Russian Gun Artillery Thread

Werewolf wrote:I can garantee you that the Kurganetz is safe from 30x165mm API all around while it is using LERA+composite tiles. If someone has still missed it here again a video of BMP-2 which has a relative weak side armor got upgrade with 2S23 LERA tiles that have a backplate of an alloy that stops 30x165mm API at less than 100 meters. The Kurganetz is already far better protected while having an improved variant of LERA of thicker content and more effective to stop threats from heavy auto cannons to RPG's or ATGM's we only need to know how effective it is against Tandem.


Jump to 04:15 to see a BMP-2 firing ZUBR-8 rounds against another BMP with LERA tiles of 2S23 that stops 30mm armor piercing incendiary ammunition without detonating the LERA tile while protecting the weak side armor from penetration.


I think i already made a little post that Archer is nothing against MSTA-S it barely manages to stay on par and is totally worthless for militaries since trucked versions are always inferior in accuracy and useless for military structure which require always a tracked vehicle to accomplish operational mobility with combined armed forces which wheeled based vehicles can not offer. Despite your claim the MSTA-S is still superior in sustaining its rate of fire not just by a single round more but also by a semi automatic loader compared with an automatic loader which loads one round less and have only 20 rounds capacity in the autoloader compared with 46 rounds of MSTA-S so far only PzH2000 has anything on MSTA-S despite MSTA-S being the first of its kind and the oldest it got modified quite often.

Why are you still talking about MSTA-S... Are you guys trolling me here or what?

I am talking about MSTA-B being outdated and crude, whats up with everyone bringing MSTA-S, Archer, Paladin, Phz2000 or God knows what...

I think you are trolling because you are obviously either lying or simply have not ever put effort researching things you are trying to paint black and white.

Werewolf wrote:I think you are trolling because you are obviously either lying or simply have not ever put effort researching things you are trying to paint black and white.

Lying what O.o I dont really have habit of lying unless if we take in count my elementary school bad math grade i once got and i lied about it to my parents. And where did you see me painting anything "black and white", i clearly said in my posts that MSTA-B has advantage with baseline ammunition in range and that its fine piece in terms of mechanical engineering, what did i paint there black and white exacly.

I said 5 times already, MSTA-B is good artillery piece from the engineering point of view, however its badly, badly outdated in terms of equipment.

AK74 is a great rifle, still its going to be replaced in future coz it (among other things) does not have simple rails for electro-optical devices and not that great ergonomy. And its going to be fixed with AK12 or AEK doesnt even matter. Same is with MSTA-B. Its fine from mechanical aspect, but its horrid in "sophisticated" department, come on even famous UK 105mm "light gun" L118 got balistic computer, diagnostics, bore temperature sensors, chamber temperature, position and navigation chip, velocity radar etc... and its supposed to be a toy compared to MSTA-B. I am not sure what are you all trying to say, that MSTA-B is just fine, that it should be kept in this current state next 30 years?

Its not like i am saying "Russian artillery sux", i am just saying MSTA-B is not really well suited for modern war anymore. While lack of balistic computer can be partially compensated with hand held BC (http://udcusa.com/training-technical-services/universal-ballistic-computer/ saw this one on Partner military expo) it still wont be slaved to the gun and everything is still manual, and that is part that has to be changed. MSTA-B is not ultra light howtizer it needs partial automation if its to compete.

Militarov wrote:Reason why FH77 is alot heavier is the fact it has APU, related equipment, and loading aid equipment and bunch of other equipment that does not exist on MSTA, ofc its going to be heavier and that is reason why MSTA-B is horribly outdated design.

If an group of engineers have ever let an APU and a loading aid mechanism to bring the weight of FH-77 at.....over 12 tons ( a thing that i don't believe even for one instant, rather instead that just those systems has been "forced" in the design to attempt to mitigate a very badly designed overweight mechanical layout) them should be kicked out at instant.


The clear tendency in the design of field artillery (that differ fundamentally from that of self propelled ones where the integration of high end mechanical/electronic intensive solutions is much more rewarding and has an effect much lower on strategical and tactical mobility) among the major nations at world has been the  exact opposite  : a rush for sensible weight reduction in reason just of the points i've highlighted in mine last intervention.........plus "air drop-ability".

Militarov wrote:Thing is that FN77 will deploy, fire 6 shells and move away while MSTA-B crew is trying to take firing position.

Thing is this FH-77 will much more likely find already in that area (in reason of a much higher strategic and tactical mobility including on road) on the opposing side from three to four times the number of 2A65 guns, moreover ready to engage it from outside its engagement limit.........all meanwhile that enemy industry lines put out 2A65s at 4-5 times the rate and at less than 1/3 of the cost.  

will stress it one more time: it is not by chance ,but exactly in reason to the crucial and unavoidable force concentration element, that all designs go toward progressively lighter field artillery and , overall, toward a gradual phasing out of those systems in favour of a much higher percentage of self propelled ones.


