They came up against 152mm in 2003 and managed OK.  You also have to think in terms of many sources of firepower, including GMLRS.  And before they can be attacked the enemy has to locate them.

Also, the M777 155mm could be made available if the need arose - for current operational requirements, the light 105mm and self-propelled 155mm are probably sufficient. My only major concern is the 39-cal used on the M777, since 52-cal would add a lot of capability, and probably not affect air-mobility too much (since the Chinook is the only realistic lifter, and the extra ton or so in weight would add a heck of a lot of capability). The big thing will be the PGK (Precision Guidance Kit), which allows GPS guidance kits to be added to the existing shells, i.e. Excalibur-type capability, but at a much lower cost! The concept of artillery-use can rapidly change with increased reliance on precision - there will still be a requirement for firing barrages on occassion, especially for area targets, but precision artillery is likely to become an alternative to some air support operations. If the future light and medium (and heavy for that matter) battlegroups can call upon precision artillery as well as massed fires, then things aren't too bad. 

 

As for LIMAWS(R), I have mixed feelings - it is a nice system in some senses, but the off-the-shelf HIMARS could probably have done the same thing. In particular, the whole of the MLRS force has been on the knife-edge over the last few years, with threats of retirement or de-funding of training. On the other hand, GMLRS has given the rocket systems a new lease on life; they have transformed themselves from massed area weapons, to rapid precision strike weapons. Another issue is whether battlegroups should be given the MLRS units, or if they should instead be held back as a Divisional-type weapon.

I hear what you're saying Neutralizer, but you have to admit that the light arty regiments were concerned about the extra reach of the Iraqi artillery. If they had been up against anyone half competent, it might have been a different story.

I also hear what you're saying about other sources of firepower - but that means that the army is dependent upon (gulp!) the RAF! Wash your mouth out with soap this instant!

 

In all seriousness, are the RAF and FAA going to have the numbers and response time to be able to provide the firepower that even a battery of LIMAWS(R) could? I think the FAA managed one air strike (albeit effective) at Goose Green. And GMLRS on its Bradley chassis (or AS90 for that matter) is hardly a lightweight system - not something you could trundle down to the Falklands or some other out of the way place.

 

It's noticeable that the Americans (with all of their other firepower) are purchasing 880 HIMARS plus 500 + M777's - they obviously don't think medium weight arty a redundant concept.

Obviously it doesn't matter much what I think, but I'm not convinced by your reply.

My replies in bold below.

Ah, time for my regular backlash against the lack of knowledge regarding artillery systems

1) LIMAWS(R) is airportable by Chinook. HIMARS isn't.

2) HIMARS was not an "Off the shelf" option compared to LIMAWS(R).  Only the MoD mucking about delayed the LIMAWS to the extent that HIMARS came into service first.

Points taken. It was also C130 transportable which I believe HIMARS isn't either. MLRS definitely isn't transportable by Chinook or much of anything really.

3) MLRS is currently being used in support of a Brigade in Helmand. The advent of GMLRS has utterly changed the employment and they are being used in direct support of company attacks.

I know. But my point is that our current MLRS systems are still pretty heavy. I doubt if we could have taken them to the Falklands for instance?

4) Guided artillery shells like Excalibur ought to have extended range over something like PGK, which only improves accuracy within the normal shell range.

 

 

The Falklands would be a tricky deployment, but the range, accuracy and effect of GMLRS and its low logistics train makes up for that enough that they'd probably do it. A launcher at Goose Green would be able to hit positions around Port Stanley.

UK MLRS is all GMLRS only.  The old bomlet warheads were abandomned before the Dublin agreement and a contract to disassemble and destroy them was signed last year or early this, with RUUG IIRC.  The only area of doubt are the AT4 warheads.  However, Dublin does seem to have stopped any purchase of ATACMS unless the bomblets are made a lot smarter or a different type of warhead is adopted, but ATACMS is designed for deep attack not CB.

 

Light forces are for appropriate missions.  You don't send them against a heavy threat, unless they are part of a heavy force as in 2003. 

