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Subject: Artillery Industry & Making Artillery
Roman    9/17/2004 9:32:42 PM
I have two sets of questions on the artillery industry (after my similar set for small arms industry on the infantry board): 1) What countries have the biggest artillery industries? I would guess it is the U.S.A., Russia, China, Germany and the U.K., but are there any others? What and how many companies/factories produce artillery pieces? Are there any figures as to the number of artillery pieces and artillery shells + propellant charges these countries produce per year? What is their maximum capacity in case of war? 2) What does a country need to build an advanced and large-scale artillery and artillery amunition industry? Are any particular natural resources required? What kind of machinery and skills are needed? How quickly can an extensive small arms and ammunition industry be developed/built in case of war?
 
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technoid    RE:Artillery Industry & Making Artillery    9/21/2004 12:50:52 PM
Here is an article that may shed some light on the cost to get a gun into production. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/article.cfm?Id=1641 The US is restarting production of their M119 105mm towed gun. I read somewhere else that it has not been in production for some years and they will have to set up all over again to build these. They expect to make some design improvements (I don't know the extent of this but I think minor), tool up for production, and build 275 units, all for $300 million.
 
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AlbanyRifles    RE:Artillery Industry & Making Artillery    9/21/2004 1:09:16 PM
In the US, all of the artillery tubes are manufactured at Watervliet Arsenal in upstate New York. These are then provided as GFE to United Defense for inclusion in the M109A6 & M119A2 production. We can expect to see the same for the M777 155mm barrels. This is a very special type of forging needed.
 
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french stratege    RE:Artillery Industry & Making Artillery    9/21/2004 1:27:07 PM
1: add France, Italy, India, Israel, then small outsiders like Sweden, Finland... For technology I would rank US, France in first position in product spectrum including specific C4ISR, then Germany, Russia, UK, Italy (by order). Maximum war capacity rely on specific machinery number (special gun barrel drilling machine numbers or deep hole drilling machines - nickel plating machine - heavy forging machinery - special tube production) and it is difficult to evaluate. A more simple way is to evaluate steel work sector and special steel production for gun and heavy chemical industry especially for US, Japan, Germany, France then UK rank first in this capcity.US, Japan, Germany have the biggest capacities and close together.Germany could build still three time more gun than France in a total war effort (and France probably two time of UK). 2; skill are those of steel work mainly, and petrol equipment industry or transport/automotive in a less extent. "How quickly can an extensive small arms and ammunition industry be developed/built in case of war? ": Depend on your machine tools industry and imports. To adapt a plant would be less than few months. Amazing that Germany have still such a short time war potential close to Japan and US for ground army!
 
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french stratege    RE:Artillery Industry & Making Artillery    9/21/2004 1:33:43 PM
1: add France, Italy, India, Israel, then small outsiders like Sweden, Finland... For technology I would rank US, France in first position in product spectrum including specific C4ISR, then Germany, Russia, UK, Italy (by order). Maximum war capacity rely on specific machinery number (special gun barrel drilling machine numbers or deep hole drilling machines - nickel plating machine - heavy forging machinery - special tube production) and it is difficult to evaluate. A more simple way is to evaluate steel work sector and special steel production (for gun) and heavy chemical industry especially fertilizer (for ammunitions) US, Japan, Germany, France then UK rank first in this capacity.US, Japan, Germany have the biggest capacities and close together.Germany could build still three time more gun than France in a total war effort (and France probably two time of UK). 2; skills are those of steel work mainly, and petrol equipment industry or transport/automotive in a less extent. "How quickly can an extensive small arms and ammunition industry be developed/built in case of war? ": Depend on your machine tools industry and imports. To adapt a plant would be less than few months. Amazing that Germany have still such a short time war potential close to Japan and US for ground army! It is due to its heavy industry, steel and special steel production, machine tooling industry, chemical industry. Three nations are in the top for mass production potential with quality: US, Japan and Germany Then France, Russia and China. Then UK, South korea and Italy.
 