About Kurganet-25 level of protection in comparison to any platform in the same category not only in service but even only at the mere feasibility exploration stage, i take the liberty to suggest to abandon very quickly the subject    

In the short terms will be available some news on the level of protection of all three new unified platforms that will render eviodent that the level of protection offered are simply of a totally new level in respect to those ones.

Militarov wrote:Its not like i am saying "Russian artillery sux", i am just saying MSTA-B is not really well suited for modern war anymore. While lack of balistic computer can be partially compensated with hand held BC (http://udcusa.com/training-technical-services/universal-ballistic-computer/ saw this one on Partner military expo) it still wont be slaved to the gun and everything is still manual, and that is part that has to be changed. MSTA-B is not ultra light howtizer it needs partial automation if its to compete.

"Modern War" is a relative term.
The MSTA-B is not sufficient against state-of-the-art NATO-artillery.
None of the opponents who fought the armed forces of the Russian Federation is using state-of-the-art artillery from NATO or allied states, though.

GarryB wrote:

So, how many times you saw Krasnopol in units? Ever? I have never seen it except 2 of them fired on artillery exercise in 2013. And here we are talking about MSTA-B as a piece not its ammunition, MSTA-B as a platform is a problem not its ammunition.

How many units have you seen on exercise... did you see the exercise from start to finish... every shot fired... every target hit or not hit?

I have never seen it confirmed that Russian soldiers issued with SVD rifles use specialist sniper ammo... for all anyone knows they might just use MG ammo, but I can make some assumptions... like the fact that if you are training troops to fire a gun then firing lots of conventional rounds is a good way to do that. However if the purpose is to kill targets then firing one round that hits is much cheaper than firing a dozen rounds that should effectively deal with the target mathematically.

APU? Why do they need APU? For balistic computer, for hydraulic pump, for tactical mobility when on firing position, for loading assistance equipment.... APU is the reason why its so much easier to use in field compared to MSTA, no manual winching around, no need for spinal cord manual labor... naturally all the "conventional" systems exist as a backup. Only real disadvantage of APU is IR spectrum signature, that is reason why Yugoslavians did not put APU on their original towed M84 Nora, which proved as good during 1999. war, however when its about Russia which should be able to actually protect its ground assets from air strikes it does not matter much really.

APUs are not space age, plenty of Anti tank guns had APUs including Sprut... such limited mobility would be important for an anti tank gun but not that important for towed artillery... artillery is hardly an ambush weapon that needs to move the instant after the trap is sprung...

Other APU issues are cost and weight and unnecessary added complication.

And i am really sorry but MSTA-B is based on early 70s technology... only really modern features on it from pure engineering aspects are hydraulic counter-recoil "rails" and a emulsion/oil (not rly sure which probably pure oil) cooled recoil brake but those exist for quite some time, still they were very nicely thought out on MSTA.

Your apology is not necessary... I realise WWI continues to this day in the Balkans, but for the rest of the world the 1970s is not WWI.

Other than that its extremly and way to simple artillery piece. Biggest issue is apsolute lack of any automation, 0, well except spring breech but its not real automation. It takes 10 minutes to set up position for howtizers like MSTA-B or M84, M46 and similar if you do everything by the book, and that is one of the main issues here, meanwhlie with FH77 if terrain is not too bad you can be ready in minute or so.

Yes, I hear airport security is no longer bothering with bolt action rifles because they are just so crude and simple and couldn't possibly be used to threaten or kill people in this day and age.

I find it funny you are trying to portray a weapon system that is simple as also being bad... does it need rails and laser sights and front mounted pistol grips?

Who cares if it takes a week to set up... you get spotted when you fire and that is when you need to move.... of course considering the MSTA will be operating with the Russian Army and will be operating under its air defence then it can probably take its time to move most of the time.

I mean seriously even Yugo M84B2 howtizer had pneumatic loading assistance with compressed Nitrogen i belive, lacked naturally APU and other modern features but that was in plans post 1991. which never happened.

If it never happened then you are not allowed to mention it...  

T15 is IFV which is...not..in...service. Can we please limit ourself to stuff that actually exist in numbers higher than 25. At this point we have only APCs based on tank chasis, in future sure we will have IFVs, possibly not only from Russia. But that is not what we talked here about at all. I used CV90 ans an example of armored vehicle being produced by above mentioned countries.

This is the Russian Gun Artillery thread the T15 exists and will go into service in the near future... why ignore it?

CV90 seems to be scandinavian limited vehicle and therefore rather unimportant in military discussions.

i clearly said in my posts that MSTA-B has advantage with baseline ammunition in range and that its fine piece in terms of mechanical engineering, what did i paint there black and white exacly.

It is not a sophisticated western weapon so it must be crude and primitive and from WWI... the fact that it shoots further and has a much better range of ammo than the FH70 is unimportant to you.

I said 5 times already, MSTA-B is good artillery piece from the engineering point of view, however its badly, badly outdated in terms of equipment.

