The role of artillery on the modern battlefield

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

I was having a debate like this on another forum, and my opponent basically claimed that in a conflict between two modern nations, artillery's role is to neutralise the enemy's artillery. He claimed that in this age of UAVs, rangefind radar and other technological advances that allows the enemy to collect information about the position of artillery, the first strikes in a war would be traded between the two artillery systems.

I disagree with this. I think the role of artillery hasn't changed much. Whilst it has become more mobile, it's basic mission is still to provide direct fire support to your troops and to "dislocate" entranched and fortified positions. I think that in times of conflict, both sides' artillery will be located in such a way that they are both in range of the conflict area they are support to be engaged in, but out of range to each other.

What is your take on this, has artillery's role changed? Are artillery-to-artillery engagements prone to become more common between two advanced armies? Discuss

[denoir 0]

Well, in practice most major combat today is asymmetrical where the capabilities are uneven. There artillery indeed has a classical role.

As for hypothetical combat between two equally advanced modern militaries, artillery is utterly useless. A fairly primitive cobra (counter battery radar) can pick up shells at ranges that extend far beyond the range of the artillery. Seconds after the first shells exit the muzzle, you'll have counter battery shells on the way to you. The normal flight time of shells is in the order of magnitude of minutes and nobody is that mobile, especially given that an artillery position does take some time to set up - even with just very basic mortars.

Of course, if you have air superiority, then you can with a bit of luck take out the enemy counter batteries and then your artillery might get useful.

Either way, by modern military doctrine, artillery is seen as pretty much outdated. For instance the US cancelled the

Crusader howitzer program with the motivation that "developing state of the art artillery is as pointless as developing a state of the art bow and arrow".

It is however important to remember that most conflicts today are assymetric. So when you are beating the crap out of somebody with 30 years old and obsolete weapons, then arty can be quite useful.

[jakerod 254]

You should try reading Red Storm Rising. I think its fairly similar to what it is today. There are many occasions in the book where they talk about homing in on Radio calls of HQs and using Artillery to destroy it. Also to use them as counter batteries. The other one was just the regular hit fortefied positons and provide smoke or illumination.

[shinRaiden 0]

Well the first item there is the "between two advanced armies" part. There's too much at stake politically for "advanced" nations to go head to head, so it's always going to be superpowers vs the impoverished or if superpowers are opposing as in the Koreas in the 50's or Vietnam in the 60's or the ME in the 70's or Latin America in the 80's or the Balkan's in the 90's, though puppet proxies.

Anyways, I was reading in the library to day, and I can't remember now if it was an issue of Guns & Ammo or the Ft. Lewis 'Ranger' newspaper (probably the magazine though) that talked about a new Artillery range being opened at Camp Pendelton. The point they focused on was that in the new course range masters would be giving deliberately short coords to the batteries, and train the crews how to 'bump' and lift the howitzers into position to compensate. Additionally they would be training more on integrated fire command on moving targets using fixed or towed artillery.

The impression I got was that this was to train defensive battery fire for engaging mobile aggressive targets, where the artillery batteries were dug in in fixed locations, rather than mobile and engaged in offensive operations.

The problem is that there is two main schools of combat operations, massed field operations such as Desert Storm and early phases of OIF, and the highly mobile micro-operations of OEF in Afghanistan, where artillery assests are pretty much limited to what you can pack in to the mountains or airdrop.

Vietnam had it's experiments with firebases to interdict convoy routes or secure operations areas, but the mobile and integrated nature of the Afghanistan operations is not as suitable for more established firebases.

[WhoCares 0]

... There are many occasions in the book where they talk about homing in on Radio calls of HQs and using Artillery to destroy it. ...

This was already done by the germans in 1939 in their attack on Poland. But usually it was the Luftwaffe bouncing on the HQ, not artillery.

I can't link the document directly, so you have to visit the archives of CALL Library (Center for Army Lessons Learned):

Filerooms - Military History Institute - 1939-1945, WORLD WAR II - ARMY WAR COLLEGE - LECTURES - GERMANY: NOTES OF LECTURE BY MAJ PERCY BLACK, ...

It is a transcript of a lecture held by Maj. Percy Black, Attache and Assistant Attache at Berlin and was held on December 6, 1939 at the Army War college.

You can also read this as an account of Arty in Iraq.

You might find more in all those papers...

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

So basically, you all agree with my opponent - in a clash between two modern armies, artillery has no role as they will pound each other to ashes and offer little to no value to the actual battlefield (which in itself will not really exist anyway)?

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Actually, modern day rocket arty can setup, fire and move within minutes.

[EdGrrr 0]

Modern artillery can fire laser guided rounds. Whilst this may seen a little ott, they could be used with great accuracy to attach soft armoured vehicles.

In an artillery exchange of fire, the would have to be at least one side with artillery left, so it may still be of some use today.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]So basically, you all agree with my opponent - in a clash between two modern armies, artillery has no role as they will pound each other to ashes

It depends on the selection of LRA´s on both sides.

An artillery battery left alone has a 10 to 0 percent survival rate after the counter battery gets alive.

It´s the setup of artillery and it´s supporting units that can alter the result of a counterstrike.

