Russian Gun Artillery Thread

From Ukraine thread

Clever, cheap and easy to roll out.

"Artillery coordinates will be determined by sounds. Our military has developed good software for Android smartphones/tablets. It determines the coordinates of enemy artillery by the sounds of shots.

In the magazine " Arsenal of the Fatherland” report that this is a non-standard artillery reconnaissance tool used along with sound-measuring systems in service with the Russian army. The authors of the publication specify:

“Four sound meters with smartphones (tablets) are located at a distance of 3-6 km from the line of contact. And with the help of such software, the time of detection of the sound of a shot is determined both in automatic and in manual mode. Time synchronization is based on the data of the satellite navigation system. If there is a connection between smartphones, internal synchronization occurs. The obtained values ​​are transferred to the central plate. And the coordinates of the sounding target are calculated. Which is quickly covered with a copper shell."

https://www.kp.ru/daily/27451/4705427/

Also an abandoned Krab is now in Russian hands.

We see lots of videos on artillery firing and explosions at the destination. I have posted this one here as it is one of the best videos I have seen of Russian gun artillery impacts. In particular the HE shrapnel clouds show up well in infra red.

A russian artillery regiment in the SMO is utterly underequipped, as Vladlen tatarskiy, who visited it reports. It barely has any artillery. There seems to be a shortage of guns, even of primitive unupgraded 1960s and 1950s towed pieces. Also 3 months of training, and the mobilized "artillerymen" recieved absolutely no training with the artillery before going to war.
https://t.me/vladlentatarsky/18626

Today I visited the positions of an artillery regiment, the personnel of which consists of those mobilized from Primorye. An artillery regiment, but it has no artillery. There are no artillerymen. According to the state, there should be a grad battery and two batteries on the D-30, in fact there are four Hyacinths that were recently brought in. They gathered from the entire regiment those who at least a little rummages in artillery and sent to serve the guns. You have to learn everything in combat.

Of those who did not have enough guns, they were sent as foot soldiers to reinforce the personnel units. From weapons, machine guns, RPGs and machine guns ... True, not simple PCs, but PKMB. "B" means armored personnel carrier. Find photos on the Internet and think about the correct tactical stances for this device. There are no AGSs and LNGs. There are "Cliffs". They even made special cars for Utyos... No, not Toyotas, but Gazelles! True all-wheel drive. Ordinary, white, as they drive around the city. From them, according to the idea, the mobilized will knock out the Bradley.

There are simply not enough "Urals".  10-15 vehicles are needed per battery.

There is no UAV. Two guys were sent to study in a neighboring unit, where they stayed.

It is good that this regiment ended up on a relatively calm sector of the front, and was also attached to a combat brigade with a sensible commander. In such an environment, people have a chance to go through a combat run-in. I imagined what it would be like if these wonderful guys were thrown into battle right away, as was the case in other sectors of the front, especially in the zone of responsibility of the Western Military District.

Only last month EU was talking about lifting restrictions for the new year, but the question is if Russia will actually agree with the new deals

Hahaha... funny the things they sanction and then decide to not sanction any more... usually indicates the original idea to sanction that item was an own goal that damaged the west more than Russia...

From Ukraine thread

Clever, cheap and easy to roll out.

They had already deployed Penicilin which is a counter battery detection system that uses sound and thermal equipment to detect enemy artillery without any radar emissions that would make it vulnerable to anti radiation missiles.

Is the Msta-B still in production?

I believe that only self-propelled version is being produced. I don't think they are building new towed artillery pieces, in general.

Hmm. This conflict might cause them to rethink that.

Actually experience in Syria made them realise how useful 2S1 and D-30s are with their lighter ammo and better mobility meant they were easier and cheaper to use and the target would still be damaged by a 122mm round.

Some members thought towed guns were what you had if you couldn't afford a mechanised self propelled version but they are actually quite different weapons and having both is actually rather useful.

On a modern battlefield an upgraded 2S1 is lighter and more mobile than a 2S3, and it is also amphibious.

Equipped with new generation artillery stuff the vehicle can drive around behind the front line waiting for target coordinates... when it receives some it can stop orient the gun and fire and then move away... the 2S1 is 16 tons, and amphibious, while the 2S3 is almost double that at 28 tons, and likely rather more expensive too.

Makes me wonder what an 8 x 8 Boomerang version of 2S1 would be like...

Towed artillery is just fine for these long festung siege battles.

It can also be used in defensive lines where it can be dug in to defensive positions where it can be moved from place to place so it wont just be firing from one place all the time which would result in its position being destroyed quickly.

