Modern large caliber AAA

[SebastianP]

A couple of months ago, I bought myself a 1/72 PzH 2000 kit, and it's been sitting mostly assembled since a few hours after I got it home, collecting dust. An idea of what to do with it, other than painting it up in US sand camo, started percolating a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't gotten around to doing anything about it yet. Maybe because I don't know what to do to make the difference in role more obvious...

The whole idea is to turn the PzH 2000, a very modern self-propelled howitzer, complete with mm-wave radar for tracking outboud rounds etc, into an anti-aircraft weapon... But how? Any ideas?

SP

[Maverick]

Given modern AA tends to be limited to around 35 - 40mm (with exceptions) and missiles tend towards being a shade more flexible in application, perhaps you could give the 155mm rds laser guidance similar to Copperhead and use them for ultra-long range flak against AWACS for incoming cruise missiles?

Mav

[jcf]

Replace the 155mm gun with a three-barrel 57mm Gatling. 

Jon

[GTX]

The most recent attempt to build something like you propose would, I believe, have been the Oto Melara "Otomatic".  This combined the chassis of a Leopard 1 tank with a new turret mounting the Otobreda 76 mm gun along with associated search and targeting radars and their fire control systems. Oto Melara offered it as a long-range SPAAG that outperformed systems like the Gepard and similar. The gun was also useful against lighter armored vehicles or older generation tanks. However the need for a long-range AA gun on the modern battlefield well stocked with anti-aircraft missiles was suspect, and the Otomatic was never put into production.




As for your idea, maybe you could say the price of SAMs just got too high hence the return to guns.  Or maybe the army in question wanted a dual purpose (anti-tank and anti-aircraft) weapon, hence went with the large gun option?

Regards,

Greg

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I have managed to scrounge a few images of that vehicle from the internet, if you want them, send me an eMail and I will send you what I have.  Attached is one of the images that shows some of the internal details of the turret.

[ysi_maniac]

This is an absolutely cool design

What do you think about using ARES gun in a similar turret?

[deathjester]

What about radar guided shells?  I mean using a SACLOS system to provide terminal guidance of the shell in flight.  Should allow you to engage multiple targets at once, rather than one  at a time with a laser system.

[Mossie]

I've been thinking on similar lines.  Use the darts from Starstreak as rounds, being launched by gun rather than rocket.  High rate of fire, with each round homing in on the target.  Deadly.  The darts are 22mm in diameter (don't think this includes the fins) & are aimed by a laser guided ground unit.  You could fit a PzH200 with twin barrells.

[RP1]

OTO are developing Davide laser guided 76mm rounds for Naval anti-missile defence.

RP1