Self Propelled Gun/Rocket Launcher
- Thread starter FORBIN
- Start date
TMR Artillery Brigade's PCL191 has 8 tubes (1 vacant slot each in 2 pods) against standard 10 (2 pods of 5 tubes each) to manage weight for mobility in HAA. This article reconfirms 2 155mm, 3 PHL03 and 1 PCL181 battalion with TMR
Yankee, Ayi and Xi Yazhou's assistant (but not Shilao lol he was away) talked about this issue recently because they too were very surprised when that photo came out showing the center tube wasn't a launching tube. According to Yankee, he asked around and was told this is to do with disposable vs reloadable modules. The export 300mm rocket modules are intended to be fired and discarded as you would think with a modular MLRS. The four cell 300mm rocket module is intended to be fired and reloaded and they work with existing stockpile of 300mm rockets for PHL-03. The fact that they are intended to be reloaded and used again and again necessitate some structural reinforcement which is what the center tube is for.
But why? Wouldn't a reinforced and reusable module be more cost-effective, resource-saving and logistics-friendly than a disposable one?
Also, if one 300mm module carries the same number of rockets as one 370mm module, wouldn't it be better for the PLAGF to only procure 370mm modules for their PHL-16s?
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*to only procure 370mm (and 750mm) modules for their PHL-16s? There is no need for the reusable 300mm modules at all, with the 370mm module offering a better choice.
According to Yankee, reloadable and disposable is a change of way to think about MLRS. Previously it's thought of as a different flavor of artillery. So the launch tubes are the guns and the rockets are ammo. When you need to fire you (re)load the tubes with rockets.
More recently these big 300mm and 370mm rockets are getting developed by people like CASIC, who naturally think of them as simplified missiles. To them it makes much more sense to have the rockets seal inside a capsule coming out of the factory as a single unit. Then the launch vehicles just have to worry about loading a whole module at a time, fire and get rid of the empty module, as you would say a pre-loaded ATGM. Its a different view on who the tube belongs to, the vehicle or the rocket. Being modular has a lot of advantages and is the way of the future, but one disadvantage is if the container is one use it's more wasteful.
So in this case there are a lot of 300mm rockets left over for PHL-03, those are intended to be reloaded into tubes and PLAGF don't want them to go to waste and would like PHL-16 to also be able to use them. Hence 4 cell 300mm rocket modules that allow reloading even though they're technically modular.