Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/840553
is also a request of non-guided cluster munition with various sub-projectiles to combat both non-armored and armored targets – including combat vehicles, where the upper parts of such vehicles are targeted with shaped charge grenades. The Modernization of Missile and Artillery Forces Program and the Regina battalion operations module program, with the Krab gun-howitzer being a part thereof, assume acquiring smart munitions codenamed Szczerbiec. From among the whole range of the offered rounds, i.e. anti-infrastructure (PL: APR-P/INFRA), anti-tank (PL: APR-P/PANC), and laser- guided (PL: APR-Laser) rounds, only the last type of munitions, the APR155 guided by laser beam, has been subject to design works. It is developed by CRW Telesystem-Mesko and the Military University of Technology in cooperation with Ukraine "Progress" Scientific-Industrial Complex from the Ukraine. Guiding involves target illumination, which is ensured by a prototypical Polish solution called LPC-1, employing a laser beam enabling target illumination from the ground at a distance of up to 5 km. A major limitation of the APR155 is its range of up to 20–22 km, where the army's requirement for the range of fire is approximately 30 km. The Krab howitzer, however, features a chamber compliant with NATO's Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding concerning the chamber capacity for L/52 barreled gun- howitzers, which is 23 dm3, and offers a possibility of taking advantage of the maximum propellant (#6) – of the greatest strength, which makes it possible to fire other types of rounds. Since 1999, earlier trials of the AS-90 howitzers and early Krabs in Poland have involved using e.g. British M15A1 and M17A1 projectiles and M79W propellants, South- African Denel Assegai M2000A1 and M2000A3 Base Bleed projectiles, and M91 and M92 type charges, and Rheinmetall LAND FORCES