Russian Gun Artillery Thread

Robert.V wrote:

limb wrote:

Why did they consider retiring a 1980s  long range heavy counterbattery cannon but keep 1950s tier obsolete junk like akatsiya and gvozdika still in service?

Lets hope those rounds are in service already

Because  it's a niche. That was deemed archaic and  not needed due MLRS, BM's,  guided  missiles and on the horizon longer range 152 mm arty.    It's stayed due  upgrade potential and the explosive payload not to mention ability to sustain  with easy 50 rounds an hour  and fairly cheap footprint and cost of rounds.

Akatsiya and Gvozdika where planned to be replaced  but the SU fell.   And Russian for  a decade plus couldn't afford the R&D or replacement of them.



Gvozdika has been and is  being converted into 2S34 "Khosta"     And  Akatsiya was underway being  replaced by 2S19 "Msta-S but that got interrupted by dissolution of the Soviet Union as said above.  

By the time  Russia could afford more  2S19 "Msta-S" ...it got morally obsolete.  And the  new modification/deep modernization of the 2S19 under the name 2S33 "Msta-SM" which was already started during the twilight of Soviet Union got dropped for  2S35 "Coalition-SV" program.   Which in hindsight was a dumb move.


Hence why Akatsiya is still around.      

On a side note.    

There was a potent Akatsiya  modernization under the index 2S3M3 which would have allowed it to fire most(but not all)  rounds at the same distances as 2S19 "Msta-S".

But that too was not considered due to expectations of  2S35 "Coalition-SV" being around the corner.

Koalitsiya has been "around the corner" since 2012, but still only 15 have been built. The fact that the Msta-SM2(still obsolete compared to krab, pzh-2000, etc) is being funded more than the koalitsiya says someone effed up. Either the koalitsiya is inoperable or russian procurement is making a mistake.

Actually the 2S1 and 2S3 are highly mobile and very versatile and are very useful vehicles... and with modern upgrades they would be very difficult to deal with.

But most of them don't have modern upgrades, and even when upgraded would be massively inferior to the Koalitsiya, PZh2000, krab, archer, caesar, etc

limb wrote:

Koalitsiya has been "around the corner" since 2012, but still only 15 have been built. The fact that the Msta-SM2(still obsolete compared to krab, pzh-2000, etc) is being funded more than the koalitsiya says someone effed up. Either the koalitsiya is inoperable or russian procurement is making a mistake.

First of there is no such thing as  "Msta-SM2".    It's GRAU index is 2S19M2 (and not 2S33 as some western sources indicate) but the designation has remained the same - "Msta-S".      In other words 2S19M2  "Msta-S"    Anything else is illiterate journalism.  

Same goes for the supposed range upgrade  of the 2S19M2  "Msta-S".   Which it hasn't but people confuse it with or think it's further modernization of the 2S33  "Msta-SM" that was never adopted.


anyway


As far as  2S35 "Koalitsiya-SV"   ..you do understand the program had to be restarted after 2010 as the original double barreled 2S35 didn't meet the requirement of mobility.    
The current batch of 2S35 "Koalitsiya-SV" is really a pre-serial batch to work out the kinks and partial familiarization  for training staff and preparation for field manuals.

also likely  MoD wanted to wait for Armata chassis based Koalitsiya.  Rather then the current T-90 based.  Though this will probably change now


Like I said in the hindsight  and  something I myself always felt.   Is that 2S33  "Msta-SM" should have been adopted.    

Same with BMP-3 ...should have been adopted in more numbers instead of  modernizing BMp-2's and the laughable modernization of BMP-1.     Same with partial replacement for MT-LB. The BMP-3 based  object 502TB.

Then there is BTR-90 it was good APC and had room for deep modernization.   Alas....

And so much more.   That could have been done differently but wasn't.



But it's really has always been the case with Russia.   It's almost never fought a war to a decent degree properly prepared.

GarryB wrote:Those articles didn't say 203mm guided shells did  not exist before...

They don't.  We would have seem then otherwise or known at least their GRUA index, etc. That's not to say Soviets weren't thinking about it.  As they pretty developed and introduced in the 80's  for almost every arty a guided round.

Problem was probably that a round fired by 203mm  2S7 "Pion"  generated a lot of amount of shock and not to mention the G-Forces that followed.  It would have been  bit to difficult to produces a guided round for 203mm  2S7 "Pion" in those days.
 
This days however the technology is there. As hey are making a guided round.

GarryB wrote:

This one says new ammo is being developed... I really hope they mean super long range guided rounds like those developed for Coalition.