 

Multiple sources of firepower included conventional arty, GMLRS, LM (coming along quite fast), Apache as well as conventional air.  It's also useful to remember that for UK on the battlefield conventional air is in effect controlled by artillery.  I'm not aware of any suggestion that fitting a 52 cal barrel to M777 is an option anywhere. 

Well, most people seem to disagree with me so I'll shut up!

 

It's interesting that there has been little comment on arsse except to say that most people thought that LIMAWS(R) wasn't needed. Having said that, there are one or two indications on that site that the RA are lobbying to try and get that decision reversed, and also LIMAWS(G) reinstated. Not much chance I would have thought but you never know.

 

Is GMLRS only a unitary warhead?

Currently this seems to be the case.

Although he says virtually nothing about particular branches, never mid equipment this speech a few days ago is flagging some interesting evolution link

Is GMLRS only a unitary warhead?

Currently this seems to be the case.

Although he says virtually nothing about particular branches, never mid equipment this speech a few days ago is flagging some interesting evolution link

Sir Richard's paper is very interesting. I suppose one could say that he is formalising existing practice of brigades and regiments working flexibly. We already know that the Brigades are often going to Iraq/Afghan with units pulled from various other Bdes. But even regiments are doing this: for instance one of the RA's Starstreak regiments is retraining for UAV's. The RDG last year went out to Iraq with only one sqn with Challenger 2's; one other squadron re-roled to crew Warriors, and a third crewing Bulldogs, whilst I believe that the fourth sqn stayed in the UK whilst their tanks were being upgraded. If this practice becomes permanent, I guess the key issue will be about how to retain core skills and capabilities.

 

Interesting comment about his desire to keep 6th Division after its tour of duty. I wouldn't be surprised if 11th Brigade also remains as the army clearly needs 10 to cover two medium contingencies.

 

 

Here's another take on Sir Richard's speech, media-stylee.

 

Source: www. modoracle.com/news/dannatts-new-model-army_15889.html

 

General Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British army, continued his practice of quiet military radicalism today, when he laid out his thoughts on the role, purpose and intent of the British army for the future.

The setting was grand and unspectacular, the dowdy neoclassical conference room of the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), the thinktank founded by the Duke of Wellington 179 years ago. From one of the grand windows, now unrecognisably altered, King Charles I walked a few places to the scaffold, in January 1649.

Dannatt is the kind of general that both King Charles' nephew, the dashing cavalier commander Prince Rupert, and their bitter foe, and regicide, Oliver Cromwell, would have approved. He has the dash of the one and the firm resolve, and deep faith, of the other.

In giving his thoughts to the Rusi conference "The Future of Land Warfare", he has given the clearest, and perhaps most radical blueprint for the British forces ? for the air force and navy must now follow his lead ? in a generation.

You may ask, as some Tories do with an inverse ratio of vociferousness to reason, why should we bother with thinking what the army and the forces should be doing in the future? Aren't they a needless waste of rations and money ? and it wouldn't it be better to close the whole lot down, build a block of flats on the site, and throw the dividend into the bottomless, and unaccountable, pit of the DHSS?

Fine, if you believe that wars will end tomorrow and we will all live in peace and harmony, on an intravenous diet of motherhood and apple pie. Dannatt himself, as a practising Christian, is no warmonger. "War is a truly horrible business," he reminded his audience in Whitehall.

But, he said, we must work out what to do from the position where we are. He calls this "the question four moment" ? "that moment that occurs occasionally when the mission hasn't changed, but the situation and circumstances around it have ? and so a new plan is needed".

The moment he was referring to is the pickle UK forces have got into in Basra, where they have had to go back in after pulling out, and some of their units trained and mentored by American counter-insurgency experts. In Afghanistan the fight is as tough as ever, as two more fatalities to 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment today confirm, and strategic victory against the Taliban is elusive.

To meet this and challenges down the road (Darfur, Zimbabwe?), the army has to be restructured, grow bigger, and acquire new peacemaking and reconstruction skills. This last was the radical bit ? he said he wanted officers and soldiers trained in specialist skills, from rebuilding infrastructure and utilities to helping community governance and the law. Specialised reconstruction units would become part of eight "organic" manoeuvre brigades that would be able to fight for peace, and then sustain reconstruction. These specialists could work on secondment with aid organisations and local councils and work abroad with foreign agencies and governments.

