C3 Howitzer Replacement

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, for the mobile force, based on 6 LAV units how about?

6 LAV Units
18 LAV Companies (3 Coys / Unit)
54 LAV Platoons (3 Pls / Coy)

Reduce the Platoon from 4 to 3 Vehicles on the Swedish pattern and as suggested in the Advance With Purpose literature

Reduce the GIBs to 16 on the USMC pattern (including a medic as the 16th person)

Replace the the 4th LAV with an MSHORAD with a crew of 3. (Supplying both SAM and ATGM support) - 9 MSHORADs per Unit

Add a 4th MSHORAD to each Company to cover the Command Element and create a common 4 vehicle manoeuvre element. - 12 MSHORADs per Unit

Add 4 more MSHORADs to cover the attached Fire Support and Command Elements

Permanently attach, to each 3 Company Unit, an artillery battery of 8 Denel 105s mounted on LAVs to provide both low angle Field Gun / MGS DFS as well as high angle Howitzer support. A mobile 105mm version of the venerable 25 pdr Gun-Howitzer issued to Field Batteries.

Add to each Battery 4 LAV mounted Loitering Attack Munitions systems (similar to the recoverable Hero-120 selected by the USMC)



Sum Total? Per Unit?

27 Rifle LAVs with 81 Crew and 9x16 GIBs (144)
15 Cmd LAVs with 6 crew and Cmd (90)

16 MSHORAD with 48 Crew
8 LAV-SPH with 24 Crew
4 LAV-LAV with 12 Crew

42 Infantry Vehicles including Arty C2
28 Arty Vehicles


70 total LAVs
318 total personnel


I leave others to figure out what it would take to support such an organization both when it is operating out of a garrison in a local area and when it is deployed on expedition.

I propose this as a fully regular organization.

We also might want to consider the Artillery vehicles for optional manning, permitting the crews to operate under separate cover in the defence.

 

[suffolkowner]

are all these 105's completely different from an ammunition side? I see 105x372, 105x326, 105x617 (tank gun)?

 

[FJAG]

Regardless of where it deploys my ballpark guess is that you'll need to at least double the size of the organization itself just for the command and control and ancillary capabilities you'll need to make it effective such as an FSCC, ASCC and STACC, FOOs and JTACs, a unit TOC, Recce/cavalry elements, STA troops for radars and UAVs, EW, engineers, TACP, medical, intelligence, maybe some CBRN and a herd of other little elements here and there.

Service support depends entirely on how you plan on running your base support elements but as an immediate echelon (because this has become a full-up, multi corps battle group) my guess would be around 200 plus folks with probably around 80 plus vehicles.

So that leaves the question of what form does your second and above line support take. Is it in fixed installations? And if so what methods does it use to support a forward deployed unit or internationally deployed unit?

Don't get me wrong. I like some of the ideas as to how such a unit is formed although when I take a look at these types of things from a gunner and tanker point of view (and after all its a C3 howitzer replacement thread) I see an absence of a system designed to mass both direct and indirect fire support. (I also tend to think the 105mm has run its course as an indirect fire support medium as to its limited ammo selection and range albeit that I tend to think that UAVs and rockets may take up some of that load. - but if you're going to deploy tube artillery you might as well go 155 right from the get go)

I'm generally against standardized battlegroups. While they may add a standardized training system (which we sorely lack), they restrict flexibility to tailor a combat element for a specific mission. Some might require less indirect fire support, others much more. The ability to mass systems is always desirable. That may be compensated for with additional specialized units such as heavy armour, general support artillery, deep reconnaissance etc.

are all these 105's completely different from an ammunition side? I see 105x372, 105x326, 105x617 (tank gun)?

Artillery and tank barrels are usually designated by their diameter multiplied by their length in calibres so a 155mm 58 calibre gun has a barrel with a diameter of 155 mm and a length of 58 x 155mm; a 105mm 33 calibre gun has a diameter of 105 mm and a length of 33 x 105 mm.

