What's New in Field Artillery
This installment of the shotgun theory of publishing equipment data charts for modern equipment deals with field artillery, primarily tube artillery, and mostly howitzers and guns. There are a couple of SP mortars thrown in for good measure, to fill out the former-Soviet range of SP artillery, and also a pair of rocket launchers, one because it is the preeminent MRL system in the world, displacing large-caliber tube artillery in the world's leading armies, and the other because we need it for the TO&E appended at the end of the article.
So what's new in the world of the most lethal battlefield system? Longer barrels, longer ranges, higher rates of fire, smart munitions, lighter towed artillery, more 155s and digitization (which is a code word for advanced communications, situational awareness, fire direction and navigation).
There are several ways to increase the range of artillery. The first is by increasing the force exerted on the projectile by using larger or more powerful propellant charges. However, this is limited by barrel strength, barrel length and recoil. A barrel can take only so powerful an explosion going off in it, which clearly limits the design, although barrel length and allowable recoil become limiting factors before this point. A projectile can only be accelerated as long as it remains in the barrel. Once it exits the barrel, the explosive force behind it is freed from the barrel, and the round begins immediately to decelerate from atmospheric friction and gravity. Therefore, a longer barrel allows a round to remain under acceleration for longer, getting more out of existing charges or allowing meaningful use of more powerful charges. An example of this is the evolution of the US SP 8" howitzer from its 25-caliber M110 model to the 37-caliber M110A1 model.
However, sometimes powerful charges and long gun barrels can create recoil forces greater than can be handled by a given gun mount or SP carriage.
In these cases, sometimes the fitting of a muzzle brake allows amore powerful charge to be fired, increasing the range of the weapon. An example of this is the US M110A2, which can fire up to charge nine, compared to the unbraked M110A1, which can only fire up to charge eight.
Another alternative in use for many years is the rocket-propelled projectile (RAP). This is a conventionally fired projectile, but it contains a rocket motor to boost it to greater ranges. Typically, however, the space consumed by the rocket requires that the payload (i.e., explosive power in HE rounds) be reduced, either that or a larger projectile manufactured, with the attendant complications in ammunition stowage. RAP projectiles are also inherently less accurate due to the variations in bum time of the rocket motor. More recent innovations in long-range artillery are efforts to reduce the base drag of the round itself after it leaves the barrel. A projectile with a flat base flying through the air creates a vacuum behind it, because the air cannot flow smoothly around the abrupt angle, and this vacuum slows the projectile down, decreasing its range. Better ballistic shapes for the base of the projectile, such as ogival shapes more like the projectile's nose, reduce this problem, and most all projectiles have some sort of tapered "boat tail" for this reason. Artillery shells which decrease base drag by such aerodynamic shaping are called extended-range full-bore (ERFB) shells to distinguish them from sub-caliber rounds, which also have decreased drag, but by reducing their frontal area. A more sophisticated solution to this same problem is called extended-range full-bore base-bleed (ERFB-BB) and has only been taken full advantage of by a few artillery manufacturers, most notably those of Austria and South Africa. Base-bleed rounds have a mechanism fitted to the projectile's base which bums a propellant to produce a low-pressure gas. This gas is then bled into the area of vacuum at the base of the projectile, filling the vortex area and eliminating the base drag. Since the gas is low-pressure, it is sufficient only to fill the vacuum, and therefore does not impart any additional thrust to the shell.
Thus, the advantage to both ERFB and ERFB-BB munitions is that neither of them inherently decrease accuracy in the same way that rocket assisting does, but any extreme-range artillery fire suffers some drop in accuracy due to the increasing cumulative effects of minute factors such as wind, temperature, humidity, etc.
Modern technology is able to mitigate these problems as well. Many artillery systems now employ a radar system that tracks the outgoing rounds (or, typically just one test round) and detects any bias imparted to the flight path so that subsequent shots can be fired to correct for these.