Very, likely as the barrel and rest of the gun is overbuilt and would allow for even higher pressure rounds..  Hence why with  the 2S7M  they increased higher rate of fire  per hour ( 40 vs 50 rounds ).  There is also room for  longer rocket assisted rounds.

As far as the  S-23 180mm gun  I'm certain it never had guided shells.  I think you're  misremembering it for rocket assisted rounds.

Or perhaps some Chinese or Iranian/Iraqi  development ?

I am curious why the 2s7 does not have a muzzle break. Is that because the crew is exposed? The whole massive thing rocks on the chassis from recoil, must send massive shock back through the entire chassis. With such a massive caliber a muzzle break would make a big diff.

mnztr wrote:I am curious why the 2s7 does not have a muzzle break. Is that because the crew is exposed? The whole massive thing rocks on the chassis from recoil, must send massive shock back through the entire chassis. With such a massive caliber a muzzle break would make a big diff.

They experimented with a muzzle brake also.   The muzzle brake equipped prototype ended up damaging the front cab/section and would as you guessed   ...have adverse effect on the  conditions of the crew in the open.  

In addition it contributed to a decrease in the accuracy of fire.  It also produced a bigger flash and raised more dust especially in low angle of fire, which revealed the gun's position more easier.

I am curious why the 2s7 does not have a muzzle break. Is that because the crew is exposed? The whole massive thing rocks on the chassis from recoil, must send massive shock back through the entire chassis. With such a massive caliber a muzzle break would make a big diff.

It has a spade.

Interesting thread from journalist vladlen tatarskiy, one of the best, who is constantly embedded in Russian units in the Ukraine and has been under Ukrainian artillery fire multiple times
https://t.me/warhistoryalconafter/69800

If hes saying this, then the state of Russian artillery was catastrophic, only being saved by donations of civilian grade djis and some experience from the dnr troops. Its plausible because the extreme majority of Russian artillery is pieces from the 60-70s(d-20, d-30, giatsint) with 0 digital fire control systems. Seems like Potbelly dinosaurs still train artillerymen like its 1939.

On Artillery Day, I would like to tell a little about the history of the use of this type of weapon in the Northern Military District.

Most of the gunners, before February 24, had no idea how to fight with modern conditions. The experience of Syria does not suit Ukraine at all, and no one has studied the 8-year-old conflict in the Donbass and the evolution of the use of artillery. There were more important things...

No one created new artillery systems either. There are still no systems similar to the "777" and "Caesars". (They will say again that Serdyukov is to blame for everything).

On February 24, most of the artillery went into battle with compass and binoculars at hand. The spotter needed to climb a tree or somewhere else and control the fire - there was not enough, and in most cases, there was no UAV. There was nothing like "Nettle" and "Dill" in the Russian Army either. (A commentator should appear here who will say that we had everything, you just don’t know!). Few knew about the existence of Offlinemaps. The program allows any person who knows how to press the touch screen with their fingers to carry out gun aiming. Just put the gun in the direction of the target, X and Y are shown on the map. Raise the copter and adjust by eye: south, north, etc. Everything. (Especially for telephonophobes, I’ll say: buy Chinese, do not insert a SIM card, download the application via Wi-Fi and update the cards in the same way. You will also need a phone with a SIM card - you need to somehow keep in touch).

But the students still don't know about it. Mobilized and volunteers come from the training grounds, and there they teach artillerymen as if the SVO had not begun. Maybe two weeks ago I saw a newly formed artillery brigade that arrived from the Russian Federation. There, the commander ordered to send two spotters to the front line, to monitor the work of artillery. One had a Mavic 2 on his shoulder, but they didn't know how to use it. It's just there, so you need to take it with you. "Take everything!" - such an order! They had to unfold the compass and look through binoculars. These two served in the army for a long time, of course, not in the artillery. There is no "offlinemaps", and I had to explain for a long time that "offline" means that the application can work without the Internet. I’m wondering: was their brigade commander really not interested in everything that happened around the last 9 months? What can I say, if in 2019, in the LPR, the "adviser" taught the officers (officers !!!) to adjust the fire on the "snail"! Well, i.e. the level of a boarding school ... Including due to the lack of normal adjustments, our artillery had to release wagons of shells, with which there is now a large shortage. Reconnaissance targets for artillery in 90% of cases are civilian DGI copters, bought by civilians and put into the army by volunteers. WITHOUT THIS HELP, OUR ARMY WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED LONG AGO! We need to remember and be aware of this.

