Beehive was a Vietnam war era anti-personnel round packed with metal flechettes fired from an artillery gun most popularly deployed during that conflict. Intended for direct fire against enemy troops, the M546 was direct fired from a near horizontally leveled 105 mm howitzer[3] and ejected 8000 flechettes during flight by a mechanical time fuze. This is because naval guns can be built much more strongly than land-based self-propelled gun-howitzers, and have much longer barrels in relation to calibre (for example the Mark 8 has a barrel length of 55 calibres, while the standard AS-90 self-propelled gun has a barrel length of 39 calibres). [1], Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), W48 (M45 Artillery Fired Atomic Projectile (AFAP), DRDO Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), "No New Round Planned For Zumwalt Destroyer Gun System; Navy Monitoring Industry", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=155_mm&oldid=982926797, Articles needing additional references from February 2019, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 11 October 2020, at 06:28. There is, after all, no 155mm Beehive round. Since the late 20th century, most NATO armies have adopted 155 mm weapons as an all-purpose standard. Howitzer, 155mm towed, M14A1, with 14,600 meter range. Firecracker was 8-inch and Beehive was 105mm and 155mm (?). The shell is fired directly at advancing enemy formations similar to an aimed shotgun. Russian guns and those of former Soviet bloc countries tend to use 152mm weapons in similar roles. It was used for marking concrete targets. Beehive rounds became less popular in the United States following Vietnam, with low-angle air burst techniques such as Killer Junior supplanting the use of Beehive. That’s when the artillerymen depressed the 105mm howitzer in the perimeter and fired off a beehive round that launched 8,500 flechettes (small metal darts) into the swarm of NVA assault teams. It is also known as flechette rounds or their official designation, antipersonnel-tracer (APERS-T). Beehive Ammunition A vital round for tanks and artillery in Vietnam was the devastating, ‘beehive’ canister round, named for the sound of more than a thousand pellets whizzing past. Hm, this question is very difficult to answer because it is to general. The energy weapon system, vaporizes any BETAs that gets into its line of fire, as the Leoniads unleash death in all directions, the 155mm artillery of the Leonidas launched its beehive round. The “Beehive” shell was our second option. The Dusters had done well. Our military surplus ordnance selection includes artillery shells for sale, grenades, shell casings, fuses and everything in between. The flechette rounds were developed under a contract administered by Picatinny Arsenal and let to the Whirlpool Corporation in April 1957. Interesting read from the Centaurs page. Beehive Ammunition A vital round for tanks and artillery in Vietnam was the devastating, ‘beehive’ canister round, named for the sound of more than a thousand pellets whizzing past. It is also known as flechette rounds or their official designation, antipersonnel-tracer (APERS-T). Only by using rocket-assisted projectiles (RAP) can most 155mm guns have comparable range to the 4.5" naval gun and in doing so by sacrificing the payload. The APERS-T round is devastatingly effective against exposed infantry. The contract was named the "Beehive Program" referring to the way the flechettes were compartmentalized and stacked, looking like the traditional image of a conical beehive. The standard shell from a 4.5" naval gun has the same, if not better, range and carries twice the HE payload of a standard 155mm round. It was commonly assumed by users in the service that the term referred to a supposed 'buzzing' sound its darts made when flying through the air. So, you need to state at least two bits of missing info: 1. The beehive round is a wide area of effect akin to canister round used on 120mm cannons. The round is loaded with 8,000 8-grain steel flechettes. The standard shell from a 4.5" naval gun has the same, if not better, range and carries twice the HE payload of a standard 155mm round. The ubiquitous Soviet AK-47 was widely regarded as the best assault rifle of the war and it was not uncommon to see U.S. special forces with captured AK-47s. Thanks for posting that. The problem/advantage is that (IIRC) with the old M564 MTSQ, min fuze setting was 2.2 sec. The round weighed 48 pounds with 41.8 pounds of that being the projectile. It had an improved range of 14,000-meters as a result of having a longer barrel length. Max rate of fire of 12 rounds for three minutes or one round per minute indefinitely. Vietnam War – M109 (155mm) The M108 (105mm) and M109 (155mm) are the latest self-propelled artillery pieces in the US Army. The M78(A1) fuze with the M25 booster were constructed especially for use against concrete targets. At about 50 meters from the muzzle, the round ejects the darts toward the enemy with a medium hard ejecting charge. The 155mm is superior to the 4.5" naval gun in relation to cannon-launched guided projectiles (CLGP); because the 155mm round is fired at a lower velocity it is much easier for their internal electronic guidance systems to survive being fired. Overall length was 19.3 inches. Employed as a last-ditch defense against a close-in infantry assault, the beehive round cut a devastating swath 30 degrees either side of the muzzle. 155mm Howitzers, M-198. 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