Anyway, the chances of opposing artillery with the same ROF and and an extensive battle between them are low.

Before you do an artillery strike a lot of intel is collected by using various sources. So if we keep in mind that a major conflict would be lead in a serious manner, artillery and all other forces in reach would contribute to the battle.

It´s not that the artillery batteries dig in on both sides without supportive systems. Both parties would roll out their long range battle equipment, be it in the air, in space, on the ground or in the seas. Artillery is just a part of it and would never be used solo. A combined strike of all these and a good set of intel should take out about 70 percent of the enemy in reach at once which means that there is little left that could do an effective counterattack.

So even if the 30 percent left would have a 100 percent hitrate, they would be unable to destroy the amount of units that the initiator of the attack scored.

We haven´t seen such kind of conflict over the last 50 years so the only experiences we have are from single sided tech domination battles.

A conflict of two major players does not follow such rules. The use of nuclear ammunition is another factor that can influence the result very much and the outcome of such is very very debateable.

In my opinion it´s still the agressor (keeping in mind all of the above) that wins.

It´s very hypothetical to think of a pure ari duel. It´s simply more than that.

Edit:

Oh, and as long as mobile artillery has the limitations of range, as it has today, they are not in the box of participants.

[WhoCares 0]

I think it was the movie Vertical Limit where they made the conflict between India and Pakistan a little sideshow. It is not an all-out war but they just show each other that they are still there by artillery strikes every other day.

It's not like you would have always a counter battery in range. And in a balanced conflict a counter battery might just as well become the target of the enemies counter battery

[Pathy 0]

Ask any squaddie and he'll tell you its to hammer fuck out of enemy concentrations. Thats how its always been.

In other words, i agree with you Ex-Ronin.

[dinger 1]

Laser Guided Artillery are "Smart" (=2nd generation artillery shells). When employed in combat, people tend to say "wow!".

Currently there are third-generation artillery shells, which are "Brilliant". When employed in combat, people tend to say "HOLY S***!"

Survivability is pretty important, but aircraft only rule in the open, in a desert. Aircraft also require a lot of logistic support per pound of ordnance dumped on target.

CB fire is a threat, but it can be countered by A) taking out the enemy's artillery or disabling its sensing techniques B) stationing your artillery outside of a CB fire solution (stay out of range mostly) C) overwhelming the enemy's CB fire capabilities. D) using high mobility to escape from COBRA fires.

Attack and defense are in depth, and include all the toys brought to the battlefield. Nobody's left without something to kill, blow up, occupy, maintain or supply.

[the_shadow 0]

As for hypothetical combat between two equally advanced modern militaries, artillery is utterly useless. A fairly primitive cobra (counter battery radar) can pick up shells at ranges that extend far beyond the range of the artillery. Seconds after the first shells exit the muzzle, you'll have counter battery shells on the way to you. The normal flight time of shells is in the order of magnitude of minutes and nobody is that mobile, especially given that an artillery position does take some time to set up - even with just very basic mortars.

(see the bold text in thw quote)

see, there you are wrong my friend.

swedens newest artillery system "ARCHER" (wich will be fully operational in 2008) is that fast.

it can fire 6 rounds with MRSI capability and be on the run again in less then a minute. (it got a gun and run capability of 30-30-30, meaning it can deploy in less then 30 seconds. fire 6 rounds with MRSI in 30 seconds and be on the run again in less then 30 seconds.) that makes a total of 90 seconds on station (of wich 30 is before it can be detected by COBRA systems)

the new mortar system (AMOS aka SSG120) wich will be operational in 2010 will have similar capabilities with the difference that it can put up to 12 rounds with MRSI on the target in the same time as ARCHER can fire 6 rounds.

both these systems are state of the art artillery systems that has been developed to counter the COBRA threat, ARCHER also has a very long range for a gun artillery system with ranges up to 40km with basebleed munitions and up to 60km with EXCALIBUR munition (wich also has a very high precision as it´s GPS guided, in fact down to a square meter)

so, artillery systems are developing to counter the threat of COBRA systems and also increasing it´s accuracy with new munitions, this makes artillery a very useful pice of hardware on the modern battlefield as it can (quite litterally) take out a small target inside a town without causing a lot of collateral damage for a very small cost, without requiring a large amount of supplies and from a safe distance.

artillery is not just capable of delivering a huge amount of ordnance onto a big target anymore.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

This baby can fire 1 to 12 rockets on the same time (its loaded with max 12 rockets.

The aiming time for it is 16 seconds, and it takes 3 minutes for a single soldier to reload it.

fire, and start moving again in 10-60 seconds (depends on how many missiles you fire of course)... This means that it only takes 40 seconds from a recieved enemy position, until the MLRS have aimed, fired all 12 missiles and is up and running again. It has a max road speed of 64 km/hour.

This arty peace is mostly used to lay out anti tank mines with the AT2 missiles, which have 28 mines each.

If armed right, the MLRS launcher can deliver almost 8,000 munitions in less than 60 seconds at ranges exceeding 32km.

[Badgerboy 0]

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/mlrs/images/mlrs1.jpg[/img

This baby can fire 1 to 12 rockets on the same time (its loaded with max 12 rockets.