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french stratege    Roman   9/21/2004 1:41:57 PM
You are right to stay interested in war potential: it matters even today.It is important to get that after technology and nukes to be considerered as a power. Germany, Japan or France or UK (less) could make still massive armies if they want to use military power to leverage their diplomacy and fundamantal interest. A thing that most of US people in this forum (as British) forget. With military technology (I mean full range of military product close to industrialisation), a country like Germany could field a force like US today in few years (and with a ground army much stronguer).And who would impeach that?
 
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neutralizer    RE:Roman   9/26/2004 7:29:38 AM
Some interesting points but none really address the issues. First, 20th C style 'industrial warfare' has disappeared from the horizon of most western countries. There is a very good reason, it's unaffordable and the attrition rates would be appalling and unsustainable. Therefore the ability to quickly mass produce heavy equipment in large quantities is irrelevant. The production issue is how fast heavy equipment can be produced in relatively small amounts to meet limited requirements such replacing losses or minor expansions in particular capabilities. This is mainly governed by how fast 'long lead' items can be acquired. For towed guns this is fairly simple, SPs may be another matter. The only published indicator is a reported discussion just before GW1 when MoD UK asked Vickers how fast they could re-open the Challenger production line, they reckoned about 12 months to the first tank, and also reckoned this was probably faster that anyone else because they had designed their facility to produce relatively small batches cost efficiently. The ability to design is also a factor, countries such as Japan basically produce designs under licence (eg FH70 and then use its ordnance in a locally designed SP vehicle). SPs in particular have all sorts of sub-assemblies and in the west these are generally sourced from many different companies, often in different countries (although concern about other countries' export constraints leads some suppliers to do far more DIY than is economically sensible or use inferior alternatives). This means that just looking at 'gun factories' misses the point, you also need a broadly based engineering industry. Once you've got the component assemblies and sub-assemblies putting them together is relatvely straight forward, particularly if cost is not a major concern. Today the most difficult bit in a gun is probably the software for automatic laying, the trick is to do it quickly without the control loop going into 'hunting'. A number of companies have found this isn't as easy as it seems. Traditionally barrel forging and machining was the difficult bit (once everyone had solved the design issues with recoil systems, but that was a long time ago). However, modern machine tools have made the latter aspect much easier, faster and precise and one operator can control several tools so its cheaper. Of course we're probably seeing the last generation of wholly machined barrels, the future is back to the future with a light steel 'A' tube wrapped/encased in composites. The US current M119 saga is interesting, did they ask BAE Systems (ie RoF) for a quote? The UK production line has produced L118s relatively recently. BAE even have a lot of suggested improvements waiting for someone to order them.
 
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french stratege    RE:Roman   9/28/2004 5:48:58 AM
"First, 20th C style 'industrial warfare' has disappeared from the horizon of most western countries. There is a very good reason, it's unaffordable and the attrition rates would be appalling and unsustainable. Therefore the ability to quickly mass produce heavy equipment in large quantities is irrelevant." It is because there is no major threat only. No western country have a real threat except terrorism which doesn't need huge forces. Only US still maintain huge forces (but not that huge) to counter China and secure middle east. Calculation show that modern nation like Germany could produce almost same magnitude number of items than in WW2 (except fighters) but modern items.A fighter today is in real term 10 times more expensive than a medium WW2 bomber but it would be still thousands of aircrafts. It is funny people said the same crap before WW1 and WW2! People said war could be only short, weapons are too sophisticated and expensive, economy are linked together and war is so impossible, western country are too sophisticated to sustain massive losses etc..We saw what happened!
 
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neutralizer    RE:Roman   9/28/2004 9:41:17 AM
While forgetting history is always unwise, assuming it may clearly indicate the future is ery foolish. Advances in technology have made the slow attrition tactics of the 20th C irrelevant. Add to this that most western armies have in some way adopted the manouevrist approach to war that gets back to more fundamental historical experience. Basically times have moved on and the nature of war has changed. Furthermore most military equipment, not just aircraft, have increased in price in real terms at a faster rate than inflation. Germany is a very sad case, still using conscription! Perhaps I'm a perpetual cynic but I guess that's mainly due to the need for conscientious objects to underpin the social services at traditional European conscript wages (ie peanuts).
 
