2S43 "Malva" 152-mm SP howitzer

Yeah, that drawing is just silly... look at it closely... if you cut the normal turret of any SPG off there there is no place for the gun breach, no where to load it from... it is totally stupid... unless it is hand loaded from behind the vehicle...

Why waste all that space on the back of the truck for boxes presumably of electronics or does the gun turn 180 degrees to fire and those boxes contain the ammo?

Yeah, it just looks like a drawing of a truck with a gun with all the important parts of the turret removed drawn by someone who doens't understand what a gun is and how it works.

Looks like a wheeled successor to the 2S5.

They have mentioned that towed guns are much better than even wheeled ones, so I would hope they make a decent towed version and develop a hybrid model that can be fired from the back of the vehicle that carries it or it can be towed by other smaller vehicles in places where that bigger vehicle can't go.

According to this it's a replacement for Gvozdika SPG and Msta-V towed artillery

So if it is replacing both SPGs and towed guns then it needs to be able to be used as either... ie mounted or dismounted...

The Hosta with a 120mm gun mortar fitted in the same chassis was supposed to replace the 122mm guns, but that was a temporary solution I would assume.

It seems they have re-evaluated the 122mm D-30 towed gun (it is an excellent piece) with experience in Syria, and have a new appreciation of towed guns, but what conclusions are they drawing?

Wheeled and towed guns mean mobility across poor terrain and also the ability to be airlifted much more easily than a heavy SPG. Its road mobility is much better being wheeled whether being a wheeled SPG or a towed gun with a truck prime mover.

So will they continue to replace the 122mm guns with 120mm guns, or will they replace them with new full power 152mm guns or introduce lower power existing 152mm guns to replace the 122mm guns and 120mm gun/mortars.

There was a 152mm gun on the D-30 chassis that was nominally to replace the 122mm D-30 gun but it was not widely deployed.

The question is... will having two different 152mm guns (one long range and heavy and big, and one shorter range and lighter and smaller but still with a heavy shell) be better than having the 122mm calibre together with the 152mm guns.

This is going to be interesting.

We have recently seen the Typhoon truck with a Pantsir on the back... look forward to seeing a 152mm howitzer mounted on a Typhoon based truck too...

Note for those not familiar, a gun is generally a long barrelled high velocity weapon intended for long range, while a howitzer is like a long range mortar with a heavier shell and bag ammo that can be varied depending on the range to the target.

Gun shells often come in at an angle, while mortar and howitzer shells come in nearly vertically. The fragmentation pattern for mortar shells and howitzer shells is generally more even and effective around the point of impact, while a gun round is often distorted by the angle of impact.

Reduced propellent charges for howitzers means shooting at close by targets are much more accurate with indirect fire because a reduced propellent charge means the round does not go up as high as it would have if it was a gun fired into the air to lob rounds on a close by target. The shorter flight time means less time for the target to move and less time for wind and other factors to move the round off course.

Getting rid of the 122mm calibre makes sense as it saves money and reduces the number of different calibres they have... right now they have 115mm smoothbores, 120mm gun/mortar calibres, 122mm artillery gun calibres, and of course 125mm tank gun calibres.

With a long barrel gun/mortar the 120mm guns can almost reach the range the 122mm guns reach, and the 120mm gun can also launch mortar bombs etc as well.

Doesn't seem to bad an idea although I'd agree it would be better to have an archer type system or like Serbian systems. Am sure Serbia would be willing to share it's research on its own system to Russia on producing a similar system. As for replacement for 2S1 I'd say that a towed, wheeled and tracked systems be designed all have it's advantages and disadvantages.

Well you could argue that we are looking at a Serbian system with export success and assuming it is what the Russians need.

The Russians have experience in Syria and elsewhere from various exercises and they clearly are working on something.

What do they intend for this version?

They have stated that towed guns are useful and wont be replaced by wheeled or tracked versions because towed models simply have better mobility and can be taken into places wheeled artillery and tracked artillery simply cannot be taken to.

Half way up the side of a mountain you could set up a towed gun and pile ammo next to it... land it by helicopter... there is no where to move it to so no need for a wheeled or tracked model which would likely be too heavy to land by helo anyway.

