The Light Weight Self Propelled you speak off never made it past concept, CGI models and some initial design work for proof of principal.

 

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Regarding firing to the rear, this really woudnt have been a problem as the drivers navigational aid would have steered him onto an azimuth 3200 mils off the azimuth of fire when he reached the fire area/fire point.

 

P.S did you see my posts for you further down regarding common 155/105 fuzes and the fact that the  PGK will be compatible with 105mm ammo?

There is a tendency for some of us to overreach when we speculate on alternatives.

 

Raises hand. GUILTY!

 

M-5 Sherman tank, what would you have done?  

 

Read some of my historical threads-especially the Sherman tank thread.

 

I went with limited speculation there. Historically I knew the political and financial limiters that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 10,000+ Allied soldiers.

 

Now you have to do the best you can with the information you have. In that same Sherman tank thread I give some of the very evil history that I learned from veterans, such as my grandfather, and I applied some of what I learned/knew as well about characters, such as General McNair.

 

I try to stay within the possible as much as I can-because there are LIMITS.

 

Therefore with the Australian Army........

 

It looks from here that you are buying some of the equipment for an armored brigade. That is a battalion of heavy armor, two or three battalions of mechanized infantry and one or two battalions of armored artillery: MAXIMUM as the Australian army currently exists.You have the tanks, are trying to build the infantry carriers, and are in the market for the artillery

 

Motorized infantry battalions, look from here, to be about three to five for another one or two motorized brigades.

 

That is already a lot of mechanization for a two division headquarters army. Most of the rest  your infantry already is motorized to some degree.    

 

What do you realistically NEED?

 

In the self-propelled artillery for your armored brigade you will probably obtain one or two battalions worth of guns and a training company's worth of equipment in addition.

 

For your motorized formations [five battalions of them?], I'm going out on a limb and say you want a battery of motorized direct support artillery of some kind to accompany each one or two battalions You also want a training company establishment to support the force.. That is your ASLAV DP gun/howitzer requirement.

  

For those units and the rest of the force, emplaced artillery is the norm. If you need more than ten battalions, I would be shocked.

 

As of now, the artillery uses two calibers of ammunition and three different types of guns. You'd like to get that down to ONE for obvious logistics and MONEY reasons; but realistically you'll have to settle for THREE. The 10.5 cm. gun is just too useful to give up.

 

If I had may way, the 10.5 cm. gun/howitzer would be the bore I'd choose for the close support vehicle. But the current standard is the 12.cm. gun/mortar, so that means the artillery should be rationalized at the 15.5cm. tube across the force at division and armored brigade. with the 12.0 cm. gun/mortar at motorized brigade and battalion for the motorized infantry formations. The reserve forces and the light infantry hang on to the 10.5 cm. tubes for general support and jungle work until the carriages wear out: then they get the LIGHTWEIGHT 15.5 cm. too.

 

This does not mean the 1st US Armored Division as I see it.

 

What it means is about 24-36 15.5cm. SP guns MAXIMUM.. You'll be lucky to fund three full batteries. Those jokers are EXPENSIVE.

 

What it means is about no more than 50 12.0 cm motorized gun/mortars for your maneuver infantry realistically. That gives you a motorized artillery direct support company for each battalion,  You'll be lucky to fund a PLATOON of such vehicles for each battalion, so realistically expect  about  20-25 MAXIMUM if you fund additional ones at all. These are not inexpensive either.

 

Emplaced artillery will for the most part remain 10.5 cm. You'll get a few 15.5 cm.[M-777?] guns for a division park, but I seriously doubt that it will be more than a couple battalions worth.

 

It all comes down to available MONEY and the likely THREAT. 

 

Your primary critical threats are naval/air. That is where your money is logically going to go.

 

My source on the reason for ARES conversion to 81mm mortar is a high ranking ADF member who couldn't be more qualified to comment on this decision. I believe him more than I believe anything that I read from anyone on here. 

