project reality PR Guns - L21A1 RARDEN (British-made 30mm Autocannon, slow but deadly one)

[=VG= Inch]

Hello everyone,

This is the new post about the L21A1 RARDEN 30mm Autocannon, which is also known in PR as the main armaments of British FV107 Scimitar IFV and FV510 Warrior APC. Enjoy-! 

 

 

The L21A1 RARDEN is a British 30mm autocannon used as a combat vehicle weapon. The name is a contraction of the Royal Armament, Research and Development Establishment and Enfield. The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) and the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF), Enfield, at the time, were both part of the Ministry of Defence.

 

- Design:

The weapon uses a long recoil system of operation, for minimum recoil forces on the mounting and vehicle. Spent cases are ejected forwards. The weapon was also designed for minimum inboard length, allowing for more space in the turret or a smaller turret overall. Another feature is that no gun gas escapes into the turret.

The cartridge case used is 170mm in length, and is based on the Hispano-Suiza 831-L round. Unlike the belt-fed systems on most vehicle weapons, Rarden is loaded manually with three-round clips. This limits its capacity to fire in automatic mode to 6 rounds. The Rarden gun does not require an external power source and can therefore remain in action even if the vehicle is disabled.

 

- Manufacture:

The RSAF Enfield manufactured the Rarden from the early 1970s. However the RSAF was incorporated within the Royal Ordnance Factories in the early 1980s, in the run up to their privatisation, becoming part of Royal Ordnance. Royal Ordnance (RO) planned to close Enfield and several other sites after privatisation. British Aerospace (BAe) bought Royal Ordnance on 2 April 1987 and the closure of RSAF Enfield was announced on 12 August 1987. Most of RO Enfield's work was moved, prior to the closure of the RSAF, to RO Nottingham.

Manufacture of the RARDEN was carried out at British Manufacture and Research Company BMARC from 1985. This company was purchased by BAe in 1992, becoming part of RO Defence; now renamed BAE Systems Global Combat Systems Munitions.

 

- Service Use/Replacement:

The Rarden is, or has been, fitted to a number of armoured vehicles in the British Army:

• FV721 Fox armoured car

• FV107 Scimitar tracked reconnaissance vehicle (part of the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) or CVR(T) range)

• Sabre — FV101 Scorpion with turrets taken from Fox Armoured cars (also in the CVR(T) range)

• FV510 Warrior infantry fighting vehicle, and some of its variants

The Rarden was also intended to be retro-fitted to the FV432 armoured personnel carrier (see below), but when fitted with Rarden and its turret there was too little room left to accommodate the necessary infantry. 13 vehicles were fitted with the Fox turret, as an experimental fire support vehicle. There were problems with the long-barrelled weapon fouling external fittings (which meant that the turret had to be mounted on a three inch spacer) and with blast damage to the flotation screen. They were deployed with the Berlin Infantry Brigade.

In March 2008, the UK Ministry of Defence announced that a 40mm weapon firing Cased Telescoped Ammunition developed by the Anglo-French firm CTA International had been selected to replace Rarden in the Warrior IFV and to be fitted to the reconnaissance vehicle which would replace the existing range of CVR(T) vehicles.

 - FV510 Warrior 40mm

- CTA International 40mm Autocannon

 

- Specifications:

• Calibre: 30 x 170mm
• Overall length: 3.15 metres (10 ft 4 in)
• Barrel length: 2.44 metres (8 ft 0 in)
• Inboard length: 430 millimetres (17 in)
• Complete weight: 110 kilograms (240 lb)
• Barrel weight: 24.5 kilograms (54 lb)
• Ammunition: Armour Piercing Secondary Effect (APSE), High Explosive Incendiary (HEI), Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS)
• Muzzle velocity:

- APSE, HEI: 1070 m/s

- APDS: 1175 m/s

• Range: 2,000 metres (2,200 yd) 

 

Sources: wikipedia, tank-encyclopedia, military-today and many other sources

 

Thanks for reading-! Feel free to give comments and suggestions below. If theres an error above, please be understand and give corrections-

 

- Inch

[=VG= Blazer]

Loving these posts Pinch! Really informative and neatly laid out. Keep up the good work!

1 hour ago, InchPincherToo said:

• FV107 Scimitar tracked reconnaissance vehicle (part of the Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) or CVR(T) range)

So glad you mentioned this; It pains me every time someone calls the Scimitar a "LIGHT TANK". I always seem too spend the next few minutes explaining how its a Reconnaissance Vehicle and not a Tank...

I'll show them this post next time.

EDIT: Added this video as a bit of fun.

 

[Double_13]

Nice post but it is a horrible gun in PR. 

