Shotgun-style rounds designed to stop small-boat threat

By Andrew Scutro

[email protected]

As small boats in the Persian Gulf continue to pose a potential threat to surface warships, the Navy has quietly fielded a poten tial equalizer.



Four years ago, ships began deploying with the MK 182 Kinet ic Energy-Electronic Time round, which is fired from a cruiser or destroyer ’s 5-inch gun and amounts to a giant shotgun shell that can shred an incoming small boat — and the people on it — far from the ship.

“It puts out a circular spray of BBs,” said Kevin LaPointe, pro gram manager for the Naval Gun nery Project Office at Naval Sea Systems Command. “We never really have had a projectile like this.” Although the standard 5-inch round has a 13-mile range, the KE ET round is intended for use within five nautical miles. Fielded since 2005, the round was borne from Task Force Hip Pocket, the effort to quickly arm surface combatants against small-boat threats, such as the attack that crip pled the destroyer Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, in Yemen.

A NavSea spokes person would not dis close how many of the new rounds have been fielded, though a destroyer ’s typical deployment load-out of 5-inch rounds of all types is 500 and a cruiser’s is 1,000.

A key feature of the KE-ET round is the electronic fuse, which LaPointe said allows accuracy to 100th of a second against a mov ing small-boat threat.

When the round unleashes its pay load, 9,000 tungsten pellets fly out the back of the projectile in what’s called a “rear expulsion” method, forming a cone of BBs.

“Tungsten is more than twice as dense as steel, which allows it to hold its momentum longer,” according to a NavSea statement. “The result is tung sten flies farther, faster, and creates a larger lethal pattern providing greater lethal effects on the target.” Fielded with the KE-ET round is a separate High Explo sive-Electronic Time round, or HE-ET, which puts an electronic fuse on a fragmentation round that disperses shrap nel, not BBs, in a wide fan-like pattern. “The HE-ET round acts like a grenade exploding shrapnel from its projectile toward its target,” said Ensign Carlos Roe, assistant weapons officer aboard the cruiser Chancellorsville.

Though fired regularly for demonstration and practice, the munitions have not been put to the test. “The U.S., to my knowledge, has not used them in real world cir cumstances,” LaPointe said.

Another element of Task Force Hip Pocket reached a milestone in July, when the 100th Mk 38 Mod 2 remotely operated gyro-stabilized 25mm chain gun was installed on a Navy warship. Fittingly, it was the Cole. The weapon is an improvement over previous deck mounted chain guns because it can be operated from inside the ship and is more accurate because of its stabilized mount.

Roe said its Electro-Optical Sight is popular because it can be used independently as a scope in day light and at night to examine con tacts without swinging the barrel.

“We are continuing to investigate better ways to engage the small boat threat,” LaPointe said.

Group buy?  

So, can I adapt that to my 12 ga?

where's the video?

I saw those suckers in action on an discover channel show

Gun fired at like 1100 rounds per minute, and those suckers blow up in proximity.... creates lots of havoc!

oh wow brilliant. we spent how much money to re invent grape shot?

I could get the same effect with a 32 pounder and some iron balls.

Nonsense, 14 grain balls don't have the required 12" of penetration

Now you can take down the entire flock of geese with one trigger pull

Pure Win!!!!!

Still waiting for the live badger round.

Nonsense. This round can be used in the existing gun.



Plus, no one in the Navy knows how to operate a muzzle loaded cannon.




 

I want to see a full auto 5in naval gun that shoots 1100 rounds per min.   Better yet i want to see what it is mounted to.

First we bring back cannister for the M1...



Then we give the Navy shrapnel (true, exploding shell full of BBs shrapnel)...



Old is new... Again...

Why doesn't someone use Tungsten 00/000 etc.. buckshot???

This isn't grape...



This is shrapnel...



Grape = naval cannister...



 

IIRC, the present deck guns *are* autoloading... BUT they do not fire anywhere near 1100 RPM...



