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Subject: 105mm or 155mm for Medium Brigades
Maple Leaf    8/6/2003 3:31:30 PM
My question is should the SBCT have a 105mm or 155mm gun. I look at the Canadian brigades that presently deploy the French LG1 105mm towed gun with their LAV-III equipped manoeuvre forces. Now Canada does it because of the cost of buying a 155mm gun, but maybe there is an advantage to the 105mm gun. I heard the arguement that the 105mm gun is more suited for the peace support operations of the 21st Century, because the small shell causes less collateral damage while still providing accurate and deadly fire. That is a good point. I'm wonder what others think about this. Would forces engaged in peace support operations like Somalia, Bosnia and now Liberia, be more likely to use artillery if there was less likelyhood of damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure? I look at past peace support operations, and 105's have deployed more often than the 155's. The US deployed 105's to Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo (guns stayed in Macedonia and never actually went into Kosovo) and of course with the 82nd and 101st in both Gulf Wars. The Canadian, British and French have deployed 105mm guns to Bosnia since back in the mid-1990's with UNPROFOR, I-FOR and S-FOR. And the British sent two regiments to support its Royal Marine brigade and its air assault brigade during 'Iraqi Freedom' Both the towed 105mm and 155mm can be carried on a tilt-bed truck as see with the M777 at So, 105mm or 155mm?
 
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ArtyEngineer    RE:ArtyEngineer/Question on Basic Loads?   10/5/2005 11:25:18 PM
Cant answer that right now, the testing we do is never truely indicative of real world usage, it is always absolute worst case, with regards to rates of fire projos and charges used, the ammunition we get through on a test is unreal. Before the commencement of the Operational testing last year the colonle in charge of the progarm briefed the crews who were about to conduct the test, he asked for a show of hands from all those who had ever fired 30 rounds in a day,there were quite a few, as every guy there had been in Iraq during the initial phase of the operation, he then asked who had fired 50 rounds in a day, a few hands were raised, but nowhere near as many, he then asked about 100 in a day, no hands went up. He then let them in on the fact that for the next 4 weeks each crew (of which there were 4, 2 Marine, 2 Army) would fire a minimum of 150 rounds per day every day!! 2/11 however have a regimental fire ex happening very shortly which should be indicative of real worl usage, I aint suppporting, however a buddy is, will ask him what the ammunition situation is during this type of test, also, got a meeting with a Master Guns tomorrow,so he Im sure could clarify.
 
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ArtyEngineer    RE:Shedding some light on range requirements - doggtag   10/5/2005 11:36:05 PM
Thanks for the compliment, but Neutraliser is definitely the guy for doctrine and operational philosophy stuff, I am really just a nuts and bolts guy cursed with a weird affinity for artillery ;) Regarding "auto-frettaging" without going to deep inot material science, it is basically a means by which the material properties of a cannon tube, or any cylinder or pipe for that matter are changed to make them stronger. It is done by means of drawing a slightly oversize plug through the bore of the cannon tube, the precise details of how and when this is done during gun tube manufacture are very closely guarded secrets by the few Arsenels and companys who do this type of work.
 
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doggtag    RE:Shedding some light on range requirements - AE   10/6/2005 12:07:38 AM
OK, close enough. Thanks.
 
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YelliChink    RE:105mm or 155mm, or 106mm?   10/6/2005 12:31:45 AM
Israeli had got some Russian 106mm breach-loading motars and convert them for their own use. 106mm motar shells have more HE packed and also have identical range to 105mm howitzer, but the weight for the artillery piece itself is considerably lighter.
 
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neutralizer    RE:ArtyEngineer/Question on Basic Loads?   10/6/2005 4:30:36 AM
Re auto-frettage, it was invented by the French shortly before WW1 but wasn't widely used until the new guns of the interwar period. Barrels for autofrettaging are machined to slightly less than their calibre and then subjected to high internal pressure, either hydraulically or using a swage. This expands the metal closest to the bore beyond its elastic limit, but the outer metal remains within its elastic limit and so compresses the inner. The bore is then heat treated to raise its elastic limit. The result is that an autofrettaged barrel can be thinner and hence lighter for a given strength.
 
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neutralizer    RE:105mm or 155mm? Shaping the Battlefield/Neutralizer   10/6/2005 6:33:33 AM
An interesting item tucked away on the MODUK web site, dated Aug 05: "The requirement for rapid-reaction, high-mobility forces is behind the Advanced Ordnance Demonstrator (AOD). The main AOD objective is to show how new ordnance technologies can offer heavyweight 155mm firepower in an air-portable, lightweight self-propelled (LWSP) howitzer. AOD firings are planned for 2008. QinetiQ is lead and is required to assemble industry consortia through competition to deliver the full programme. The results are planned to feed the Indirect Fire Precision Attack programme. With air frame carrying capacity the limiting factor the target weight of a LWSP is around 15 tonnes, a third of the AS90 howitzer. It is expected that the AOD will need to feature a recoil-reducing extended range lightweight advanced munitions. Composite barrel construction techniques and advanced muzzle brakes will also be included in investigations."
 
