> traveling at a downward angle and about 600 feet per second as they reached the target zone.
That is incredible. Some BB guns don't even fire horizontally that fast
> Regarding it taking 69 shots to hit the mark, with all the variables that had to be taken into account, “we were thrilled it was so few,” Humphries said.
To give an idea of how difficult this is....
And I'm into shooting sports.
> The shot was made with a custom-built rifle chambered for the .416 Barrett cartridge
That's a huge bullet that was specifically designed for low-supersonic drag and extreme long range. It has a huge amount of energy at the muzzle... (8,767.4 ft-lb or 11,887 J according to wikipedia[1]) so ~600fps down range, even at 4.4 miles, is not that surprising.
The only surprising feat here is they managed to actually hit a target... which is quite incredible.
The .556 (very common AR round) is 112. 9mm common in handguns is around 115.
422 grain = 27.35 grams / 0.9646 ounces.
Do you mean 5.56mm, the NATO standard small arms round iirc? i.e. as an imperial measurement it'd be about the same as a .22, not .556.
Wow.
Right before hitting the target it slowed down to 600 feet/sec, meaning it lost 97% of its kinetic energy during the flight.
I’m quite surprised they didn’t have the barrel pointed higher. Was the shooter on a plateau?
They would also be impressed. I am. I never thought this would get to HN. Really nerding out on some of the math and insight that has been commented on here.
I do not know the limits of these systems... and of course they would be exceedingly expensive for your average sport shooter.
AFAIU, Russia doesn't have any munitions comparable to these guided artillery shells or even the guided HIMARS rockets. Arguably these deployments in Ukraine may inch Russia a little closer to resorting to tactical nukes. Their military doctrine relies on tactical nukes as an answer to conventional weapons beyond their own capability, and that's part of the reason Russia has so many tactical nukes deployed (at least at sea).
The DOD straight up announced that a recent military aid package included 1000 M982 Excalibur rounds. Another thing the US has been providing is M1156 PGK. It's a kit used to make unguided rounds more precise by adding GPS guidance and it dramatically reduces long range CEP.
Anecdotally I have noticed a large increase the frequency single shot artillery strikes on Russian tanks appearing in Telegram videos. Previously it would take a few shots to adjust fire. Now it's often boom! tank gone with no previous impacts evident.
What, Russias nuclear doctrine is to use nukes against the threatening of their own sovereignty and borders, not against conventional weapons that are better than theres.
What kind of pathetic military has a nuclear doctrine to drop nukes because the other country has modern technology?.
It doesn't matter anyway because Russias nukes are just for sabre rattling, Russia knows full well the any use of nuclear weapons, tactical or not in Ukraine will bring an overwhelming response that will likely just straight up end the war in Ukraines favour.
I don't believe their doctrine makes a distinction, because the rest of the world would not make a huge distinction.
Im happy to be wrong thought if you could link a primary source.
They have been doing it since the start of the war and do it about every single large shipment of weapons to Ukraine.
I suspect its mostly for a internal audience but also to make the west scared to send weapons which clearly hasn't worked.
Putin should remember that US doctrine explicitly approves massive nuclear first strikes when a situation appears to be escalating to nuclear conflict. Plus the US actually has thousands of mission-ready nukes and only two cities to hit.
Strongly disagree about tactical nuclear weapons; I consider it extremely unlikely that these will be ever used by anyone- way to much escalation for very little gain.
But, 120 mm is a lot bigger than anything I'd be comfortable firing from a rifle.
Here's a live-fire video of the EXACTO: https://youtu.be/YoOaJclkSZg
All the available information is several years old, now. I figure either the EXACTO (or successor) has secretly been deployed, or it proved impractical.
Is there a restriction which prevents a motivated team that can manufacture their own barrels from building a rifle/howitzer hybrid?
The criteria used here are very arbitrary. That’s why they can beat their own record by 43% years after setting it. No one is really interested in doing what they are doing because that’s not really interesting.