Being able to fire from a position and then rolled to another position and fired in a direct fire role against infantry would be useful but you could also position it a little further back to deliver indirect fire too.

Their mobility and low cost are also factors, including their ability to be man handled or even helicopter delivered to places an armoured vehicle could not otherwise reach.

The towed unit would be rather more manpower intensive than the equivalent self propelled unit, but manpower is still relatively cheap.

What makes me wonder is about the new truck mounted guns like the 2S41:



Certainly less mobile than a towed gun on its own, but then for mobility you need a truck to carry crew and ammo and to tow the gun any reasonable distance, so when you add the weight and cost of the truck, then this combined design starts to make sense... it should be able to be into and out of firing states faster than a towed gun... fewer crew will be needed because really they only have to lower the stabilisers... they don't have to unhitch the gun and move it away from the truck and dig it in and deploy its legs and dig them in and then start transferring ammo and setting fuses... just lower the stabilisers, orient the gun... the ammo and fuse setting stuff should all be there already and the 2S41 seems to have an autoloading assistance system that makes firing faster and easier...

Drive up, drop the spades and stabilisers, fire, and then leave.

Actually this vehicle should be using the same ammo the Coalition will be using and the Coalition has a loading support vehicle that sits behind it feeding more ammo to load directly into the gun to fire lots of ammo quickly... the same support vehicle could be used with the 2S41 to allow it to fire several rounds before needing to move.

The Russians don't really do shoot and scoot with their towed howitzers - they see it as a massive waste of time. Usually what they do is prepare a fortified and camouflaged shelter nearby. They then pump as many rounds as they can and then hide in the shelter awaiting enemy counter-battery fire. Any moron who takes the bait gets worked in turn by roving SPHs or MLRS.

And that's how you get 100 Russian shells fired for every 10 Ukrainian one.

Is a towed version of coalition in the works?

Probably not. Even backward shitholes like the Philippines are transitioning to wheeled SPHs; no reason not to.

Towed version always need a heavy truck to carry them.

It's better to buy a SPH then.

Small towed artillery however is still very good. Even more with guided rounds.

The giatsint has 36km max range with RAP and 33km with regular rounds. Its the only gun with range on par with the krab, AS90, pzh2000 and caesar(>30km range) AND able to fire guided rounds. Most krabs have likely been destroyed with it. Its a life saver. The MSTA S shouldve carried a modernized  giatsint gun from the get go instead of the inferior msta B with shitty range on par with the M109, the most trash SPG the west has. The giatsint S NEEDS a digital FCS and battlefield management system.

Look at this moron's one track mind. Nigga, they have other assets aside from the Giatsint to deal with NATO trash. Combined arms motherfucker. Or better yet for you to understand - rock, paper, scissors.

Not sure why you can't just discuss things without acting like a child.

The Russians don't really do shoot and scoot with their towed howitzers - they see it as a massive waste of time. Usually what they do is prepare a fortified and camouflaged shelter nearby.

That makes sense... what makes SPAs easy to destroy, apart from their thin armour, is that the propellent and HE shells means any armour penetration will start a fire that will rapidly get out of control and destroy the vehicle and gun completely... you can see as much happening when suicide drones hit Orc SPAs where the crew bail and run and the vehicle goes up like a torch.

With towed guns you separate the crew and the ammo from the gun so you would need a direct hit on the gun with a substantial weapon to damage it and take it out of the fight... with the ammo not easy to spot or hit, and the gun relatively hard to destroy and the crew safe, it makes it a rather durable option... as well as being cheaper to buy and to operate.

Interesting that the 2S41 variation on towed guns, if that is indeed what it is for, means they can't really do what they are doing easily and would need to revert to a shoot and scoot method of operation... with computerised firing and targeting the setup and takedown time would essentially equate to the speed the recoil spades could be deployed at or recovered... so about as swift as an SPA really, but cheaper to operate and buy.

Is a towed version of coalition in the works?

I assume the 2S41 but there might be an actually towed version...

The extreme range of Coalition would be more for counter artillery support and better dispersion options on the battlefield I would assume... with perhaps a dozen shots fired before the first hit the ground so by the time the first shots were landing it would already be moving to a new position.

The 2S41 might be intended for shorter moves and more sustained target engagement?

Or perhaps I am wrong and it is more of a 2S5 type setup as a cheaper option to the more expensive model with a long barrel.

Small towed artillery however is still very good. Even more with guided rounds.

Not everything needs to be super long range... the D-30 was particularly popular because its mount allowed 360 degree engagements without having to move the gun.

