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Look Cool Factor.LCF? Im old!
Look Cool Factor.LCF? Im old!
Arguably that is a planning/leadership/control issue as well.With respect to the use of company and infantry tactics instead of larger battalion and brigade pushes:
My sense is that any large group of vehicles (>20) attracts attention to itself during the road march and doesn't survive long.
Norway has a direct land and sea border with Russia, and the Russian Navy sails close-ish to the Norwegian coast.
That article doesn't really differ from what I said with respect to the category of "damaged" v "destroyed" and how close the impact is. Do note one particular issue with respect to the damage against armoured vehicles which is the splinters created by the rounds used in the test and modern 155mm ammunition. The older M107 round on functioning breaks into shards and splinters. The shards were very large. I've seen many that were the length of the projectile and up to 1/4 of its circumference with razor sharp edges. It could have a mass of ten to twenty pounds and deliver a very large energy transfer that could cause the level of damage seen in some of the pictures. Such fragments can fly hundreds of metres but generally are contained much closer than that to tens of metres. The new M795 HE round is described as a "high fragmentation" round. It does not put out large shards of steel but a very high volume of smaller splinters which are considerably more effective against personnel and materiel but have a lower energy transfer against armour and large armour components such as road wheels and tracks. It can still "disable" a tank or proper IFV from a near miss, but is much less likely to "destroy" it"Near misses with HE will do more than knock off radio antennas. They can kill tanks outright. https://www.scribd.com/doc/151124802/Who-Says-Dumb-Artillery-Rounds-Can-t-Kill-Armor
Be careful of your interpretation here. These are not vehicle "kills", but "losses." Note that "losses" includes "breakdowns" so what we are dealing with are vehicles which were immobilized on the battlefield which includes both repairable damaged as well as destroyed vehicles. One of the things that always amazed me re WW2 that not withstanding its reputation as a "Ronson Lighter" when hit, the number of "hit" Sherman tanks that were put back into service within days by US maintenance battalions was quite high.Operations research during and after WW2 concluded that about 13% of all armoured vehicle kills were attributable to indirect fire, and that was all dumb HE. https://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/v1n6.pdf
Absolutely.That said, DPICM or terminally guided munitions are generally going to give better results.
Yup.Yes, doctrinally it will usually be located right behind the depth Bn.
That's actually not that much of a difference. The difference is that western artillery is more flexible. Our standard command and control terminology creates the same situation as you describe for the Russians. An artillery battalion in DS of a brigade provides support for one commander through observers and fire support assets. That bde has the highest priority of call on the fires and the observer/liaison function stays with the brigade even if priority of fire is given to another sector for a limited period of time. This is a feature of western artillery that goes back to WW2 which comes as a result of a flexible and efficient command and control system that the Russian system does not match.So this gets to an important doctrinal difference between western artillery and Russian artillery. In the Russian army, artillery is usually a proprietary asset that fires in support of one commander and one commander only. This is why they feel the need to physically reinforce organizations with additional artillery Bns, rather than just give them a priority of fire or change a tactical task. Artillery assigned to a Brigade or Regiment will focus on that commander's priorities, which are invariably going to be linked to the close fight; a typical mission for an attacking Bde/Regt would be to penetrate to the rear of a defending Bn (immediate objective) and continue to the rear of the defending Bde (subsequent objective). His artillery will support only those tasks.
There is no practical difference as between Russian and western artillery doctrine in general on that. There are merely case-by-case differences in how those are applied depending on the circumstances.Depth targets are going to be the responsibility of a higher artillery grouping (usually Div or Army).
31 million Euros per tank? Too rich for our blood I think
Well Canada has a 1,600+ NM Arctic Ocean border with Russia - which is actually the largest border Russia has with anyone, albeit China has a land border nearly that large.Norway has a direct land and sea border with Russia, and the Russian Navy sails close-ish to the Norwegian coast.
Not surprised that they would have a strong defence budget.
The new M795 HE round is described as a "high fragmentation" round. It does not put out large shards of steel but a very high volume of smaller splinters which are considerably more effective against personnel and materiel but have a lower energy transfer against armour and large armour components such as road wheels and tracks. It can still "disable" a tank or proper IFV from a near miss, but is much less likely to "destroy" it"
Again, the argument here is that while dumb rounds can disable and even destroy hard armoured targets, it takes a high number of rounds to do so. Take a look at the figures quoted. To achieve 50% destruction and 50% casualties on a fixed, dug-in company position took 2,600 rounds. The same number of rounds fired against tanks and IFVs also caused 50% "damage."