To get back to artillery range for a moment, however, many readers will recall the trepidation leading up to the 1991 Gulf War when analysts decried the limited range of the American artillery systems when compared to the much longer-ranged systems purchased by the Iraqis (many of these systems were the same Austrian-and South African-produced ERFB-BB systems just discussed, but of course only a small fraction of their inventory consisted of this really good stuff). I do not need to belabor the obvious advantages conferred to an army by greater artillery range, but the Gulf War provided eloquent evidence that simple brain-dead bean-counting statistical comparisons have brutal limitations (take that, you brain-dead bean counters). Being theoretically outranged is a condition, not an outcome, and one which was handily addressed by good American training and sound American doctrine and tactical techniques and procedures. Long-range artillery is only as good as the redlegs yanking the lanyards, and we had been training to deal with numerically superior, long-ranged artillery for quite some time, in the context of NATO's central front.
By taking out the Iraqi air force and border observation posts, we deprived them of their eyes, then proceeded to systematically destroy the Iraqi artillery park with artillery raids. (Regardless of what you might have heard. Coalition artillery destroyed more Iraqi artillery than did our aircraft.) While it is true that the range of American artillery obliged these raids to move forward of American front-line units in order to hit the Iraqi ordnance, American doctrine and training enabled them to rapidly "shoot and scoot" so that none of these raids were ever menaced by Iraqi counterfire (which was a disappointment, actually, as we had counterbattery forces set up to punish them if they rose to this bait). It's not just your technology, it's knowing what to do with your technology.
There has been so much talk about smart munitions since the Gulf War that it is almost trite to go into it. In fact, smart isn't even very smart anymore; new munitions are smarter than smart (i.e., target-designated) and are called brilliant (i.e., autonomous nondesignated target seeking, usually by thermal sensors or millimeter-wave radar). However, more and more artillery rounds (and MRL payloads) are carrying terminal homing submunitions, in other words, ICMs that don't merely randomly fall in large numbers, but fall in not quite so large numbers and actually steer themselves to hit vehicles through their thin top armor. (Ouch!) This is a revolution in warfare that has been in the works for about 20 years and which is now upon us. However, this article is not going to go into it, as:
1. It is quite long enough already, thank you. And:
2. These munitions will require one or two additional rules cases that I don't feel like going into right now. But I felt it would be polite to mention it, as future article (particularly the Armor 21 adjuncts) will round up all of that stuff.
Once upon a time towed artillery was the norm, and SP artillery was something of a luxury. This has become less true over the past 30 years, and towed artillery has become increasingly viewed as a specialized form of artillery used for rapid deployment/airportable/airmobile forces. Thus it is not good enough to build flabby, towed versions of SP artillery; those who want towed artillery want state-of-the-art, high-performance, light-weight artillery. Such guns are typified by the British Light Gun (I'm not being vague—-that's its official name. The Brits aren't as stuck on designations as we are) and the newer French LG1, both 105mm weapons.
However, the search is still on for a good light 155mm system, and the US Army and Marines have been wrangling over this one for several years now, in order to replace the overly-heavy M198, which was a "light weight" 155 when introduced in 1978. There are anumber of new light 155s being fiddled with, such as the Vickers UFH (Ultralightweight Field Howitzer) and Royal Ordnance Light Towed Howitzer (LTH). In order to achieve the range performance demanded of modern systems while keeping weight down, both designs make extensive use of titanium, and the LTH can be fitted with a wide variety of barrels from 23 to 52 calibers to allow gun weight to be dictated by mission requirements. (Unfortunately, CD does not distinguish between 4000 and 7000 kg weapons; both are class ffl.) Although a satisfactory lightweight 155 has yet to be found, the 155 is pretty much becoming the dominant caliber for artillery worldwide. There are several reasons for this.
One is the very useful size of the round and the fact that it has already been a common caliber for decades. This means a wide variety of useful ordnance has been developed for the weapon (for example, the US Copperhead cannon- launched guided projectile or CLGP), a wide variety of 155mm RAP rounds, cargo-carrying rounds such as ICM, DPICM, and scatterable mines, etc.
Another reason is the increas ing displacement o f 1 arger-cal iber artillery by the American MLRS. Among NATO forces, the MLRS has pretty much replaced all tube artillery above 155mm, and the expanding range of MLRS and ATACMS rounds which can be fired from the same launcher will only continue to increase its utility.