Quite separate from that is the gun's chamber which is designated with the size of cartridge that it takes. A 105mm x 372 is chambered to take a cartridge that is 372 mm in length, a tank 105 mm x 617 has a much longer cartridge of 617mm.

105×617mmR - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The C3 uses a 105mm x 372 cartridge. Our 155s do not use cartridges instead using bagged or modular charges. Nonetheless 155 mm chambers vary as to what projectiles and charge systems they can use as the main way to increase range is to oompf up the charge load and combine that with certain projectile changes such as base bleed components.

That's a thumbnail sketch of things. Our resident expert on all things technical gunnery is Petard who could go on in much greater detail on all this.

 

[Kirkhill]

Regardless of where it deploys my ballpark guess is that you'll need to at least double the size of the organization itself just for the command and control and ancillary capabilities you'll need to make it effective such as an FSCC, ASCC and STACC, FOOs and JTACs, a unit TOC, Recce/cavalry elements, STA troops for radars and UAVs, EW, engineers, TACP, medical, intelligence, maybe some CBRN and a herd of other little elements here and there.

Service support depends entirely on how you plan on running your base support elements but as an immediate echelon (because this has become a full-up, multi corps battle group) my guess would be around 200 plus folks with probably around 80 plus vehicles.

So that leaves the question of what form does your second and above line support take. Is it in fixed installations? And if so what methods does it use to support a forward deployed unit or internationally deployed unit?

Don't get me wrong. I like some of the ideas as to how such a unit is formed although when I take a look at these types of things from a gunner and tanker point of view (and after all its a C3 howitzer replacement thread) I see an absence of a system designed to mass both direct and indirect fire support. (I also tend to think the 105mm has run its course as an indirect fire support medium as to its limited ammo selection and range albeit that I tend to think that UAVs and rockets may take up some of that load. - but if you're going to deploy tube artillery you might as well go 155 right from the get go)

I'm generally against standardized battlegroups. While they may add a standardized training system (which we sorely lack), they restrict flexibility to tailor a combat element for a specific mission. Some might require less indirect fire support, others much more. The ability to mass systems is always desirable. That may be compensated for with additional specialized units such as heavy armour, general support artillery, deep reconnaissance etc.



Artillery and tank barrels are usually designated by their diameter multiplied by their length in calibres so a 155mm 58 calibre gun has a barrel with a diameter of 155 mm and a length of 58 x 155mm; a 105mm 33 calibre gun has a diameter of 105 mm and a length of 33 x 105 mm.

Quite separate from that is the gun's chamber which is designated with the size of cartridge that it takes. A 105mm x 372 is chambered to take a cartridge that is 372 mm in length, a tank 105 mm x 617 has a much longer cartridge of 617mm.



The C3 uses a 105mm x 372 cartridge. Our 155s do not use cartridges instead using bagged or modular charges. Nonetheless 155 mm chambers vary as to what projectiles and charge systems they can use as the main way to increase range is to oompf up the charge load and combine that with certain projectile changes such as base bleed components.

That's a thumbnail sketch of things. Our resident expert on all things technical gunnery is Petard who could go on in much greater detail on all this.

Which is pretty much why I put this in the C3 Howitzer replacement thread instead of the Napkin thread. The Napkin thread is working to ArmyRick's rules. In the alternate universe my priorities are:

1 National Defence
a NORAD
b Maritime Approaches
c Northern Reaction
d Southern IRUs

2 Expeditionary Forces

The structure I posit for the LAV unit is intentionally a lightly supported unit for domestic use. I don't anticipate massing fires in Toronto in the near future.

On the other hand I take your point when it comes to heavying up an expeditionary force. Accordingly I would agree to adding an Armoured or Combined Arms Brigade and a Divisional Arty Group.

The IRUs could be heavied up by Reserves (RCIC GIBs and RCAC LAVs).

WRT your comment "I'm generally against standardized battlegroups" can you clarify if a Combined Arms Battalion falls into that category?