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Carl S    RE:US Army Artillery & Range   10/6/2005 8:02:03 AM
I'm not following the literature closely since retirement & get the info in thin dribbles with the occasional thivk lumps. But, heres a shot at explanation. The artillery community wants a long range weapons. Issues such as availability/forgen source, standard type/oddball sizes, and weight/size affect that, but these question have always been around and are resolved when the money and new materials allow. My take is the decisions for artillery of the past six years have not originated from withing the artillery, or from within the combat arms branches of the US Army, but from the upper levels of the DoD. There are pervasive ideas in the DoD and through the US military services other than the Army, that fires within the ground commanders area of interest can be more effciently provided by aircraft (a traditional USAF argument) and by the newer air weapons such as drones and cruise missles. The belief is these systems for fire support are so much more efficient that it is waste to develop/purchase longrange cannon and rocket artillery weapons. Hence the cancellation of the Crusader and the low level of research into newer longrange weapons that would be part of the ground commaders direct responsibility. So in theory the groud comander has his longrange fire support provided by USAF aircraft, USN launched cruise missles, and drones which the USAF wants to control.
 
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doggtag    Thanks Neutralizer and ArtyEngineer   10/6/2005 8:49:48 AM
Much thanks. I'd seen the term countless times, but never could find out exactly what it meant. I've seen the cross-sectional thickness of many AFV barrels, and noticed that in WW2, especially in the 75mm guns in Lee/Grant and Sherman tanks, the barrel walls were rather thick, as compared to something newer like the MECAR 90/46 KEnerga gun. I always attributed it to the improvements in modern materials engineering and over 2 centuries of knowledge how to manufacture and bore out guns, but the term auto-frettage eluded me for a long time. I also heard that another way to increase the barrel strength is by using something called ESR Electro Slag Refined steel, which the Belgian CMI C*ckerill guns use, and certainly others. What's interesting is just how lethal these guns are as compared to WW2 tank armament: for the heavier calibers of 90mm we see a final piece that is lighter and much more durable (longer barrel life) than most WW2 75mm tank guns. I'm still curious what you think the maximum effective (and practical: we don't need another Paris gun) barrel length of your M777 construction technique could we achieve, just to see how far we can get with unassisted ammo. I understand that one of the keys to the phenomenal ranges of the South African Bull-inspired guns is because they use a larger chamber than NATO standard guns (IIRC, the G5 uses a 27 liter chamber...which translates into just shy of 7 gallons. Wow.) Kind of similar to comparing any given handgun round to its magnum counterpart: make a bigger cartridge case and pack more propellant, you get greater velocity and (hopefully) range. But I realize it also does erode the bore faster, burning hotter and more violently. So I suppose then the M777, in its final form, ended up giving us the best balance of range, weight, and barrel life? Or do you feel there is still room for improvement?
 
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doggtag    Thanks Carl   10/6/2005 9:16:05 AM
You hit on more good points: to justify the expense the USAF is sinking into its future programs, it has somehow managed to manipulate enough of the DoD (and even Congress) into believing that US airpower will always be able to perform aerial fire support much more effectively than using US Army artillery. Perhaps to an extent that is why we lost the Comanche also: the USAF suggested that, aside from vertical envelopment, the USAF inventory can do more efficiently everything the Comanche was designed for. I just seriously hope our over-dependence on the USAF never comes back to haunt us. But I still think the need to call on fire support assets should be in the hands of US Army commanders ON THE GROUND, IN THE BATTLE ZONE, not in the hands of USAF big shots who may not even be on the same continent. So I still believe the US Army is entitled to its choice of artillery and other AFVs just as much as the USAF thinks its entitled to its high-tech aircraft which cost 10-20 times as much as any AFV the Army ever considered. (maybe that's how the USAF manipulated the justification for their expensive fighter programs: one F/A-22 costs as much as umpteen Crusaders, but we are stealthy and only risk one crew member and a much smaller logistics support chain, so it's much cheaper over its lifetime.) But hey, so long as politician X created and kept jobs for his constituents, screw the rest of the country. Screw the servicemembers also when they aren't getting the best equipment money can buy that beats everything else anyone can throw at us. OK, ranting aside, ArtyEngineer, do you think your M777 technology could create a new, much more capable 105mm system (and would it even be worth the investment?)
 
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Raslin    105mm Sabot?   10/6/2005 9:19:19 AM
I'm not the most informed in artillery by far, but what about using a 105mm saboted round(using a 155mm to launch 105mm's, if I worded something wrong). This could have the advatanges of range, and lower collateral damage.
 
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