2A3 Kondensator 2P

The 2A3 Kondensator 2P (Object 271) was a 406-mm, self-propelled, super high-power howitzer, which was in service with the Red Army between 1956 and 1960. Designed by Vasiliy Gavrilovich Grabin in 1954, it was built in the Soviet Union by the Leningrad Kirov Plant. It was specifically conceived to fire tactical nuclear ammunition to destroy communication centers, command posts, airfields, and industrial facilities. The howitzer itself was known as the SM-54.

The 2A3 Kondensator 2P was based on the chassis of the T-10M tank, which was a 52-ton tank massively produced and fielded during the Cold War. It had a structure (suspension, track, and hull) strong enough to absorb the powerful recoil energy at the moment of firing. The ordnance of this heavy self-propelled howitzer comprised tip-ring parts and gun-laying and loading mechanisms. The gun was an SM-54 type. To traverse this artillery piece, the driver had to pivot-steer the whole vehicle. For elevation, the howitzer was laid by means of a hydraulic hoist.

The 406-mm Kondensator 2P was intensely tested between 1957 and 1959. During firing, the recoil force was so great that it pushed the vehicle several meters backwards. To load the howitzer, it had to be in the horizontal position and all loading operations had to be carried out with the help of special equipment. The State-run Kirov Plant delivered a total of four 2A3 Kondensator 2P self-propelled howitzers, plus the prototype.

Specifications

Type: super heavy, self-propelled howitzer

Caliber: 406-mm

Weight of Shell: 550 kg

Weight of Vehicle: 64 tons

Chassis: T-10M tank

Length: 20 m

Width: 3.080 m

Height: 5.73 m

Power Plant: one 750-HP, V12 diesel engine.

Maximum Speed: 30 km/h

Maximum Firing Range: 25 km

Sight: S-71-5 type

Below, two pictures of the 2A3 Kondensator 2P (SM-54) self-propelled artillery piece.

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R-17 Elbrus

The R-17 Elbrus (Scud-B) is a Russian medium-range, one-stage, ballistic missile, which was designed to attack heavily-protected command post, communication centers, and group targets with pin-point accuracy. Adopted for service in 1962, it was developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and deployed, with nuclear warhead in Eastern European countries aiming at the West. Since then, the system has been upgraded three times, with new rocket motors and guidance systems as it flies faster, hitting targets with more accuracy, than it was originally intended.

The R-17 Elbrus was developed from the R-11 Zemlya (Scud-A), which was a short-range missile system (up to 270 km away) that had entered service in 1953. Today, it is carried to the site of deployment on an 8x8-wheeled vehicle, which is designated MAZ-543. This wheeled, launching platform is powered by one 545-HP, V12 diesel engine, which has an operational range of 500 km. The missile can be armed with HE (high explosive), cluster, or a nuclear warhead.

Specifications

Type: medium-range, tactical, ballistic missile

Weight: 5,860-kg

Length: 11.2 m

Diameter: 0.88 m (or 88.5 cm)

Wing Span of Tail Fins: 1.8 m

Engine: one-stage Esayev rocket, with liquid propellant

Guidance System: inertial

Range: 455 km

Crew: 7

Below, the R-17 Elbrus (Scud-B) deployed in northern Western Russia

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Schwerer Gustav

The schwerer Gustav was an 80 cm (800-mm) railway siege gun, which was in service with the Wehrmacht during World War II. It had been designed and built by Krupp in the 1930s to attack and destroy the fortresses of the French Maginot Line in the event of war. However, when WW2 broke out, it was not used during the German Invasion of France (1940) as it would be fielded in the Crimean peninsula during the Battle of Sevastopol (Nov. 1941 - Jul. 1942) instead. During the Crimean campaign, it destroyed enemy command posts, gun turrets, and munition depots hidden deep underground, under a thick concrete roof.