Finally, another unanticipated side-effect of winning the Cold War is that everyone has to switch over to your caliber. While for years the world had been divided into Eastbloc 122 and 152mm systems and Western 105 and 155mm systems, the collapse of the Soviet Union appears to have spelled the decline of the former Soviet bore-size for non-CIS customers. For example, the Czechs are producing a new version of their wheeled Dana 152mm system in 155mm (the Zuzana), and China has also switched over to manufacturing 155mm ordnance, including base-bleed rounds. Even the Russians are toying with this caliber, in the form of the Hermes, which fires a 155mm variant of the 152mm Krasnopol LGM (below). However, this system is not included with this article as I deem it to be a top-attack tank destroyer rather than a true artillery system. (Something else for a future article. I'm a busy guy.)
Although there are increasing numbers of 155L45 gun-howitzers through- out the world firing ERFB-BB ammunition to ranges approaching 40km, NATO nations are content to stick with the 155L39, while looking to the 155L52 as the next generation tube artillery. Interestingly, base-bleed ammunition figures only slightly in both of these systems; long-range projectiles will be predominantly RAP. Although the thinking behind the aforementioned Gulf War panic would make one question this continued commitment to an "inferior" weapon in the L39, the NATO decision is correct within the current political framework. Switching to a new NATO standard would make a mess of alliance procurement policies, and the money is better spent on a true next-generation 155L52 rather than a stop-gap L45. In the meantime, NATO forces (well, the good ones, anyway) are wise to rely on their effective employment of the existing, sound and well-stocked L39 systems.
Another innovation which has yet to play out is in the field of artillery propellant. Electromagnetic "rail guns," electrothermal and electrothermal-chemical propellants are all being looked at, but the system which has been committed to for the US Army's Crusader (a.k.a. the Advanced Field Artillery System, or AFAS) is liquid propellant. While this might mean that other countries will follow in our wake, this is not assured, but liquid propellant offers a number of advantages over current procedures. It is much more compact to store than powder bags or cartridges, allowing more ammunition to be carried. And, because it does not have to be used in pre-determined quanta of bags or charges, any of an infinite number of propellant energies can be used. This will allow a single Crusader to fire a time-on-target (TOT) mission consisting of between four and eight rounds. In other words, a single Crusader could fire four to eight rounds in rapid succession with different energy and at different elevations, and all of them will strike the target in the same instant. The TOT capability of any other artillery system in the world is 1.
Interestingly enough, here is a little tidbit about how the Crusader is not breaking technology barriers in all aspects of its design. Although the choice of chassis/engine/powertrain for the Crusader is expected to impact heavily on those used in all of the US next-generation AFVs, the engine chosen in January 1995 for Crusader is the Perkins Condor V12 diesel, first used on the British Challenger in 1983. Note that this is not international two-way-street sour grapes. The US Army Tank-Automotive Command (TACOM) has spent $250 million over the past 15 years on its Advanced Integrated Propulsion System (AIPS) program. Rather than leveraging maturing technologies by selecting high-technology engines based on AIPS research such as those offered for Crusader by Cummins and Lycoming, the Crusader will enter service in 2003 with an engine that is already 20 years old and has limited growth potential. In the meantime, the US industrial base for armored vehicle engines will decay, as there is no commercial market for these items. (Our British readers may wish to respond with another point of view.)
The advantage of high rates of fire is obvious: it dramatically decreases the shoot:scoot ratio; i.e., a fire mission of a set volume of fire can be accomplished in much less time, allowing the artillery to keep moving, either to keep pace with rapidly moving offensive forces (e.g., the Gulf War), or to avoid the inevitable counterbattery fire. High rates of fire were accomplished as long ago as 1960 with the Swedish Bandkanon, but these advantages were overshadowed by the continued need to laboriously survey the firing site and interact with essentially manual fire direction systems. Only now, with precise land navigation systems (such as the Magellan GPS) and automated fire direction systems, can these ROF improvements be truly leveraged into revolutionary artillery operations.