Loss of fire power with lack of auto loading system is not that big of a deal because the alternative is not a serbian model... it is no model at all because you wont get a bigger heavier more automated gun into that position.

Rate of fire is important for area targets because the first few rounds that hit the ground tell the target to get under cover... within about 20 seconds anyone not killed or injured already should have made it to a trench or some other covered position, so rounds landing after about 20 seconds from the first impact are going to need to be direct hits to be effective.

Which of course means only the first rounds count in every barrage.

The thing is of course that half way up a mountain or in some swamp or in very rugged country it is more likely you will use a gun like this as a sniper and to blunt an enemy attack on your position rather than as standard artillery.

The range of modern artillery makes it very powerful but also means a unit on the top of a mountain or half way up the side of a mountain could be supported from a range of locations around the area not actually up that mountain. The position provides a view and needs to be defended but the gun could be located somewhere else and still deliver effective fire with modern ammo and artillery technology.

New guns are described as being robots... the data is collected by front line units like UAV or frontline special forces or tank commanders or individual soldiers and passed up to HQ where artillery resources are managed and target data calculated based on the calibre and range and location and ammo readiness of each unit and targets allocated... a Coalition will autoload the correct shell with the correct fuse setting and the gunner will press the fire button. For a towed gun or older vehicles the angle and elevation settings will need to be applied manually...

Hole wrote:



Looks like a wheeled successor to the 2S5.

to be honest if they arent looking for koalition type capability then why not just mount 2A36 Giatsint-B onto a a suitable truck like in the pic and then you have a decent gun but on wheels, it would save a lot of money. The 2A36 Giatsint-B is still a great and they have loads sitting around doing nothing makes sense to use what you got. They would come out with a low cost great wheeled gun system. Although an autoloader on some kind of carosel or magazine type system would be good, and sure it wouldnt take Russia long to design a system around the 2A36 Giatsint-B on wheels.

Well looking at the 16 or more wheeled trucks they have for ICBMs, you'd think they could build a truck to carry such a gun... I mean those guns don't even traverse very far anyway so put a bit of a cabin over the rear so the crew get a bit of weather protection when they are loading and firing... some sort of automated ammo handler... I mean coalition is an unmanned turret with ammo stored inside that it automatically loaded into the gun for firing... move the gun 3 metres forward on the Giant and put an ammo handling and auto loading mechanism on there and have an ammo vehicle that drives up from behind and transfers rounds and propellent charges from the rear automatically into the autoloader for the vehicle.

The main draw back is poor ability to switch between targets because you would have to move the truck around to point in different directions...

Maybe the best solution is like the DANA with a coalition turret on a truck but with better traverse and plenty of ground jacks to hold it under recoil...

GarryB wrote:Well looking at the 16 or more wheeled trucks they have for ICBMs, you'd think they could build a truck to carry such a gun... I mean those guns don't even traverse very far anyway so put a bit of a cabin over the rear so the crew get a bit of weather protection when they are loading and firing... some sort of automated ammo handler... I mean coalition is an unmanned turret with ammo stored inside that it automatically loaded into the gun for firing... move the gun 3 metres forward on the Giant and put an ammo handling and auto loading mechanism on there and have an ammo vehicle that drives up from behind and transfers rounds and propellent charges from the rear automatically into the autoloader for the vehicle.

The main draw back is poor ability to switch between targets because you would have to move the truck around to point in different directions...

Maybe the best solution is like the DANA with a coalition turret on a truck but with better traverse and plenty of ground jacks to hold it under recoil...

Serbia managed without too much hassle. Something like this doesn't have to be complicated. If it ain't going to have koalition etc. They much have old trucks that carried FROG-7 sitting around doing nothing would be perfect stick a giatsint B on top with a carousel auto loader encased of course load up e
X amount of rounds vehicle rocks up. Fires off what it wants a drives off. Then gets reloaded ready for next engagement. And if they develop this type of system it's very likely they could apply it to 2S5 and either use it to replace 2S3 or sell on export market so in effect from one design you have have ur wheeled artillery and an upgrade for 2S5 allowing you to clear older stock and sell on export market and to those armies around the world using 2S5 an upgrade to their system. It would pay for itself in end.

