or develop MRL of this kind.

 

[Fawadqasim1]

We need to buy or develop MRL of this kind.

Absolutely sir

 

[UmairNawaz]

Absolutely sir

Why is BM-21 not useful?

 

[Itachi]

Shoot and scoot tactics?

Only if it's self-propelled, otherwise it'll take too long to scoot

Why is BM-21 not useful?

Regular Artillery is useful since it's cheaper than wasting rockets. Plus it carries no smoke plume with it and is much more "silent" and harder to track by a radar versus a rocket/missile.

The only thing is, MRLS have longer range, 60-100 km+ which makes them really useful to engage without fearing to be counter dropped on by the enemy.

Once arty pieces can fire beyond 50-100 km and are cheap (not talking like $ 1000 per round), MRLS will lose their use and will be really effective.

Consider Artillery that can shoot upto 250 km.....enemy SAMs would be useless within 200-250 km of our border.


This topic can be further expanded to use artillery pieces (and rounds) instead of SAMs for shooting down enemy aircraft, drones (big and small). Like Railguns.

The rounds can be modified to fit a small radar or pulse doppler to measure distance to target and adjusts its trajectory and velocity based on reading. Like this:

These types of artillery will make SAMs obsolete since they'll be cheaper, more readily available and dispersed and can fire more rounds per minute.

Can be used to blanket enemy installations and cover offensive incursions.

More Material for Understanding:

Rounds can be also made to loiter! (fly over or around enemy installations, gather intel and then attack)

There are many uses for Artillery if proper research, business models and manufacturing is done.

The only useful artillery for Pakistan in my
Naqis openion is longer range mlrs e.g
A100 A300 M20 etc

These options are not as cheap as Arty rounds and more prone to detection, one of the reasons being the smoke plume and bigger size.

Also, the rate of fire isn't great and reloading takes time. By the time you have launched your 10th missile/rocket, 2-3 times that many arty rounds have been fired.

 

[UmairNawaz]

Only if it's self-propelled, otherwise it'll take too long to scoot



Regular Artillery is useful since it's cheaper than wasting rockets. Plus it carries no smoke plume with it and is much more "silent" and harder to track by a radar versus a rocket/missile.

The only thing is, MRLS have longer range, 60-100 km+ which makes them really useful to engage without fearing to be counter dropped on by the enemy.

Once arty pieces can fire beyond 50-100 km and are cheap (not talking like $ 1000 per round), MRLS will lose their use and will be really effective.

Consider Artillery that can shoot upto 250 km.....enemy SAMs would be useless within 200-250 km of our border.


This topic can be further expanded to use artillery pieces (and rounds) instead of SAMs for shooting down enemy aircraft, drones (big and small). Like Railguns.

The rounds can be modified to fit a small radar or pulse doppler to measure distance to target and adjusts its trajectory and velocity based on reading. Like this:

These types of artillery will make SAMs obsolete since they'll be cheaper, more readily available and dispersed and can fire more rounds per minute.

Can be used to blanket enemy installations and cover offensive incursions.

More Material for Understanding:

Rounds can be also made to loiter! (fly over or around enemy installations, gather intel and then attack)

There are many uses for Artillery if proper research, business models and manufacturing is done.



These options are not as cheap as Arty rounds and more prone to detection, one of the reasons being the smoke plume and bigger size.

Also, the rate of fire isn't great and reloading takes time. By the time you have launched your 10th missile/rocket, 2-3 times that many arty rounds have been fired.

Uh you are wrong about rate of fire... You know how much damage cluster munitions dispensed from these rockets would do? Devastate hundreds of vehicles, and strategic targets.

Smart munitions are a good idea but probably too expensive for Pakistan right now. Unguided munitions are much cheaper and can saturate taegets much more effectively than artillery. There are also GPS guided munitions for very precise targeting at cheaper costs than very smart munitions. You are thinking way too far ahead as even the rich American Armed Forces cant afford smart munitions yet and still rely on cluster bombs. Many things you are talking about are jobs made for cruise missiles and can be done well by cruise missiles as well.

US army have used same submunitions for decades and have found it sufficient.

Military bases, and airbases would recieve massive punishment from cluster munitions.

 

[Itachi]

Uh you are wrong about rate of fire... You know how much damage cluster munitions dispensed from these rockets would do? Devastate hundreds of vehicles, and strategic targets.

Smart munitions are a good idea but probably too expensive for Pakistan right now. Unguided munitions are much cheaper and can saturate taegets much more effectively than artillery. There are also GPS guided munitions for very precise targeting at cheaper costs than very smart munitions. You are thinking way too far ahead as even the rich American Armed Forces cant afford smart munitions yet and still rely on cluster bombs. Many things you are talking about are jobs made for cruise missiles and can be done well by cruise missiles as well.

US army have used same submunitions for decades and have found it sufficient.

Military bases, and airbases would recieve massive punishment from cluster munitions.

1) That's 40 rockets launched in a matter a few minutes. You also have to count reloading time, which affects the amount of total ammo spent in a given amount of time.

Given 5 minutes, who would be able to fire more ammo, a MRL or artillery??

It takes a long time to reload a MRLS. The answer is artillery because while they may have longer rate of fire against the BM-21....they make up for it in reloading time, which is insignificant.

2) Yes, unguided munitions are cheaper but smart munitions can be made cheaper through cheaper/better/widespread tech and it is being worked upon.

3) Cluster bombs are used to destroy buildings in which rebels/terrorists might be hiding. You won't be dropping cluster bombs in a real war with a near-peer or peer adversary since dropping cluster bombs demands total air dominance.

4) In a real war with equal or near equally powerful rivals, smart munitions will be used. US doesn't use them because they don't need to, not because they can't afford to. I don't know if you know this but the budget of the Pentagon was almost $ 1 T this (or maybe last) year. It has mostly risen for the past few decades. Nothing is too expensive for them.

When they can fire 30+ Tomahawks (valued at million or more $ each) at a Syrian Airbase where they didn't even achieve their goal, I'm sure they can spend a few more $$ on smart weapons.

5) CM's are a lot more expensive than guided and smart arty pieces like I explained in #4. You only use them for high value targets. CM's can't be used as SAM's either like I explained earlier or used as counter fire to destroy enemy rounds in the air before they reach their targets.

6) In conclusion, guided/smart weapons are the future, they'll have longer ranges too. For example, the BM-21 in your video only has a 45 km range, Pakistani MRLS have even lesser range.

The US's new Arty Project (explained further up in the thread) can reach upto and beyond 70 km and it's gps guided. It'll destroy any MRLS before they can even get in range to fire back.