CTA 40mm Cannon Brochure

I read that in the Warrior upgrade from LM the CTAI40 gun will be “optimized” for 60 rounds/minute firing rate, and will have 72 ready-to-fire rounds.

So far we are buying all of the weapon systems that will exist – the French have not yet committed to buying any.

Gabriele, what’s your source on the 60 rpm? That’s really, really slow.

Mr Fred
Not really, AS-90 can only sustain 2 rounds per minute.

Slow for an infantry rifle, but a that gun looks like it would do a lot of damage with 60 rounds…

DominicJ,
90 rpm on the RARDEN was considered slow, so 60rpm for its replacement would be worse, n’est pas? Plus the literature says up to 200 (which could legitimately include 1) so I was curious as to where Gabriele got his info.

There’s a US government report on Case Telescoped weapons that is somewhat scathing about the whole thing, most critically that a CT system introduces complexity while offering no real advantages over conventional systems. Now it may be that there are inherent advantages to the CT concept, but by now conventional systems have a century of development behind them. That’s a hell of a catch-up for the CT stuff.

John Hartley,
Most other calibres offer you a choice of ammo types. In fact many offer a wider range of ammunition due to a larger number of users. More usage also usually means cheaper.
Doing the job with one round works only if that one rounds can hit.

A further point:
If you want a fire support vehicle, I would suggest that an autoloading 76 or 90mm gun would be better. These have been installed on small vehicles for several decades, With modern fire control and laser ranging, the problem of low velocity guns goes away and all the advantages of a larger payload comes into play.

An alternative would be to go for missiles – the Thales Thor system would give a good combination of HE and KE firepower out to 7km. The standard HVM delivers three guided dart with a similar arrangement and KE to a 40mm APFSDS.

If you are after greater staying power/duration of fire, then a 90mm would be better. Precision effect and range would favour missiles. The missiles could be supplemented by a HMG or GMG, or maybe even a 30mm M230 chaingun for suppressive fire

How big could you go with telescoped ammunition? Does the principle scale up well, or do the case proportions quickly become unmanageable?

Mr.fred, would the DoD have a downer on 40CTA just because it’s an Anglo-French, rather than American, standard? Maybe that’s being far to cynical.

Brian Black,
The US report is an evaluation of their own work on the CT concept: $213m over 41 years up to the mid 1990’s. It pre-dates the work in Bourges.

AIUI, larger APFSDS rounds tend to be telescoped, at least partially. For CT technology to work, the chamber must be somewhat bigger than the projectile, so it is more easily applicable to sub-calibre projectiles.

You can put a 90mm in a very small vehicle. The rate of fire is less, but the size of shell is so much bigger it’s a proper trade-off.
In reality you have to define what it is that you want the vehicle to do. That then allows you to chose the gun.

I would have thought that a Wombat less mental than a CT40. Recoil and all that.
A cheap missile might make some kind of sense, but how that might be attained I don’t know.

Why would a 90mm direct fire weapon be useful? Not going to penetrate a modern tank (Cockerill reckon 130 mm of RHA penetration is their best effort), the ballistic characteristics from a turreted platform will be inferior to mortars, rate of fire will be on a par with MBT but without the punch, and it’s a non-standard apart from the Belgiques and the Indonesians.

I’m not saying a 90 mm wouldn’t be useful in some eventualities, but why wouldn’t other capabilities such as missiles or mortars be better?

A 90mm weapon might not take out an MBT – but when facing a lesser armoured vehicle, might you find yourself in a situation where a 90mm weapon would give you a one-shot kill but your smaller caliber cannon requires half a dozen well placed hits?

@ Dom J,

mortars or artillery are better for taking out buildings and earthworks than DF weapons, mortars are more flexible, with greater reach, have a wider range of fillings, and do not require an AFV to dedicate itself to a task for several minutes.

A Bradley M3-style turret with a 25/30mm cannon and a TOW-style co-mount is a more flexible and useful turret than a 90 mm gun.

@ Brian Black,

30 mm will take out most vehicles short of MBT, which requires a 105 or 120 mm gun or a missile. What sort of vehicles fit in between MBT and AFVs / IFVs in protection? I can’t think of any.

@ DominicJ,

have you tried putting a ballistic shell through a window? It is possible, but not on a repeatable basis, and certainly not at all easy at over 1,000 metres. If you want to put something through a window, it is easier with a guided weapon.

@ ACC,

it’s hardly worth having a 90 mm gun for just a couple of types of vehicles. Smack ’em with 120, and have 30mm and GW for everything else.

@ TD / Dom J

1. Beware of brochureware, especially from Defence manufacturers. The Challenger 2 fire control computer can only take local met and is unable to take account of gusting winds mid course.

2. The through the window / near the window debate is all about fusing.

3. ROE are probably a bigger constraint than anyone allows.

Well, like I said, you have to define what you want to do.
A light cannon and ATGW would probably be a better general purpose system, covering suppression and destruction of a wide range of targets.

A 90mm gun, while somewhat eclectic (i.e. the US doesn’t use it), is a damn sight more common than the CT40. The 90mm weapon, with modern fire control, is somewhat more effective than light cannon against slow-moving target, but due to lower velocity and rate of fire would be less effective for suppression and fast-moving targets.
Pair it with a long-range machine gun – a .50cal (the RLS powered one could be good) or a new .338 and you could have a useful weapons platform for infantry support against infantry in the open, structures, fortifications and light vehicles. Cost and bulk per round would be less than an ATGW so it would be better for a game of whack-a-mole than ATGW or indirect fire asset.

An alternate version would be a 120mm mortar, although these tend to appear only on larger (20-30t class) vehicles, which would count against a lightweight vehicle.

James, the point to my question was whether a weapon with more power but slower rate of fire and fewer shells is more/less appropriate than a less powerful weapon with a higher rate of fire and more ammunition.

I’m not sure what sort of vehicle you’re refering to between an MBT and an IFV, but by a lesser armoured vehicle (than an MBT) I mean, for example, an IFV. Believing what I read, 40CTA can defeat the armour on any IFV out there. But will ‘a’ hit from a 30mm ‘take out’ a modern IFV – ie, both immobilized and unable to return fire. And a 90mm isn’t only effective against a narrow vehicle type, it’ll still f’k up a Nissan perfectly well.

@ Chris B / Brian Black,

we took out T-59 (i.e. Chinese variant T-55) with Scimitar in Gulf 1. OK, it took about 50 rounds, but after a while they cook off. Not a planned act of war, more a keep their heads down and there’s nothing else to be firing.

Mobility kills against tracks are the preferred way for outgunned recce wagons, that’s if you have to fire at all. 30mm will comfortably rip off road wheels and split track pins.

@ John Hartley,

I may be misremembering a Shrivenham technical lecture from long ago, and please tell me if I have got it wrong, but are there not some poor tradeoffs if you try to use a direct fire optimised ammunition for multiple roles? I’m thinking in particular of naval guns being rebarrelled to 120mm as I believe you imply. I think the range and accuracy would suffer.

Going the other way, I presume this isn’t the thread to raise a navalised GMLRS launcher? I once read a technical paper from an American naval officer who believed that ship roll/pitch could be equalled out by what he called a “dynamic hull mount” – presumably some form of quick reacting system of hydraulics based on those used in flight simulators.

Is Page 8 of the second brochure anything like accurate?

How expensive are these things?

To what extent could we use them on everything?

I looks like it could fit on pretty much every vehicle in place of a GPMG/HMG?

Could you stick these on our less well armed helicopters?
How about as the secondary gun for Challenger2?