How many times I have been in the army, I still have not studied the capabilities of the "Aistenok" and other similar systems. For the most part, no one knows how to use them or, perhaps, they are not effective. I can say one thing for sure: I have never heard at the command post that they received target designation from radar devices.

Despite the technical lag behind NATO systems, the Russian gods of war will easily solve the issue with Ukraine if more Orlan-30s are given to the troops to adjust Krasnopol, as well as more UAVs with the ability to fly 30 kilometers. It would be nice to experiment with satellite communications by deploying it at the UAV control center and at the firing line. Through the broadcast in the cart, in the general chat, without any radio exchange, to correct the work of the guns.

By the way, telegrams became a formidable weapon of this war. It is in the closed groups of this messenger that artillery officers from different units, but in the same direction, exchange information about the enemy and targets. This helps to organize interaction more efficiently, eliminating unnecessary links. I wrote about such an organization of interaction even before the NVO, but I was convinced that this already exists in the troops and is about to appear everywhere. As usual...

To everyone involved, Happy Holidays again!
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Shortages of shells? I wish someone would have told the Russian Army, then they wouldn't be firing all those non-existent shells non-stop

lyle6 wrote:Shortages of shells? I wish someone would have told the Russian Army, then they wouldn't be firing all those non-existent shells non-stop

Vladlen tatarskiy has personally arranged with his own funds  and connections the transfer of hundreds of dji  drone, walkie talkies, and armor vests to Russian troops in need. What have you done? Why should I believe you over him? Hes a voenkor on the level of intergity as wargonzo, if he says somethings not right in the RuAf then its 99% likely to be true.

Another more optimistic post highlighting how terrible and primitve russian artillery fire control technology and tactics were at the time of the beggining of the SVO, this time by voenkors Harchenko and Shilov. It however doesnt mention acute shortages of orlans(an absolute fact, only 6 orlans were given per brigade of 8000 troops). Its just insane how potbelly dinosaurs expected russian artillery spotters to haul a 20kg shitty tripod laser designator on the frontline from the 80s instead of using laser designator drones, until like 2015.

The "d1s instead of koalitsiyas" line hit hard. No modern easy to use SPGs for you artillery crews, they're only for parades. We took berlin with D-1s, now take bakhmut with them too. excuse us while we invest money into giant underwater AI dildos.  

https://t.me/bayraktar1070/536

Happy Holidays Artillerymen! It just so happened that from the age of 16 I worked closely with artillerymen and therefore I can draw some conclusions.

The Syrian experience has revealed many of the problems of Russian artillery. It was in Syria that the interaction between UAVs and artillery was built. Prior to that, spotters from the front line called TAPIK to the headquarters. Now, in real time, the generals watched the battlefield on large screens. Aircraft controllers and artillery spotters moved to headquarters - and this was a big step forward.

The Syrian war saved the Krasnopol shells. Before the Syrian conflict, they were aimed at the target from the ground. The effectiveness was small, so they wanted to abandon them. In 2017, the designers hung a target designator on a UAV (Orlan 30 type) and from that moment on, 152mm guns turned into sniper rifles that hit for tens of kilometers.

The battles in Syria showed the low training of personnel and the unsatisfactory performance of artillery with conventional shells. Flights of 300 meters did not surprise anyone. And if stationary targets were more or less destroyed, then hitting a moving target remained an almost unrealistic task.

The Karabakh conflict showed that even Soviet artillery systems can effectively hit the enemy. I want to pay tribute to the Armenian artillerymen. Despite the fact that they used outdated guns such as D-20 and D-1, due to competent adjustment and training of personnel, the Azerbaijani army suffered significant losses. In addition, the Armenians actively dug in their guns and this is worth learning.

Unfortunately, the Syrian and Karabakh experience revealed many problems, but it was not generalized, comprehended and scaled. What worked on a small theater of operations stopped working on the scale of the SVO. From the very beginning of the conflict, plasma screens hung in the headquarters, but the drones (Orlan 10, Orlan 30) quickly ran out. To correct it, they had to send specialists to the front line. Without the UAV "Krasnopol" was not used. The usual scheme of interaction crumbled before our eyes.

The scale of the SVO required a huge number of artillery systems, while there were not so many trained crews. Theoretically, we could neutralize the human factor by the massive arrival of modern systems. But instead of "Coalitions" we saw the Soviet D-1.

Now Russian artillery is being reborn through sweat and blood. The state has realized the importance of high-precision weapons, and we are moving towards this goal. Despite the losses, our gunners get the experience that could not be dreamed of by training at the training grounds. There are mistakes and shortcomings, but this is just an excuse to develop and move forward. And I believe in our guys. They will succeed.