Maybe I am just dense, I have been accused of that before, but I fail to understad why direct and indirect fires cannot be coordinated within a permanently configured arrangement - after all in Canadian practice we had MFCs and FSCCs permanently established within battalions and they formed a key planning element in attaching an artillery battery in direct support. Also in the US they managed to add an M109 Battery within their Cavalry Squadron structure.

Is it any harder to add more of what you have already, or even to subtract some, than it is to add a totally unfamiliar element?

By all means keep the Arty MSHORAD/SPH/LAM sections separate from the Infantry LAVs and their GIBs but collocate them and train them together regularly.

They need to live in the same world together.

 

[Kirkhill]

As to the ammuniton for the Denel Howitzer - it fires all standard NATO rounds that the M101, LG1, C3, M118, M119 fire. It also fires some proprietary rounds that are interesting. And in the LAV mount it, like the C3, can fire HE and HEAT at low elevations for use against armour and structures. As an infantry support gun it appears to me to be at least as useful as the MGS, with the additional advantage of being able to be massed across battlegroups by Brigade.

My understanding is that modern gunnery doesn't require the guns to be massed, only the bullets.

105mm Towed

The 105 mm(LEO) light weight Light Experimental Ordnance (LEO) is the latest Gun - Howitzer developed by Denel. The gun system is accurate, transportable by helicopter and can be towed by a 4X4 type of vehicle. The 105mm is being developed to satisfy the users requirement for modern day warfare, that is:​

• The need for fewer but more mobile forces to cover the same operational area;
• To ease the logistic burden placed on the system, hence ease of deployment;
• To reduce the gun and logistic weight and make it more (transportable) tactically mobily;
• To improve the fire precision, requiring less ammunition to achieve the same end result;
• To make provision for the demography of the world population, human machine interface;
• To be deployed under all possible conditions;
• To be very reliable.

T7 / 105mm Turret

The 105 Self-Propelled (SP) Howitzer is based on the unique 105 mm Towed Gun Howitzer ballistic system as developed by Denel, packaged in an integrated and lightweight turret system.

Artillery | Denel Land Systems

Denel Land Systems Artillery and Weapons Systems

www.denellandsystems.co.za

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2004/armaments/04_Vickory_105mm_Indirect_Fire.pdf

The ammunition data is in the pdf.

 

[FJAG]

WRT your comment "I'm generally against standardized battlegroups" can you clarify if a Combined Arms Battalion falls into that category?

There's probably a difference of opinion with respect to that. I view a combined arms battalion as a single manoeuvre unit of a mix of tanks and IFVs like in the US ABCT. It comes without attachments such as an allocation of guns (although it does have an FSO and FST) engineers, AD numerous coord cells etc which are all attached from higher or lateral units. Even combined arms battalions must be prepared to detach companies to other units. The big difference I think is that a battlegroup is designed to operate independently once structured for a specific mission. US combined arms battalions are designed primarily to operate as a component of a full ABCT. Like I said, others may disagree.

As to the ammuniton for the Denel Howitzer - it fires all standard NATO rounds that the M101, LG1, C3, M118, M119 fire. It also fires some proprietary rounds that are interesting. And in the LAV mount it, like the C3, can fire HE and HEAT at low elevations for use against armour and structures. As an infantry support gun it appears to me to be at least as useful as the MGS, with the additional advantage of being able to be massed across battlegroups by Brigade.

I haven't looked that closely at the Denel 105, but I do know that it fires standard 105mm rounds such as HE and illumination as the C3 and the LG1 but does not use the same 372 cartridge but instead uses 5 specialized variable modular charges like many newer howitzers. There is a NATO HEAT round available but it is far different than the 105 mm x 617 fixed cartridge used by the 105 mm M68A1E4 gun on the MGS which is a standard high powered tank round fired from a significantly different autoloader system. On top of that most artillery has a very rudimentary direct fire control system and no "on the move" stabilization. I don't know if Denel makes a version of its vehicle using a tank gun but if it did then the gun would be of limited use as a howitzer which basically lobs shells at targets.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2004/armaments/04_Vickory_105mm_Indirect_Fire.pdf

We used to practice anti-tank shooting with L5s and C1s (I've never personally used a C3 or LG1) and the joke amongst us was that if we had to use these against tanks then things have really gone terribly wrong at the front and we're all doomed.

