Monday, August 30, 2010

Iranian long-range artillery ammo (130 mm HERA)

click photo to enlarge
From PressTV:

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has inaugurated the production line of Iran's longest-range artillery ammunitions.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the mass production of Base bleed projectiles in the capital Tehran, General Vahidi said the new 130 mm base bleed rocket assisted (HERA) artillery shells will provide the longest range of such for the Islamic Republic's army, Iran's Defense Ministry said on its website.

“These munitions use solid propellants that behave like ballistic missiles,” the Iranian defense minister noted.

He also lauded Iranian experts at the arms production division of the country's defense industries for their efforts to modify the base bleed system in order to further enhance the range of the ammunitions from 27 to 42 kilometers.

The defense minister also said such achievements demonstrate that sanctions against Iran have been ineffective.

Base bleed is a system used on some artillery shells to increase their range, typically by about 30%.

Reshaping some artillery shells can significantly reduce the drag on the shells' nose when soaring at supersonic speeds.

Engineers have come up with certain aerodynamic re-patterning of suitable artillery shells to give them proper ballistics through boosting thrust and diminishing airflow pressure.

Photos: Vahid Reza Alayi at JameJamOnline.ir

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well done Iran! keep them Zionist crazies guessing what your true capabilities really are. Play the game like real chess masters!

Weapons of Mass Deception said...

A further development would be incorporating IR guidance (by illumination or autonomous) in the shell.

Considering this is 130mm caliber, the mystery smart (0:28 in this 1:32 clip) automated 100mm AA-gun shells from approx. a year ago couldn't possibly have already been guided.

Racist S-Africa got a lot of collaboration from Israel (even nuclear?) but maybe Mandela switched sides in less public ways... base bleed but see also Karrar.

WMD said...

Possible advantages of a guided shell with muzzle velocity of 1km/s (mach 3) over say an AA missile with an acceleration of 50g (max. ever was 100g):

1) cheaper

2) "reload" time and mass storage

3) excluding drag (missile has much larger diameter), missile would overtake shell at not less than 40km (max. range of Shahin).

Disadv.: crude guidance
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WMD said...

...
3) WRONG !!!!! must be 4km instead of 40km
....

WMD said...

...
4) missile has larger radar cross section (RCS)
...

WMD said...

At 4km range a competing 50g missile would have a velocity of approx. mach 7, making it one of a select elite of state-of-the-art AA-missiles!

Summarizing, 2 or more of these "guided" shell AA-guns with a goalkeeper would be a great point defense system against any (unmanned) ordnance (dumb and smart bombs, UCAV's, cruise- and possibly ballistic-missiles) with these advantages:

1) cheap
2) faster (automated) reload
3) more ordnance per storage unit
4) small RCS
5) no missile exhaust trail
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