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french stratege    cliché of US establishment   9/28/2004 10:08:36 AM
0nce adversaries are exhausted without achieving a decisive victory, military potential and possibility to recomplete units with new equipment is the decisive factors. I doubt you can speak of low attrition when you seee Kurk battle. Price rate have increased more than inflation but not in the extend you think. You have to consider that today prices are with very small production batches. I you multiply production by ten you divide price per two.A today $ is 12 time those of 1942. A M1 tank produced in a WW2 rate would cost 2 m$ so the price of a WW2 air fighter. Manoeuver warfare existed in WW2 (see north africa). Today it is faster but after 30 days of campaign, they have to requip if victory have not been achieved. Using a conscript army is not a bad things if combattant are professional or half professional and it let much more money for equipment and let force increased by a magnitude in war time. I favor conscription and it was for political reasons it was abandoned in France (more difficult to send conscript abroad). A country which have to defend it self mainly and not for expeditionary warfare like US or UK is right to maintain conscription. Whatever you may think a conscript army is much more efficent for the same money than a pro army. Iraq wars are not an example: war agaisnt a third rate nation with outdated equipment and unprofessional forces for a great part. Like fighting Zulus in 19th century! France and UK constently crushed their adversaries in 19th and beginning of 20th centuries (even Russia).When they met Germany it was an other Challenge. There is no military challenge today so US, UK and France can afford it. Israel fight for its life and will maintain draft for example as South Korea. The RMA is not a question of pro vs draft or small armies: it is integration, C4ISR and PGM , and new tactic and training adapted to this. Sweden modernise its force with digital and top equipment. Sweden with a 4.3 B$ budget afford to have two-third of air-land battle capacity of UK which have a budget of 35 B$.Israel have a 10B$ budget and is twice UK for military punch.
 
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ArtyEngineer    RE:Artillery Industry & Making Artillery    10/12/2004 6:04:15 PM
In order to manufacture artillery to todays demanding standards a country needs a well established manufacturing base with the following capabilities: 1) The ability to work with Titanium, ideally the ability to cast titanium. Fabrication out of plate titanium will work, however welding titanium is not easy and require a very skilled work force to meet the standards required, it is also very time consuming and with cost being of major implication less manhours devoted to this activity the cheaper the end product will be. In order to meet the weight requirements being placed on the next generation of weapon systems utilisation of titanium is essential. 2) The ability to carry out precision machining operations on large weapon components. Standard autmotive tolerances and techniques are just not good enough, to ensure cannon alignment and fire control alignment, areas such as the trunnion bores need to be concentric and true to within less than 0.001 inches (0.025mm). This is not easy to do and require a large investment in machining and inspection capabilities. Again titanium is not easy to work with in this regard and requires an extensive knowledge of the correct types of tooling and speeds etc. to use to obtain the desired outcome. This level of precision is required at all areas of the weapon where the major sub assemblies interface. The ability to manufacture or procure precision bearings is also essential, its no good being able to machine true bores and maintain very tight dimensional tolerances if the bearings installed have so much slop or runout that the entire system will behave erratically. Maintaing this level of precision is also essential to maintain the interchangeability requiremnts, this was a major problem with the M119 when it was initially fielded in the US and was a major contributor to the bad requtation that this system has within the US artillery community. 3) With the current trend to utilise digital fire control as the primary and have optics as a back up, the country will also need to be able to manufacture or procure ring laser gyros, the building block of inertial navigation units (INU's)which are the heart of the weapons aiming and pointing system, the INU really needs to be able to determine true Azimuth and Elevation to within 0.5 mils (0.028 Degrees) to satisfy the accuracy requirements placed upon the newest generation of weapon systems.
 
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