The rest of your arguments are either based on ignorance or alternatively are obsfucations and  misrepresentations. Since I think you know your stuff on artillery issues, I can only draw the conclusion that the later is the case. It has all the characteristics of an argument by a person who knows technically his stuff about artillery, but has picked the wrong side of an arguement in this instance and won't admit it to the point that he simply ignore evidence stuck right in front of his eyes. I see no point in continuing a discussion of that nature with you, though I'm happy to discuss the same issue with anybody else who is willing to do so reasonably.

Yup, that's the one, thanx, AE!

Yeah, I did see about the PGK commonality.

It seems to fall along the lines of the ODAM being developed for the 60mm mortar: don't necessarily develop a complete PGM (too much $$$!) when you can just develop some lower-cost alternative that gets you accuracy better than unguided rounds, that just screws into the nose well of a standard bomb (which, I would think, should then be easily tailorable into an 81mm, even 120mm, mortar munition).

 

Seeing this whole caliber debate (is 105mm still worthwhile? is 155mm the answer to everything? will 120mm mortars adequately fill the void in between?),

I find myself again wondering (as has been discussed in countless threads past)

if we (generally meaning: partners/allies who've adopted all those commonality NATO standards)

were wise in "limiting" ourselves to just 105mm and 155mm for artillery.

Sure, the benefits of mortars are a plus (lightweight when compared to full-size towed guns, and generally the ammo is overall more compact with its charge increments versus artillery rounds and their charges),

but would we have been better served (especially now in the light of how useful medium/heavy lift helos are)

in keeping some bridge-the-gap caliber in service in artillery, giving us more range than any mortars can achieve...?

Meaning, would it now have proven beneficial if we'd have kept something alkong the lines of 120-140mm (60-pdr, 4.7" 127mm/5", 5.5") tube artillery in the system?

(there are several good examples of Russian-designed 122-130mm class artillery systems)

 

Any of them would have more punch than any 105 developments (especially seeing the latest 105 developments coming out of Denel, that supposedly have similar or greater fragmentation lethality than the "old" M107 155mm rounds),

yet their ammo and charge system would be generally overall lighter and more compact than any 155mm logistics trains (more rounds per helo sortie or truck/lorry cargo pallet).

 

Seems that PGK-type kits would then just as easily have fitted them (curious how adaptable they'll be to current in-service 127mm naval ammunition...),

and even 5"/L38 type guns (based off a common naval tube) can outrange any 105s currently in service (taken with a grain of salt, but NavWeapons.Com's entry on the USN's 5/38 gun 

suggests about 16km standard ranges, with a RAP development getting close to 22km: modern tech would take it farther, easily).

A 5" tube could, theoretically, be capable of firing 120mm gun-fired PGMs with some sort of soft, thin sabot or other sleeve.

And we've already seen numerous developments in full-fledged 5" PGMs, even if they were considerably longer than Excalibur's current app 40 inches (although such lengths- greater than 40"- would hamper both storage and handling procedures inside SP guns...).

 

I'd wager we should easily have obtained 30+km then from 5.5"/140mm class tubes,

and had the 60-pdr/120mm tube stuck around (only really survived as Scandanavian coastal emplacements (ERSTA?) and a Swedish FH-77-chassis system called Karin or Karelin or something) surely we'd just as easily have passed, or at least met, the ~28-30km that Denel's LEO 105 (IGALA ammunition?) can reach

(developments with the RN's 4.5" Mk 8 gun have created 27km-capable shells, far outpacing any other 105mm rounds).

 

Would it really be all that hard

 

 

Australia has a number of requirements for LAND 17. 

 

THE most important is a digital fire control system.

 

Second is a new SP gun. 

 

Third, a lightweight howitzer.

 

Fourth, upgrades to it's existing M-198 155mm guns.

 

In addition to this, Modular Artillery Charge Systems, Excalibur and SMART 155 PGM's, new MARAP 155mm ammunition natures and upgrades to M-198 155mm guns to accomodate Excalibur et all (including Excalibur portable fire control systems) have been funded completely separately to LAND 17, already.