Be careful of your interpretation here. These are not vehicle "kills", but "losses." Note that "losses" includes "breakdowns" so what we are dealing with are vehicles which were immobilized on the battlefield which includes both repairable damaged as well as destroyed vehicles. One of the things that always amazed me re WW2 that not withstanding its reputation as a "Ronson Lighter" when hit, the number of "hit" Sherman tanks that were put back into service within days by US maintenance battalions was quite high.
Weapon | AFVs Damaged | Killed | Wounded | AFVs Destroyed | Killed | Wounded | Total Incidents | Total Casualties |
Artillery | 24 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 26 | 12 |
Molotov Cocktail | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Conical Shape Charge | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Mines | 6 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 20 | 15 | 24 |
Satchel Charge | 4 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 2 |
47mm AT Gun | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
That's actually not that much of a difference. The difference is that western artillery is more flexible. Our standard command and control terminology creates the same situation as you describe for the Russians. An artillery battalion in DS of a brigade provides support for one commander through observers and fire support assets. That bde has the highest priority of call on the fires and the observer/liaison function stays with the brigade even if priority of fire is given to another sector for a limited period of time. This is a feature of western artillery that goes back to WW2 which comes as a result of a flexible and efficient command and control system that the Russian system does not match.
The practical effect is that while on a small scale - brigade and div level - the two systems can achieve close parity with fire support, on a broad level across a theatre, the Russian system can deliver more effects simply because it has a lot more guns, rockets and guided systems available in their inventory. The issue then becomes one of the accuracy of both STA and other ISTAR resources in sourcing targets and the accuracy and effects generated by the munitions supplied. And let me be clear, that includes not just gun batteries, but guided rocket, missile and drone systems which can deploy precision effects.
There is no practical difference as between Russian and western artillery doctrine in general on that. There are merely case-by-case differences in how those are applied depending on the circumstances.
Not at all.Hopefully I'm not sounding to critical of your position here.
They had even worse tanks. Most had nothing more than the equivalent of the 2 and 6 pdr at best. Some 75s came out in very limited numbers late in the war. Okinawa is both rough terrain and heavily populated with urban and rural areas. The fight was mostly close. Japanese tank loses were only 27 compared to up to 1,700 guns and mortars. The low number of tanks lost is a reflection on how few they had. The Japanese anti-armour fight, by necessity, was through artillery. Their anti-tank artillery sucked as much as their tanks so, again by necessity, field guns were their principle weapon against tanks in both indirect and direct fire.First thing to note with the data - they were fighting the Japanese who had the worst artillery of any major power in WW2.
That's actually fairly easy here too because our IFCCS used for calculating indirect fire is essentially a ruggedized laptop with a fire control software package that can easily switch between weapon type and gun location. It could be easily operated from any location for multiple batteries. Most NATO countries have something similar. Connectivity between the IFCCS and gun is more an issue but in the event of the loss of a CP that can easily be worked around from the FSCC or from another troop CP. Most modern arty equipment is going with gun management systems on each gun/launcher that caters to frequent moves, self locates the gun and, in some cases, calculates firing data at the gun. My guess is that the future will have digital networks with multiple, fail-over "command and control" nodes. The gun deploys individually and then is priorized onto targets based on a set command and control rules. The basic tech for that exists. Such a system's weakness is the logistics involved in keeping the guns fed with ammo and supplies and the maintenance of the digital comms links in the face of hostile EW.They do have one relatively interesting feature that is designed to add technical (rather than tactical) flexibility. All of the CPs in a Bn are supposed to be able to calculate firing data for any of the Btys in an emergency. The BC and CO's parties are also capable of generating firing data. If you ever see footage of a Russian BC in his OP, watch for his techs - one of them is always running a plotting board.
Think. not our plitical long suite.Well Canada has a 1,600+ NM Arctic Ocean border with Russia - which is actually the largest border Russia has with anyone, albeit China has a land border nearly that large.
One would think the RCN would have a much higher priority than it does.
Bit hard to bring a FFH up the Canal to remind Parliament that there is an RCN.Well Canada has a 1,600+ NM Arctic Ocean border with Russia - which is actually the largest border Russia has with anyone, albeit China has a land border nearly that large.