AK74 is a great rifle, still its going to be replaced in future coz it (among other things) does not have simple rails for electro-optical devices and not that great ergonomy. And its going to be fixed with AK12 or AEK doesnt even matter. Same is with MSTA-B. Its fine from mechanical aspect, but its horrid in "sophisticated" department, come on even famous UK 105mm "light gun" L118 got balistic computer, diagnostics, bore temperature sensors, chamber temperature, position and navigation chip, velocity radar etc... and its supposed to be a toy compared to MSTA-B. I am not sure what are you all trying to say, that MSTA-B is just fine, that it should be kept in this current state next 30 years?

No. I am claiming you are clearly a fool. The gun doesn't operate on its own in a vaccuum... just because you know of no upgrades to the weapon does not mean that all the troops and equipment and vehicles that operate with it have had no improvements or upgrades.

Why put an APU on a towed gun and a ballistics computer when such calculations can be made in real time by the recon platforms gathering the data? Are your troops so stupid as to need an electric motor to dial in the elevation and position of the target for them, or could they do that manually without extra cost or complication?

In minus 30 degrees when that FH77 does not work how space age is it?

it still wont be slaved to the gun and everything is still manual, and that is part that has to be changed. MSTA-B is not ultra light howtizer it needs partial automation if its to compete.

Yeah... making it cost more and making it more expensive will make it much better...

If you dont have any real argument can you stop replying to my posts please, calling me "fool" doesnt rly help.

Actually making it cost more by investing into its equipment will make it much better, not sure are you trying to say we should to back to ZiS6 coz its cheap. Pull yourself together...

Srsly even Serbian snipers are issued sniper ammunition for M76, that is not even remotely comparable. Even IF they were issued standard ammunition its not such great decrease in performance specially not to frontline snipers which we use in Russia and Serbia.

But i AM allowed to mention it, coz it WAS planned, breakdown of Yugoslavia stopped it, and still doesnt change fact M84B2s have pneumatic loading assistance, on MSTA-B you have your spine. Only APU was sadly never realised, there were ideas of it being applied even to original design but military opted for cheaper/lighter variant, later on B2 they added loading assistance due to fact..well...we know them. APU version was planned for 90s when M46s get completely replaced which never happened.

I said like 5 times MSTA-B has longer range with baseline ammunition, stop chanting it seriously, and only reason is its L52, if it didnt have longer range it would be somewhat a humiliation. On other hand FH77 B05 L52 is outperforming MSTA-B in that field too, but lets not even bring it here as its new device.

"Are your troops so stupid as to need an electric motor to dial in the elevation and position of the target for them, or could they do that manually without extra cost or complication?" - maybe coz it reduces response time to target change by.... 10 times? Two main aspects of artillery warfare - mobility and counterbattery performing and evading it. MSTA-B is lacking in both comparared to most of the analogues.

So... wait.. making Armata platform/Boomerang/K25 to reply purely on optoelectronics and make it full of LCD displays, radars etc etc is great.... but doing same on towed howtizer is bad and it wont work on -30C? How so? Why wouldnt it work on -30C? You wont place of the shelf Android phone on MSTA-B but some ruggerised device. Do i feel some double standards here?

I am ignoring it due to fact CV90 is 25 years old design. If you see problem there i suggest you to get book from logic or discrete math, i dont have anything else to say on that matter.

ExBeobachter1987 wrote:

Militarov wrote:Its not like i am saying "Russian artillery sux", i am just saying MSTA-B is not really well suited for modern war anymore. While lack of balistic computer can be partially compensated with hand held BC (http://udcusa.com/training-technical-services/universal-ballistic-computer/ saw this one on Partner military expo) it still wont be slaved to the gun and everything is still manual, and that is part that has to be changed. MSTA-B is not ultra light howtizer it needs partial automation if its to compete.

"Modern War" is a relative term.
The MSTA-B is not sufficient against state-of-the-art NATO-artillery.
None of the opponents who fought the armed forces of the Russian Federation is using state-of-the-art artillery from NATO or allied states, though.

I agree there, MSTA-B is sufficiently adequate for local wars, low intensity conflicts which Russia had previous 2 decades but as you said it is not modern piece suited for large scale war with formidable enemy. Not sure where are people picking this stuff how MSTA-B is "state of the art".

They all say how "artillery is the queen of battle", which i agree, still they defend MSTA-B as adequate "Queen" which i will never agree on.

MSTA-B is good enough to fight NATO in the same capacity Towed Artillery tubes most NATO countries have.

It's not exactly a problem of range or precision. It's a problem of detection. Artillery duels in current age shouldn't happen. It should be kill or be killed. However tactically Russians have the blunt force advantage in the sense that they can rely on relative detection and then saturate.

Never forget, War is a permanent compromise. There's no plan that survives the battle. So having M777 guys brag about 200K USD rounds being popped at will and missing 40% of their targets is no joke. Having Russian artillery guys laughing that they spent 50K USD worth of a salvo on a UA positin and ravaged it, is even less funny. For U crying that is.

See conflict as is is supposed to happen. I stand by my overall point, most Russian assets are very flexible because they're simple. NATO assets need a pitch perfect SA and coordination to get it done within budget.

KoTeMoRe wrote:I stand by my overall point, most Russian assets are very flexible because they're simple. NATO assets need a pitch perfect SA and coordination to get it done within budget.