The 80-cm schwerer Gustav gun was the largest artillery piece which had ever been deployed and used in anger. The British Mallet's mortar was heavier but it had never been utilized in combat. The gun barrel of the schwerer Gustav was rifled and it was 32.5 m (106 feet +) in length. It fired 7.1-ton, armor-piercing shells to the maximum distance of 47 km. Krup built only two 80-cm railway guns, the other one being called Dora, which was also fielded and used in combat on the Eastern Front. In order to transport them, special railroad tracks were made with reinforced steel and sturdy thick ties to be able to withstand the extraordinary heavy weight. To load the heavy shells into the gun breech, cranes were employed.

Specifications

Type: railway gun

Caliber: 80-cm = 800-mm

Weight: 1,350 tons = 1,350,000 kg

Shell: 7.1 ton (Armor-Piercing, High Explosive)

Barrel Length: 32.5 m (106 feet, 8 inches)

Breech Type: horizontal-sliding wedge.

Elevation: 0 to +48 degrees.

Traverse: 5 degrees

Muzzle Velocity: 820 m/s (2,700 ft/s)

Maximum Range: 47 km, or 39 km, depending on ammunition type.

Below, the 80 cm schwerer Gustav on a railroad track heading for Sevastopol.

Dora siege gun ready to fire

The scherer Gustav in action in WW2 (footage). In this historical video, you can see two guns: the first one is the 60-cm Thor (Karl Morser), and the second one is the 80 cm railway gun.

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Rifled Artillery

Rifled artillery consists of guns whose bores are fitted with spiraling grooves to impart a stabilizing spin to the projectile to give it accuracy. The earliest pioneer of modern rifled artillery was the Italian major Giovanni Cavalli, who exhibited his first design in 1946. It was a cast iron gun, whose barrel bore was cut with simple two-groove rifling to receive and propel an elongated projectile, which was fitted with corresponding lugs matching the gun barrel bore grooves. Other rifled cannon pioneers included Colonel Treuille de Bealieu, who developed a rifled system that made use of studded projectiles.

During the Austrian-Prussian war (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) saw both enemies fielding a large number of quick-firing, breech-loading rifled guns. During the latter armed conflict, the Prussian Army was equipped with advanced Krupp 80-mm breech-loading guns, with rifled barrel bores. They were made of steel, firing ammunition with reliable time fuses. The artillery pieces were aimed directly at the French infantry, opening fire during the German infantry attack, providing covering fire. After the war, these German artillery tactics would soon be copied by most European nations.

Rifled artillery was important and advantageous only in direct fire mode because of its precision and range; in other words, in guns with little elevation. During World War I, however, with the emergence machine guns and massive use of artillery, the infantry was forced get out of sight in deep trenches below ground level. A gun direct fire could hit the enemy. Hence, armies had to make use of howitzers for indirect fire, shooting shells in a lob trajectory; that is to say, in a high arc, to make the shell fall down vertically from above into the trenches. Howitzers, with wide angle elevations, became more important that guns (cannons). Thus, to shoot in indirect fire, rifled barrel bores were no longer required.

The gun barrel bore of a mid-19th century rifled artillery piece.

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Bishop Self-Propelled Gun

The Bishop self-propelled gun was a 25-pdr (87.6mm) mobile artillery piece employed by the British and Canadian forces during World War II. It was first used in combat in North Africa in 1942 as an anti-tank gun. However, it would soon be deployed as a self-propelled artillery piece to provide fire support to front line infantry units as it was not powerful enough against German tanks. It went to be used also in Sicily and Italy in 1943. However, it was replaced by the American M7 Priest in 1943.

Technical Description

The Bishop self-propelled gun was basically the 25-pdr (87.6-mm) towed field gun Mk.I mounted on the chassis of the Valentine infantry tank. The rotating turret of the tank was replaced by a larger but fixed, square and ungainly-looking turret, which was badly designed as it restricted the elevation of the gun barrel. Thus, in order to increase its elevation and be able to use it as a howitzer, the crew had to build a natural ramp, with compacted, tamped down earth. Not only was it cramped inside for the crew, but it had also a high-profile over the horizon easy to be spotted by the enemy from a distance.

Specifications

Type: self-propelled artillery

Weight: 8 tons (17,460 pounds)

Length: 5.64 m (18 feet, 6 inches)

Width: 2.77 m (9 feet, 1 inch)

Height: 3 m (10 feet)

Power Plant: One AEC, 6-cylinder, diesel engine, which developed 131 HP.

