Indirect Fires Modernization Project - C3/M777 Replacement

[SeaKingTacco]

Navies started off the missile age with Surface to Air missiles that were positioned on traversing turrets and launched in pairs. The missiles were reloaded by mechanical systems below decks that had many moving parts, took up space and weight. The missile system emulated the gun systems they knew. Projectiles launched from projectors drawn from magazines.

Virtually every Navy has abandoned that construct for Vertically Launched Systems where every projectile is available at any time and mechanics, space and mass are minimized. Arleigh Burke Flight IVs have 96 cells. Each cell can hold 4 ESSMs. There are 384 ready to launch missiles. They could be launched en masse. Or rippled. Or, more probably, launched one or two at a time in accordance with the need.

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And of course there are always these

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Why muck around bringing containers into the field, transferring those rounds to a mechanized marvel of a limber, moving that to the gun, filling the gun's magazine, selecting the round, loading the gun, firing and reloading? Why do all that when you can just bring a container from the factory, into the field, with or without drivers, select your round and launch direct from the container?

Let’s start with ballistics.

Rockets have a relatively fixed trajectory that can leave dead zones or minimum range issues. Guns can hit just about anything within range, once you play with elevation and charge bags.

Rockets tend to be quite a bit more expensive than a 155mm round.

Rockets tend to have a long reload time.

Rockets give you an immense initial weight of fire, however.

Neither is better- they have different roles.

 

[Kirkhill]

AI tells me that Russia produced 3 million artillery shells last year while the West has ramped up to 1.2 million.

Most missiles are produced in the hundreds and thousands and cost 100s of thousands to millions of dollars.
Current pressures are knocking a zero or two off the costs and adding a zero or two to the production volumes.


70mm rockets are produced in the hundreds of thousands. The US apparently burns through 100,000 rounds annually in training with an ability to produce 330,000. Thales produces about 30,000 but can scale up to 60,000.
The APKWS guidance kits are produced at the rate of 5000 per year.

Ukraine, on its own produced 4 million drones last year. And those drones are looking more and more like missiles all the time.

Edit: the manufacture of barrels and guns is given as being in the low hubdreds per year. Watervliet apparently aims for 360 barrels a year and Rheinmetall claims 200 barrels of all calibres.

As for ballistic trajectories the M1156 Precision Guidance Kit for 155s has analogs for mortars and rockets. The M1156 costs about 10 to 20,000 USD.

My bet is that no matter how good the gun may be comparatively the guided rocket will be produced faster and cheaper and supply most of the weught of fire.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Why muck around bringing containers into the field, transferring those rounds to a mechanized marvel of a limber, moving that to the gun, filling the gun's magazine, selecting the round, loading the gun, firing and reloading? Why do all that when you can just bring a container from the factory, into the field, with or without drivers, select your round and launch direct from the container?

"All we have left in the launcher is illum. No HE."

"Meh, fire 'em. Maybe it'll scare someone."

I doubt I can enumerate all the objections just by sitting here and thinking about it for a few minutes, but I also doubt there are no objections.

Analyze and describe all the use cases. Then a meaningful conversation can be had about what can replace crew-served guns if anything.

 

[Brad Sallows]

My bet is that no matter how good the gun may be comparatively the guided rocket will be produced faster and cheaper and supply most of the weught of fire.

If that were likely I would have expected to see a lot more movement in that direction.

 

[Kirkhill]

"All we have left in the launcher is illum. No HE."

"Meh, fire 'em. Maybe it'll scare someone."

I doubt I can enumerate all the objections just by sitting here and thinking about it for a few minutes, but I also doubt there are no objections.

Analyze and describe all the use cases. Then a meaningful conversation can be had about what can replace crew-served guns if anything.

Is that any different than running out of HE on the gun, or not having the right fuse?

I needed Excalibur and all I have is smoke.

 

[GR66]

Is that any different than running out of HE on the gun, or not having the right fuse?

I needed Excalibur and all I have is smoke.

Horses for courses. Why the obsession with wanting to replace one system that works with another?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Is that any different than running out of HE on the gun, or not having the right fuse?

I needed Excalibur and all I have is smoke.

Yes, if there is more ammo to hand but the launcher has to exchange a pack.

 

[Underway]

Do both is the correct answer. They each have advantages and disadvantages. And yes sometimes those lines of development start overlapping.

Which is fine.

 

[FJAG]

FYI. Here's a decent little video on artillery in Ukraine.

 

[Underway]

So Canada getting K9 would be bad.
Got it. Everyone can shut up about tracked artillery. The data shows its a mistake.

 

[FJAG]

So Canada getting K9 would be a mistake (it's basically an M109 or low armoured Krav) and getting something truck/wheeled is better.

Got it. Everyone can shut up about tracked artillery. The data shows its a mistake.

I think that he put too much emphasis on survival rates without a deeper analysis where Caesar was employed..

I'm frankly surprised at the Caesar survivability but I think its the tactical employment of varying howitzers that matter and that create the survivability results. Unfortunately you can't run your entire artillery system the way that Caesar is being employed. A good bit of it needs close support artillery that gets in tighter to the front line to provide intimate support and to reach deeper into the enemies rear areas. For that they used Krabs and M109s.

Both the Krab and M109 worked in close support with the Krab doing better than the M109 because range - an L52 barrel v an L39 one - matters in the CB war. PzH 2000's armour helped as well but low numbers and German engineering complexity is a handicap on the battlefield so they kept them back more.

I get it with Caesar that the L52 barrel keeps it away from the front and it may displace quickly, but I just can't help feel that as loitering munitions proliferate more and become better and can range more deeply into the rear, guns on trucks will be hunted down and killed regardless unless a very good C-UAV system exist in the rear areas where it frequently thins out and is spotty.

In my book artillery survivability depends on:

1) range in order to create stand-off distance from ground-based CB sources;

2) rapid in and out of action time and good cross country manoeuvrability in all conditions (including deep snow and mud) in order to escape CB fire before it can become effective; and

3) an organic, integrated C-UAV defence system to defeat loitering munitions regardless of whether or not your gun or launcher is in or out of action.

Given all that, my favourite system would be a gun that is tracked, moderately armoured, with an L52 or L58 barrel, and with an armoured, tracked ammo limber vehicle with a C-UAV/VSHORAD weapon system - possibly another C-UAV system on the gun itself. That type of pairing would be able to work relatively independently - in either a close or general support role - for several days before it needed to be resupplied.

I'd accept a rocket launcher that is wheeled because of its substantially longer range and ability to chose routes and locations more suitable for them.