I add most "modern" NATO assets, especially those of EU origin. The late 70s - 90s US-made kit is still pretty solid, see M109A3/A5/A6 and M270 MLRS. M198 is also quite solid and offers cheap solution up to 40 km, there's also gucci munitions for those who can afford it.

PS. apparently IS operates/-ed a good 50 of M198, Jesus Christ

KiloGolf wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:I stand by my overall point, most Russian assets are very flexible because they're simple. NATO assets need a pitch perfect SA and coordination to get it done within budget.

I add most "modern" NATO assets, especially those of EU origin. The late 70s - 90s US-made kit is still pretty solid, see M109A3/A5/A6 and M270 MLRS. M198 is also quite solid and offers cheap solution up to 40 km, there's also gucci munitions for those who can afford it.

PS. apparently IS operates/-ed a good 50 of M198, Jesus Christ

Tho M198s are mostly going to reserve now with M777s coming into service in bigger numbers at least in the US, others will use it for a while.



Yeah some 40+ were captured by them in Iraq, questionable how many survived till now. Some reports say they were spotted in Syria too.

Once again, the issue is detection, not the tube. Also I said good enough, not SOA. It's à 30 year design. What des the trick for the US tubes is their SOP fundamentals. Period.

If the detection is effective duels shouldn't happen. U crying is testament to that.

KoTeMoRe wrote:Once again, the issue is detection, not the tube. Also I said good enough, not SOA. It's à 30 year design. What des the trick for the  US tubes is their SOP fundamentals. Period.

If the detection is effective duels shouldn't happen. U crying is testament to that.

Tube is the only real advantage of MSTA actually, yes i took "tube" here literally. While detection is important, noone is questioning that, it will again lead to artillery duels... especially if battlefields are sizeable where Air support is far away, sporadic or challenged by enemy.

"Artillery duels shouldnt happen", this reminds me now of certain country removing guns from their aircraft back in time claiming how dogfighting is part of history and how it wont happen again.

My issue with MSTA-B is more from...the crew point of view, not that strategic mojo you guys are trying to discuss here. MSTA-B is physically demanding piece, long march to combat stance changes, no mobility unless towed, all controls are manual... i mean i listed them all above. "Its simple and reliable", sure agreed, now make modernisation package for it that will be simple and reliable...

Seriously i am very sick by now by this retardation if it is not done the "western way" then it is incorrect.

To gold plate a fucking towed artillery piece with unnecessary gimmick that diminishes its entire tactical mobility, logistics and the ability to be used in conventional way in isolated, small or enclosed battlefields makes it a worthless piece of technology that is only good for hollywood movies.

The russians and even the americans which are far less known for good artillery have external means to direct fire and not gold plate a simple gun like a howitzer with overexpensive, hard to maintain, hard to sustain technology and maintenance.

The russians have the Kapustnik-B an Ural-43203 and BTR-80 based Artillery/MRLS commanding, coordinating, Observing and directing mobile Fire Control System that can calculate and provide fire solution for several systems at the same time, regardless if propellant or reactive deployed projectiles. Therefore by this means the current and even the WW2 howtizers can be used with high precision and effeciency enlarging and almost closing the gap between human capability and the maximum potential of the plattform what such old cannons could offer, by that minimizing missfire of barrages and the amount of barrages and rounds needed on targets.

http://armsdata.net/russia/0167.html





Even though the Kapustnik-B is used in mobile batteries as an automated mobile artillery command post for vehicles like MRLS and mobile Artilleries like Gvozdika,MSTA-S and others it can calculate  and provide firesolutions for non automated external systems such as howitzers, not the main use of it but they are used. The soviet union had a system prior to it called Mashina-M that did a similiar thing on a different scale and without such an automatization. It can command and direct fire of 50 vehicles at once, meaning 50 artillery pieces which are automated to Kapustnik-B can be directed by it and "work" against 25 targets simultanousley.

The coordinates of target, correction of fire and fire solution of batteries can be provided directly via this plattform to towed fieldhowitzers or secondary over command based vehicles for ground forces like BMP/BTR based that have the necessary equipment which are usually common in artillery regiments. The only thing that is not automated is the towed guns have to be operated by the crew and they just have to get the bearing, elevation and angle correct which the Kapustnik-B can provide and then the other end has a dooms day.


The americans are also not far off they have a Hummvee based commanding vehicle along a M54 truck based mobile command and FCS point similiar in capabilities to russian Kapustink-B.

Maybe you would suggest russians to centralize their SAM capabilities instead of decentralizing it and giving it a far higher effeciency?

Buy 10 FH77 or buy 100 MSTA-B and two Kapustnik-B batteries what is more effecient?

Gold plating will always result in hollywood papertigers that are in reality useless because they are to expensive, to prone to malfunctions and does not rely on human capability to adopt to situations at all. NO GPS signal or malfunction of APU and they have to load it manually, with addition weight, with additional complication from its design and with additional pain in the ass of a logistics to support a malfunctioned toy that can not be towed without proper function of the system itself.

