NATO return to Cold War force structure

[Stuart Galbraith]

But at the same time, its the same mindset we had in the cold war. 'Well we have excellent infrastructure, why do we need to go long distances across poor terrain'. Which is great, right up to the point when you are fighting in the 1916 equivalent of no mans land.

Alright, yes, its less significant for artillery. Himars seems to do ok. I still dont think its a road we go go down too readily without thinking of the possible consequences.

[Martineleca]

5 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

RCH155 is not a bad solution. The only bad thing is that its only going to arrive towards the end of the decade, when arguably we need something right the hell now.

The only SPGs currently available off the shelf in any significant numbers are the Korean K9 and American M109 that the British Army used before the AS-90, frankly I have no idea why with an already established infrastructure the UK chose to move away from such a proven system that's also used by most NATO countries. 

[seahawk]

RCH155 is readily available.

[Stuart Galbraith]

24 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

The only SPGs currently available off the shelf in any significant numbers are the Korean K9 and American M109 that the British Army used before the AS-90, frankly I have no idea why with an already established infrastructure the UK chose to move away from such a proven system that's also used by most NATO countries. 

Because, and I think this is a point Ive been banging on about for years. We want to be among the builders, because when we want military hardware next time, we might not be able to get it.

It does no good all of Europe getting their SPH from the same supplier. We saw what happened when everyone wanted to go to the same supplier in Germany for more tanks.

Personally, Id like us to take our AS90 turrets, and stick them on a polish SPH chassis. But there are clear limits to how far you can take the AS90 turret architecture. Starting with a clean sheet of paper, even if its goign to take time to get into service, is a damn good idea.

[seahawk]

For what? RCH155, PzH2000, Polish Korean SPG, ... etc. There is no lack of suitable desgins, there is a lack of meaningful orders.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Look, its not difficult to understand. ive been saying it for several years now, long before the war started.

If war is primarily won by the producers, then we need more producers to win at any wars Russia, or anyone else, wants to create. Europe needs more productive capacity. it doesnt really matter what they build, as long as its serviceable and it works. Rinse and repeat.

And yes, there isnt enough money to produce all those weapons. Doesnt matter. The time will come when we will be throwing money at it like its lost its appeal.

[seahawk]

You get more production capacity, if you order enough products to use it.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

For what? RCH155, PzH2000, Polish Korean SPG, ... etc. There is no lack of suitable desgins, there is a lack of meaningful orders.

The Poles definitely put big orders of everything on the books, but they are an outlier.

[Stuart Galbraith]

You ever heard of the concept of the 'shadow factory'? Same thing. You need capacity when you need it. The economic incentive is, or should be, besides the point.

Yes, its an expensive way to do war, but its a lot cheaper than losing one.

[urbanoid]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Because, and I think this is a point Ive been banging on about for years. We want to be among the builders, because when we want military hardware next time, we might not be able to get it.

It does no good all of Europe getting their SPH from the same supplier. We saw what happened when everyone wanted to go to the same supplier in Germany for more tanks.

Personally, Id like us to take our AS90 turrets, and stick them on a polish SPH chassis. But there are clear limits to how far you can take the AS90 turret architecture. Starting with a clean sheet of paper, even if its goign to take time to get into service, is a damn good idea.

It's a licensed Korean chassis and the turret is based on AS90, with L52. Perfectly doable for the UK to produce it on sort of a reverse license from Poland for the turret and the Korean one for the chassis. 

Sure as hell we can't sell you actual howitzers, at present we have orders for Krabs for years ahead AND we're buying stuff directly from Korea as well at the same time.

48 minutes ago, seahawk said:

You get more production capacity, if you order enough products to use it.

Right away or years from now? You also get more production capacity if you don't allow it to atrophy in the first place - e.g. what the Americans did with M1 production line. If you can't get export orders, order some of the shit yourself even if you don't necessarily need it at the time. Well, worked with tanks at least, when it comes to the SPH program the Americans are an example how NOT to do it.

3 hours ago, Martineleca said:

The only SPGs currently available off the shelf in any significant numbers are the Korean K9 and American M109 that the British Army used before the AS-90, frankly I have no idea why with an already established infrastructure the UK chose to move away from such a proven system that's also used by most NATO countries. 

The only M109s available in quantity are likely used, older versions. As for the newer versions... pretty much nobody except the US orders those. Internationally K9 is king recently, followed by CAESAR, I think. Literally any other Western SPH is a better choice than M109, that still doesn't have L52 gun. 

[seahawk]

How quickly you get the capacity depends on how much you order. 50 in total, won´t give you much. 50 per year for 10 years, you can expect deliveries to start rolling in 2-3 years, because then it makes economic sense to widen the production capacity.

[Josh]

39 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

 

The only M109s available in quantity are likely used, older versions. As for the newer versions... pretty much nobody except the US orders those. Internationally K9 is king recently, followed by CAESAR, I think. Literally any other Western SPH is a better choice than M109, that still doesn't have L52 gun. 