Yeah yeah yeah Limb... I am not even bothering to read the shit you post... these people seem as bitter as you and complaining on the internet that the sky is falling and Russia is about to lose because a country that spends less on its military every year has artillery vastly better in numbers and performance than HATO countries with massive budgets and able to buy things from each other and therefore sharing the cost of systems and weapons create German artillery that breaks after firing 100 rounds a day which the suppliers consider very very heavy use.

There are always problems in war, areas that need attention are suddenly brought to attention and need to be dealt with, but not all problems can be solved at once and someone telling everyone the sky is falling but it is OK because they are selling their own house to fix things because they are a hero and everyone else must therefore be a lose is amusing... at best.

Even the richest country on the planet will find it has shortages or things don't work the way they should, but these guys you listen to sound like trolls spreading shit to pander to western audiences and bi curious Russians.

There are always problems... look at wonder weapons Javelin and Stinger and M777... before the conflict the Javelin was going to wipe the floor with Russian armour... it was going to be so one sided it would be embarrassing, and of course Stinger cleared the skies in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the M777 was some super system a million times better than any Russian system... but war doesn't tolerate marketing bullshit and creates problems and situations such equipment might never have been tested for... so when it fails it fails spectatularly.

It seems western supplied artillery doesn't fire often enough to run out of shells... are you suggesting that is a good feature?

Russian artillery is doing an excellent job... get over it.

GarryB wrote:
Russian artillery is doing an excellent job... get over it.

And the Russian artillery park is massive. Its one thing for Germany to replace its play pen of guns - they just need a few hundred pieces and they're done. The Russians are producing more guns than all of NATO and it still wouldn't be enough to modernize the force completely. In the time it would take to replace the obsolete guns the "new" guns would themselves be obsolescent and in need of modernization. Its a moving target, and I'm even astonished the Russians manage to keep their artillery force in tip top shape despite a comparatively shoestring budget.

limb wrote:Another more optimistic post highlighting how terrible and primitve russian artillery fire control technology and tactics were at the time of the beggining of the SVO, this time by voenkors Harchenko and Shilov. It however doesnt mention acute shortages of orlans(an absolute fact, only 6 orlans were given per brigade of 8000 troops).

But he says no such thing

He says the means are modern, but the scale of the operation meant that many of these fancy spotter drones quickly ran out, there weren't enough of them for the scale of the fighting

We've been over this already, and not only with myself - the situations in which you'll be employing dumb shells with grid co-ordinates, or relative to landmarks, or otherwise approximately; will massively outnumber the situations where you'll want to use guided shells. What that ratio is though, or how many drones you might need - is anybody's guess. Adding to that, the military is also a conservative institution in many respects that sticks to tried and tested, rather than immediately floods its units with new technologies and tactics.
So them being undermanned with drones is of no surprise.
The French ran out of precision-guided weapons in just a few weeks of bombing Libya. NATO in Afghanistan had to rely on Javelins for precision-targeting of Taliban troops as they didn't have anything more appropriate. These sorts of miscalculations happen all the time for every army, because there are things that are impossible to predict, or various manufacturing, political issues that get in the way.

Its just insane how potbelly dinosaurs expected russian artillery spotters to haul a 20kg shitty tripod laser designator on the frontline from the 80s instead of using laser designator drones, until like 2015.

And who realized it sooner?

The mid-2010s was about the advent of drones lasing targets for artillery.

The "d1s instead of koalitsiyas" line hit hard. No modern easy to use SPGs for you artillery crews, they're only for parades. We took berlin with D-1s, now take bakhmut with them too. excuse us while we invest money into giant underwater AI dildos.

It's just a bit of hyperbole.
No-one's using D1s, while the Koalitsiya is still a prototype. Russia needs artillery en masse, this war is a contest of artillery and has been since near the beginning. And in this Russia has succeeded in outmatching the Ukrainians by several-fold. All but the hidden ammo depots of the Ukraine have long been taken out, and they're faced with long logistical lines to get their Western-supplied pieces and ammo to the front.
In order to gain this edge though, Russia had to supply to its troops what it had available to fetch from storage. It didn't have fleets of spare Msta's with GLONASS support lying around - all such vehicles were already on the front-lines.

The post on the whole is very interesting and I have no doubt as to its veracity. It's rather you who is misinterpreting it though.

No-one's using D1s

Yes they are, especially LDNR units.

