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Subject: Destructiveness of arty shells vs. bombs?
swami    3/21/2004 4:46:26 PM
Another question for you artillery experts: How much explosive power does a large artillery shell, say a 155 mm round, have compared to a 1000 pound bomb? I assume that since loaders have to be able to lift artillery shells, it is much less. Followup question: If artillery shells are much less destructive and less accurate (that is my hunch), will close air support phase out artillery in the future?
 
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hybrid    RE:bsmitty--Destructiveness of arty shells vs. bombs? - Nichevo   5/9/2004 2:42:12 AM
You REALLY want to get into the nitty gritty logistics of this? I guarantee you its gonna be ugly but here goes. Lets say you deploy your guns (any type here is fine, I'll even give ya a mix of towed and SPGs). Great you got local on call arty...cept for one problem, modern day US forces can easily exceed 40km movements per day. Now in the arty battalions you definitely don't like to move and scoot unless you absolutely have to in combat conditions because your logistic trucks and tankers are coming up with the ammo and plunking them down where you are. Now these grumpy logistics personel get really irritated when they realize after driving for half an hour or even three (depending on how far from the supply dump they had to move) they have to repack up all the ammo they just deposited at your site and then MOVE it again another 10-40km away, or worse make multiple moves in a few days span. Heres where the really nasty part comes in...lets say you're using SPG systems. How long do you think your on hand ammo lasts? If you answer a couple of hours of combat time before you need a lot of reloads you'd be correct, toss in fuel expenditures and now you need ammo PLUS fuel costs into the fray. All of this has a good chance that it would likely not be used to take out specific targets but rather to keep someones head down (aka suppressive fire). Its the logistics that keep killing the argument of bombs vs. artillery. IF the artillery is in range and has its ammo nearby its no where near as costly as delivering even a single bomb. If you have no theater artillery or artillery thats too far away or you need a specific target taken out then its often cheaper to use a JDAM or other guided bomb.
 
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Nichevo    hybrid-RE:bsmitty--Destructiveness of arty shells vs. bombs? - Nichevo   5/12/2004 4:08:09 AM
1) If arty supply cannot keep up then perhaps they need faster vehicles. Or have them move in 8hr. relays. It seemed in Vietnam they always had fire support on call. Perhaps we need to plot a grid of firebases suited to the terrain. 2) OK, let's say classic arty cannot keep up with latest-gen mobile warfare no matter how we goose the supply train. Shouldn't it be available for set-piece battles such as at Tora Bora? (OK lat's say I'm fixated.) When they're all penned up nobody is moving 40KM in a day, neither us nor them. 3) I suppose suppressive fire is wasteful in this sense. But no aircraft could supply this in equal measure, either, right? Except a bomb truck (BC-3, B-747, B-52..), one with dumb bombs at that. Or do we not like suppressive fire anymore? I guess for this role we want rapid-fire mortar support. 4) In a couple of hours, in the lower-intensity conflict we are now fighting, the enemy should be 'bone-flecked jam' by now. GPS/laser should give quite good spotting. Give a caller a quota of rounds and let him decide wen/where to use them. I assume they do not get all you can eat air support either.
 
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Nichevo    Perfection Incarnate--RE:bsmitty--Destructiveness of arty shells vs. bombs? - Nichevo   5/12/2004 4:13:15 AM
OK, RPGs vs. helos onlyto be sure, we're not talking golden BBS here...but isn't the SA-7 and its successors the reason why we moved away from on-the-deck air support? I seem to remember criticism of Kosovo as the '15,000 foot war" for just that reason. Gun runs under 1000 fee are strictly no go these days except for the A-10 of curse, of which we do not have enough. And granting that we flky above the SAM envelope, wha justification is here for high performance aircraft? I you're willing to do a couple of bombs at a time, send C-130s. Send Cessnas for that matter (excuse me, OV-10s or some cheap prop plane that can carry the loadout of an F/A-18). C-47s? Or did I miss all the big dogfights this war? As for helos...again why were they used at Tora Bora, at the very limit of their perforance envelope? How much artillery does one get for the $20M of a Longbow?
 
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