Some thoughts out of this disussion:
Ortillery: Powerful. Certain varieties may be fast to arrive (laser or
particle) and reasonably accurate with lower power. Certain varieties may take
a while to get there, but be devastating (missile or gun). Long lag time on
fire missions unless your ship is overhead waiting to
engage. Being "on-station" like this, to cut reaction time, increases
vulnerability to any hidden surface weapons. (Note this tells us our FT
ortillery ship should be armoured and have a tough hull! If you have to get
close, you'd better be able to take a slug or three from
several class-4 batteries on a planets surface). Good for assaults,
long running defences, not so hot for mobile fire-and-move combat.
Standard doctrine should force you to get orbital superiority before
you move up to use ortillery - or else expect loses in your ortillery
force.
SP Arty: GEV MRLS or SP tracked or wheeled tube guns. These would be the
standard. Fire quick salvoes then move. CBR can be a risk to them if enemy
arty is CB tasked. Faster fire missions than Ortillery, but less dangerous.
Towed or emplaced Arty: Rarer. Cheaper. Used by colonial or indig
forces. These would include cheapo katyusha style MRLS and tube-guns
with less sophisticated (but still dangerous) projectiles. It has a
big risk if it meets with someone with CBR or mobile counter-arty.
Arty types:
MRLS - Cheap or expensive. Low recoil relative to CPR guns. Expense is
a direct product of the sophistication of a round and some FC component. Good
range. Can deploy submunitions.
tube-guns - Cheap or expensive. Cost is related to sophistication of
gun and of FC. Recoil compensation may be employed. Can deploy submunitions.
missiles - Everything from dumb as salvo style katyusha rockets, to
fin guided Thor Javelins from orbital ortillery satellites. Cruise
missiles - terrain following. Missiles that deploy submunitions.
Arty platforms:
GEV - fast, but must ground to fire recoil weapons.
Wheeled - cheap, robust. Not as fast as GEV.
Tracked - more expensive than wheeled, but able to carry heavier
weapons. Not as fast as Wheeled.
Ship - Costly. Distant. Expensive to risk versus orbital defenses.
Longer lag time. Probably deployed between 20K miles up and 400 miles up. Only
close in if and when fire support is expected. Otherwise
delays are longer. But the trade off is hang time - a ship in the
lower orbit would not (I think...) be able to hang around as long. Maybe a
faster arriving mission but shorter in duration.
Satellite - Faster than a ship (lower orbit), less risk to men and
machines than a ship but still vulnerable. Probably a good
compromise - esp if the satellite can adjust its orbit to prevent
predictive fire destroying it.
Good to deploy both as attacker and defender. Deployed at 300-400
miles up.
Drone - Faster than a satellite - flying around the battle area - the
drone can either bear a munition or BE a munition. RPV with weapons
guidance - can deploy weapons of varying types - smart missiles, glide
or chute bombs or vertical attack penetrators. Can be more responsive than
other methods, but runs the risk of being shot down even with stealth. Not
altogether cheap.
Well, I've enjoyed this discussion - it sure changed my mind about
some things and it made a few interesting points about ortillery that I didn't
consider. Certainly worth discussing...:>
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Some thoughts out of this disussion:
> Towed or emplaced Arty: Rarer. Cheaper. Used by colonial or indig
Not even particularly cheap, considering how cheap it is to mount a big
artillery piece on a truck with a "crane" to dump the gun down onto the
ground, fire, and lift it back onto the truck. As long as you have a truck
powerful enough to carry the gun (and if you don't, you are unlikely to have
anything to tow it either...), you can have reasonably SP artillery.
> These would include cheapo katyusha style MRLS
Note that the Katyusha were usually truck-mounted (at least on all the
pictures I've seen of them :-/ ), so were SP.
> Arty types:
is a direct product of the sophistication of a round and some FC
> component. Good range. Can deploy submunitions.
The cost of the gun itself doesn't change too much, but the cost of the
ammunition varies wildly. Certain ammunition types also require sophisticated
FC units, but you can still fire them from 1940s vintage ordnance provided you
supply that FC.
> Arty platforms:
Noisy. Energy hogs.
> Wheeled - cheap, robust. Not as fast as GEV.
Probably faster than GEV in restricted terrain. The fastest current military
hovercraft I could find notes about is said to move at 70 mph,
but that is over open sea :-/
> Tracked - more expensive than wheeled, but able to carry heavier
I don't know of any 203mm wheeled howitzers... yet. There are plenty of
wheeled 155mm types around though; and 155mm is the standard heavy artillery
around nowadays.
However, tracked vehicles are considerably better at cross-country
movement than wheeled vehicles of a similar mass.
> Not as fast as Wheeled.
Not on roads or very flat terrain, at least.
Regards,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> I don't know of any 203mm wheeled howitzers... yet. There are plenty
The US had them in WW2 and I'm sure the Belgian army reserves had them up till
some 10 years ago. 155mm is Nato's standard. The Russians have larger calibres
around (170mm if I'm not mistaken).
> Ludo wrote:
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Oops - should've been "wheeled *SP* howitzers" - I climbed around on an
old US 203mm *tracked* SP howitzer less than two months ago, and most
towed artillery pieces have wheels :-/ Sorry 'bout that.
> > There are plenty
heavy artillery around nowadays.
> The US had them in WW2 and I'm sure the Belgian army reserves had
To reiterate, now with all the words in place <g>: I don't know of any wheeled
*SP* howitzers larger than 155mm, but there are numerous 155mm wheeled SP
howitzer types.
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> To reiterate, now with all the words in place <g>: I don't know of any
Old obsolete US 203mm, still used by some despite the 1940s vintage.