The Americans consider their MGS as unsuitable as an anti-armour weapon and have taken it out of the direct fire role in the Stryker battalions (but leaving it as an ersatz DFS in its cavalry squadron while they search for something that works) and I think the MGS was built as a direct fire vehicle while the Denel is basically a howitzer.

 

[KevinB]

We used to practice anti-tank shooting with L5s and C1s (I've never personally used a C3 or LG1) and the joke amongst us was that if we had to use these against tanks then things have really gone terribly wrong at the front and we're all doomed.

I remember thinking to myself - this will go very badly - when it was nigh impossible track one of the plywood movers that was setup on the range - the poor #4 & 5 where busy slaving away trying to move the trails to keep the gun 'ish' aligned to the mover.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I remember thinking to myself - this will go very badly - when it was nigh impossible track one of the plywood movers that was setup on the range - the poor #4 & 5 where busy slaving away trying to move the trails to keep the gun 'ish' aligned to the mover.

I remember shooting HESH at a tank hulk in Gagetown. 6 guns: I don’t think anyone even came close to a hit…

 

[KevinB]

I remember shooting HESH at a tank hulk in Gagetown. 6 guns: I don’t think anyone even came close to a hit…

Inspiring when you see a Leo 1 (back then) drive by and nail 3-4 targets at double the range in half the time...

 

[Kirkhill]

There's probably a difference of opinion with respect to that. I view a combined arms battalion as a single manoeuvre unit of a mix of tanks and IFVs like in the US ABCT. It comes without attachments such as an allocation of guns (although it does have an FSO and FST) engineers, AD numerous coord cells etc which are all attached from higher or lateral units. Even combined arms battalions must be prepared to detach companies to other units. The big difference I think is that a battlegroup is designed to operate independently once structured for a specific mission. US combined arms battalions are designed primarily to operate as a component of a full ABCT. Like I said, others may disagree.


I haven't looked that closely at the Denel 105, but I do know that it fires standard 105mm rounds such as HE and illumination as the C3 and the LG1 but does not use the same 372 cartridge but instead uses 5 specialized variable modular charges like many newer howitzers. There is a NATO HEAT round available but it is far different than the 105 mm x 617 fixed cartridge used by the 105 mm M68A1E4 gun on the MGS which is a standard high powered tank round fired from a significantly different autoloader system. On top of that most artillery has a very rudimentary direct fire control system and no "on the move" stabilization. I don't know if Denel makes a version of its vehicle using a tank gun but if it did then the gun would be of limited use as a howitzer which basically lobs shells at targets.



We used to practice anti-tank shooting with L5s and C1s (I've never personally used a C3 or LG1) and the joke amongst us was that if we had to use these against tanks then things have really gone terribly wrong at the front and we're all doomed.

The Americans consider their MGS as unsuitable as an anti-armour weapon and have taken it out of the direct fire role in the Stryker battalions (but leaving it as an ersatz DFS in its cavalry squadron while they search for something that works) and I think the MGS was built as a direct fire vehicle while the Denel is basically a howitzer.

Agreed that the MGS was not designed as an anti-armour weapon, and neither were any of the gun-howitzers. It was designed as an infantry support weapon, predominantly for bunker-busting and breaching. A role that an accurate gun-howitzer could perform. IF the Denel LAV lived up to its hype then I suggest it could perform that role.

Denel Stryker LAV III 105 mm howitzer can directly fire three shells through the same hole 0908113​

The Denel Stryker LAV III 105 mm howitzer can directly fire three shells through the same hole.