For the first time, I heard one of the service chiefs describe the reality of today's crises and realistic concrete aims and goals. There was none of the horse ordure of the Blair and later Tory years of "prepare for the unexpected," and "be aware of the unknown" drivel of Rumsfeld-speak.

Dannatt said soldiers need to be paid more if they have to deliver more. He admitted that both the operations in Basra and Helmand were flawed because there were too few soldiers on the ground to establish security in a big enough area. He said Britain should have a bigger army in which reserves and regulars would serve alongside each other with no differentiation between them ? the only difference being the terms and duration of their engagement. It is known that he has asked the prime minister to fund an additional 5,000 ground forces, some to go to the RAF Regiment, and the Royal Marines.

He hinted that the services should take charge of some reconstruction tasks technically in the remit of the aid agencies and the overseas development ministry DFID. This has been reinforced by a curious and embarrassing impasse on assistance projects in Helmand thwarted by the legalistic red tape of the Foreign Office and DFID. Royal Engineers were preparing to bring in badly needed water pumps to some Helmand villages, when they were told they couldn't because it wasn't their business but the rightful task and responsibility of DFID and its engineers. The DFID and FCO lawyers said the DFID the environment was too insecure and dangerous for their engineers to operate, and forbade them under their in-house health and safety regulations. So the pumps weren't put in and the villages were left dry.

This matches an incident off Somalia where the conduct of FCO lawyers has enraged the Royal Navy. The navy was prepared to board a boat seized by pirates, when the legal advice came down from King Charles Street to say that the navy shouldn't go in because the sailors might be liable under international law, and the pirates might be able to claim asylum in the UK. To their chagrin, the French navy took over, sorted out the pirates, and returned the vessel to its rightful owners in a matter of hours.

Dannatt said he believed the army might still have to do what he called "major combat operations" ? and the UK must have at least 30,000 troops available for this. Equally the army must have 30,000 troops for peacekeeping, humanitarian and reconstruction operations.

The force would be arranged into eight active brigades, plus the Special Forces for counter-terrorism operations. Some things would have to go ? and the likely candidates are to cut the number of heavy tanks on active duty, and scrap heavy artillery, which is largely redundant anyway.

In fact the new plans wouldn't cost that much to implement: since the novel part is to support the DFID's aid and stabilisation mission, some funds could be taken from the agency's budget ? which often gets lost in local corruption ? above all in Afghanistan.

Controversial? Sensible? Though he didn't seem to set out to do so, Dannatt has produced a practical and functional new vehicle on a very old chassis, and with very little fuss. If only the politicians could be as realistic and clear-sighted in their defence and security pronouncements and policies.

Some of the 'facts' and opinions in the commentary seem a bit dodgy.  Dannatt talks about a simulaneous capability for Major Combat and Stabilisation Ops.  The implication of this is that abandoning heavy equipment is not viable, although there may have to be more dual equipping.  That said stabilisation ops are showing that heavy SPs are vital, they offer very rapid all round traverse and hence quick response, they had to be brought back into use in Iraq for this reason.

 

Of course another aspect of stabilisation ops is that rapid deployment capability is relatively unimportant, sea is good enough, until you have a coastless country. 

 

Clearly other departmental lawyers are being a nuisance!  That said the prospect of pirates being taken prisoner and then claiming asylum is the sort of thing that would send the red top media into fits.  Invites the question as to whether the act needs changing.  With piracy increasing and with it the role for western navies common sense would suggest change is needed, however, the Human Rights Act may get in the way - risk to prisoners in being handed back to whence they came.

Yes, I thought the article was dodgy in some ways. It completely misses out on the concurrent heavy and rapid deployment capabilities that Sir Richard wants to see.

 

I did think that the comment that he asked the PM for an extra 5,000 more men interesting though. I wonder if FAS were happening now rather than 3 years ago if Sir Mike Jackson would still have cut the infantry by four battalions.

Chickens coming home to roost.  However, 4 years ago they had to make the savings to save money, what were the options?  Always very difficult.