Maximum Speed: 24 km/h (15 mph)

Range: 177 km (110 miles)

Crew: 4

Armament: one 87.6-mm gun (25-pdr gun Mk.I)

Below, a photo of the Bishop in North Africa in 1942. You can see the high profile of the bulky turret, which was a major disadvantage.

A side view of the British self-propelled gun, with the Canadian flag.

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Ballistic Vs Cruise Missile

The ballistic vs cruise missile comparison tells you there are four fundamental differences between them; their power plant, trajectory, speed, and launching platforms. However, they have two things in common; they can share the same warhead, which can be conventional (anti-bunker or incendiary) or nuclear warhead, and the fact that they are both precise smart weapons, being guided by difference systems, such as inertial and GPS (GLONASS). Remember that the first two missiles in history were short-range ballistic missiles, which were developed and fired in anger by Germany during World War II; the V1 and the V2 flying bomb.

Ballistic vs Cruise Missile

The ballistic missile is always supersonic, or hypersonic. It is powered by one or more rocket engines. If it is equipped with three rocket engines, we say it is a three-stage rocket, or missile. To propel forward, a rocket uses Isaac Newton's principle of 'action and reaction'. The development of rocket engines made it possible for the Soviets to put their first satellite into orbit, the Sputnik, in 1954, while the Americans were able to put the first man on the moon. Thus, a ballistic missile has a different trajectory, or travel path, than the cruise one. Once it has lifted off, it travels upward into the stratosphere or the mesosphere, which is the boundary of outer space and the Earth. From there, the reentry vehicle containing the nuclear warheads begins to fall at great speed down to Earth, making a lob or high-arc pattern, as they descend in the direction of their targets, one warhead for each one of them.

Most cruise missiles, one the other hand, uses one turbine motor, or a ramjet, as a power plant. Most of them travels at sub-sonic speeds, specially those propelled by a turbine (turbojet engine). However, there are those which travels at either supersonic or hypersonc speeds, being powered by a ramjet, instead of a turbine. Its launching platform is usually an aircraft, but it can be adapted to be launched from a submarine or surface warship. In contrast with the ballistic missile, it drops sharply down towards the surface of the Earth once it has been launched from the combat aircraft. Then it spreads out its short-span wings and starts flying towards its designated target at sub-sonic speed, between 800 and 950 km/h. Its travel path has a low altitude trajectory, as the missile flies low over the ground, between 30 and 100 meters of altitude  In the western world, the most famous cruise missiles are the Tomahawk and the Storm Shadow, which are parts of the arsenal of the USA and NATO countries respectively.

Bellow, an American LGM-25C Titan II ballistic missile during lift-off from a silo.

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Oreshnik (Missile)

The Oreshnik missile is the latest weapon in the arsenal of the Russian Air Force. It is a medium-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which can fly at hypersonic speeds. It was fired in anger for the first time on November 21, 2024, during the war in Ukraine to strike command post shelters as a respond to the Ukrainian Army using ATACMs and Storm Shadow cruise missiles to attack targets deem in Russian territory. This new Russian weapon is not a cruise missile, which is propelled by a turbine, but a ballistic one, as it is powered by a rocket.

Powered by a three-stage, solid-fuel rocket engine, the Oreshnik missile can fly at ten times the speed of sound. In other words at Mach 10 (12,200 km/h or 7,600 mph). Remember, hypersonic speed is reached at Mach 6. Thus, not a single air defense system in the world has the capability of intercepting it. It can deliver either nuclear or conventional warheads. The missile carries the hypersonic Avangard glide vehicle, which  holds several warheads that can hit several targets simultaneously as they rain down like lightning from the stratosphere.

According to Putin, the Oreshnik missile is not an upgrade of any Soviet-era missile system, like the OTR-21 Tochka. It is a completely new development, with more powerful rockets and more advanced guidance system. It is launched from either silos of mobile platforms. Putin has already ordered the massive production of this lethal weapon.

Below, launching of the Yars RS-24 missile, which employs similar launching platform and guidance system than the Oreshnik (video)

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