Denel Land Systems has developed an artillery piece that can directly fire three shells through the same hole – at a distance of one kilometre. The accuracy of this locally developed piece of artillery is equally impressive. This system fire at a range of 30km and deliver 50% of its projectiles within the size of a soccer field.​

Denel Stryker LAV III 105 mm howitzer can directly fire three shells through the same hole 0908113 | August 2011 news defense army military industry UK | Military army defense industry news year 2011

Denel Land Systems has developed an artillery piece that can directly fire three shells through the same hole at a distance of one kilometre. The accuracy of this locally developed piece of artillery is equally impressive. This system fire at a range of 30km and deliver 50% of its projectiles...

www.armyrecognition.com

In an Iraq, Afghanistan type situation then a pair of them would do very nicely for breaching a compound. Or a railway barricade. Or a gang's fortified club house.

8 of them together could be used in support of a Unit on a Dispersed Operation over a 30 km radius.

Essentially I was adapting the 81mm mortar platoon organization and expanding its range to suit the ADO concept while taking advantage of the systems low angle capability to replace the MGS requirement. And, I agree, that if the tanks get close enough to the guns that the tanks are in range of the guns then somebody has done something very wrong. Having said that tanks aren't the only vehicles in the field. LAVs, BMPs, BTRs and trucks would not fare well against HEAT or HESH.

The actual anti-tank fighting should be done by dismounts, LAVs, M-SHORADs and LAMs armed with Spikes and Heros. Keep the tanks, the few that we have, in reserve, for local counter-attacks.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We used to practice anti-tank shooting with L5s and C1s (I've never personally used a C3 or LG1) and the joke amongst us was that if we had to use these against tanks then things have really gone terribly wrong at the front and we're all doomed.

I have done it with a C2 it's not easy. The US version of of the C1 was used in this role as a AT gun in Korea and performed ok till they ran out of HEAT and were over run by T-34/85's.

 

[Kirkhill]

FM 3-96 January 2021

IBCT Bn
Tactical Air Control Party at Bn HQ
Fire Support Cell at Bn HQ
Fire Support Teams as habitual attachments to the companies (including to the Weapons Company)
Forward Observer Teams at the platoon level

ATP 3-09.42 March 2016

Brigade Combat Team Fires Cell
Battalion Fires Cells
Company Fires Support Teams
Platoon Forward Observers









MTF...

 

[Kirkhill]

Is our doctrine different to that of the US? Because as a lay observer I see FOs for MFCs, FSTs for FOOs, Fires Cells for FSCCs and the battery commander's team.

 

[FJAG]

Is our doctrine different to that of the US? Because as a lay observer I see FOs for MFCs, FSTs for FOOs, Fires Cells for FSCCs and the battery commander's team.

To an extent it is.

Both the FOO, FSCC and MFC systems have changed over the decades as between the Americans and us. Originally our battery and troop commanders of the close support batteries would form the FSCC and FOOs with whatever battalion they were assigned to. Americans tended to keep their FOs out of the batteries and in with the arty bn HQ or directly into a manouevre bn HQ. For quite a while after they formed FISTs, the FIST was gunner trained but posted into manoeuvre battalions as a habitual attachment. I tink that has changed or is changing. Our BCs still form bn FSCCs but all FOOs now come from one specialized battery in the regiment so that like the Americans, our gun batteries now have no observers at all. MFCs were always part of the infantry trained to call in indirect fire. I'm frankly not sure if Canada still use them or not since we have increased the number of FOOs in the army. US mortar platoons in Styker and infantry BCTs use the FIST for their FOs

Generally American gunner observers are less experienced and less senior then the Canadian/Brit model. FSOs and battery commanders are captains and are separate positions. Our battery commanders are majors and are double hatted as fire support coordinators to battalions. Their observers are lieutenants and second lieutenants while ours are captains. One of the results of the upranked positions is that our observers "call for fire" and basically get what they call for while US observers' fire requests are monitored by the battalion fire direction centre and may be altered based on the target description by the gun battalion's S3 who is a major. We put our experience forward, they put theirs in the rear.