The U.S. SPH situation is a classic example of the U.S. military attempting some kind of radical technological solution and failing repeatedly when something relatively off the shelf would have filled 80% of the requirements. I think a fair case can be made that the M109, even upgraded, is the least capable howitzer in service with a modern mechanized army.

Edited April 29 by Josh

[urbanoid]

46 minutes ago, Josh said:

The U.S. SPH situation is a classic example of the U.S. military attempting some kind of radical technological solution and failing repeatedly when something relatively off the shelf would have filled 80% of the requirements. I think a fair case can be made that the M109, even upgraded, is the least capable howitzer in service with a modern mechanized army.

And that could be remedied simply by replacing the current gun with L47 or L52. 

[bojan]

Problem of low RoF due the fully manual loading is however there to stay.

[Josh]

2 hours ago, urbanoid said:

And that could be remedied simply by replacing the current gun with L47 or L52. 

It could use an auto loader too, but L52 would be easier to do and give more bang for dollar. I think retrofitting automation likely impractical.

Edited April 29 by Josh

[Martineleca]

11 hours ago, urbanoid said:

And that could be remedied simply by replacing the current gun with L47 or L52. 

M109 is basically the "good enough" mobile artillery system, ubiquitous and fairly cheap to support after half a century of operation it's ideal for countries requiring mass fires rather than boutique capability. The Crusader certainly would have been a Panzerhaubitze-equaling asset had it entered service, but sometimes the capacity to spend months in the field before needing factory maintenance is more valuable than firing 11 rounds per minute or accurately hitting targets from 60km away every few weeks. 

[Sardaukar]

To comment original topic...

Finland never left the "Cold War structure" while many including Sweden dismantled their defence structure. 

[Martineleca]

23 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Because, and I think this is a point Ive been banging on about for years. We want to be among the builders, because when we want military hardware next time, we might not be able to get it.

Seeing that BAE is the largest defense company in Britain and does all the research on modern M109s for the US, it's strange no proposal to set up A7 production in the UK was made to overcome the competition, the Paladin was simply rejected out of hand...

[Stuart Galbraith]

Lets just say that the Conservatives, whom played a large role in making BAE the huge, independent world player it is, have illogically taken a disliking to BAE and try to starve it of land vehicle contracts. For example, it would have been logical to buy the Scimitar replacement off BAE. But not, they nudge it out and give it to General Dynamics, and a right bloody mess its been too.

I dont know why they have taken against them, but there it is. It doesnt have to make sense.

[bojan]

British error was not developing AS-90, British error was never making any significant upgrades to it, leaving it a castrated compared to most other western SPGs.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well they did try, there was Braveheart. Ostensibly it was cancelled because they couldn't solve the ammunition burning out the barrel, but supposedly they had similar problems with Challenger 2 when they bought the bagged charges abroad. They were also going to fit 155s from the as90 in RN destroyers, but that clueless fuckwit Cameron killed it. Which would have save a lot of money with a common ammunition  stockpile.

Basically we had the skills, we didn't have the interest and the funding. And now the MOD are panicking, because they realise they epicly screwed up.

 

[TrustMe]

15 hours ago, bojan said:

British error was not developing AS-90, British error was never making any significant upgrades to it, leaving it a castrated compared to most other western SPGs.

The UK Royal Artillery spent all there cash on watchkeaper UAV's for long range targeting instead on modernising there equipment. Then promptly destroyed half of the UAV's in crashes  

Edited May 1 by TrustMe

[Martineleca]

13 hours ago, bojan said:

British error was not developing AS-90, British error was never making any significant upgrades to it, leaving it a castrated compared to most other western SPGs.

Another issue with the AS-90 that complicated further upgrades and industrial support are its relatively small numbers for a complicated track vehicle, originally it was supposed to replace a combined 350 M109s, FV433s and FH70 howitzers, but with the Cold War over ended up at half that over a three year production run. Because of a glut of SPGs on the international market no export orders could be secured and it became a developmental dead end...

[Stuart Galbraith]

12 hours ago, TrustMe said:

The UK Royal Artillery spent all there cash on watchkeaper UAV's for long range targeting instead on modernising there equipment. The promptly destroyed half of the UAV's in crashes  

Good old Royal Artillery, you can always count on them to fuck up spectacularly.

 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

14 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

Another issue with the AS-90 that complicated further upgrades and industrial support are its relatively small numbers for a complicated track vehicle, originally it was supposed to replace a combined 350 M109s, FV433s and FH70 howitzers, but with the Cold War over ended up at half that over a three year production run. Because of a glut of SPGs on the international market no export orders could be secured and it became a developmental dead end...

Its interesting to note, we have made relatively few SPH in our history. There is Abbot, and erm. There is Abbot. Everything else we bought in. Even the Centurion based 5.5 inch carrier thats in the Royal Artillery museum, never got beyond the single prototype. Even AS90 started life as the multinational SP70.

We would do well to stick to our strengths of what we were good at. Though admittedly, there are precious few traces of those over the past 20 years of neglect.