Meanwhile many of you make fun of ukraine using 85mm and 130mm field guns.

while the Koalitsiya is still a prototype

Which is retarded. Its not a prototype also, it was officially greenlit for service in 2016.

And who realized it sooner?

The mid-2010s was about the advent of drones lasing targets for artillery.

Turkey, Israel, South korea, China, US.

GarryB wrote:Yeah yeah yeah Limb... I am not even bothering to read the shit you post...

And that's why you're spewing disrespectful ignorance that would make any actual russian cringe.

these people seem as bitter as you and complaining on the internet that the sky is falling and Russia is about to lose because a country that spends less on its military every year has artillery vastly better in numbers and performance than HATO countries with massive budgets and able to buy things from each other and therefore sharing the cost of system

Except both didnt say the sky is falling. They said that there were catastrophic problems which were gradually IMPROVED, but there is still a lot to be done.

but these guys you listen to sound like trolls spreading shit to pander to western audiences and bi curious Russians.

These "trolls" have risked their lives to report with russian troops on the frontline.  Kharchenko is literally part of RIA novosti. They have also, as I said earlier, donated very large amounts of quadcopters, vests, blankets, thermal imagers, etc to the russian troops.

Due to being part russian and understanding russian, I have several friends in russia, and one of them is a soldier in the area of the SVO. He confirms that orlans are still very rare. He also said losses are completely manageable in his unit, so hes not some doomer.  Actually talk to russians in russia.

You should have more god damn respect for these patriots. They're russian, and they want to win. You get flustered when any source, no matter how credible, reports a problem in the army.  

We've been over this already, and not only with myself - the situations in which you'll be employing dumb shells with grid co-ordinates, or relative to landmarks, or otherwise approximately; will massively outnumber the situations where you'll want to use guided shells.

Agree and disagree. Guided shells are nothing but a crutch, for lack of accuracy with unguided shells, so theyre not the be all end all. However grid square bombardments are extremely inefficient and ineffective.

The best solution for artillery is to be extremely accurate with unguided shells. The krab and pzh2000 unguided shells have extremely low CEP. After just one correcting shot, they hit almost exactly at the coordinate. Russian artillery, other than the koalitsiya and maybe 2С19М2  cant do that. Thats why modern NATO SPGs are superior to cold war and WW2 artillery.

Yes they are, especially LDNR units.

Meanwhile many of you make fun of ukraine using 85mm and 130mm field guns.

I read pretty much everything on this forum and I don't remember anyone joking about the quality of the Soviet artillery the Orcs are using.

It is the western wonder weapons that seem to have fallen short in terms of cost effectiveness and performance.

They seem to prefer to use them and their long range against unprotected civilian targets it seems...

Which is retarded. Its not a prototype also, it was officially greenlit for service in 2016.

It might have passed its tests but getting it into serial production and actually deployed to front line operational units is rather something else... such systems are normally sent to specific units who work out tactics and develop manuals on their proper use and maintenance... it would be rare for a brand new system to be thrown into a war as standard equipment.

And that's why you're spewing disrespectful ignorance that would make any actual russian cringe.

Navalny is an actual Russian so who cares?

Someone is not right just because they are Russian.... they actually also have to be right to get my support.

Except both didnt say the sky is falling. They said that there were catastrophic problems which were gradually IMPROVED, but there is still a lot to be done.

No, you are the one telling us the sky is falling Chicken Little... people on the front line telling us there are problems which are being fixed is a GOOD thing.

The west doesn't seem interested in fixing its air defence capacity which is its greatest weakness... their Harpoon missiles are supposed to be amazing but turn out to be totally useless... in theory they should have amassed hundreds of them and then launched them in numbers to overwhelm their targets... that is the US Navy plan... and it does not seem to work at all.

He confirms that orlans are still very rare. He also said losses are completely manageable in his unit, so hes not some doomer. Actually talk to russians in russia.

What the **** does he expect... everyone gets a drone each?

The Units that need drones don't need one or two, they would require dozens... a drone can't cover more than one area at one time but an artillery piece can cover and enormous volume of airspace with the swing of the barrel... operating several drones per battery should be normal and for each drone in the air they would need four or five drones on the ground for when the flying drones run out of battery or fuel and need to land and be fixed up and sent back out. Plus occasionally there will be crashes or shootdowns that write off drones which will also need to be replaced... or do you think operating artillery in 40 minute windows when their drone is working and then 2-3 hours while they fly back and get refuelled or recharged and fixed up with their camera lenses cleaned and sent back on their way to the region they are looking for targets to...

