Maybe for a while.  Then the defenses against things like drones will get better and it might be better to have a firebase w/ multiple layers of defense instead of mobility.   It goes in cycles.

No they'd rather destroy them. Even if they're NIW (or New In Crate).

I watched them un-crating new mortars from the 1960s just to destroy them at Anniston Army Depot. Your tax dollars at work.

They'd probably donate them to Ukraine or some other "friendly" nation, if they want them.

Everything has reached the end of effectiveness and become obsolete - until someone gives it a whirl in an unanticipated situation.

Grenades for example. The launched (from hand mortars) versions were used in Europe from the 1400s-1800s but largely declared obsolete in the late 1800s and hand-thrown devices were seen as foolhardy at best.

Until the Russo-Japanese war changed every major power's mind.

Try that in the Anti-air environment that is Ukraine. :30 sec lifespan.

Well I heard there already drone "motherships". Or they're being worked.

Regardless, man......

Attached File

It does have historical use for private ownership in the revolutionary war.  If only we had a supreme court judgement if you could show historical use, it would granting ownership...

ASSuming indeed.

Batteries are a long way from replacing turbines on aircraft.

You replace hammered tin barrels with rocket pods, the vehicles are lighter and the crew is reduced. Likely more than makes up for the 130mm missile costing twice as much as a cannon round. Since one vehicle carries 20-36 rounds you can lay the scunnion or a DS FA Bn firing one round per gun and then displace a single launcher while the rest remain hidden.

Would you prefer 105 or 155 for towed guns?

What’s more likely than ABN losing their cannons is ABN losing their parachutes.

SEAD isn't an Army problem to solve

So the solution is to build an Army that depends on Air Force capabilities that no longer exist in sufficient quantities to execute the mission?

How effective is that going to be?

Care to explain and break it down instead of being shitty?

Almost all the development and lethality work has been focused on 155mm.

It is a joint and interagency mission, and some of the many of the most effective tools don’t belong to DoD.

I don't see why you would need an armored tracked vehicle for your mobile artillery; just too much expense that has led to the cancellation during development of the last two generations of U.S. mobile artillery. Since you are doing shoot and scoot behind the front lines you shouldn't need the armor or the tracks. Would need an accompanying radar equipped drone defense vehicle, but again it doesn't need to be armored or tracked.
A 5 ton truck with a couple of stabilizers and a hydraulic recoil blade on the back would allow mounting and firing a 155mm howitzer. A 1 ton pickup with electrical jack stabilizers could mount a 120mm mortar in the bed with room to shoot and space for ammo. Not sure about using GPS anymore as Russia has developed effective GPS jamming systems, but the U.S. has countered with effective inertial location systems.

Try getting parts for a 777, shit for a 119 right now.

That is a prioritization issue, as most of them are being sent to Europe.

The light ones are not durable, and the durable ones are not light.

if you are preparing to fight the next war like you fought the last war you will lose.

most governments prepare to fight the last war over again.....

So drone warfare it is.

Where are the magnetic railguns at?

Maybe I'll keep my 03 FFL....just in case.

I'm reading Theodore Roosevelt's book The Rough Riders right now, and this thread is well timed. The US Army took what the future POTUS calls a "dynamite gun", four Colt guns and some Hotchkiss one pounders into battle on San Juan Hill, just outside of Santiago, Cuba. The Colts were wheeled Gatling guns, I believe in 45-70, but I had to look up a dynamite gun.

Smithsonian says, "The Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun was an advanced, lightweight kind of artillery piece that had not yet proven itself in battle with the Americans like the Gatling Gun had. Despite its name, it did not actually fire sticks of dynamite. It used compressed air to fire gelatinous explosives, not dynamite."

He makes the point over and over about how disadvantaged the USA forces were firing cannons using black powder, which produced large rings of smoke and drew heavy and prolonged Spanish fire. The Spaniards had smokeless powder in both artillery and their Mausers, making it almost impossible to identify their positions in the thick jungle.

LtCol (at the time) Roosevelt heaped praise on a young Lt Parker, who made the decision to bring the Colts up in the heaviest fighting. He says, "I started over to inquire, and found that Lieutenant Parker, not content with using his guns in support of the attacking forces, had thrust them forward to the extreme front of the fighting line, where he was handling them with great effect. From this time on, throughout the fighting, Parker's Gatlings were on the right of my regiment...indeed, the dash and efficiency with which the Gatlings were handled by Parker was one of the most striking features of the campaign; he showed that a first-rate officer could use machine guns, on wheels, in battle and skirmish, in attacking and defending trenches, alongside of the best troops, and to their great advantage."

