MLRS Deep Strike! A/40th FA

A/40th Field Artillery, MLRS unleashes the first combat rounds from the 3rd Armored Division, since the end of WWII, during Operation Desert Storm. This Persian Gulf War fire mission consisted of 108 M-26 MLRS rockets, each containing 644 DPICM cluster munitions. The original VHS format video was recorded by MAJ George 'Bud' Onstad, 3rd Armored Division Artillery Chaplain, with initial editing performed by Vic Damon at www.3AD.com. You can visit our A/40th FA, MLRS unit web site at: www.a40deepstrike.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mlrs
• m270
• a40fa
• a/40
• a/40th
• deepstrike
• deep
• strike
• field
• artillery
• 3ad
• 3rd
• armored
• division
• desert
• storm
• ATACMS
• rockets
• DPICM
• combat
• 13M

[thorlockthemage]

Ya you're right, the thing i read was wrong. So each of those M77 sub munitions has a 4 meter burst radius. Lets say in a perfect world, those 644 bomblets landed in a perfectly distributed square pattern. The square route of 644 is almost 25, so lets picture 25 colums of 25 rows. Each bomblet in that 25 X 25 formation would be 8 meters apart (4 meter burst radius), so now we're looking at a big 200m X 200m square, which is like a quarter of a grid square per rocket.

[deepstrike1991]

@thorlockthemage : That is some pretty good math... Though I don't think any of us, whom were manning and firing the MLRS system in Desert Storm, actually put that much thought into the DPICM rate of saturation. However, we certainly know, from first-hand experience, what happens to the target(s). Of-course, you understand that all of the theories go out the window as soon as the bullets start to fly! Check out the website I have built for my Gulf war combat unit: a40deepstrike(dot)com

[thorlockthemage]

at maximum height of burst, each one of those M26 rounds covers 2 square kms.

[deepstrike1991]

@thorlockthemage : Not quite, but you have the right idea. When the rocket is at apogee, the warhead is still a good distance from the target. A warhead event at this point would disperse submunitions over an area that would not be effective. I am not even sure the warhead would accept such an order from the FCU. With the M26 rocket, a general guideline would be, one rocket saturates the area of a football field and all 12 rockets at the same target would cover roughly 1 square kilometer.

[thorlockthemage]

Good stuff! you guys did great, thanks for your service. This is an under rated platform (MLRS) and I'm gonna keep researching and appreciating it! you always hear about the pilots, but never about the rockets / artillery.