The 76/62 Strales
The other impressive product of Oto Melara is the 76/62 gun. The 76mm gun has been around for decades, and it has been purchased and employed by dozens of countries, especially considering that the US Mark 75 is, in itself, a variant of the Oto Melara product, built on license. The 76mm is, to this day, the only Oto Melara gun to have served in the Royal Navy, as it armed the five Peacock-class corvettes employed in Hong Kong until 1997.
The 76mm gun is in use in 56 countries around the world.
The enormous number of 76mm guns in service all over the world has prompted Oto Melara’s development of new, impressive capabilities for the type. If the original COMPATTO could fire an impressive 80 rounds per minute, the successive evolution, the SUPER RAPIDO, increased that value to 120 (reducing to 60 rounds per minute in a prolonged bombardment).
And now, Oto Melara is using modern technology to turn the 76mm Super Rapido in an impressive, all-around weapon system. The 76mm serves on several major warships as a CIWS. This is particularly true on the Italian navy warships: the Cavour aircraft carrier is armed with two such guns, the Andrea Doria-class destroyers (“cousins” of the british Type 45s as they came out of the HORIZON british-franco-italian project) carries three such guns, and they also appear on the FREMM frigates.
With a rate of fire of up to 120 rounds per minute, the 76/62 can put a thick wall of iron and fire in the face of any threat aiming for the warship,
but it is with the DAVIDE model (STRALES for the export market) that the CIWS capability of the 76mm gun was really achieved.STRALES is a guidance kit, installed within the gun turret and comprising a radio frequency beam antenna which is normally hidden under a sliding panel in the gun shield, to the side of the barrel. The covering panel slides upwards to reveal the radio frequency antenna when it is time to employ the DART (Driven Ammunition Reduced Time of flight), a guided, sabot-discarding high speed round meant to shot down airplanes and missiles as well as take off FIACs and suicide boats. The DART is an hyper velocity munition capable to cover a 5 km distance in less than five seconds, with enough energy to perform up to 40 manoeuvers and course corrections. The projectile is composed by two parts: the forward half of the round is free to rotate and has two canard wings which are employed to control the flying course. The aft part contains a 2.5 kg warhead made lethal by the pre-fragmented load of tungsten cubes meant to tear incoming missiles apart. The fuze employed is the 3A PLUS, a programmable tri-mode device. The tail has six fixed wings and the backwards-looking radio receivers. These, in fact, look back to the antenna mounted in the gun shield, to keep inside the radio frequency beam as the as they are guided in Command Line of Sight against the incoming targets.
The system can so engage with extremely high accuracy and greater lethality the incoming anti-ship missiles, hitting them at much greater ranges than those achievable with smaller, less advanced systems such as Phalanx.
The 76mm gun, however, is also used on many naval units as the main gun of the platform, and not just as a CIWS. The Horizon-class destroyers of the Italian and French navies, the French FREMM frigates and the Italian FREMM ASW frigates are the most impressive examples of warships which do not have another, larger gun to employ. Countless smaller naval units all over the world have a 76mm gun as main weapon.
To enhance the usefulness of this light gun, Oto Melara is working to develop the VULCANO 76mm, scaling down the bigger rounds. The development is progressing quickly, and it seems that there will be a GPS/INS 76 and even a GPS/IIR 76, while the Semi Active Laser variant is not planned, at least for now.
In the 76mm variant, the VULCANO GPS/INS round has a range of 40 km, almost twice as much as the range of the much larger MK8 Mod 1 in service in the Royal Navy, to give an idea. In the anti-ship role, for the reasons already explained, the range is somewhat shorter.
The development of the VULCANO 76mm has only been started in 2011, but the work is progressing very quickly thanks to the experience made on the larger rounds. Firing trials could begin already next year, and by 2015 Oto Melara believes that it will be able to start producing the new weapon.
Both the DAVIDE/STRALES and the VULCANO capabilities can be installed relatively easily on existing guns. The STRALES kit has completed development and is beginning to appear on serving warships: the Italian aircraft carrier Cavour has been the first to have its guns modernized, and the two Italian Horizon destroyers are following. The VULCANO capability will also be easily retrofitted on existing gun mounts.
The most impressive feature, however, is the possibility to employ both STRALES and VULCANO, from the same gun mount, giving the small 76/62 a formidable mission flexibility. Oto Melara is working on the gun-loading system of the SUPER RAPIDO to make it capable to employ a huge variety of rounds. This mechanical improvement is known as Multi Feeding Ammo Selection Kit, and it builds on the existing loader system.
The 76/62 gun employs a drum holding 9 ready to fire rounds. The drum is constantly refilled by two mechanical “arms” coming from the two sides, each of which holds 38 shells, for a total of 85 rounds “ready to fire”.
Currently, the two arms are unidirectional: they only bring the shells into the drum. In this way, each arm of the loading system can hold one different type of ammunition, enabling the gun to select one of two types of ammunition, for each shot.
The Multi Feeding Ammo Selection Kit intervenes on the loading arms, upgrading them to make them capable to move in the two directions. In this way, thanks to an upgrade to the computers, it is possible to select and load the round number X, in the Y position along any of the two loading arms, meaning that rounds of all types can be available simultaneously.
Thanks to the Multi Feeding system, it is possible to modernize a SUPER RAPIDO or COMPATTO mount, with minimum impact on weights, so that it can simultaneously employ standard ammunition, guided DART rounds when it is necessary to shot down incoming threats, and the whole variety of VULCANO rounds for shore bombardment and anti-ship attacks. This makes the 76/62 an incredibly versatile and effective weapon. A single mount of this kind gives to a ship, also very small in size, an incredible range of combat capabilities.
The evolution of the 76/62 has caught the interest of the US Navy, which during 2012 conducted an extensive design review of the Littoral Combat Ships which noted that the Bofors MK110 light gun is not as effective as would be desirable. One of the most interesting options on the table is the possible future fitting of the 76/62, replacing the MK110.
The 76/62 is a compact, light mount, which can be installed in small spaces and even high up on the superstructures. On the Italian FREMM frigates, for example, one 76/62 is mounted on top of the helicopters hangar. It would be very easy to fit the 76/62 on the Lockheed Martin/Marinette Marine monohull LCS, the FREEDOM sub-class. A bit more complex, but not impossible, would be the retrofit of the trimaran LCS of the INDEPENDENCE sub-class, built by General Dynamics/Austal. With the larger caliber, the longer range, and the availability of the multi feeding system, with DART and VULCANO ammunition, the 76/62 would represent a dramatic improvement in firepower for the LCS.
In the UK, a 76/62 gun mount could be a fantastic equipment for the future 3000-tons MCM, Hydrographic Patrol Capability (MHPC) vessel. Although the first concepts suggested that such ships would only be very lightly armed (just a 30 mm gun turret, according to most), and although the Royal Navy is understandably hesitant in adding a whole new gun, with its ammunition and logistic needs, the range of capabilities offered by the 76mm gun is absolutely impressive, and on its own the gun would add a lot of survivability and fightability on the new hulls.
Finally, it is worth to mention that the latest addition to the 76mm gun evolution tree is the Stealth gun shield, entirely made of carbon, with foldable gun barrel and sliding cover. This extremely stealth mount has been required by the UAE for the new FALAJ-class corvettes.
Such “vanishing guns” have first appeared in the US DDG1000 Zumwalt design.
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, creí que preguntaba por la noticia dejada por Lepanto 
(El LSS es una unidad de apoyo logístico.....).