 

LAND 17 has $600 million or thereabouts to spend on new capability. This funding does not provide for t

You mentioned V2C2 in your last post, and it clicked in my head that I had seen something on that recently.  Took me ages to find this.  Link below to a BAE ppt show.  Go to slide 10.  You will see a concept for a towed V2C2!!!!!

 

 BAE Presentation

Agreed. The Army is on track to buy 155mm SP's and lightweight towed howitzer's irrespective of what gets said here. I'd The ADF is the best placed to determine whether this is the best course of action, so it it slightly amusing that people here presume to speculate that it is impractical. Kinda like all those think tank and media "experts" who trashed the Abrams purchase based on what they'd seen on the internet.

 

The only fly that might land in the ointment is the budgetary environment down here. $600 million isn't an insubstantial investment and this project represents an incremental increase in capability that would save Aussie lives lives in a conflict. However, probably wouldn't tip the balance to succeed or fail on operations, in the manner that say the amphibs, the AWD's, the tankers, the AWAC's or the SH's would. It would be easy for a budget concious public servant, a thinktanker looking for exposure or an ADF officer who is competing for funding, to make the argument that we can do without the capability for now based on a desktop analysis similar to Neutralizers. Given that the ALP doesn't really want to deploy our military in areas of risk and that their history of gutting the Army in the past, it is a pretty big garget for the razor gang.

 

Personally I want to see it in place and would rather they dumped stupid, expensive election promises like the $500 million green car fund that is really just an ineffective subsidy to offshore car companies, but I'm fearful that if it came to the choice the Rudd government will just leave our troops with upgraded M-198's and L-118's instead of giving them a modern gun.

 

 

Which SP will they choose?       - Thats the only question

 

K9 or PZH

...at 62 calibers for the barrel, that's a trick pony to manhandle into position and slew it around (or does the shown platform allow for 360° traverse like a lot of AA-turned arty guns from days gone by?

 

Looks a bit like the chassis borrowed from the M777 mounting, but the "feet" look different (outriggers?).

 

Although, with a 30km range and PGK's, that might offer more danger-close missions than people feel comfortable doing with 155mm rounds...unless we're talking about those newer enhanced-lethality/fragmentation 105mm shells that, as earlier mentioned, are supposed to be be more burst-pattern-effective than the still-in-service M107 155mm shells (anyone know if they're still the norm, or have we progressed to newer designs offering more mission-efficiency/mission-effectiveness?).

 

30km seems plenty enough to respond in kind to anyone firing most other arty up thru 130mm tubes, and a majority of 122mm rocket systems. Might make for ideal firebase guns, if we know we're not firing back at insurgents and VC-types who've had time to dig in and fortify underground bunkers and tunnels.

But then again, in dense jungle foilage, the 155mm might be less susceptible to all those trees and underbrush absorbing much of the blast and fragments in a smaller damage radius...?

 

Open country though, with PGKs and airburst optimized (proximity detonation ~10-20m above ground), these enhanced 105mm rounds would do quite nicely.

 

...and I'm assuming the V2C2 is still designed around using 155mm MACS-class charge increments?

Seems it might justify further keeping 105mm high pressure ammo lines open, seeing as the only real users of it now are the US Stryker MGS and Italy's Centauro, most everyone else clinging to NATO standards having adopted 120mm guns for MBTs.

 

Depending how future developments go (an interview some months ago with one of the ODAM project directors or managers brought up the notion of improved explosives chemistry allowing future 60mm mortar shells achieving energetic performance on par with current 105mm arty shells), these 105mm guns (LEO, V2C2) have potential to stick around longer.

Should make for a sweet SPsystem (other than the 8x8 chassis, perhaps not unlike the AGM/DONAR system?), as well as a naval gun for ships whose hulls don't like 127mm systems.

 

...but of course, that's not really offering anything supportive to Land 17 and other similar requirements, as it'd take time (and $$$) to further refine a production-ready 105mm long range system.

But certainly offers something to consider further down the road, when PGM & PGK knowledge bases are better established, enough to allow the performance of current 120-155mm PGMs from tubes in the 105mm class.

 

Keep us posted if you learn anything new on the BAE 105s, please?