Serbia managed without too much hassle. Something like this doesn't have to be complicated. If it ain't going to have koalition etc.

Yeah, no... lots of countries have done this... I am thinking perhaps instead of just following everyone else and basically moving something that was on a tracked vehicle directly onto a wheeled truck chassis without too many changes is missing an opportunity.

By making it a wheeled vehicle you make it mobile in places where there are good roads... but even in places with good roads a few feet from the road the ground can be totally unsuitable for a truck of this size and weight so being able to fire in the direction of the road... perhaps even unable to turn around and fire behind in the direction the vehicle travelled from.

At a time when all their vehicles have automated loading systems and unmanned turrets, perhaps a module for auto feeding a limited number of rounds into the gun could be developed... their other artillery vehicles are at the point where it is all automated... target information arrives and the vehicle aims and loads the gun with a suitable round with a suitable charge and the commander says fire and off the round goes to the target... effectively the job is sent to them, the gun is aimed automatically by the new models and manually by the older models but with settings provided by the command and control network and then the gun is fired.

Having a 2S5 with a gun auto loader module at the rear, with the tracked chassis replaced with a multiwheeled truck chassis and perhaps quite a few stabilising jacks and some sort of turret module that allows the angle of fire to be significantly more than a few degrees forward without having to turn the vehicle much.

When the rounds on board are fired off... and they don't all have to be in the turret... you could have a section of the truck with an ammo bin and propellent bin, and an auto loader in the rear to load rounds in large volumes at a time... say a box of 10 or 20 rounds and a separate box with 40 propellent loads that can be used as needed.

A towed gun on a ground mount should at least be able to be set up to fire 360 degrees like the excellent D-30.

My understanding is that their new 152mm gun used a 360 degree mount based on the D-30... it takes longer to set up and take down but once ready to fire you can fire anywhere without having to move it.

GarryB wrote:

Serbia managed without too much hassle. Something like this doesn't have to be complicated. If it ain't going to have koalition etc.

Yeah, no... lots of countries have done this... I am thinking perhaps instead of just following everyone else and basically moving something that was on a tracked vehicle directly onto a wheeled truck chassis without too many changes is missing an opportunity.

By making it a wheeled vehicle you make it mobile in places where there are good roads... but even in places with good roads a few feet from the road the ground can be totally unsuitable for a truck of this size and weight so being able to fire in the direction of the road... perhaps even unable to turn around and fire behind in the direction the vehicle travelled from.

At a time when all their vehicles have automated loading systems and unmanned turrets, perhaps a module for auto feeding a limited number of rounds into the gun could be developed... their other artillery vehicles are at the point where it is all automated... target information arrives and the vehicle aims and loads the gun with a suitable round with a suitable charge and the commander says fire and off the round goes to the target... effectively the job is sent to them, the gun is aimed automatically by the new models and manually by the older models but with settings provided by the command and control network and then the gun is fired.

Having a 2S5 with a gun auto loader module at the rear, with the tracked chassis replaced with a multiwheeled truck chassis and perhaps quite a few stabilising jacks and some sort of turret module that allows the angle of fire to be significantly more than a few degrees forward without having to turn the vehicle much.

When the rounds on board are fired off... and they don't all have to be in the turret... you could have a section of the truck with an ammo bin and propellent bin, and an auto loader in the rear to load rounds in large volumes at a time... say a box of 10 or 20 rounds and a separate box with 40 propellent loads that can be used as needed.

A towed gun on a ground mount should at least be able to be set up to fire 360 degrees like the excellent D-30.

My understanding is that their new 152mm gun used a 360 degree mount based on the D-30... it takes longer to set up and take down but once ready to fire you can fire anywhere without having to move it.

But that's what I said pretty much a carousel type magazine it's all self automated I believe the new Serbian system that came after Nora is. Something like archer. As I said it wouldn't be hard for Russia with its expertise to create this and I am sure Serbia would be willing to share any research or issues it had with Russia. Wheeled system can still operate off road only problem is when it rains. And I would never think Russia would ever build too many of these systems but maybe three regiments so it has some capability. System could be good in the desert (hard ground) obviously not sand dunes

Actually the vehicle I am suggesting is the wheeled version of the Coalition on the 2S35 thread.