Perhaps one of the biggest doctrinal issues is that US artillery has maintained the concept of six gun batteries, three per battalion with the battalion being the fire unit designed to deploy with and support a BCT. Canada has for various reasons (some financial others just plain stupid) decided that: a) regiments are not deployable entities but merely force generators of troops and composite batteries and b) therefore reduced each regiment to two gun batteries with two troops of two guns each designed to be cobbled together to support a single battle group. Essentially, while a Canadian brigade group can generate three or four manoeuvre battalions it has the guns to only support one at a time. In the same way, Americans provide for general support artillery (i.e. gun and rocket battalions outside of the BCT structure to reinforce fires and take on other tasks while we do not - we depend on others for that. Organizational structures are a big part of doctrine.

Essentially though the fire support coordination process and varying natures of fire support are very similar in practice.

I think perhaps one of the main reasons that I keep objecting to the concept of penny-packeting the guns around is that it falls into the same trap that our Army's leadership fell into a few decades back which is to completely minimize the combat power that is added to any organization when it is supported by a proper indirect fire support agency that can mass fires at a critical point. Decades of peacetime service will do that. Once you lose that ability - and it can be argued that we have - it's hard to put it back together. It's much easier to take a large organization which has been trained to work together and to break it up into smaller elements when needed then to take a number of small organizations that have trained independently and then have them brought together to work cooperatively as a combined whole.

The issue here is that you are focusing on small teams with the bare essentials rather than looking at what the whole of the structure needs in order to operate and then allocate resources as either habitually attached or as augmented assets as required. In part that's because you are defining the problem to match your solution. I don't think having a force that is spread homogenously across the country waiting for riots or little green men or some drone attack on an airport is the solution. What is needed is something more in the nature of a force that is trained and equipped to meet numerous possible threats and then is deployed to match those threats as they develop.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I think perhaps one of the main reasons that I keep objecting to the concept of penny-packeting the guns around is that it falls into the same trap that our Army's leadership fell into a few decades back which is to completely minimize the combat power that is added to any organization when it is supported by a proper indirect fire support agency that can mass fires at a critical point. Decades of peacetime service will do that. Once you lose that ability - and it can be argued that we have - it's hard to put it back together. It's much easier to take a large organization which has been trained to work together and to break it up into smaller elements when needed then to take a number of small organizations that have trained independently and then have them brought together to work cooperatively as a combined whole.

The artillery was one of the victms of our 'peace dividend', an absurd concept that can compromise any naton's ability to sucessfully sustain a high intensity conflict that was likely reinforced in Afghanistan - a low intensity conflict.

 

[KevinB]

Agreed that the MGS was not designed as an anti-armour weapon, and neither were any of the gun-howitzers. It was designed as an infantry support weapon, predominantly for bunker-busting and breaching. A role that an accurate gun-howitzer could perform. IF the Denel LAV lived up to its hype then I suggest it could perform that role.

You know I am not a tank guy, but a tank can do that job significantly better - and worse case you can drive the tank in and over the compound or hut.

8 of them together could be used in support of a Unit on a Dispersed Operation over a 30 km radius.

Still don't see a 105mm role - I would vastly prefer the payload of the 155mm for that job.

It isn't a tank, and it isn't a 155mm Howitzer - so it lands in the neither fish nor fowl category.

Essentially I was adapting the 81mm mortar platoon organization and expanding its range to suit the ADO concept while taking advantage of the systems low angle capability to replace the MGS requirement. And, I agree, that if the tanks get close enough to the guns that the tanks are in range of the guns then somebody has done something very wrong. Having said that tanks aren't the only vehicles in the field. LAVs, BMPs, BTRs and trucks would not fare well against HEAT or HESH.

It is a LAV chassis - it isn't going to fair well against anything more than small arms.

The actual anti-tank fighting should be done by dismounts, LAVs, M-SHORADs and LAMs armed with Spikes and Heros. Keep the tanks, the few that we have, in reserve, for local counter-attacks.

Other Tanks, Missiles (regardless of launch platform) and AH's kill tanks.