That is why i called you a liar, you claim to be a "Fister" while attempting or at least giving the impression that you have no experience to speak of in that field.

Sure Kapustnik is not existing in every field but USSR has produced over thousand Mashina-M and Signal-M pieces of this system not counting other systems. Russia still has Mashina-M and Signal-M in inventory and the more modern Kapustnik-B should still exist in good numbers since it is in production since 1993 and total of

http://bastion-karpenko.ru/bm-21m/

To find out the total numbers of this system or older systems like Singal or Mashina maybe franco could help with that like it seems it is his profession.

I don't think Militarov's idea was that Western Way = Best Way.

What I'm saying is that for Theatre Operations, artillery duels should, not, happen. If you need to fire again and again to silence batteries, then there's something pretty fundamentally flawed with your fire missions.

Also most long range engagements would have anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds delay from Fire to Effect. CBR's would need about 1.30 minutes to be effective in automatic mode. This means that whatever you need to be done by the Msta-B there's little it can do worse than the current M198 or M777 both tubes needs large crews, take time to set up, take time to fire for effect and are used where there's little threat of counterfire.

From Zero to Zero the M198 is exposed for 18/20 minutes.

The M777 normally about half that, although fantasy numbers like 2 minutes for each zero are given.

Everything else isn't exactly a problem. There are already stand alone solutions (like Tube brace GPS which can be used, although those are South Korean). The automatization again is as much a liability as a solution. Net centric militaries will have that Gordian knot in their nodes of command. The flexibility a dumb system provides, is something people are slowely understanding right now. That's why for somethings Russia should train its soldiers to be invetive and fight like there's no Digital Savior.

GarryB wrote:Towed artillery is for small mobile units... counter battery roles will be performed by Smerch... a small mobile unit wont have the counter battery detection radars for the job.

Of course lets burn everything in the museum because it is clearly obsolete... lets burn all books not produced on modern efficient word processors because if it isn't fucking perfect it is a burden and crude and our artillery expert here hates it.

Krasnopol wont replace standard ammo, they already have a precision guidance kit to fit standard rounds with GLONASS guidance... I am sure the fact that the MSTA can fire D-20 and current ammo that they will also be able to use the new fuses/guidance kits... but lets no allow for the fact that an Iphone and new rounds will make a gun that Moses would have been familiar with better than Europes space age uber gun...

Towed L39 tubes are ment for small units as you said, MSTA on other hand should be in its core significantly more valuble asset, issued on divisional lvl. D30 on other hand should be batallion lvl piece, we can compare it to M777 i guess in current roles, and this is reason why i am cheering for new light towed L39 howtizer to replace D30 in future, maybe even something based on Nona as we already discussed that in other thread.

I never said we should burn MSTAs, however they should either get modernisation package or get replaced in viable time frame with some more modern towed piece, possibly based on Coalition but alot cheaper due to fact you dont have T90 and autoloader.

No type of Guided ammunition will never replace conventional artillery shells, at least not in 2 lifetimes. Sure, new fuses and new types of ammunition will be MSTA compatibile no reason not to, however MSTA as a piece is the target of my criticism not its ammunition range wich is more than fine.

KoTeMoRe wrote:I don't think Militarov's idea was that Western Way = Best Way.

What I'm saying is that for Theatre Operations, artillery duels should, not, happen. If you need to fire again and again to silence batteries, then there's something pretty fundamentally flawed with your fire missions.

Also most long range engagements would have anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds delay from Fire to Effect. CBR's would need about 1.30 minutes to be effective in automatic mode. This means that whatever you need to be done by the Msta-B there's little it can do worse than the current M198 or M777 both tubes needs large crews, take time to set up, take time to fire for effect and are used where there's little threat of counterfire.

From Zero to Zero the M198 is exposed for 18/20 minutes.

The M777 normally about half that, although fantasy numbers like 2 minutes for each zero are given.

Everything else isn't exactly a problem. There are already stand alone solutions (like Tube brace GPS which can be used, although those are South Korean). The automatization again is as much a liability as a solution. Net centric militaries will have that Gordian knot in their nodes of command. The flexibility a dumb system provides, is something people are slowely understanding right now. That's why for somethings Russia should train its soldiers to be invetive and fight like there's no Digital Savior.

Me and "Western ways" do not go well together, you are right on that one.

Ah, you are talking about artillery duels in terms of oldschool artillery duels where you are trying to "pick them" on the map. That i agree, in most cases when its about "modern" war that is truly history, i was however refering to artillery duels featuring counterbattery in which i would not like to be part of MSTA-B crew, no offense.

M777 has certain amount of issues itself, but Russians could learn thing or two from it. But yeah, that 90 seconds setup time they often mention is not really possible especially if you take position for the first time at some place, terrain needs preparation, people seem not to understand that. You cant place howtizer literally anywhere no matter how light it is.

On other hand i generally agree there when comparing MSTA-B with M198, they are in terms of mobility and general operations very similar, still M198 did saw some updates though last 2 decades in terms of electronics. M777 is abit specific piece so its hard to compare it with anything at this point till i see some nice L39 howtizer from Russia. M777 on other hand is also very physically demanding piece same as MSTA-B and M198 but hey, they wanted "ultra-light" howtizer with no loading assistance, APU or anything so they had to pay on that end.