Every track mounted SPG will be capable of shooting faster and will survive much more - the comparison between Caesar and K9 I have put here a while ago tells everything.
It is heavy enough not to need dropping spades and stabilizers, so can start shooting and run much faster.

The problem is that tracked vehicles leave easy to see tracks in dirt roads and cross country and even a cheap drone with a relatively light HEAT warhead can start a fire to destroy an SPA, while even a direct hit of an HEAT round on a towed gun might not take it out of action completely... setting fire to the ammo in an SPA will destroy the gun in the ensuing fire and explosions, but unless the HEAT warhead hits the barrel or something important that can't be replaced a towed gun might live to fight another day.

The giatsint S NEEDS a digital FCS and battlefield management system.

All of their artillery should be getting that and probably is, but I would say the Malka with its 50km range rounds would be better for counter battery fire much of the time...

The current 152mm rounds with 70km range is a good step forward but their reduced calibre 180km range HE shells will be a useful addition too... and now that the INF treaty is gone and is clearly not coming back all the medium and intermediate range missiles they used to have can be replaced by weapons that I think will sell like hotcakes on the international market because 500km to 5,000km range missiles are a useful range of weapons and would be particularly useful at sea for naval duties...

Something to work towards.

Of course further development of EM assisted guns will make higher gun velocity easier to achieve and improvements in scramjet technology could be applied to boost the performance of shells even further to result in rounds with the range of missiles with prices and costs closer to artillery shells.

At sea the west talks about swarms, but imagine a 203mm gun mount that can fire 100 rounds per minute, shells that weight 120kgs with a range of 250km... what western ship could withstand a barrage of 50 shells delivered in 30 seconds from 200km away?

Those new British destroyers have 48 SAMs in total, and they are reasonably well armed for western ships... and that is just one gun mount firing at them...

The Russians don't really do shoot and scoot with their towed howitzers - they see it as a massive waste of time. Usually what they do is prepare a fortified and camouflaged shelter nearby.

Strange, because from the videos available, that’s what they were and still doing (depending on situation of course)

Komsomolskaya Prvada correspondent Kots writes that 2 entire battalions of Russian mobilized artillerists trained on D-30 were instead sent to be ordinary riflemen. They have absolutely no gun artillery in their units. Only light weapons.
https://t.me/sashakots/38149

We have several mobilized artillery battalions, which have been trained for three months to be artillerymen. For example 640th or 641st. Now they have all been rewritten into regular infantry.

Here is another letter:

“My division was preparing for three months as a full-fledged artillery unit. We can work on the D-30, but we will switch to another caliber without any problems - we have the appropriate programs and gadgets for work. Including for conducting reconnaissance and adjusting fire using UAVs. Drones, moreover, are also their own.

The service property was received specifically for the performance of missions for combat purposes.

Upon arrival in the area of ​​combat use, they were placed at the disposal of 1 AK, where they were supposed to receive howitzers. But it was decided to send the division in full strength at the disposal of one of the infantry regiments.

The Penza branch of the MTO Academy is ready to provide guns. Tractors, perhaps, the chief will also allocate and send us here. In 2 AKs there is a D-30. The base in Novocherkassk also has howitzers of this system. All you need is a solution."

At the same time, relatives of these gunners write to me en masse with questions: why does it happen that people who were not prepared for infantry are sent to the front line as ordinary shooters? Well, they would have been prepared initially by foot soldiers.

I don't know what to say to these relatives. I have no logical explanation.

Maybe because they need infantry, and not more artillery at the moment?

It's waging war, not managing a business

Russian units have organic artillery, but it would make sense to adjust the loadout if you plan to attach dedicated artillery regiments to them... a few small mobile guns within the unit would need to be coordinated with the artillery regiments that are attached... who might be using bigger calibre longer ranged weapons and focussed on different targets at different ranges.

Being flexible is a good thing... more rifles to shoot incoming Ukrainian offensives would be useful and something they lacked even though artillery would also be useful at greater distances from your own positions.

During WW2 when ship crews were left w/o a ship anymore, they were re-equipped as naval infantry

Who knows, they might have done the same now in this war, with the Moskva crew

Why have a bunch of servicemen doing nothing but drilling in a time of war as their military speciality is not needed, are already in a surplus of in the warzone, or the equipment for them is not available?

If sailors can be rearmed as infantry, then why not artillerists?
Limb is making a mountain out of a useless media blogger molehill, with stories reported on by jounos who neither know how the military works, not have studied history.