Shells, Grenades, Rockets, Missiles and Bombs

This post compares the characteristic of heavy machine gun bullet, and grenade launching cannon, tank, mortar, howitzer, and naval gun shells which are still in use, unguided rockets which are still used, the smallest commonly used bombs in the U.S. arsenal, and a variety of missiles and torpedos in use today. 

The primary purpose of this comparison is to put unguided direct and indirect fire guns and artillery shells in the context of other kinds of weapons, in order to evaluate the pros and cons of replacing them.

Unguided shells and rockets are much cheaper than guided weapons system, mostly because the guidance systems are expensive. But it takes far fewer guided weapons than unguided weapons to destroy a specific target, especially at longer ranges.

Launch systems for rockets, missiles and mortars are typically much smaller and lighter than direct fire main tank gun systems, and indirect fire howitzers and naval guns.

The weight of different kinds of munitions is partially a function of propellant weight in addition to warhead weight. But, this still provides some sense of the relative destructive power of different munitions against reinforced or armored targets. Additional information is provided on a selective basis.

Machine Gun Rounds, Grenades and Cannon Shells

NATO 12.7mmx99mm machine gun round (0.1 pounds) Used in 0.50 caliber machine guns.

M61 Vulcan 20mm round (0.2 pounds) Used on F-4 fighter aircraft

Bushmaster M242 25mm cannon shell (0.3 pounds) Used by M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon shell (0.8 pounds) Used on A-10 ground attack fighter aircraft.

NATO 40mmx53mm (also here) automatic grenade launcher shell (0.8 pounds). Range up to 1.4 miles. 230-300 feet minimum range. 13-16 foot blast radius. Used in automatic grenade launchers mounted on tripods, vehicles or helicopters, such as the Mk 19 grenade launcher, the Mk 47 “Striker” 40mm Grenade Machine Guns (GMGs), the Heckler & Koch GMG or the South African Vektor Y3 AGL.

Rockets and Recoilless Rifle (a.k.a. Bazooka) Rounds

40mm-105mm Soviet RPG-7 (4-10 pounds)

50mm-66mm M72 LAW (4 pounds)

Hydra 70mm rocket (14 pounds) Each rocket costs $2800.

90mm M67 recoilless rifle (6-9 pounds)

106mm M40 recoilless rifle (11-22 pounds)

Artillery And Tank Shells

Bofors 57 mm L/70 naval artillery gun (14 pounds)

76mm (3") U.S. naval gun (24 pounds)

81mm L16/M252 mortar shell (10 pounds) mortar launcher is 78 pounds. 3.5 mile range (1956).

90mm CN90 F4 light tank round (23 pounds) Used in Panhard ERC light wheeled tank.

105mm U.S. M101 HE howitzer shell (42 pounds) The 105mm (about 4") has a 33 pound shell, weighs two tons, and has a range well under 7 miles, with less accuracy than the 155mm model. 

105mm NATO HEAT tank shell (48 pounds)

107mm M30 mortar shell (12-22 pounds).

120mm mortar shell (29 pounds) 4 pound warhead; 5 mile range.

120mm M829 tank shell for M1 Abrams tank (41 pounds)

127 mm (5") Mk 45 U.S. naval artillery gun (70 pounds). This is standard on U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, and was used on decommissioned California-class cruisers, Kidd-class destroyers, Spruance-class destroyers, Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships (later removed), and Virginia-class cruisers.

155mm M795 U.S. high explosive howitzer shell (103 pounds) The 155mm (about 6") M777 howitzer, used by the U.S. Marines, has a 90 pound shell, weighs four tons, and has a range of 12 miles with conventional shells and 24 miles with guided shells (Excalibur) which are more accurate as well. Existing Paladin M109 mobile howitzers used by the U.S. Army has a range of about 30 kilometers (18 miles); the design requirement for the existing systems was a target zone of 180 feet radius to about 900 feet depending upon range and other factor; it weighs 27.5 tons (and thus can't be carried in a C-130) and has a maximum speed of 35 mph. The Crusader mobile howitzer, which was cancelled, was going to cost on the order of $24 million or more per one howitzer vehicle. A standard 155mm howitzer shell costs about $1,500 per round. 

Small Missiles

Bofors RB56 anti-tank missile (23 pounds)

BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) (32 pounds). A laser guidance kit that converts dumb rockets into precision-guided munitions that fits between the standard rocket motor and the standard warhead of a 2.75-inch-diameter (70-mm) Hydra 70 unguided rocket.  All four guidance wings of the rocket are equipped with Distributed Aperture Semi-Active Laser Seeker (DASALS) technology sensors. Once fired, the wings deploy, and the optics lock-in, guiding the missile to the target with pinpoint accuracy. Used with a wide variety of fixed- and rotor-winged aircraft and ground platforms. The APKWS requires no modifications of the Hydra 70 rocket to be installed, nor does the aircraft carrying it need to be altered. The current APKWS design has a range of 3.11 miles when it’s launched from a rotary-wing platform and 6.8 miles from a fixed-wing aircraft.  Each conversion kit costs $22,000 in addition to $2,800 for the rocket.

