By Evan Ackerman
Wired‘s Danger Room defense blog has voted the C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar) defense system as it’s #1 example of war tech, which gives me an excuse to post a video of the system in action. The C-RAM is a Phalanx 20mm gatling cannon that can spit out 75 armor piercing shells per second, and using it’s sophisticated radar tracking system, is able to shoot down missiles, rockets, artillery shells, and mortar shells in flight:
The US Military isn’t the only force with this kind of technology. See some more examples (even if the videos are slightly less cool) after the jump.
The Thales Goalkeeper, a 30mm gatling system from the Netherlands. My apologies for all the soccer:
The Russian Kashtan system, a combination of two 30mm gatling cannons and four missiles. My apologies for all the Russian:
VIA [ Danger Room ]
The systems are all depend on the assumption that what they are trying to hit ISN’T trying to avoid being hit. A missile can be dumb but erratic and still win, where these things have to be smart just to hit something traveling in what is for all intents and purposes a straight line. They deserve the same derision you gave to the air car.
Derision. Right. I’ll tell you what- When two areas are under attack with mortars and Qassams, you stand on the empty patch of dirt by yourself, and I’ll stay on the one near the Phalanx…and we’ll see who walks away. RTFA, moron- It’s meant to shoot down fixed flight path / ballistic weapons. If they need protection from something that’s jinking, they’ll use a Patriot.
As someone who has seen the Phalanx (and CRAM) (try to) work, I’m a little depressed. Usually the system doesn’t even go off. When it does, it’s late, or misses completely. This system might be okay on ships in the ocean, but when you’re in an urban environment, you are so restricted as to where you can fire it’s ridiculous! I have never seen the system work correctly, and I have watched it for months!
With violating security protocalls, it is hard to discuss this intelligently. Leave it at this… it works like a charm on some bases and it isn’t worth a damn in others for various reasons. I just got back from OIF and spent time at many bases in my 13 months; it was odd the differences from base to base that had them.