I agree there, oldschool backup systems should exist, i never said they should be removed, FH77, even latest version still has all manual controls in place.

M777 is not my favourite "light" L39 howtizer from the market however, that actually would be SLWH Pegasus.

Werewolf wrote:Seriously i am very sick by now by this retardation if it is not done the "western way" then it is incorrect.

To gold plate a fucking towed artillery piece with unnecessary gimmick that diminishes its entire tactical mobility, logistics and the ability to be used in conventional way in isolated, small or enclosed battlefields makes it a worthless piece of technology that is only good for hollywood movies.

The russians and even the americans which are far less known for good artillery have external means to direct fire and not gold plate a simple gun like a howitzer with overexpensive, hard to maintain, hard to sustain technology and maintenance.

The russians have the Kapustnik-B an Ural-43203 and BTR-80 based Artillery/MRLS commanding, coordinating, Observing and directing mobile Fire Control System that can calculate and provide fire solution for several systems at the same time, regardless if propellant or reactive deployed projectiles. Therefore by this means the current and even the WW2 howtizers can be used with high precision and effeciency enlarging and almost closing the gap between human capability and the maximum potential of the plattform what such old cannons could offer, by that minimizing missfire of barrages and the amount of barrages and rounds needed on targets.

http://armsdata.net/russia/0167.html





Even though the Kapustnik-B is used in mobile batteries as an automated mobile artillery command post for vehicles like MRLS and mobile Artilleries like Gvozdika,MSTA-S and others it can calculate  and provide firesolutions for non automated external systems such as howitzers, not the main use of it but they are used. The soviet union had a system prior to it called Mashina-M that did a similiar thing on a different scale and without such an automatization. It can command and direct fire of 50 vehicles at once, meaning 50 artillery pieces which are automated to Kapustnik-B can be directed by it and "work" against 25 targets simultanousley.

The coordinates of target, correction of fire and fire solution of batteries can be provided directly via this plattform to towed fieldhowitzers or secondary over command based vehicles for ground forces like BMP/BTR based that have the necessary equipment which are usually common in artillery regiments. The only thing that is not automated is the towed guns have to be operated by the crew and they just have to get the bearing, elevation and angle correct which the Kapustnik-B can provide and then the other end has a dooms day.


The americans are also not far off they have a Hummvee based commanding vehicle along a M54 truck based mobile command and FCS point similiar in capabilities to russian Kapustink-B.

Maybe you would suggest russians to centralize their SAM capabilities instead of decentralizing it and giving it a far higher effeciency?

Buy 10 FH77 or buy 100 MSTA-B and two Kapustnik-B batteries what is more effecient?

Gold plating will always result in hollywood papertigers that are in reality useless because they are to expensive, to prone to malfunctions and does not rely on human capability to adopt to situations at all. NO GPS signal or malfunction of APU and they have to load it manually, with addition weight, with additional complication from its design and with additional pain in the ass of a logistics to support a malfunctioned toy that can not be towed without proper function of the system itself.

That is why i called you a liar, you claim to be a "Fister" while attempting or at least giving the impression that you have no experience to speak of in that field.

Sure Kapustnik is not existing in every field but USSR has produced over thousand Mashina-M and Signal-M pieces of this system not counting other systems. Russia still has Mashina-M and Signal-M in inventory and the more modern Kapustnik-B should still exist in good numbers since it is in production since 1993 and total of

http://bastion-karpenko.ru/bm-21m/

To find out the total numbers of this system or older systems like Singal or Mashina maybe franco could help with that like it seems it is his profession.

I am not really Westerner, nor do i promote "Western way" in any...well...way. I am critic of both sides depending on topic, you should now that by now...

I did not serve in artillery so it is not my direct "field of expertise" however i spent quite few days on exercises featuring M46 guns, D30 and M84A/B2 howtizers and shared tent with artillery crews (their officers actually coz i was at non comissioned officer school at that point). And i had exams regarding artillery operations as part of tactics, even tho its not my direct field of interest. I am not claiming i am an expert when its about artillery, however some things are more than obvious. My father on other hand worked on more than few Yugoslavian military projects as mechanical engineer and we often discuss topics like this in free time. ž

While its all nice and dandy having centralised command posts, how does that exacly relate to MSTA-B being outdated? My criticizm of MSTA came with that in mind, i never had anything to say regarding data flow to the crews, i assumed them being in place. Well, what i would like is if MSTAs got digital FCS slaved to BMS on those vehicles that would send data via Andromeda or some other system but that would be way too much to ask. I am critic of platform itself not support and logistic which i assumed to be working good in first place, for the sake of comparing.

Gold plating and being modern are two very different things. While West truly tends to make some gold plated systems, i do not find FH77 variations to fit that category, sure it is expencive but it has impressive performance too, especially L52 variant. What i find in that category if F35, Paladin howtizer, Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), Zumwalt-class destroyer, F22A and couple more. You dont have to make MSTA-B modernisation to cost billions...or its possible replacement which we can assume might be in form of towed Coalistia variant.