Stinger missiles (34 pounds) 6.6 pound warhead. It has a range of 2.4 to 3 miles depending on the altitude of the target (the longer range is for higher altitude targets) and travels at a peak speed of Mach 2.54.  Each missile costs $38,000. 

Chinese HJ-12 anti-tank missile (37 pounds).

French Mistral Surface to Air Missile (41 pounds) 6.5 pound warhead

BGM-71 TOW missile (42 pounds)

FGM-148 Javelin missile (49 pounds)

AGM-176 Griffin missile (45 pounds)

Israeli Spike missile (75 pounds) (1981)

Chinese HJ-10 missile (94-95 pounds) 6 mile range

AGM-114 Hellfire missile (108 pounds)

Brimstone anti-tank missile (110 pounds) initial version having a 7.5 mile range from a helicopter and 12 mile range from a fixed wing aircraft. Version II has a 24 mile range from a helicopter and a 36 mile range from a fixed wing aircraft.

Small Bombs

GBU-44/B Viper Strike (42 pounds) guided bomb.

GBU-39 small diameter bomb (250 pounds) guided bomb.

GBU-12 Paveway II (500 pounds) guided bomb. 99 deliveries of guided munitions will yield a circular error probable (CEP) of only 3.6 feet, versus a CEP of 310 feet for 99 unguided bombs dropped under similar conditions. Each bomb costs $21,896. 

Torpedoes

Mk 46 torpedo (506 pounds)

324mm Mk 54 torpedo (750 pounds) warhead 100 pounds. Each torpedo costs $1 million.

Larger Missiles

U.S. Army Standard MLRS artillery missile (560-675 pounds). ranges from 20 to 103 miles; warheads up to about 200 pounds. One MLRS system can fit on a C-130 transport plane and carries 6 rockets and has little armor protection (a HIMARS truck). The other M270 MLRS system at 25 tons carries twelve rockets and is built on the armored platform of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which is too big for a C-130 transport, but two of which can fit on the larger C-17 transport plane. The smaller model MLRS system costs about $5 million for the launcher. The range of an MLRS rocket is about 60 kilometers, at which range it has an accuracy of 10-20 feet carrying 200 pounds of high explosives, comparable in accuracy to that of a "smart bomb" dropped by aircraft. Each rocket costs $30,000.

Raytheon Naval Strike Missile (900 pounds) (also here) 276 pound warhead. 115 mile range. Used in U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ships, in Constellation-class frigates, and also in Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary (ROGUE) Fires, an unmanned missile launcher built on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) chassis with a Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) launcher. Also used by frigates and corvettes and missile boats by Norway, Malaysia and Poland. A fighter aircraft deployed version called the "Joint Strike Missile" also to be used in Norway's submarines is planned. Each missile costs $2,194,000.

Harpoon anti-ship missile (1,523 pounds) 488 pound warhead, has a 170 mile range which it traverses at 537 miles per hour skimming over the sea. Each missile costs $1.41 million.

SLAM surface to surface missile (1,598 pounds) 800 pound warhead, range 170 miles at 531 miles per hour. Each missile costs $3.03 million. 

Tomahawk surface to surface missile (2,900-3,500 pounds) 1,000 pound warhead (or a nuclear warhead), and has an 810 mile range which it traverses at 550 miles per hour traveling 98-164 feet above the ground. Each missile costs $1.54 million.

MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile (ATacMS) (3,890 pounds).

LGM-30 Minuteman III Nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) (65,000 to 75,432 pounds) 400-600 pound warhead with 1,045,000,000 pound of TNT yield equivalent. 8,000 mile range. Mach 23 maximum speed. (1970). Each missile costs $20,000,000 (in 2019 dollars).

Large Bombs

BLU-109 (1,927 pounds) unguided bomb designed to be a "bunker buster" (1985).

GBU-27 Paveway III (2,000 pounds) laser guided bomb. First used in combat in 1991 (modified from BLU-109). Each bomb costs $55,600.

BLU-82 (15,000 pounds) unguided "Daisy Cutter" bomb. Retired in 2008 to be replaced by MOAB. Delivered from either a C-130 or MC-130 transport aircraft or a CH-54 heavy-lift "SkyCrane". Used by U.S. military in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

GBU-43/B MOAB (21,600 pounds) Deployed by C-130. Entered service in 2003. First used in combat in 2017 in the 13 April 2017 airstrike against an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIS) tunnel complex in Achin District, Afghanistan. Each bomb costs $170,000.

A Howitzer Substitute Missile?

One idea worth considering would be a missile designed to replace conventional howitzers with more accuracy, similar range, similar explosive punch, a smaller delivery system, a lower cost per missile than the existing MLRS system and for the delivery system.

So, we'd be talking about a missile with about a third or less of the range of an existing MLRS system missile, and a 33-90 pound warhead as opposed to a 200 pound warhead, with essentially the same guidance system. Perhaps it would use a launcher similar to the HIMARs system (at a cost of about $5 million) but would have a 12-24 missile capacity, rather than a six missile capacity.