I really see zero use for this - put ATGM's on the LAV - and you have an Anti-Tank capability - ideally from further away than the tank can engage. If you want a wheeled SPG - then get a 155mm. It too can do direct fire in extremis - and 155mm has significant weight that while it may not totally demo a tank - the tank is going to feel it -- not like a 105mm that these days is just going to make it mad IF you hit it.

 

[KevinB]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, for the mobile force, based on 6 LAV units how about?

6 LAV Units
18 LAV Companies (3 Coys / Unit)
54 LAV Platoons (3 Pls / Coy)

Reduce the Platoon from 4 to 3 Vehicles on the Swedish pattern and as suggested in the Advance With Purpose literature
View attachment 67265

2 is 1, 1 is none - I wouldn't base anything off the Swedish - they aren't exactly the model to follow for modern armies with experience.

Reduce the GIBs to 16 on the USMC pattern (including a medic as the 16th person)
View attachment 67264

That is a USMC Squad - not a platoon.
You are going the other direction...

Replace the the 4th LAV with an MSHORAD with a crew of 3. (Supplying both SAM and ATGM support) - 9 MSHORADs per Unit

Add a 4th MSHORAD to each Company to cover the Command Element and create a common 4 vehicle manoeuvre element. - 12 MSHORADs per Unit

Add 4 more MSHORADs to cover the attached Fire Support and Command Elements

Permanently attach, to each 3 Company Unit, an artillery battery of 8 Denel 105s mounted on LAVs to provide both low angle Field Gun / MGS DFS as well as high angle Howitzer support. A mobile 105mm version of the venerable 25 pdr Gun-Howitzer issued to Field Batteries.

Add to each Battery 4 LAV mounted Loitering Attack Munitions systems (similar to the recoverable Hero-120 selected by the USMC)

View attachment 67266

Sum Total? Per Unit?

27 Rifle LAVs with 81 Crew and 9x16 GIBs (144)
15 Cmd LAVs with 6 crew and Cmd (90)

You now have a Company + sized Battalion...

16 MSHORAD with 48 Crew
8 LAV-SPH with 24 Crew
4 LAV-LAV with 12 Crew

42 Infantry Vehicles including Arty C2
28 Arty Vehicles


70 total LAVs
318 total personnel

2 Companies of troops in 70 LAV's ?

 

[Kirkhill]

But

Large organizations do not get used. The "National Defence" requirement is for penny-packets.

If you want to argue that we need an expeditionary brigade or division on standby I'm all ears. I just haven't seen any evidence of a Canadian politician supporting that since Korea. 4 CMBG never fired a shot until it was broken up and despatched to Yugoslavia.

On the other hand I have seen security battlegroups deployed in Afghanistan, Somalia (dismounted), Ethiopia (Combat Team), Yugoslavia, and a bunch of places where the vehicles were painted white.

I will continue to argue for small "mounted rifle" / "cavalry" units because both of them minimize manpower and maximize technology. We don't have bodies because we can't recruit and retain them - except on pension. We actually do have dollars to buy technology but we can't figure out how to spend them effectively. Largely, in my opinion, because we can't decide on what we want the army to do and it can't decide how it wants to do whatever it is we want it to do.

I have said before that The RCN, The RCAF and the SOF bunch understand their roles. They know what they want/need to accomplish those roles. And, critically, they operate within those roles on a daily basis. The RCAF nicely manages to accomplish Civil Support, Military Support and its primary Air Defence roles simultaneously. It has a plan and it is working the plan. Does it make everybody happy all the time? No. But it is a plan.

Everything has to justify its existence by demonstrating its utility.

And a frozen division sitting in place in Wainwright waiting for an invitation to the next war, and hoping that somebody will give them a lift, just isn't justifiable.

 

[Kirkhill]

Yes I do have a company sized battalion - I want a company sized battalion. Because I don't need all those bodies trapped inside LAVs. Bodies that we don't have. Can't recruit. Can't retain. On the other hand we have hundreds of LAVs and the ability to turn out more.