The MH77 ist the definition of gold plated system.

Why having a stropon FCS is good but a Kapustnik-B, mobile artillery command post is not?

The Kapustnik-B will make any FCS strapped on to a field howitzer pale in thousand fold. It is not calculating exlcusivley for one syste but for up to 50 artillery pieces of different kinds, calibres, propellant delivered ammunition or reactive rocket delivered suppositories.

Alot of the features you have listed are gold plating and in war time never and i mean absolutley never ever is anything working like it should, logistics have break downs, based on dozen of factors from enemy involvement, money cuts, weather, production quality in conditions of war or inferior materials are used to "stretch" their production line with limited quality metals, propellants or whatever. You get the point, the problem with such gold plated howitzers will occure and become a huge liability as soon you have no time or resource to maintain the fancy stuff, power the APU because any sort of fuel is required for operate more important machines or for plain survival to make fire and not freeze to death.

The FCS can only be maintained with special maintenance kids including specific coded computeres that can read and communicate with FCS and they need constant "zeroing" along with the hydraulic system. We saw what happens with war torn armies that have a very pathetic means of maintenance due to long wearing out wars, depleting manpower among them professionals, money, spare parts and time to react to concentrate or re-coordinate troops. We saw what Syrian BMP-2 and tanks are in quite often conditions in where stabilizators can not be properly maintained and the stabilizator constantly drags the turret into a specific direction.

All that and the fact that this gold plated features on simple weapons as towed howitzers are nothing you would waste money or time on when you have crucial and vital necessities which you need to fund and to keep on working then all those features become dead weight, that wear down your tactical mobility in a significant magnitude (dead weight needs to be towed which slows down vehicles and with that entire batteries or armed formations, dead weight consumes fuel to be towed while having no use of it, it is heavier and slower to field by crew, takes more preperation time without any use of the dead weight. The crew gets demoralized by the malfunctioning and unsupported equipment they are used to operate with and have to rely on standard spotter, radio and map coordination unless they have not decentralized artilery batterie command post to do it for them and just to have a simple job of adjusting the bearing, elevation and angle of the howitzer to hit the designated target)


Having decentralized means for entire artillery batteries to have a dedicated, far higher professionalized and specialized crew and a dedicated decentralized network that can even link in to D-1 howitzer of WW2 and give them support in their fire is in my eyes a far superior way of how to spend limited money than on just field howitzers that would consume potential and a lot of money that could be invested with more effeciency and with actual and factual significance on combat effeciency.

I understand very well the benefits of a standardized FCS and all those technologies but that does not make it better in overall war and combat if and that is beyond doubt it falls short in logistics and that is the rubicon point of no return to FCS and they will be less effecient than D-30 howitzers or MSTA-B that are already operating with observers, radio, map, and artillery correction spotters.

Militarov, I see what you are saying. But keep in mind that MSTA-B would not be used in situations where you will need to quickly deploy on emergency request. That doesn't fit the Russian army doctrine. What's more likely is it would be assigned to a assault battalion, If you really need quick reaction artillery, self propelled artillery is a better choice. As far as I know, Anything above 120 mm is not meant for quick set ups as you mentioned. Other than Self propelled artillery. Of course you guys can curse and beat me up because I am not an artillery expert at all But I am familiar with our doctrines. And I do get Militarov pressing needs for modernizations. But old school works too, Artillery calculating posts on APCs can provide firing solutions.

For hot one on one artillery action You definitely want to have MLRS. Shortest deployement and fastest saturated kaboom delivery on target.

VladimirSahin wrote:Militarov, I see what you are saying. But keep in mind that MSTA-B would not be used in situations where you will need to quickly deploy on emergency request. That doesn't fit the Russian army doctrine. What's more likely is it would be assigned to a assault battalion, If you really need quick reaction artillery, self propelled artillery is a better choice. As far as I know, Anything above 120 mm is not meant for quick set ups as you mentioned. Other than Self propelled artillery. Of course you guys can curse and beat me up because I am not an artillery expert at all But I am familiar with our doctrines. And I do get Militarov pressing needs for modernizations. But old school works too, Artillery calculating posts on APCs can provide firing solutions.  

You cant use SPGs everywhere, terrain does not allow that. That is why its quite important to have good fairly mobile towed gun on disposal, as i said above if someone asked me id build on Coalition base one L52 howtizer with APU and everything that comes with it and one L39 in M777 class with minimal possible weight.

Everyone basically has truck or APC based artillery command posts, it does not however replace onboard FCS slaved to APU. Its all nice that you get calculations from some external platform but you still have to do everything manually after you get the numbers. Takes time and takes physical work.

Werewolf wrote:The MH77 ist the definition of gold plated system.

Why having a stropon FCS is good but a Kapustnik-B, mobile artillery command post is not?

The Kapustnik-B will make any FCS strapped on to a field howitzer pale in thousand fold. It is not calculating exlcusivley for one syste  but for up to 50 artillery pieces of different kinds, calibres, propellant delivered ammunition or reactive rocket delivered suppositories.