Currently-in-service Russian 180mm
And for non-howitzer artillery
Russian 240mm Mortar Russian 160mm Mortar (and Chinese copies)
155mm is so popular, like the comparable 152mm Naval types, as it's the
largest shell that can be handled manually without cranes etc (by 2
> > To reiterate, now with all the words in place <g>: I don't know of
Not sure what you mean by obsolete. The US Marines used them during the Gulf.
They were and still would be more accurate than any other artillery
piece we had/have (including the M198). Good piece of gear. The only
reasons we got rid of them was the cost of maintaining SP's and their sheer
weight made them difficult to embark/deploy.
> 155mm is so popular, like the comparable 152mm Naval types, as it's
or 1 Marine by hand....
That's how we do it...
Cheers,
> Scott Uecker wrote:
> > > wheeled SP howitzer types.
> Not sure what you mean by obsolete. The US Marines used them during
The wheeled (M115), not the SP (M110)'s?
> > largest shell that can be handled manually without cranes etc (by 2
As I said, 2 people. US Marines are excluded, as they can walk on water*,
fight a Grizzly bear with one hand tied behind their back** etc. Everyone
who's played OPFOR against 'em knows that. I speak from personal experience,
and a Kangaroo exercise in the late 70's.
But seriously... that's another reason for 155s, shell weight 43.5 kg or so.
It tuckers out the crew pretty quickly though. OK for a Shoot n Scoot, but I
wouldn't like to try this for any length of time.
* I don't say they don't sink, mind you. But they tend to bob to the
> On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Scott Uecker wrote:
> Not sure what you mean by obsolete. The US Marines used them during
It was also the choice means of delivering the Artillery launched nuke rounds
in US use. Not that we ever used them.
Also note that during Vietnam we had a 175mm sp gun 3 variants of the M110
203mm and several 105mm guns sp and towed.
> or 1 Marine by hand....
You Jar^h^h^hMarines always doing things by hand when an auto loader could do
it. Not that we civies would ever pay for the Marines to have an autolading SP
gun...:< Damn politicoes. Still you guys do a bang up job with what you get.
> > > > wheeled SP howitzer types.
Yes, that would be the M110's. We still had the "Silver Bullet" tables in our
classified vault until '93.
> > > largest shell that can be handled manually without cranes etc (by
Our boys got pretty well spanked this year by you folks from the land whose
toilets flush in the other direction... In retrospect, I didn't hear much good
about the staff who lead our boys into illustrious defeat.
Didn't know you had Grizzly's, but you sure as H#%L have some big-a#@
snakes!!
Cheers,
> To reiterate, now with all the words in place <g>: I don't know of any
FYI
My copy of the Jane's AFV Recognition Handbook (second edition, 1992
copyright) has a picture of the Iraqi "Al Fao" self propelled gun. It is a
210mm wheeled sp arty piece.
In case you don't have a copy handy ;-), it looks a LOT like the South
African wheeled sp arty (Armscor G6 155mm SPH).
Cheers,
> Scott Uecker wrote:
> Our boys got pretty well spanked this year by you folks from the land
Home Team advantage.
Despite rumours to the contrary, our toilets don't flush in the opposite
direction. They use a different mechanism entirely, one that doesn't
spiral-flush (and uses about 1/3 as much water).
Those readers who are based in the UK, NZ or OZ and have never seen a US
toilet won't know what the heck I'm talking about. Just take my word for it,
the US Toilet flush is "etwas anders" as they say in Germany.
> Didn't know you had Grizzly's, but you sure as H#%L have some big-a#@
Mmmmm...Protein..... (actually the one time I ate snake on a survival
go the drop bears!
Slim
[quoted original message omitted]
> ...which is the second famous unit of the OU, the first being the Light
... the only known defense against them being to post lots of grunts with
large sharpened sticks pointing skywards...
;)
Beth
> ...which is the second famous unit of the OU, the first being the
These are like Gummi Bears, right?
(rubbery sugar in horribly cute bear shapes)
Read Terry Pratchett for the Discworld version of them... it's not far off
the truth. ;-)
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
> -----Original Message-----
> Simon LeRay-Meyer wrote:
...which is the second famous unit of the OU, the first being the Light Horse.
The Drop Bears are the infiltrators who are delivered in
stealthed one-man capsules from Orbit, a la Heinlein.
er, not really,
Drop Bears are in teh vain of Yowies, Bunyips and other mythical creatures
from the Australian bush.....
In this case the Drop Bear will leap out of trees and attack unwary
Americans.....
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
> Adrian Johnson wrote:
> >To reiterate, now with all the words in place <g>: I don't know of
Thanks!
A 1992 edition? Typical :-( The Al Fao isn't mentioned in the 1989-90
Jane's Armour and Artillery, and the 1993-94 edition only says:
"... As far as it is known, none of these entered production or service with
the Iraqi Army and none were captured during the 1991 Middle East conflict.
Details of these three systems were given in Jane's Armour and
Artillery 1992-93 on the following pages:
...
Al Fao 210 mm (6x6) SPG page 572"
We don't have the 1992-93 edition :-( The 1995-96 and 1999-2000
editions don't mention it either.
> In case you don't have a copy handy ;-),
Not the recognition guide, no... not even the source material for the 1992
edition of it. Only for the years before and after :-(
> it looks a LOT like the
Doesn't surprise me. Indeed, given Dr.Bull's (or was it Ball's? I always
misspell his name :-( ) involvement in the design of South Africa's
long-range artillery as well as in Iraq's war efforts, I'd suspect that
the
same people designed both vehicles - if the Al Fao wasn't built on a
reinforced G6 hull, which would have been the fastest way to go.
Later,