I would be happy with turning out, as I said to FJAG above, Cavalry / Mounted Rifle Battle Groups. Groups that can be used for internal security purposes, at home and abroad, and that can contribute to the ISR picture and provide security in a high intensity campaign. We are not going into that kind of campaign on our own and even if we supplied a Division it still wouldn't make much of a dent in the opposition.

On the other hand additional fighters, LRPAs and UASs would.

As for the 105mm being neither fish nor fowl

It is longer ranged than a 40mm, 60,mm, 81mm and 120mm, or even the C3/M118/M119 105mms. And carries a heavier payload than anything but the 120mm. And the fact that it can fire a larger round than the 25mm, or the 84mm also used for chewing up compounds while the round is cheaper than a Javelin or Spike or TOW, also used in their absence I would just as soon have an available low velocity 105mm from an artillery cannon as a high velocity 120mm from a tank that I was waiting for a tank transporter to drag forwards to support me.

There is nothing to stop the generation of a 155mm SPH support regiment, or an MLRS regiment or a GBAD regiment or a UAS regiment, or all of the above.

And as for ginding crunchies....


I like the SBCT concept because all the pieces of the puzzle move together at the same speed. Likewise for the IBCTs and the ABCTs.

The Canadian pik'n'mix system doesn't allow for that.

If we are going to have a LAV army then exploit that envelope to its limits before deciding we have to tack on other stuff that will present new problems.

Canada is never going to defeat Russia or China on its own. Therefore it needs to focus on making itself useful over as broad a spectrum as possible.

AND. Critically.

It needs to figure out how to protect its people at home. How to Defend them.

 

[KevinB]

But

Large organizations do not get used. The "National Defence" requirement is for penny-packets.

Until they are needed - which is the sole point of having a Peacetime Army - deterrence and the ability to deploy to support Government Policy.

If you want to argue that we need an expeditionary brigade or division on standby I'm all ears. I just haven't seen any evidence of a Canadian politician supporting that since Korea. 4 CMBG never fired a shot until it was broken up and despatched to Yugoslavia.

On the other hand I have seen security battlegroups deployed in Afghanistan, Somalia (dismounted), Ethiopia (Combat Team), Yugoslavia, and a bunch of places where the vehicles were painted white.

Somalia the CAR had AVGP's not technically dismounted (and you'd have been swallowed up as a dismounted entity under BN size there)

I will continue to argue for small "mounted rifle" / "cavalry" units because both of them minimize manpower and maximize technology. We don't have bodies because we can't recruit and retain them - except on pension. We actually do have dollars to buy technology but we can't figure out how to spend them effectively. Largely, in my opinion, because we can't decide on what we want the army to do and it can't decide how it wants to do whatever it is we want it to do.

I fully agree the CA doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up.

I have said before that The RCN, The RCAF and the SOF bunch understand their roles. They know what they want/need to accomplish those roles. And, critically, they operate within those roles on a daily basis. The RCAF nicely manages to accomplish Civil Support, Military Support and its primary Air Defence roles simultaneously. It has a plan and it is working the plan. Does it make everybody happy all the time? No. But it is a plan.

Everything has to justify its existence by demonstrating its utility.

And a frozen division sitting in place in Wainwright waiting for an invitation to the next war, and hoping that somebody will give them a lift, just isn't justifiable.

I won't disagree with you there.
My point is more that Canada needs to be practical with it's acquisitions - right now it have a plethora of LAV hulls - which has seemed to breed a need for more (again I am a tad confused for all the CP variants and lack of a lot of common sense variants).

You can split off a smaller force from a well equipped larger force for certain operations - but you cannot make a smaller entity be a larger entity easily.

I don't see any future in a 105mm Howitzer, be it towed or SP Wheeled or Tracked, in a Modern Military prepared to fight a High Intensity Conflict.
The Government of Canada have given that mandate to the CA - so preparing to fight a low intensity war isn't doing the mission the GoC has given it.

One needs tanks (ugh) true Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicles (not a LAV), SPG's, SHORAD, MRAD, Long Range Precision Fires, ATGM's etc.
Oh and an ability to support them.