You should have more god damn respect for these patriots. They're russian, and they want to win. You get flustered when any source, no matter how credible, reports a problem in the army.

No I get pissed of when dickheads like you whine that Russia doesn't make enough drones or doesn't do this or that... and why don't they have HIMARS ignoring the fact that only a rich country who pisses away their money like the US would need a HIMARs in the first place.

HIMARS would note enter service in Russia... it is too expensive... it would probably cost five times more than a GRAD or a Smerch and definitely not be five times better... in fact it wont be better at all.

HIMARS is an indication that the US military gets fucked by its MIC... it is an F-35 but with less problems.

The F-22 was too expensive to build in the numbers required to have a stealth airforce so the F-35 was designed to be the cheap affordable mass produced super stealth fighter that everyone bought which makes it cheap.

HIMARS is not cheap.

Firing 227mm calibre GPS guided rockets is not amazing or state of the art... especially when you only carry 6 damn rockets and each vehicle operates on its own.

The new replacement for Uragan and Smerch will carry 12 x 300mm rockets or 30 x 220mm rockets, but even the old Smerch has 12 x 300mm rockets and the old Uragan has 16 x 220mm rockets and are wheeled vehicles that are fast on roads and have some cross country performance and lower operating costs than the M270 which is a rocket system based on a bradley IFV.

Imagine a Smerch on a BMP-3 chassis and how costly that would be to operate... how often would it need its tracks... a 90km and now 120km range rocket vehicle needs to leave a road system why? A tracked vehicle would need service and maintenance after driving 2,000km... a truck based Smerch could drive 2,000km and then drive back in a week and not need much more than fuel and oil... and it would travel that distance faster than any tracked vehicle could.

HIMARS makes sense for the US, but they have taken a cheap powerful system and they have done everything they can to make it too expensive to use in serious numbers.

How many hundred Smerch systems did the Soviets have?

Guided shells are nothing but a crutch, for lack of accuracy with unguided shells, so theyre not the be all end all. However grid square bombardments are extremely inefficient and ineffective.

When you have three or four HIMARS launchers then hitting area targets does not make sense because 18-24 rockets is completely inadequate to stop an enemy force advance on an width of front.

A Smerch battery with hundreds of rockets launched in the path of an Orc charge would be devastating... they are using civilian vehicles because they can't get basic spare parts for the western wonderwaffen... how vulnerable would an SUV be to artillery barrages?

Having drones monitoring the attack and calling in corrections is how it is done, not launching thousands of drones with target marking lasers and coded lasers trying to mark hundreds of moving targets at once... the kill cycle would be minutes which means a fast moving force could simply consider their losses to be the equivalent of an advance through a surprise mine field... in other words your artillery barrage becomes background noise.

In comparison a heavy barrage along the line of advance would be devastating and might not even include a single direct hit but lots of fragment wounds and damaged vehicles and a wall of HE and fragments in the direction the enemy troops are told to march...

And that ignores all the different rocket types the Russians have... there is a fragmentation warhead with 650 or so munitions that cover a significant area with lethal fragments, or the sensor fused top attack anti armour munitions...

Having a gps guided rocket is useless against an advancing enemy because you have to set the target coordinates before the rocket is launched and in the seconds it takes to reach to the target that target might have moved... in fact it probably did move so your rocket misses.

The best solution for artillery is to be extremely accurate with unguided shells. The krab and pzh2000 unguided shells have extremely low CEP. After just one correcting shot, they hit almost exactly at the coordinate. Russian artillery, other than the koalitsiya and maybe 2С19М2 cant do that. Thats why modern NATO SPGs are superior to cold war and WW2 artillery.

One of the excuses for the western guns breaking down is that the Orcs are not being selective about which rounds they are loading into the guns... every country that makes their own guns presumably makes rounds optimised for those guns, which suggests that unless you are using the correct ammo then those guns wont be very accurate in actual practise.

Why do you think Russian guns are not accurate?

Artillery is maths and the Russian artillery doctrine is very very precise and mathimatical... the accuracy of each shell is calculated and all the variables can be taken into account so they can very quickly work out how many shells of a given calibre need to be fired at a specific target to achieve a certain level of damage.

There is no such thing as an artillery barrage that kills everything... even with guided shells.

Russian artillery is on average as good as or better than western artillery... the fact that you don't understand that is more to do with their marketing and propaganda than anything else.

Thats why modern NATO SPGs are superior to cold war and WW2 artillery.

Yeah, like the Tiger and Panther were superior... but they still lost.

On paper superior is meaningless in real conflict.

