What do you think of using rocket systems to replace sniper rifles?

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Why not poo?

because someone has to be close enough to target to point the laser.

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I think that if level IV armor continues to get cheaper and lighter we will eventually need a new projectile to defeat armor. At first armor penetrating bullets will be used, but I think the future will be in creating bolter shells. Let me elaborate on why:

When defeating tank armor, militaries originally used velocity dependent rifles to defeat armor. As the armor improved, the rifles needed to become bigger, and required recoil reducing measures to be able to be wielded. Armor on tanks continued to improve until no armor piercing rifle could defeat them. This is when RPGs, LAWs and other rocket weapons replaced them. Instead of using a velocity dependent system, we used a velocity independent explosive.

The current solution to defeating body armor is a velocity dependent anti-armor bullet. This means range is limited and as the armor gets stronger, special materials will be required, such as tungsten. Requiring special materials for common items like bullets is a problem, because special materials are not only expensive, but in short supply.

When weapons such as medium machine guns are no longer effective, or require special material bullets, militaries will be searching for a cheaper solution. Such a solution will be use of an explosive, given that explosives are much easier to make. However, delivering an explosive to a target with a conventional bullet is difficult. Propelling the explosive up to the velocity required to cover distance means heavy recoil on the shooter.

The solution to this problem is to use a gyrojet. The original gyrojet system was not intended to be an explosive payload delivery system, but rather to be an alternative to lessen the need for quality barrels. It never caught on because of two problems: 1. gyrojets needed time to reach a high enough velocity to be deadly. 2. gyrojet cartridges were expensive to produce due to complexity.

To address problem 1 in this situation, by utilizing an explosive in the tip of the cartridge, the gyrojet is effective at any range or velocity. Furthermore the system can be hybridized, utilizing a short period where the bolter is fired from a cartridge through a small closed barrel, giving it an initial velocity before it begins to travel on its own rocket engine.

To address problem 2, with the availability of automation and CNC manufacturing, manufacturing anything complex becomes inexpensive once the startup costs have been handled. Bolter shells will not require any rare or expensive materials, their cost is entirely based on the manufacturing work required to make them precise. While getting an assembly process in place to make them consistently will take time and likely millions of dollars, once the process is complete the unit cost will continually drop until it is barely over the cost of materials. Given that a military has need for a large volume up front, this means an immediate drop in the per unit cost opposed to if the system were offered to the public first.

Furthermore there will be secondary benefits to this system: Not being velocity dependent means that combining infantry and LMG cartridges into one will be more feasible without the cartridge debate. The weapons themselves will be able to be simplified to blowback, as most of the velocity is developed outside the barrel, improving reliability and dropping weapon cost. Weapon noise will drop, allowing for better unit communication.

Your argument makes sense, but such a radical change in weapons and ammo would only be possible with extreme political will, and a functional procurement system …

I considered that myself, I suspect that the US/NATO will not be willing to change over to a new weapon system. Perhaps Russia will. Honestly I think that the state of small scale home CNC will advance enough that in about 10 years it will be possible for the individual to make such a weapon if they wanted.

The cheaper solution will probably be giving every soldier a grenade launcher or something like that. I like bolters like the guy next to me, but as Brit above be said, that won't happen. Besides, most combat nowadays happen is either as symmetrical or goat fuckers without armor shooting at other goat fuckers without armor.

The issue with that is the size and weight of each grenade. It would likely be a stopgap measure, but the issues of weight, limited range and limited ammo would propel more interest in an alternative.

I don't expect the change to bolters to happen very soon. It will likely take several decades for the price/weight of armor to drop to the point of being feasible for fielding on a lot of soldiers. This would be followed by the US/Russia giving it to one of their proxies when the other is getting involved in a foreign conflict. The aftermath would then involve discussion about the ineffectiveness of current anti-armor solutions, which would then generate stopgap measures, which would then create the political pressure to consider a new system, which would then lead to development. Overall we're talking about 30-100 years before it happens.

At this point I think there are only two ways this (or any change this big) could happen

That would fit nicely with the early anti-tank paradigm this is likely to follow. Expanded use of grenade launchers and AGLs would be like WW1 armies engaging tanks with general purpose field guns until the first AT rifles were developed and issued. But as said this would be a stop gap measure.

Aw yisss. It probably won't happen anytime soon but I want this to be real.