One would think the RCN would have a much higher priority than it does.
They had even worse tanks. Most had nothing more than the equivalent of the 2 and 6 pdr at best. Some 75s came out in very limited numbers late in the war. Okinawa is both rough terrain and heavily populated with urban and rural areas. The fight was mostly close. Japanese tank loses were only 27 compared to up to 1,700 guns and mortars. The low number of tanks lost is a reflection on how few they had. The Japanese anti-armour fight, by necessity, was through artillery. Their anti-tank artillery sucked as much as their tanks so, again by necessity, field guns were their principle weapon against tanks in both indirect and direct fire.
That's actually fairly easy here too because our IFCCS used for calculating indirect fire is essentially a ruggedized laptop with a fire control software package that can easily switch between weapon type and gun location. It could be easily operated from any location for multiple batteries. Most NATO countries have something similar. Connectivity between the IFCCS and gun is more an issue but in the event of the loss of a CP that can easily be worked around from the FSCC or from another troop CP. Most modern arty equipment is going with gun management systems on each gun/launcher that caters to frequent moves, self locates the gun and, in some cases, calculates firing data at the gun. My guess is that the future will have digital networks with multiple, fail-over "command and control" nodes. The gun deploys individually and then is priorized onto targets based on a set command and control rules. The basic tech for that exists. Such a system's weakness is the logistics involved in keeping the guns fed with ammo and supplies and the maintenance of the digital comms links in the face of hostile EW.
All the above is fair.Is this fair comment?
The barrage is comparable to a minefield.
The barrage creates an environment where trespassers are likely to randomly encounter a lethal threat. The greater the density of the minefield or the barrage the greater the probability of trespassers suffering damage or lethal consequences. The barrage is easier to establish and shift than a minefield.
The part about precision to take out individual targets is true. IMHO, distance isn't a factor. A man with a satchel charge running up to a tank, or an M72 or panzerfaust at close range is equally precise and effective as a long range ATGM or laser guided artillery round.Taking out individual targets, plinking, requires precision and is best accomplished from a distance.
All the above is fair.
The part about precision to take out individual targets is true. IMHO, distance isn't a factor. A man with a satchel charge running up to a tank, or an M72 or panzerfaust at close range is equally precise and effective as a long range ATGM or laser guided artillery round.
The point with precision weapons is that one round can do the job. Mines and artillery barrages will too, but it takes many more mines to be laid and rounds to be fired to achieve a result. I saw one video from Ukraine with anti-tank mines being brought in dump trucks and literally being dumped out the back like large rocks before being surface laid. I expect they've laid hundreds or even thousands for every AFV destroyed. Mines, at least, can be recovered and reused.
They had even worse tanks. Most had nothing more than the equivalent of the 2 and 6 pdr at best. Some 75s came out in very limited numbers late in the war. Okinawa is both rough terrain and heavily populated with urban and rural areas. The fight was mostly close. Japanese tank loses were only 27 compared to up to 1,700 guns and mortars. The low number of tanks lost is a reflection on how few they had. The Japanese anti-armour fight, by necessity, was through artillery. Their anti-tank artillery sucked as much as their tanks so, again by necessity, field guns were their principle weapon against tanks in both indirect and direct fire.
That's actually fairly easy here too because our IFCCS used for calculating indirect fire is essentially a ruggedized laptop with a fire control software package that can easily switch between weapon type and gun location. It could be easily operated from any location for multiple batteries. Most NATO countries have something similar.
Could you get one up the Ottawa River & do a u-turn below parliament? Would make a nice picture taken from around the museum of civilization.Bit hard to bring a FFH up the Canal to remind Parliament that there is an RCN.
Although it would be hilarious to try.
Also their logistical train and amphibious landing craft dictated a very lightweight tank. interesting to note the US Armor Corp in WWII lost only about 1800 (recalling from memory with only 1 coffee so far) personal in WWII. Nicholas Moran did a talk on the subject and had found the number in the archives.Japanese tanks were suitable for infantry support against somebody with poor AT weapons, but that's about it. The Army probably felt they had what they needed to beat the Chinese and replacements weren't required.
In theory, yes, but we certainly don't set ourselves up to do that.
Highly unlikely, the Ottawa river channel varies significantly with the recommended centerline going to 6.48ft depth in certain areas closer to Ottawa.