Artillery Thread

Dark Sorrow

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I have created this thread to have general discussion of artillery.

I will link couple of how things work for artillery.
 

Okabe Rintarou

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Just to clarify, this is for general Artillery discussions,right? Not Indian Artillery specific? Because we already have a thread for that.
Another question: Does rocket artillery and TBM and Cruise Missiles get covered under this or is it just field guns, howitzers and mortars.
 

Dark Sorrow

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Just to clarify, this is for general Artillery discussions,right? Not Indian Artillery specific? Because we already have a thread for that.
Yes this is for general artillery discussion and not specific to any particular artillery system.
Another question: Does rocket artillery and TBM and Cruise Missiles get covered under this or is it just field guns, howitzers and mortars.
We can cover all type of artillery.
 

Love Charger

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How is 152 mm arty different from 155 mm
 

Okabe Rintarou

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How is 152 mm arty different from 155 mm
152 mm and 155 mm are both "Medium Artillery" by Indian standards. Difference is that 152mm was developed and deployed by Warsaw pact militaries while 155mm was NATO standard so used by US and allies. Don't have the exact data but ranges and lethal radii must be roughly similar.
 

Dark Sorrow

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How is 152 mm arty different from 155 mm
Russians measure calibre from the top of the grooves in rifling, Americans measure from the pits of the barrel. As artillery is rifled there is near to no difference between the shells diameter. There is near to no difference in a direct comparison as they do the same job just as well with slight differences in the prices of artillery pieces and differences in shell types, but the Americans have developed better shells.

1657083690954.png


There is no difference between them at all. NATO measure the caliber between the pits(B), and in Russia between the hills(A).
Both calibres are for all practical purposes identical (although not interchangeable as far as I am aware).

However NATO countries try to compensate for the numerical advantage of Russia have in artillery by designing systems that used their guns more effectively.

Research trends focussed on
  1. increasing the range of the weapons
  2. improving their ease of deployment
  3. increasing their rate of fire
  4. improving terminal effects
  5. coordinating fires
With more research and finance available to west slowly and steady western artillery is outpacing Russian artillery.
 

Chinmoy

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152 mm and 155 mm are both "Medium Artillery" by Indian standards. Difference is that 152mm was developed and deployed by Warsaw pact militaries while 155mm was NATO standard so used by US and allies. Don't have the exact data but ranges and lethal radii must be roughly similar.
One more interesting aspect from Indian POV.

During studies by arty think tank on our side, it has been found that to fire a nuke shell, we need minimum 155 mm caliber gun.
 

Love Charger

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One more interesting aspect from Indian POV.

During studies by arty think tank on our side, it has been found that to fire a nuke shell, we need minimum 155 mm caliber gun.
Rysskeis use 152 mm shells though
Sir why we don't operate anything equivalent to 203 mm guns like pakis do ?
We operated a 180mm s 23 howitzer but retired it sadly .
Looking at current war, these 207 and 203 mm guns are wrecking havoc on the enemy.
 

Love Charger

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Russians measure calibre from the top of the grooves in rifling, Americans measure from the pits of the barrel. As artillery is rifled there is near to no difference between the shells diameter. There is near to no difference in a direct comparison as they do the same job just as well with slight differences in the prices of artillery pieces and differences in shell types, but the Americans have developed better shells.

View attachment 162857

There is no difference between them at all. NATO measure the caliber between the pits(B), and in Russia between the hills(A).
Both calibres are for all practical purposes identical (although not interchangeable as far as I am aware).

However NATO countries try to compensate for the numerical advantage of Russia have in artillery by designing systems that used their guns more effectively.

Research trends focussed on
  1. increasing the range of the weapons
  2. improving their ease of deployment
  3. increasing their rate of fire
  4. improving terminal effects
  5. coordinating fires
With more research and finance available to west slowly and steady western artillery is outpacing Russian artillery.
No russian army is a artillery army to be honest.
West is nowhere near to it
Not in mbrl not in tube not in srbm
We are seeking that in Ukraine, plus Russians are good at precision arty also .
Their krasnopol looks as effective as excalibure
 

tommy

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Why is the word "field" attached to artillery like field artillery regiment. Isn't it obvious?
 

Love Charger

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Why is the word "field" attached to artillery like field artillery regiment. Isn't it obvious?
Why, there was mountain artillery also previously
The diffenrce has blurred though
See , field guns like 130 mm m46, the real backbone of indian arty has lower angle of fire, than bofors haubits fh77
Thats the difference between field gun and a howitzer
Infact for us , bofors means a 155mm gun for the world it mostly means a anti aircraft gun .
 

Chinmoy

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Rysskeis use 152 mm shells though
Sir why we don't operate anything equivalent to 203 mm guns like pakis do ?
We operated a 180mm s 23 howitzer but retired it sadly .
Looking at current war, these 207 and 203 mm guns are wrecking havoc on the enemy.
Weight is the answer.
Under FARP, we looked to standardized our whole artillery and fixed upon 155 mm to be the preferred caliber. You want a gun which you could move around freely in battlefield and deploy in places least expected. Pakis didn't expect us to deploy Bofors at those heights during Kargil.
But a light weight 155mm caliber gun gave us the flexibility to operate it at Thar to Kargil. 203 mm is good enough in SPGH or MGS role. But then again in that role, its not good enough to deploy in diverse geographical condition.
What's the use of a powerful gun if you can't deploy it in places where its needed?
 

Dark Sorrow

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No russian army is a artillery army to be honest.
True
West is nowhere near to it
Western armed forces have more balanced approach.
Artillery has suffered two decades of neglect since the focus on counterinsurgency in the early 2000s. During that time, aircraft and helicopters replaced artillery as the main source for fire support during small-unit operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still western Artillery is very much potent. Europeans artillery dwarfs in quantitative comparison with Russians but when one adds USA to mix situation balances out.
West has a distant advantage in ISR and tracking enemy assets.
We are seeking that in Ukraine, plus Russians are good at precision arty also .
No Russians are very bad when it comes with precision artillery. Their solution to this is fire massive barrages and flatten everything. Russian still use WW2 tactics.
Their krasnopol looks as effective as excalibure
Compared to dumb artillery rounds Krasnopol was okay in 1990s and early 2000s.
In 2020s firing accuracy is improved dumb artillery rounds can give equally good performance like Krasnopol .
IA has faced many problems with Krasnopol and doesn't want more.
Finally Krasnopol doesn't compare to Excalibure when it comes to accuracy.

From what I hear we are planning to use Western Smart Munition and india Smart Munition on ATAGS, Dhanush and upgraded 155mm M46s
 

Dark Sorrow

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See , field guns like 130 mm m46, the real backbone of indian arty has lower angle of fire, than bofors haubits fh77
We have begin up-gunning these M46 to 155mm in OFB with Israeli collaboration.
 

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