Alot of the features you have listed are gold plating and in war time never and i mean absolutley never ever is anything working like it should, logistics have break downs, based on dozen of factors from enemy involvement, money cuts, weather, production quality in conditions of war or inferior materials are used to "stretch" their production line with limited quality metals, propellants or whatever. You get the point, the problem with such gold plated howitzers will occure and become a huge liability as soon you have no time or resource to maintain the fancy stuff, power the APU because any sort of fuel is required for operate more important machines or for plain survival to make fire and not freeze to death.

The FCS can only be maintained with special maintenance kids including specific coded computeres that can read and communicate with FCS and they need constant "zeroing" along with the hydraulic system. We saw what happens with war torn armies that have a very pathetic means of maintenance due to long wearing out wars, depleting manpower among them professionals, money, spare parts and time to react to concentrate or re-coordinate troops. We saw what Syrian BMP-2 and tanks are in quite often conditions in where stabilizators can not be properly maintained and the stabilizator constantly drags the turret into a specific direction.

All that and the fact that this gold plated features on simple weapons as towed howitzers are nothing you would waste money or time on when you have crucial and vital necessities which you need to fund and to keep on working then all those features become dead weight, that wear down your tactical mobility in a significant magnitude (dead weight needs to be towed which slows down vehicles and with that entire batteries or armed formations, dead weight consumes fuel to be towed while having no use of it, it is heavier and slower to field by crew, takes more preperation time without any use of the dead weight. The crew gets demoralized by the malfunctioning and unsupported equipment they are used to operate with and have to rely on standard spotter, radio and map coordination unless they have not decentralized artilery batterie command post to do it for them and just to have a simple job of adjusting the bearing, elevation and angle of the howitzer to hit the designated target)


Having decentralized means for entire artillery batteries to have a dedicated, far higher professionalized and specialized crew and a dedicated decentralized network that can even link in to D-1 howitzer of WW2 and give them support in their fire is in my eyes a far superior way of how to spend limited money than on just field howitzers that would consume potential and a lot of money that could be invested with more effeciency and with actual and factual significance on combat effeciency.

I understand very well the benefits of a standardized FCS and all those technologies but that does not make it better in overall war and combat if and that is beyond doubt it falls short in logistics and that is the rubicon point of no return to FCS and they will be less effecient than D-30 howitzers or MSTA-B that are already operating with observers, radio, map, and artillery correction spotters.

Almost every army has artillery command posts on truck, APC or similar platform that can issue data to batallion or divisional lvl doesnt matter, but what when you have 3 howtizers detached somewhere? I really like having onboard FCS and balistic computer, also having APU makes your life alot easier ifs hydro-electric components are slaved to FCS, faster target change, faster response time...faster.

Having decentralised platform for calculations is fine i am not aganist it as i already said almost every army has them. APUs on howtizers are not always working and they generally speaking use little fuel, and its same fuel used by trucks that normally tow them it shouldnt be any kind of burden for logistics, also APUs are mostly detachable so maintenance is fairly simple. Electronic components used are i belive on FH77 in this case all off the shelf commercial just well protected, i think latest FN77 L52 variant uses Pentium III 500Mhz CPU in fact.

Militarov wrote:

VladimirSahin wrote:Militarov, I see what you are saying. But keep in mind that MSTA-B would not be used in situations where you will need to quickly deploy on emergency request. That doesn't fit the Russian army doctrine. What's more likely is it would be assigned to a assault battalion, If you really need quick reaction artillery, self propelled artillery is a better choice. As far as I know, Anything above 120 mm is not meant for quick set ups as you mentioned. Other than Self propelled artillery. Of course you guys can curse and beat me up because I am not an artillery expert at all But I am familiar with our doctrines. And I do get Militarov pressing needs for modernizations. But old school works too, Artillery calculating posts on APCs can provide firing solutions.  

You cant use SPGs everywhere, terrain does not allow that. That is why its quite important to have good fairly mobile towed gun on disposal, as i said above if someone asked me id build on Coalition base one L52 howtizer with APU and everything that comes with it and one L39 in M777 class with minimal possible weight.

Everyone basically has truck or APC based artillery command posts, it does not however replace onboard FCS slaved to APU. Its all nice that you get calculations from some external platform but you still have to do everything manually after you get the numbers. Takes time and takes physical work.

Ohh my goodness, military personal has to work? They did not sign up for that!

Seriously you are driving here a very narrow narrative. towed howitzers still exist because they are cheap and very useful. If FCS and semi automated operation would be so crucial then we would only buy mobile artillery pieces but every military and especially china and russia show that having more of such equipment is more usefull than gold plate them and have them in very few numbers.

Kapustnik-B is superior because it can provide old as fuck WW2 artillery like D-1 with precalculated trajectory the correct coordinates to eleminate or decrease the CEP to a very impressive minimum while having just a few FH77 is all fine but what means do they have to provide effectiv targeting for old generation Artillery or do this nordic countries have only a dozen pieces in entire country for the entire country to be protected?