The orc equivalent of these guys complaining about things we would never hear because they would be banned from speaking because the risk of undermining morale would be too great, but they would be complaining about those wonderwaffle you seem to be in love with, and asking for more ex-Soviet stuff that could at least keep firing more than half a day.

"And that's why you're spewing disrespectful ignorance that would make any actual russian cringe."

Limb, I'm going to be perfectly honest. I love the ruskies and their civilization as an outsider, but Russians like all peoples have flaws. One of them is the self deprecating doomerishness. Going to actual Russian defense forums is obnoxious af. All you will find on them are Girkin followers and commies and castaways that literally only shit on any topic of Russian defense. Want to find out any new news about the su-57? You must go thru at least half a dozen or more posts of all the criticism heard in pro western defense boards, as well as sulky doomer shit. I'm not joking. It's like that on almost every page over on paralay. Thr Armata thread. The Il-76 thread. The Udeloi thread. The su-57 thread. Etc....

It is asinine. But hey I am not Russian. I just turn off translation so it goes back to their slav runes that cannot read and I just look for new pictures. Damn I love Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn and Prokofiev and I love the late imperial and early and late soviet and modern Russian military kit. But frankly they are annoying people and they are quick to find anything cringy or irritating.

Sorry about the rant I recently tried to wade thri paralay and some Russian telegram channels and then saw yout post so I just had to type something.

Yes they are, especially LDNR units.

Meanwhile many of you make fun of ukraine using 85mm and 130mm field guns.

Haven't heard of it.

Earliest pieces I saw them using were D-20s.

Which is retarded. Its not a prototype also, it was officially greenlit for service in 2016.

It's not being mass-produced as yet, that's the only thing that's relevant

Turkey, Israel, South korea, China, US.

Which conflicts have they used that combination in, that were earlier than Russia's own experiments in Syria circa 2015?

Agree and disagree. Guided shells are nothing but a crutch, for lack of accuracy with unguided shells, so theyre not the be all end all. However grid square bombardments are extremely inefficient and ineffective.

Grid square bombardments are useful when you only have a rough idea where the enemy is, when they're advancing and you want to break their attack, or when they're spread over a wide area - say you're targeting a whole battalion. Also when you're laying down smoke. I'm not an artilleryman or anything but I can imagine that using them enables calculating trajectories and getting rounds downrange as quickly as possible.

But never mind grid square bombardments. As you yourself admit, you can use dumb shells with artillery spotters or spotter drones - and achieve plenty good accuracy.
Or get some GLONASS co-ordinates, feed it into your GLONASS-enabled FCS, and all the calculations will be done automatically, taking into account factors such as wind velocity as well
But you won't always have artillery spotters with a communications link back to you, nor have the time to get a drone out to the area, or have the luxury of a sophisticated fire control system on your surplus 122mm piece that has been fished out of storage. You might just receive some grid square co-ordinates, effective immediately. It's not a function of how high-tech your army is, but of circumstance.

The best solution for artillery is to be extremely accurate with unguided shells. The krab and pzh2000 unguided shells have extremely low CEP. After just one correcting shot, they hit almost exactly at the coordinate. Russian artillery, other than the koalitsiya and maybe 2С19М2  cant do that. Thats why modern NATO SPGs are superior to cold war and WW2 artillery.

If they're going to be hitting the exact same crater each time then that makes them less useful in area fire. You want some variation

Ideally you'd have a couple of targeting modes on the fire control system; one that ensures the highest possible accuracy, and another which is deliberately a little imprecise.

As for the Krab and Pzh2000 - well the operators of such systems are discovering drawbacks in practice. Their accuracy is not going to be near as amazing as it is on paper, on average, if the barrel wears down or deforms rapidly; given that you may not realize how accuracy is degrading, or the replacement parts haven't arrived yet you still need to get rounds downrange.

Pictured: extremely low CEP unguided shells

Pictured: extremely low CEP unguided shells

Now post one for the D-20, Msta-B, giatsint and D-30

But never mind grid square bombardments. As you yourself admit, you can use dumb shells with artillery spotters or spotter drones - and achieve plenty good accuracy.

A minority of russian artillery pieces have anything resembling a digital FCS, they only have sights and notebooks. Not a single 2b11, 2S4, giatsint, D-30, D-20, 2S1, 2S19, 2S3, Msta B, nona, BM-21 have them. Only  chosta, 2S19M2,  2S7M, koalitsiya have them, and they represent less than 30% of the russian artillery park. The voenkor reports that there is very little to no training in using glonass coordinates, let alone having an actual FCS that aims the gun for you after you dial in coordinates. Thats the biggest problem.