It's a fascinating book, especially being written by an officer who actually managed to survive despite his best efforts...the officers of the time mostly refused cover, believing it inspired their men...and their casualty rate as a result was very high. Lots of photos and illustrations, and much commentary on the men who flocked to enlist to the fight, including a couple of observations about several regiments of black cavalry regiments that would bring an absolute storm now.

Highly recommended.  

So can we have them now? C&R?

I've seen a HMMWV 105 hybrid straight out of Alien Resurrection but they'd need a Chinook for each tube.







Mission dictates gear

That’s cute but the Army isn’t going to get support from the Air Force simply because they are dependent on it than the Air Force is going to get a 17th and 18th PATRIOT battalion just because they need it.

Let’s see. You’re going to be driving through off road terrain rutted by hundreds of tracked and wheeled vehicles, and bombs, and shells, across the fragments of those bombs and shells, which will puncture your tires, across mines and submunitions and IEDs  and you’re likely to come under indirect fire, drone strikes, enemy air attack and even attacks by enemy SOF or leave behinds. And that’s if you’re winning.

Now let’s think about artillery raids.

IIRC The House controls the purse strings so if they think we can Leroy Jenkins our way into an undeclared war against the Soviets or CCP without it they'll likely find a way to bring whats left back through Dover

.
old joke:

how can you tell when your counterbattery fire is effective?

the enemy artillery stops firing
.

The best part about that is the UCP.

Towed guns make sense since there’s no air dropping of heavier assets

The General says this two years after the Army made a big deal out of a wheeled artillery competition in which they chose to adopt fuck and all.

He’s from Futures Command not FA Branch.

This.  In the simulation training scenarios at For Sill 15 - 20 years ago the OPFOR would only be allowed to shoot a kilometer away from the towed arty ... ONCE ... with HE, not ICM.  Only if they failed to make any effort to displace would OPFOR be allowed to re-engage them.  Otherwise, they died early, the G.I.s in that cell got no training.

They don't do so good against DP-ICM in a counter-battery radar environment.

Trenches were always a thing >_>

When is the generals position on the board of directors of BAE Land Systems opening up?

You can't lob 155mm ammo if the tube, truck, and crew are dead because they couldn't displace before the counter-battery fire landed.  Or if the tube has displaced and is emplacing at the new posititon.  Or preparing to displace.

I don't think he is wrong, but the Air Force thinks the A10s are obsolete

How complete your radar coverage is, your queuing schedule, the availability of artillery to range the detected firing position that ISN'T already committed to something else, the speed at which the targets can displace, the detection (or lack thereof) of other targets with a similar or higher priority, how much counter-counter battery radar and assets are committed to the fight, and how aggressively the targeting queue is managed to discard stale targets.

There were trenches at the siege Carolus Rex was killed at in the early 1700s.  Further back you have fortifications that used the landscape to provide protection for a castles defenders: iow.. trenches.

What many dont seem to understand is that 'war never changes' is sort of true.  Fortifications change in design but not in concept.  Why?  IMO there is a sort of stoiciometric quality that advancements in offensive and defensive tech creates.

Towed artillery isnt at the end of its effectiveness.  The current tactics without solid drone defense are.  When those solid defenses are deployed en masse, the tactics return to near what they were.

Our Light, Airborne and Air Assault Divisions going to receive truck-mounted 155mm Pieces like the South African G6 or the Swedish Archer?

105mm Light Arty Batteries can likely be replaced by the new fangled 120mm breach-loaded, semi automatic type systems.

Breach loading mortars that can be loaded and fired from within an armored carrier are probably the wave of the future.

The thing about those countermeasures is they need to me mounted on vehicles, and one of the countermeasures is putting the crew under armor, and by the time you connect all the dots you’re going to have more self propelled guns.

Trucks have these round black air filled things called "tires" that don't react well to shrapnel and bomblets from near-misses that a tracked vehicle can shake off.  Plus the crews don't really like to break out the jack and lug wrench until the incoming stops landing.

The american revolutionary war also had trenches.