China has the King dragon 300 (610mm rocket 300km range) and the Fire Dragon 480 (750mm rocket 480 km range) that can be fired from a modular PHL-16 vehicle. Those rockets puts the whole of Taiwan in range.
Self Propelled Gun/Rocket Launcher
- Thread starter FORBIN
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I see no advantages to that system except compactness. In the US military, 155 mm gun artillery is already over tasked and rocket artillery is under tasked. 155 mm guys are tasked with everything. Attacking point targets, suppressive fire, mine laying, illumination, smoke laying, anti-tank, counter-battery etc... Even for area fires they just mass 155 mm guns. The rocket artillery on the other hand has a singular purpose. Engaging at point targets that 155 mm guns can't reach.
This round would enable 155 mm guns to match incoming GMLRS-ER in range. I wonder its payload and cost. We are probably talking about hideous figures for both. I don't know if it is just me but I see ultra-long range guns as vanity pieces. Guns are not very efficient if you are trying to achieve velocities above 900 m/s with full bore projectiles. American LRLAP round was an abject failure. It was more expensive than Tomahawk but flew at a more vulnerable trajectory, had a much lower range, was less precise and its payload was just 40 kg. It required a massive and ultra-expensive specialized gun to fire it.
For long range shelling, China has this:
3D models of TELs, from left to right: PHL-191, DF-10A, DF-100, YJ-12B, DF-21D, DF-17, DF-31AG, DF-41
At this size, is there much of a difference between a 120mm mortar or 122mm/105mm howitzer? I'd imagine they'd have a similar logistics tail when operating at full capacity. Is the mortar system just cheaper?
Mortar is restricted to high angle attack, so range will be less than a gun.
Gun is also capable of direct fire application and anti-vehicle with capable rounds (ie HESH).
Mortar is also usually lighter and more compact (ammo included), this can also be helpful in deployment speed, although since this is SP, probably not much of a deployment advantage.
To me, more curious is what the advantage is of gun-mortar vs just a gun besides maybe ammo storage.
I've read somewhere that due to lower velocity/pressure of mortar vs guns, they are simpler to setup and are less prone to catastrophic failure during high tempo ops. However with a wheeled system I don't see much of a difference on that front.