Limb, I'm going to be perfectly honest. I love the ruskies and their civilization as an outsider, but Russians like all peoples have flaws. One of them is the self deprecating doomerishness. Going to actual Russian defense forums is obnoxious af. All you will find on them are Girkin followers and commies and castaways that literally only shit on any topic of Russian defense. Want to find out any new news about the su-57? You must go thru at least half a dozen or more posts of all the criticism heard in pro western defense boards, as well as sulky doomer shit. I'm not joking. It's like that on almost every page over on paralay. Thr Armata thread. The Il-76 thread. The Udeloi thread. The su-57 thread. Etc....

Have you actually done any research on who vladlen tatarskiy and kharchenko are? These are not anonymous forum goers, they're donators to the russian army, and voenkors. They risk their lives daily to report whats happening in the SVO.

There is also the 2S3M2.

The voenkor reports that there is very little to no training in using glonass coordinates, let alone having an actual FCS that aims the gun for you after you dial in coordinates. Thats the biggest problem.

Western FCS will be useless once GPS is gone in the first minutes of the war.

A minority of russian artillery pieces have anything resembling a digital FCS, they only have sights and notebooks. Not a single 2b11, 2S4, giatsint, D-30, D-20, 2S1, 2S19, 2S3, Msta B, nona, BM-21 have them. Only chosta, 2S19M2, 2S7M, koalitsiya have them, and they represent less than 30% of the russian artillery park. The voenkor reports that there is very little to no training in using glonass coordinates, let alone having an actual FCS that aims the gun for you after you dial in coordinates. Thats the biggest problem.

Well we don't actually know how many of them have modern or semi-modern FCS
For example the same Giatsint-B has a couple of modernizations available, at least one of which was introduced into service, featuring a satellite receiver, computer, some sensors, etc..
The Msta-B also has a couple of digital FCS options that have been developed over the years, but there's no guarantee you'll find more detailed information.

As for training in GLONASS coordinates by implication it means crews are not trained in using the fire control systems of their artillery guns. Which yes, sounds like a problem. But are you sure about this? The Voenkors like to leave things a little vague and rely more on shock value, I don't trust them.

Nice image of accuracy for artillery, but the impact area is never a circle... it is always a long narrow oval... as an example in the 1980s in a British military magazine they were talking about the accuracy of Soviet artillery and they mentioned the 122mm D-30 landed shells in an oval about 75m long and 7 metres wide at 15km which they considered astounding BTW.

(I seem to remember the purpose of mentioning the accuracy of the D-30 was to compare with the accuracy of Grad rockets of the time, which I remember as being 115m long and about 26m wide at 15km in comparison.)

Obviously these things go in ebb and flow type situations... the Soviet stuff is amazing means we need more money spent on new gear, or why are we spending so much on new weapons when the cold war is over and we are sharing our defence costs across 30 of the richest whitest most european countries on the planet... what a bargain.

The oval showing impacts is narrowest side to side and longest in the direction the shell is travelling because the most variation is speed and air density and a whole lot of other random variables.

When an enemy force is approaching accuracy is only important when you have the recon and C4ISTAR to spot individual units and track them long enough to hit each one individually.

Most of the time it just makes more sense to get dozens of guns or rockets to saturate an area with fragments as quickly as possible... which is an area TOS or Grad or Smerch really excel at over any gun system... cluster munitions compensate for filling in the gaps and rockets are superior in range too.

Western FCS will be useless once GPS is gone in the first minutes of the war.

But against third world countries they are very good.

A role or mission of BRICS is to raise countries out of third world status and allow them to protect themselves.

Speaking of the D-30, the Ukrainians used them effectively enough for ambushing Russian columns heading along roads and such

It's not necessary to have any sort of digital FCS or GPS or whatever. Just good old fashioned ranging and correction in advance; and you'll achieve high accuracy. Another usage for which neither guided shells nor Pzh2000s are neccessary.

In general, biggest problem that Russia have with their artillery is old concept of barrel length stuck in 80s till day. L46 isnt good for modern times and only Msta S have it, as we can see what happens when West gave small amount of their best howitzers...They hitting hard Russians artillery and they withdraw MstaS and rest of artillery deeper in their territory. Becasue of that they cannot hitting ukraninians targets as they do in past deep in ukranie territoryl. This is biggest problem for Russians... As i mention range is biggest problem in this war...Koalitsya is game changer for Russians and modern howitzers but they stuck with low number of her and there is no signs that they star mass production of it.