The fire rate is so slow and it still overheats with 8 shots it is kinda unreal to be used with the damage it does. This adding to the amazingly fast engine it has (press w wait wait put down my tea wait more and you might start moving if you not dead) 

 

[=VG= Sausag3]

Jesus Christ Pinch! I spat out my tea after how in-depth and informative it is.

This is a job well done!

Just a suggestion... maybe you should add some videos on the posts you make so people can see it "In Action" for those who haven't.

Also... If you need some more information (Military Specific) There's a good youtube channel you can have a look at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFWjEwhX6cSAKBQ28pufG3w  You will probably find something interesting/useful down there.

Here's one of the videos:

Either way keep up the good work!

 

 

[=VG= Fastjack]

12 hours ago, =VG= Double_13 said:

Nice post but it is a horrible gun in PR. 

The fire rate is so slow and it still overheats with 8 shots it is kinda unreal to be used with the damage it does. This adding to the amazingly fast engine it has (press w wait wait put down my tea wait more and you might start moving if you not dead) 

I'm also not a fan of these BALANCE changes from the past but you can still kill players with it at the edge of the viewdistance (Basrah as excample) without risking to get shot by RPG's or LAT's.

About the start up speed. You so right. I cannot understand when i compare other APC's with it (M113 / Namer / Bradley, Puma, Boragh, BMP's; maybe all other APC's with tracks).

 

@Inch 

Another WoW from me. Thumbs up !

[=VG= Inch]

12 hours ago, =VG= Double_13 said:

Nice post but it is a horrible gun in PR. 

The fire rate is so slow and it still overheats with 8 shots it is kinda unreal to be used with the damage it does. This adding to the amazingly fast engine it has (press w wait wait put down my tea wait more and you might start moving if you not dead) 

 

Well, i would say this gun better used in-numbers.. similar to BRDM's, acceleration times might be also a problem which is need lot of practice driving this..

Typical gameplay can be found for example, Shijia Valley, Vadso City, Burning Sands etc.

 

Usually for me personally, fighting in long range would preferable rather than Close Quarters.. since it will be outgunned by other faction autocannons (like 2A42/2A72 for sure)

 

And.. are you sure about the gun still overheats with just 8 rounds fired? I have checked recent updates and changelogs.. not seeing them (if i missed something there, my apologies..)

Last seen, this gun was never be able to overheat since the new update v1.4.0-ish , since its has slow-rate of firing. Is it been fixed?

 

- Inch

 

Thanks to all who commented and giving suggestions, glad you guys enjoyed the the read-!  See ya in the next post-!

 

Cheers!

[=VG= SemlerPDX]

The Bradley works very well in a proper mil-sim like Arma 2/3, and very deadly with the TOW's when you need to say something mean to the enemy.  I always preferred the Stryker platform though, with slat armor for a little survivability in the land of RPG's.  Or is the 30mm cannon on the Stryker a different weapon?  The sound of that cannon popping off slow and methodical, HE rounds tearing up the AO and slaughtering any bot that gets within a meter of the shot is engraved in my memory.  And of course in Arma, it doesn't "overheat" like a video game.   Still a very cool post here and neat info about the cannon!

[=VG= Inch]

31 minutes ago, =VG= SemlerPDX said:

The Bradley works very well in a proper mil-sim like Arma 2/3, and very deadly with the TOW's when you need to say something mean to the enemy.  I always preferred the Stryker platform though, with slat armor for a little survivability in the land of RPG's.  Or is the 30mm cannon on the Stryker a different weapon?  The sound of that cannon popping off slow and methodical, HE rounds tearing up the AO and slaughtering any bot that gets within a meter of the shot is engraved in my memory.  And of course in Arma, it doesn't "overheat" like a video game.   Still a very cool post here and neat info about the cannon!

Wish i had Arma 2... (at least, since got no much bucks left for Arma 3)

That 30mm cannon must be the Orbital ATK44 Bushmaster III one, but i still prefer Stryker MGS than others.. 

[Double_13]

Well the balance update is sometimes a bit meh. The fact that the mec crewman is better then all the other kits except MG3 is also pushing to many people to wander around with crewman kits just because of the gun. 

The problem with the brit APC is that they so under armoured. They cant scatch tanks unlike the Russian,US,Ger APC's making them practice targets for tanks. The gun shoots to slow to light up a building, and the splash of the HE rounds is only 2/3 meter. I have had situations that it shot at me hit the wall in the same room and 0 damage.. 

Also the Coax on this APC and other brit armour has been put to such low speed even a G3 shoots faster. 

To put it together the gun underpreforms because the lack of punch VS fire speed. And the platform it is mounted at is to big,noisy and Slow to be effective against other same class APC's