 

I understand that i was just pointing out the 1100 rounds per min claim.

What's the size of a 13gr Tungsten ball?

Wonder how long it'll take Gunny to have this one on "Lock & Load"??????    

I'm not sure what's up with that light weight. The tungsten balls in the new Abrams cannister shot is around 150 grains.

Cool round.  Too bad they won't ever be cleared to actually use it.

goose hunters use tungsten BB and B and there is a T load as well.

HE-ET and KE-ET have been around for sometime now.

How much did it cost? Not much at all. A couple of recent VT grads were sitting around contemplating the small boat threat. They had some extra 5" cargo rounds (the type normally used for flares) and an idea. A couple of test firings later, KE-ET was born.

It was a very low cost system, and no it isn't grape shot. Grape shot would ruin the rifling in the gun.

more shot to shred a boat with.

I get a diameter of 0.44cm or 0.17in.

Actually, KE-ET doesn't explode. It uses kinetic energy to deploy the payload. HE-ET, high explosive-electrically timed, rounds are explosive. The timer on HE-ET is basically a vastly improved VT round.

I wonder if it makes a thunderous "Chick chack" as at racks a bigass round into the chamber.  That should deter most boaters I would think.

This is technically not grape, cannister, etc. at all.  Those open as soon as the load leaves the muzzle.  This is more of a sub-munition type projectile loaded with shrapnel.  Try to get 5 miles out of a 32 pounder w/ canister.  Bet you can't.

I really do find hatred towards modern engineering and technology amazing.

I was referring to 'HE-ICM' as shown in the powerpoint above...



A bursting charge, scattering tungsten BBs...



Eg, a modern shrapnel round....



 

I wouldn't be so sure. Self-defense of a ship can fall to the Tactical Action Officer of the ship. If they perceive hostile intent rounds could fly very fast.

Dude, I was stationed where this round was developed. You're wrong. It's not an HE round. That's why it doesn't have the HE designation in it. That is not and HE-ICM. It's a KE-ET round.

I don't tell you how to fix helos. You don't lecture me on naval gunnery.

Still too small to penetrate the required 12"




 

Wanna bet?

Can't wait to see how this does up against Obongo's people off the cost of Somalia.

Siding with Dport...



Shrapnel produces a roughly spherical cloud of projectiles, the velocity of the forward moving projectiles is only a trifle greater than the projectiles moving back toward the gun.  This is due to the chemical energy of the explosive of the shell imparting the energy to the projectiles.



This round uses the initial chemical energy of the propellant IN THE BARREL of the gun to give velocity to the projectiles.  The bursting charge MIGHT actually REDUCE the projectile velocity.



Since the gun tube is rifled, the use of a explosively dispersed round makes for a much more even pattern.







 

What is the muzzle velocity?



This requires BoT verification...after all, the Remington Ultimate Home Defense rounds use tungsten pellets of that size and a lot here said they would not be effective.  Hence the winky smiley.





 

It is mounted to a fucking DESTROYER!!!!  

Bingo. Basically the charge slows the payload so that the projo gets out of the way. The rifling of the barrel imparts spin on the projo which creates the dispersion.

The great thing about the round is it basically cost the Navy nothing to develop.

Tell that to the crew of the USS Constitution.

The picture says HE-ICM.

I guess we shouldn't tell you how to read either.

I'm just joshing. I don't think they actually tested against ballistics gel. They did test against targets representative of the threat. The results are impressive.

You really shouldn't when the picture clearly states that it is LEVERAGED off of the HE-ICM projectile. Do you know what leveraged means? The HE-ICM projectile is the cargo round I was talking about earlier.

So before you go criticizing the reading skills of others, you might want to brush up on your own.

At what velocity?

WC 294 isn't a high explosive, it is a propellant, a form of smokeless.



 

that's not a freakin HE-ICM

Can I get one to mount on my truck?

It would be close but I think it would make it.

Roger dodger.

Well, at least this round will not over penetrate and cause undue harm to the neighbors.