Thus, the real revolution in field artillery is not so much in the hardware as in the software. All of the above hoo-hah amounts to nothing when compared to the synergistic effects of advanced technology on what is now being called the "information age" (or sometimes, "digital") battlefield. Navigation, communications and fire direction systems being tested and deployed do away with the need to laboriously survey artillery firing positions and allow moving SP artillery to open fire within a second of coming to a halt. This allows eight-gun batteries to fire as four two-gun sections, permitting more targets to be serviced in less time and also permitting the field artillery equivalent of bounding overwatch fire, allowing them to keep pace with rapidly advancing maneuver elements. When indirect fire can be called in this rapidly, there will come a time when the difference between direct and indirect fires is virtually immaterial.
However, the enormity of this issue is more than can be covered in this article about artillery and will be handled in future articles when I explain how to convert the forthcoming Armor 21 game into Command Decision terms.
As if I haven't already gone on long enough, there is a little terminology bugaboo to go into about the former-Soviet SP systems on the accompanying data charts. I have chosen to go with their Soviet industrial designations rather than their Soviet military designations for the simple reason that their industrial designations are much clearer. I present the following chart for those inclined to argue. How else is one to distinguish effectively between the three SP 152mm systems except by 2S3, 2S5 and 2S19?
| FORMER SOVIET SELF-PROPELLED ARTILLERY | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial | Military | NATO/US | Description | Popular Name |
| 2S1 | SO-122 | M1974 | SP 122 howitzer | Gvozdika (Carnation) |
| 253 | SO-152 | M1973 | SP 152 howitzer | Akatsiya (Acacia) |
| 254 | SM-240 | M1975 | SP 240 mortar | Tyul'pan (Tulip Tree) |
| 255 | unknown | unknown | SP 152 howitzer | Giatsint (Hyacinth) |
| 2S7 | SO-203 | M1975 | SP 203 gun-how | Pion (Peony) |
| 2S9 | SO-120 | M1981 | SP 120 mortar | Anona (Anemone) |
| 2S19 | unknown | unknown | SP 152 gun-how | unknown |
I rest my case.
In the interest of preserving space (I mean, have you seen how long that Gazala thing is?), I will not reproduce the equipment data charts legend for the accompanying charts. This chart can be found on page 37 of CPQ 6, or you can get aphotocopy from us for a business-size SASE. However, note the following additions to this legend:
In the IDF (indirect fire range) field, some weapons will have two values separated by a slash. The number to the left of the slash is with normal rounds; the number to the right is with RAP rounds. In addition, some weapons will have parenthetical listings of ranges with ERFB or ERFB-BB ammunition, if available.
Also there is the added notation "LGM-capable" (or sometimes "LGM-cap" to save space) in the ammunition data section. This indicates that the weapon is capable of firing laser-guided munitions, handled by Rule 8.92 on page 61 of CD2. For US- and NATO-aligned nations, this is the Copperhead 155mm CLGP, while for former Eastbloc nations, this is the Krasnopol 152mm guided artillery projectile or Smel'chak 240mm guided mortar projectile. Note that each projectile is shown on the data charts with a minimum and maximum range envelope. B ecause the Krasnopol is a rocket-assisted projectile, its range may exceed that normally listed for the weapon.
Proper use of the German organizations below will require some brief rules on UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). UAVs are used for spotting and observing for artillery fire. They are launched from vehicle stands and fly around the map using the aircraft rules. The drone or UAV launch stand is handled like any normal vehicular unit. The launch stand is treated as an FO stand, but may only spot and observe targets visible from an airborne UAV launched from that stand.
Spotting and observing from an airborne UAV is treated as an airborne FO carried in an observation aircraft usingrules 18.34,18.54,18.82 and other applicable rules. If the controlling launch stand is destroyed, the UAV is removed from play.
At the present time, the CD2 aircraft rules are, as they say, "broken," and this is hardly the place to write new ones just to allow UAVs to be used. Until such time as new aircraft rules are produced, use the current aircraft rules and treat UAVs as having a defense value of 2. However, they may not be fired at by missiles of any kind (their signatures are too small), and are therefore only vulnerable to AA fire. They may also not be attacked by fixed-wing aircraft (again, due to their size and speed), but may be attacked by helicopters.
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© Copyright 1995 by Greg Novak.
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