It ticks all the boxes... it is wheeled so operational costs are dramatically reduced, maintenance costs are reduced, and its ability to operate long distances is immensely bigger... on the page itself it mentions during tests of the wheeled vehicle it drove 5,000km... if it was a tracked vehicle after driving that far it would need a full overhaul... but wheeled vehicles are much better on road networks.

It has a turret, which I presume is unmanned, which would increase the purchase costs and more mechanisms to be maintained but the payoff would be excellent rate of fire and total automation of operations... and also the potential to at the very least fire ahead and backwards without needing to move the vehicle.

There might be restrictions firing sideways but at the very least it should be able to fire 20-30 degrees either side of directly forward and directly backwards...

I would presume the firing jacks allow full 360 degrees based on the views of the recoil in the 2S35 thread of the wheeled version firing forward... it didn't move very much at all... clearly the jacks do their job.

So the question really becomes... if they have a wheeled version and a tracked version, and they have said there is value in having a towed version... why would they need this vehicle ( 2S43 )?

The fact that it has a designation does not mean it is accepted and in service... there were plenty of 2Sxx vehicles that never made the grade... and I am just wondering... except for export to poorer countries or countries that don't want more expensive guns, what value would the 2S43 have over the wheeled coalition or a towed model with a truck to tow it and carry crew and ammo?

This vehicle probably needs a vehicle to operate with it anyway... to supply ammo and to carry extra crew to support operations, so it is not like this vehicle could replace a towed gun and its prime mover and save money... there will need to be other vehicles for both systems... especially with 152mm calibre ammo weighing about 40-50kgs per shot depending on the round type... plus propellent weight...

I would think a towed gun would be more versatile and air mobile and could be made to traverse more than this gun seems to be able to traverse and would also be cheaper because when in place you can use its prime mover for other things. In arctic regions you could give it extra wheels or skis and tow it behind those double cab vehicles too... without needing a special separate arctic model.

Basically I think a towed model and the wheeled and tracked Coalition models make this model a bit redundant.

1st look at the 152mm 2S43 Malva  

For the first time, the Burevestnik Central Research Institute, part of Uralvagonzavod defense manufacturer within the state hi-tech corporation Rostec, has released a photo of the newest Russian 152mm Malva wheeled self-propelled howitzer.

The previously secret development is shown publicly for the first time. This is a new Russian artillery system that based on the BAZ-6010 8×8 chassis.

The 2S43 ‘Malva’ is designated to destroy a potential enemy’s command posts, communications centers, artillery and mortar batteries, armor, including tanks, anti-tank weapons, air and ballistic missile defense systems and manpower.

The Malva is armed with a 152mm gun with a rate of fire of over 8 rounds per minute, which is higher than the speed of other artillery systems. This rate of fire is ensured by the special design of the gun-loading mechanism. The howitzer’s weapon suite also includes a remotely-controlled station.

The new artillery system lighter, more mobile and easier to be transported by aircraft, which expands the range of its missions and the promptness of their fulfillment.

source

Truck-mounted 2S43 is ligher and therefore easier to transport then the tracked guns. Also it is cheaper (even compared to the wheeled Koalitsiya).

Why on earth does the army need many 152mm artillery vehicle? They have Giatsint-S Msta and soon Koalitsiya.

They are spending money on new types of long range ammo for the 152mm and other calibres of gun, so it is nice to have lots of guns to use that ammo.

Compared with a tracked vehicle I think the costs involved are significant... this new wheeled vehicle could drive 200 thousand kms easily before you would need a full service and overhaul, whereas most tracked vehicles need regular checks... obviously the wear and tear on tracks is enormous and made worse when moving on roads, whereas a wheeled vehicle is at home on a road and can move at high speed for long periods...

They are going to have a variety of vehicle types and platforms but for independent artillery forces something like this will be cheap and mobile and fast.... and devastating.

It seems to have a special gun loading mechanism will will be interesting to learn more about... perhaps some sort of stacked ammo handling magazine or rotary loader that is likely hand loaded to start with but perhaps allows a volley of rounds to be fired and then for the force to move to a new location where it can be reloaded and fire again.

Will be interesting to learn the details of the system...