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Subject: Counter Battery
FD    4/18/2007 2:52:11 PM
If there is a significant counter-battery threat, where you have to move after every firing, how do you train for this? Do you fire and move to an alternate location, fire and move again to another point and continue this until the threat is eliminated? Or do you just move a little bit, 500m and setup again? Or, do you wait for the first CB fires you receive? How far would you move and how long would it take you to displace? Thanks.
 
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Sabre       4/19/2007 9:44:06 AM

Depending on how severe the counterbattery threat was, I still wouldn't expect moving after every fire mission though. Even with M109A6 you generally don't do that,
Whoa, what Paladin (M109A6) battery was that???
We moved after every fire mission.  But, as you said, with a mobile system that is properly "digitized", it's easy.  The doctrine is to move around in a box (a "Position Area" or PA) between missions, and then move to different PA's throughout the day...  Being part of an Armored Cavalry Regiment, we didn't have the time to set up PA's, we just had to constantly roll.  The was no way counterbattery could be a danger to us (our threat was an enemy tank getting loose behind the line troops).  The moment you got a fire mission, you had to stop and shoot - but during that time the tankers were moving and assaulting, so then you had to play "catch up" once the fire mission was done.
 
Perhaps I missed it, but one point that I didn't see being made is the advantage that a digitzed artillery piece has, i.e., a howitzer with GPS and some sort of accurate azimuth control, linking in to fire control software/computer.  For any non-expert reading this, laying a howitzer "old school" with an aiming circle, etc, takes some time - not alot, for a well trained battery, but it also isn't instantaneous.  (Someone a little older than me can chime in on how fast that process can be.)  The howitzers need to be "aimed" to shoot rounds at targets kilometers distant.  With digital fire control, this process is basically instantaneous, and makes march order /displacement  and emplacement a faster process.  The 777 is digitized.
 
The other thing that I'd note is that there are lightweight, mobile systems for light forces like the Rascal or the Caesar (a howitzer in a light unit doesn't *have* to be towed), although it does cramp airmobile/heliborne operations, but plenty of armies out there don't have an airfield full of choppers to use moving arty batteries around.
 
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Jeff_F_F    Paladin   4/19/2007 10:37:40 AM
Depends on the expected counterbattery threat. If you are facing US-level counterbattery, its going to be every fire mission.
 
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Jeff_F_F    On the road   4/19/2007 10:40:56 AM
On the road doesn't hurt as much as it used to. I don't know how fast an M777 unit can stop and be ready to fire, since they are towed, but for Paladins the response time is only about half a minute slower than if they were stationary when the call for fire comes in. It is an amazing thing to watch a battery of howitzers driving down a valley spread out over more than a klick all stop, turn almost in unison, fire a mission then drive off. My experience was on M109A5 and then A6s (and even then, in FDC rather than on the guns) so I have no idea how fast a towed howitzer can be physically readied to fire (not counting safety and other firing data issues which on a M777 is going to be mostly handled by the computer). Based on the M109A6 I'd assume that the fire control computer would be ready to go by that time.
 
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00_Chem_AJB       4/19/2007 11:29:39 AM
Just hope who you're firing at doesn't have CAS near by.
 
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Sabre       4/19/2007 2:34:36 PM
That was the fun thing about the Cav, we had to be ready to roll CONSTANTLY.  A writer who was in a Cav regiment put it this way "tanks aren't just firepower and armored protection, they are *mobility*"  My favorite orders to get were "start moving in X direction (and it was understood that this was to happen within the next 30 seconds).  You will get destination grids and mission while on the move".  Beats the hell out of the endless (and endlessly boring) OpOrder cycles.  GPS and digital fire control make that much easier to execute.
 
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Yimmy       4/19/2007 3:53:56 PM
Do you use schrim netting in SP artillery?

When I was in TA Logistics having to camo up the vehicles used to bore me to tears.


 
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Carl S       4/19/2007 10:43:58 PM
 
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neutralizer       4/20/2007 5:30:13 AM
Like any tactical matter it 'depends on the situation'.  That said 'autonomous guns', whether SP or towed have changed matters because moving and coming back into action is so fast and easy.   Autonomy also means deplying from the line of march is also very quick and easy, there's photos from 2003 of UK towed 105mm btys doing in literally along the road.
 
However, at least some trials have shown that moving after every fire mission within a gun manouvre area is not really a practical proposition for much more than 24 hrs.  Of course it depends how often fire missions arrive!  In gun manouvre guns are usually organised in pairs (sections) and ammo can be pre-positioned at each platform.
 
Traditional alternative positions can be used as well, in fact in 2003 at least one UK 105mm bty (towed) was forced to move by Iraqi fire, although they completed their mission and waited until another bty was in action before doing so, theyy also fired rather a lot in return, almost certainly with better accuracy given TA from MAMBA.
 
You can't make any assumptions about a 152 mm bty taking 11 minutes.  Times depend on the army, their proeceures, the extent of autonomy, etc.
 
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Carl S       4/20/2007 10:00:00 PM
Youtube says those links are malformed.  Tried several tricks for ten minutes, no joy.
 
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neutralizer       4/21/2007 6:34:48 AM
PzH2000 is slow by modern standards.
 
AS90 Braveheart takes 37 secs to stop fire 3 rds and be on the move again.  PsH2000 fires 10 rds in 60 secs, so its stop to move time should be in the order of 85 secs not 180! 
 
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