I think this is the more likely scenario, because crazy shit like this is exactly the kind of stuff us Russians get a kick out of. It would still take some time to develop though, but goddamn it will be worth the wait.

They already sort of made a bolter with the Balkan grenade launcher, it just doesn't have a sustainer.

I don't think so. Countries do not usually change standard infantry weapons in the middle of a war. I do agree some incident has to happen to show the ineffectiveness of current systems, but I suspect it will be something smaller scale. I would imagine in 20 years if the current situation between US/Israel and Russia/Syria were going on the incident to consider change would look like:

It is possible if the change is radical enough. The StG-44 was adopted during wartime. And because precision rifles for snipers are low-volume specialty equipment, rather than standard-issue service rifles, it would also be less of a logistics burden to make the switch.

I'd argue that when you get to the point that standard infantry gear is about as effective as pissing on the enemy that would change.

Presumably an autistic enough engineer/gunsmith (with a lot of cash) could build something like this in his garage today if he felt like it (and had a way to keep the partyvan at bay), there's a decent chance that he posts here so if we're lucky he'd keep us up to date with the project. However even with the likely improvements and price drops over the next few years there will still be very few governments that are just going to sit back and watch people build these things - America has one of the most pro-gun governments on the planet at the moment, and how would they react if you started producing pipe bombs and HEAT rounds at your home?

I didn't mean legally, or talking about it openly. That is why I said the last statement about the NFA. If it didn't exist the US would be able to keep on top of small arms development by allowing the private sector to weed out designs. We've seen anons post designs for improvised guns before, I wouldn't be surprised that if a working bolter shell comes into existence it will be shared, albeit we probably won't be able to see video of it being fired to verify it.

(czeched)
A couple years ago some user posted rudimentary blueprints and CAD drawings for making a bolter shell that could be fired out of 12 gauge actions. Unfortunately I don't have the pics due to an HDD crash.

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We're getting gundams one way or another.

(OP)

Russians are working on that. Project looks very like Starstreak with one dart. System has auto-tracking and range of 10 km. Because of auto-tracking it has pinpoint accuracy offhand and doesn't rely on operator's skill. Dart has enough power to punch through modern IFV armor, say hi to your rifle plates.

West fiddling with dumb sniper rifles is soooooooooooooooooo behind e-tech curve of 21th century.

And then you guys complain that we are the ones shitting up the board.

Grad P does that better.

Also if you want something more "sniper" like, Canada actually fields a rocket system based on CRV-7 aerial rockets, which can be fired off an electric offroad vehicle. See electric means no noise, so this vehicle can sneak up anywhere and just take potshots at enemy, taking out trucks, bunkers, buildings, radar systems, groups of people. We are designing the LMM to do something similar.

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are you the deepstate?

Until it fires off the fuckhueg rocket artillery, that might draw some attention.

Yeah but by the point anyone notices it should already be driving away…

I am the deep state.

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>t. jew

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A knife? Isn't that sorta like the thing you put on the end of the rifle to make it MOAR CHOPPY!?

Attached: Bayonet, in your face..png (500x333, 261.42K)

If you're going to make that kind of post at least put some effort into it.

Attached: bin_that_knife.webm (480x360, 2.46M)

Tried to attach that webm, but for some reason the post stuck at 55%, 4 times. Which lead to me picking a smaller file.

t. martian

is 100% right, the costs of using a rocket launcher don't outweigh the benefits, especially with arms companies charging insanely high prices per rocket.

>t. jew

feels like a monty python sketch.

That's because most of those seem to be hand built. If you have a factory that produces them at a rate similar to the rate of wet farts a lactose intolerant person produces after 3 pints of milk, price could go down. Mil Contracts work in stupid ways. Most manufacturers keep the price per unit up from the first batch they sold. Meaning that the rocket in question doesn't cost less if you order more and if the first order was miniscule, you're paying out the ass because of same PPU for the second, larger one.
This is what happened to the B2 and it also explains the prices HK demanded for XM25 and XM25 ammo.
However, if you make it clear that you will be ordering lots and lots of the munition in question from the beginning, price suddenly drops significantly and you can now expect a reasonable price for your ultra long range high value target elimination system, i.e. single missile with either kinetic penetrator or very small explosive charge. Think 40mm halved.

I was insulting you, moron, not making a statement. You are officially too dumb to make fun of.