Thanks for the vid John!
Ignore the high stepping and focus on the gun.
As big as the US Army and especially the Marine Corps is on heliborne artillery raids...as big a threat as counter battery fires are....
Why don't we have an auxiliary power unit on our howitzers to give them a bit of independent ground mobility?
I don't think we're serious about the artillery raid concept (well the heliborne concept anyway) until we do the basics. The ability to displace these units before the enemy can launch return fires seems like a no brainer.
Shit Sol, you shouldn't say about those jumping in the first place. Now I'm just focus on those dudes and laugh so fraking hard every time they do a bunny walk. :D
ReplyDeleteBut seriously that some interesting thing, something between a classic tow and full mobile artillery. Swedes, those dudes know how to build unconventional stuff that works damn fine.
Well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Artillery_System
ReplyDeleteSwedish made!
Nice, but too expensive for it not being tracked and armored.
DeleteThe French CAESAR or Israeli ATMOS are better implementations of truck mounted artillery.
Bofors means quality, has done for many years. Both naval and ground force's from many industrialized countries use Bofors guns.
ReplyDeleteThe doctrinal displacement speed for the M777 is 2.23 minutes, which is generally inside the response time for a counterfire mission, so it is technically possible but I prefer the M109A6/A7 as they roll in, fire, roll out. Of course there is a weight penalty associated with that system, although they are slightly lighter than a Bradley.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the enemy has a counterfire radar system, that would be a prime target for a Growler and a HARM to take out before the Arty Raid began. Of course we haven't done an artillery raid on a peer opponent in how long?
since Korea I believe
DeleteI feel obligated to at least try to answer all artillery related questions so here is my answer. Why do we not have it? It has been brought up before by several officers, but the end argument is basically weight.
ReplyDeleteThe M777A2 is made out of titanium and air craft grade aluminum to the greatest extent possible. It is a "short" 39 Caliber tube to also cut down on weight. It is the lightest 155mm in the world that I know of and it weighs in at 10,000lbs. This is also the max external lift weight of a MV-22B and that is not a coincidence.
The biggest benefit of that low weight is not that the MV-22B can carry it, because they struggle to do that, is that a M777A2 should never knock a CH-53E out of the air. The M198 and CH-53D combo had a nasty habit of turning the M198 into a lawn dart (bad), or the M198 turing the CH-53D into a lawn dart (really really bad).
So your answer is that either I accept a Ch-53E/K air transportable howitzer, which depending on what we do could easily be self propelled, or if i want self propelled and MV-22B transportable I have to go smaller than 155mm.
General Dynamics sells the 155/52 APU SBT howitzer.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gdels.com/products/artillery_1.asp?id=2
If you want to know how effective these Bofors are, talk the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis were in the receiving end of these guns during the Kargil Incurrsion incident.
ReplyDeleteThat Auxillary power unit does add in a lot of weight though, and a lot of nuts and bolts to the supply chain, I'll have to ask my arty friends about how they maintain those things in the himalayas where most transport choppers dont carry their full load and have to hover till an updraft of wind comes to get enough lift to reach forward locations.
ReplyDeleteVery true.
Deletethe M777 is extremely light for a 155mm howitzer.
Also, when will the Indian produced Bofors guns enter service?
the longer caliber version of the FH-77 is currently undergoing hot weather trials. 2013 end saw winter trials. They did make some barrel changes and metalurgical changes before all this testing started. I am confident that unless something ridiculasly bad happen (which is usually the case with indian procurement), the gun will be approved for service this year itself. We already have a factory with machine tools ready for production.
DeleteGenerally the case with most Indian Produced defence goods is that the ultimate finishing is not that good. The equipment will function and do its job, but various fitments, attachments, covers, welds etc. You will be able to see shoddy workmanship on it. This is due to that typical govt. 9 to 5 secure job work culture of our Closed Sector Enterprises. You never see the quality of pride that comes from labour actually proud to produce such fine weapons. And they are unionized, you cant fire them, nor do they pay much attention to all that quality training and development courses. Some defense companies like Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and the new HAL Sukhoi complex are maintaining good quality. Raytheon and Elta do have a lot of contract manufacturing with L&T where as Tata Group (owners of corus steel and Jaguar Landrover) have a contract manufacturing for both boeing (Commercial) and Sikorsky.
DeleteHere's one about the M777 and M198.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npTGqg5v-mc