Pucka, my bets on the Caesar. The French do know how to make good SP.. and I'll lat bets it will be on a Mercedes chassis. :) I think we should go for a mix of the 3 T's, ie, tracked, towed and tyred.... I'd go for an M-777 as a supp item..

i listed tacked based SP currently in service. PzH2000 (Germany) rate of fire: 8 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/52cal Braveheart,AS90 upgrade (U.K.) rate of fire: 6 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/52cal K9 (R.O.K.) rate of fire: 6 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/52cal Type99 (Japan) rate of fire: 6 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/52cal Paladin, M109A6 (U.S.) rate of fire: 4 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/39cal AUF-1 (France) rate of fire: 6 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/39cal 2S19 (Russia) rate of fire: 4 rounds/min gun tube: 152mm/48cal PLZ45 (P.R.C.) rate of fire: 6 rounds/min gun tube: 155mm/45cal

errrr.....dude, the 2s19 has 8rpm (6 when it has to use external ammunition), and have any of u guys actually seen a 152mm and a 155mm shell side by side?? the 152 is quite a bit bigger. actually, the best SP arty bould either be the AS-90/Panzerhaubitze2000 or the 2s19 (on account of its bigger and heavier shells) in the medium arty class, and the 2s7 Pion is the undisputed king of heavy artillery

For pure carnage capability, MLRS hands down, no contest there especially when combined with ATACMS. Now mind you, for close in work conventional arty is better, but lets take some numbers. A DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Coventional Munition) 155 mm round carries 88 submunitions per round. A single MLRS rocket carries 644. In other words, to equal one rocket you need to fire 7-8 rounds coventional arty. For a full load of 12 rockets on a MLRS vehicle that would be a little more than than 3 and half battalion volleys (88 rounds). For a full battery of say 9 launchers you would need 33 battalion volleys, or about 792 rounds. And in all of this the ranges would be far greater and response time at those ranges would be much faster. The equation gets even deadlier when ATACM's is thrown into the mix. For suppression and possible force destruction my bet goes to the MLRS.

IMHO the best option for Australia is to get a mixed regiment, with one battery of HIMARS MLRS and two of regular light SPH. There are a number of light, wheeled 155mm SPH now on the market. What comes to mind: Israel SPWH 2052 Bofors FH-77B French Ceasar Singapore LWSPH Considering the distances involved in any deployment for Australia, whether it's internally or to another country, a light, easily transportable system would be best, and this would rule out heavier SPH like the PZH2000 and the AS90.

why do u say MLRS? the BM-30 would be a better option for australia; it is cheaper, delivers a heavier payload and has much greater range

What are you using it for? A mixed regiment has little purpose unless its to be broken up to support different types of unit. Towed artillery will slow it down, can only rapidly traverse by hand and you can't shoot and scoot. You need a 52 cal barrel for 40Km + range and for "shoot and scoot" you need rapid fire AND the ability to fire without using a rear earth anchor; otherwise you're too slow. The only systems which fit all these are the US Crusader (not available), UK AS90 (battle tested) and German PzH2000. If you want a wheeled SP with similar features the South African G6 155mm; can always be rebarrelled to take the 52 cal. for range. If you want to complement with towed, use the UK M777 155mm; its just been selected by the US Marine Corps. Forget short barrels and anything which needs to be anchored.

Boris, Australia doesn't often buy military equipment from Russia for one. Secondly who will the Australians be working/fighting alongside with most likely? The russians or similarly russian equipped troops, or with the Americans? To add to that the Smerch launcher system hasn't been sold to many foreign countries last I checked with around 4-5 foreign buyers. As for heavier payload, thats true in the sense that it can deliver either 5 large soft/hard target sub munitions or one 750kg unitary warhead. However that doesn't make a for massive damage capability. In terms of area of coverage the US MLRS system wins out for sheer number of targets it can take out, interoperability with US or allied systems, and if ya go the HIMARS variant route the ability to be quickly deployable even in the case of counter battery fire.

Bleh sorry little correction to my last post, those would be 5 top attack submunitions. For general purpose the Smerch system missile carries 72 high explosive submunitions, shows me for reading FAS without looking at a secondary source to verify.

reality of modern warfare is clear: no matter how good a ground fire support platform can deliver. it's a sitting duck in open space. from the eye of a pilot who drops PGM on ground target, it makes no difference what the target is.