The aiming time for it is 16 seconds, and it takes 3 minutes for a single soldier to reload it.

fire, and start moving again in 10-60 seconds (depends on how many missiles you fire of course)... This means that it only takes 40 seconds from a recieved enemy position, until the MLRS have aimed, fired all 12 missiles and is up and running again. It has a max road speed of 64 km/hour.

This arty peace is mostly used to lay out anti tank mines with the AT2 missiles, which have 28 mines each.

If armed right, the MLRS launcher can deliver almost 8,000 munitions in less than 60 seconds at ranges exceeding 32km.

The rocket packs on the MLRS are actually loaded by a truck with a crane. This restricts the amount of fire power it can project before having to re-supply.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

the new system introduced in 1999, makes the reloading procedure fully automatically... and 1 man can therefor reload it by himself in 3 minutes.

[MSpencer 0]

Also they always travel with support vehicles for ammo and the like.

[Ares1978 0]

A fairly primitive cobra (counter battery radar) can pick up shells at ranges that extend far beyond the range of the artillery. Seconds after the first shells exit the muzzle, you'll have counter battery shells on the way to you.

A fairly modern (as opposed to very modern) radar has a relatively narrow field of view (Cymbeline Mk.2 around 40 degrees and 20km range). Unless the people who operate it know where to point it, they will have no chance of detecting the rounds. It also takes a certain time for those systems to figure out the approximate location of the batteries, and they have to get somebody to fire at them. It takes several minutes and by that time, the enemy has already packed their gear and moved on. If they know what's good for them.

[the_shadow 0]

when i made my conscript service we where told that we have aproximitly 3 minutes to get the hell out of there after the first shot is fired (if the enemy has a COBRA system and his guns are ready to fire and aimed in roughly the right direction)

for us it took about that time to get the rounds on the target when our quite modern COBRA system (known as ARTHUR, ARTillery HUnting Radar) acted as FO (Forward Observer) (ofcourse we didnt have anyone to shoot at, but the radar simulated that it had piced up enemy artillery and then directed our fire onto that position with real fire).

but, if the enemy dont have his guns ready and dont know where we are, then he first has to have the good fortune to have his radar aimed the right direction (ARTHUR has about 60 degrees field of view, and thats quite normal, and a 100km range), then he has to get his guns ready to fire (if they are towed behind trucks this will take 5-10 minutes, if they are self propelled like the M109 it will take about 1 minute + the time it takes for the radar to calculate the position of the enemy guns).

then the battery has to recalculate the coordinates recived from the COBRA to something the guns can understand (direction and elevation), but that just takes a few seconds, then there is the flight time for the shells, and unless the enemy guns are close this will take up to a minute and a half.

so, lets make a few rough calculations where everything work perfectly (wich everone that has been in the military knows it never does).

0s (this is the time where the enemy opens fire)

2s (rounds are detected by the COBRA)

15s (COBRA has calculated the position of the guns)

17s (COBRA sends a "call for fire" to the friendly battery nearby)

30s (the friendly battery has calculated the direction and elevation and sends it to the guns)

45s (the friendly guns opens fire)

2 mins (the artillery fire hits it´s target)

as we can see here this example took 2 minutes before the CBF (Counter Battery Fire) hit it´s target.

if the enemy had SP guns they might have gotten away, if they had Towed guns they had no chanse in hell to get away.

now we´ll make the same calculation, exept the guns are not ready to fire and are hooked onto the trucks.

0s (enemy opens fire)

2s (COBRA detects fire)

15s (COBRA has calculated the enemy position)

17s (COBRA sends "call for fire")

18s (firendly Battery recieves CFF)

2 mins (friendly guns being hooked of the trucks)

5 mins (guns starting to "group")

7 mins (Battery is getting ready)

10 mins (first gun is ready to shoot)

10 mins 8 s (first gun fires)

12 mins 20s (first round hit´s the target)

as we can see here, it took almost 12Ë minute for the guns to get it´s rounds on the target, in this time a SP guns has had it´s chance to get out of the target area and take a cup of coffe/tea.

Towed howitzers would barely had got out of the target area, but still they would have survived (if they where aware of the COBRA threat)

do note, this is actual times that i personally recorded during my military service when we did both these scenarios on exercises.

we had towed 155mm howitzers with engines that helped in the "grouping" (getting the guns ready to fire), a gun of the same calibre and without a engine to help would take longer, possibly up to 20 minutes.

well trained crews can polish the times from getting the "CFF" to fireing the first round to about 6 minutes, (when they have the guns hooked to the trucks)

i say again, the times in my example is for a medium experienced crew that has guns with a helping engine, and they are autentical and recorded by me personally during my military service in the royal swedish artillery 2003-2004 and during winter conditions.

as said before, if the enemy has COBRA systems, he still has to be very lucky to make any big difference.

and with tomorrows self propelled guns, todays COBRA systems will be virtually useless, this is what makes things evolve so that there will be new Counter Battery systems in the day after tomorrow.

and yes, in my opinion artillery has a role to serve on tomorrows battlefield, and it will be different from todays role.