Posted on 10/18/2016 10:51:32 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
At Euronaval 2016, the largest naval defense exhibition in the world currently held in France, Thales unveiled the RAPIDSeaGuardian 40mm multi role artillery. It is basically a naval version of the famous landbased RAPIDFire system, using the same 40CTA canon (by Nexter & BAE Systems: CTA International).
Thales RAPIDSeaGuardian CIWS Euronaval 2016 news Thales RAPIDSeaGuardian Naval Gun System
Thanks to its powerful anti-aircraft gun and optronic fire-control, RAPIDSeaGuardian is optimised to defeat new air threats such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), helicopters, Fighters-Ground Attack (FGA), cruise missiles, Fast Patrol Boats, seaskimming missiles,...
Either in an autonomous or integrated mode, RAPIDSeaGuardian provides unrivaled anticipation capabilities. It can also be used for self-defence when docked or moored.
The main advantage of the system is to have similar footprint and weight as a 25mm system but with the increased fire power and range of a 40mm system. Thales is defining the RAPIDSeaGuardian as a new generation CIWS effective against super sonic seaskimming missile thanks to the airburst ammunition, as well as against assymetric threats thanks to the other ammunitions similar to the landbased RAPIDFire system.
The effective range of the gun is up to 4000 meters. It can be integrated of fully autonomous:
Own optronic sensor head is fitted directly on the turret:
• System can receive the target designation through the CMS
• Gun can operate autonomously
• Manning: only 1 operator required to operate the system (weapon engagement and firing order)
• One console needed (not specific)
Gun ammunition types:
The 40 mm gun has both air and surface defence capabilities with dedicated ammunition:
1/ Point Detonating (PD) + Air Burst (AB) fused High Energy ammunition combined in one General Purpose Round (GPR)
2/ Armour Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS) against armoured vehicle, penetrates 140mm of Rolled Homogeneous Armour at 1500m
3/ Training Practice (TP) for operator training purpose
4/ Anti-Aerial Air Burst (A3B) for air targets, more than 200 tungsten pellets of at least 3.3g
No video. Article has no value...
Would be nice to have sitting/mounted just outside my mountain cabin...
Ouchies
Dittos to that!
It works, or...it doesn't work.
Not exactly the wall of lead the Phalanx puts up against incoming missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jnRexqSrw
My initial reaction is that this would be a POS also.
There is a German/Swiss system called the Millennium Gun (35mm); I guess these larger calibre weapons are being developed to go farther out (beyond the range of the 20mm Phalanx) and can also use smart ammunition.
The competition for the DIVAD Gun was between the GD 35mm and Ford 40mm. As I understand the GD 35mm hit an artillery shell in flight (note that this was 1980), however the 40mm had a proximity round so the scoring took into account the miss distance and how a prox round should react.
Furthermore, GD had some submarine issues, these went away when they did not protest the Ford 40mm selection.
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