Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/713424
the right side of the cannon cradle. In contrary to the prototype, it has been decided to use additional tightening of cannon assembly in pre-serial vehicles. It has the form of an open- work rack that covers and supports the barrel at greater length. That solution improves ac- curacy. The MK 30-2/ABM canon uses 30x173 mm am- munition in two different versions. The first one is the armor piercing sub-caliber armor-pierc- ing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot-tracer (APFSDS-T) PMC-287 with Vo=1405 m/s. It has been calculated that at a range of 1000 m, an extended penetrator made from tungsten alloy is able to pierce a 53 mm thick slab 60° titled from the vertical, which resembles a 106 mm thick vertical armor. The scatter rate at 1000 m does not exceed 0.5 mrad. The second type of ammunition are shells with programmable high-explosive and fragmentation projectiles PMC-308 (marked with the previously men- tioned abbreviation ABM or KEFT – Kinetic Energy Time Fuze). Each full-caliber projectile includes 162 small cylinders made from tung- sten alloy (which are the main firing factor), explosive charge responsible for breaking the projectile apart, and a programmable fuse. The last element has been facilitated with self-de- struction element that destroys the projectile after more than 4 km. The exhaust velocity of PMC-308 is 1100 m/s. The cannon is integrated with 5.56x45 mm Heckler&Koch MG4 machine gun with 2000 rounds, the half of which is in the turret, ready to be immediately used. As it has been already mentioned, develop- ment of Puma has not been finished yet. The engineers particularly focus on increasing the fire power. The priority is to integrate the ve- hicle with the MELLS multi-task light guided missile armament (Mehrrollenfähiges Leichtes Lenkflugkörper-System). Its main element is the Spike LR ATGM offered by joint German- Israeli company Eurospike. The armored container-launcher, which holds two missiles, may be mounted on the left side of the turret. The maximum range of the missile is 4000 m, while the minimum range is 200 m. The av- erage speed of a projectile during the flight is 160 m/s. Spike LR missiles may be shoot in two modes: "fire and forget" or "fire and correct". In the first case, the projectile is controlled by the self-guiding system that uses the day thermal camera mounted in the warhead. In the sec- ond case, the gunner may change the targeting point or even change the target. Commands are sent through optical fiber. The projectile weighs 9 kg, while the warhead – about 2 kg. The Spike LR tandem cumulative charge may pierce armor of about 700 mm behind a reac- tive cover. Projectiles may be armed with high explosive - fragmentation warheads. The choice of H&K MG4 as auxiliary armament has been controversial from the very beginning, mostly due to the limited performance of 5.56 ammunition. During tests at proving grounds, some shortcomings of the construction itself were revealed. It poorly withheld intensive fire as the on-board armament. All of that may re- sult in replacing MG4 with a 7.62x51 mm NATO machine gun (HK MG5 or Rheinmetall RMG 7.62) or 12.7 mm (in this case, the candidates are the "old timer" M2HB Ma Deuce and Rheinmetall RMG.50). The plans concerning main armament are less certain. For many years it has been indicat- ed that 30 mm ammunition may become too weak against the new generation of devel- oped infantry fighting vehicles. Rheinmetall responded to the forecast demand concerning stronger armament with 35x228mm Wotan 35 automatic cannon. It is claimed that the armor piercing projectiles of such caliber may pierce a steel armor with thickness of over 130 mm, so 20% thicker than in the case of 30 mm cannons. Wotan 35 was presented dur- ing Eurosatory 2016 as the armament used for Lince turret on the new Lynx infantry fighting vehicle. It is a proof that it is possible to easily VEHICLES