Singapore Light weight 155mm howitzers

thanks Delphi...thats cleared out many things...

I must say my appriciation towards this howitser grows every day...hat's of to singaporean artillery industry...The self-embleing is an enourmous avantage. Our 155K98 comes to fireposition as fast as any APU powered gun, but as i say the hammering tooks lots of valuable time. Another time-consumingthing is the camoflaging the gun. Huge camoflage-net is raised above the gun making the wholecomplex look like a giantic tent whit 52 cal barrels sticking out. This operation is also quite laborous exspecially when the net is wet and filled whit sand. It weightes so much that it requires four man even to lift it...but it is worht of it. The net (at least those used by us) gives you 100% thermal cover. We once were able to look our fireposition from termocam and we couldn't tell where the guns laid if covered properly...i'm not sure does Singaporean's have these kind of nets?

Our gun also had this "automatic loader" as we called it. It was basicly this big sledge where the ammunition or "pig" was put on and the system was lifted to the rear part of the muzzle (the rear muzle had this "arm" left behind when the muzzle retreats after fire.) The arm goes back forward pushing the "pig" to the forcing cone. It wasen't particulry succesfull thing as it required almoust as much muscels as the normal loading (normal loading was made exactly the same put instead of the mechanical arm, the loader just sticks the "pig" whit his loading club eg. potatoe masher) Also only one type of ammoes where allowed to use this "autoloader" and we usually shot the other ones

But back to the singaporean guns...i'm pretty sure that in the future, a computerised firecontrol/aiming devises will be fitted thus making this gun propaply the best towed howitsers that the is...or at least most "userfriendly" when looking it from gunners point of view...

Ps. I'm not sure how it is made in different nation armyes ( and a matter a fact how it is done even in finland as we never roke the thing) But if APU fitted gun somehow looses it power, the gun won't be a much usefull even if mechanical eg. muscle power is avialbe. Even one non-APU fitted gun in APU battery will slow down the batterys battle readiness unaceptably long. Therefore i belive that if some gun brokes its APU, a new gun is delivered to the battery as soon as possiple and repairing team will work on the broken one...the chain is as strong (or fast in this case) as it's weakest link....

yar.......Gollevainen, we here also got those camo nets. They are used to conceal big calibre weapons or command post.

Hi Gollevainen,
I want to ask a few question. The 155mmK98 u mention is it a indigenious Finland artillery? Does Finland have any self propelled guns on tracks attached to the armoured elements, or it does'nt fit into the protracted war strategy? Let's say a artillery regiment belonging to a division is tasked to deploy and fire, how long doe it take to set up the gun, erect the camouflage nets and start firing, How long usually to shoot and scoot? Lastly isn't it a little dangerous as towed artillery seems to take a long time to deploy, considering the risk of modern day artillery radar?

P.S: If u find my questions a little sensitive or classified, ok then just ignore. Thanks.

Well We have Soviet 2S1 122mm SP howitzers and 2S5 152mm gannon attached to our sole armoured brigade, but Comonly they are facing the same missrespect that armour branch have in our army. tracked SP artillery arent any use along whit fast moving wheeled mobile brigades or in seperate battalion sized ligth infantry (gurellia) troops. They arent exactly a cost effective at all and Keep wonder, why some armyes still bothers to devolp them, when wheeled solutions offers much better overal qualityes.

We did have produced a self propelled version for export of the new 155mm whit open turret (closed during transportation) chasis of T-55. Its rather intresting looking desing, but sofar I havent found any pics of it in the net. This was offered (and to my knowlidge, accepted) for Egypt.

But whit that other question, We dont have division sized formations, but Mechanised brigades have a two battalion strong regiment.

how long doe it take to set up the gun, erect the camouflage nets and start firing,Lastly isn't it a little dangerous as towed artillery seems to take a long time to deploy, considering the risk of modern day artillery radar

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Well if we would do some sort of "shoot and scoop" we wouldn't use the nets nor any other gamoflage...as the SP artillery never uses ones. The battalion is deployed in the fireposition in mere of minutes, the main issue is how long it takes to get the battalion and battery HQ operational. If we build the fixed communication network ,it will take almoust an hour. But if we use radioes (more vunerable to jamming) then it's matter of minute. The new c3 vehicles (modified XA-200) could almoust direct the fire via moving. Our fire battery can achive the firing readyness in maxium of ten minutes if the ammunitions are carryed with the battery (in trainings we had to wait the "pigs" sometimes hours...). Only delying issue is the hammering...the gamoflage nets and other seccondry stuff is carried only if we plan to stay the position longer periods.
The speed i achive mostly thanks to the modern computerized location/position system based on GPS and gyroscope. This eliminates the use of optical range transfer systems whit survey teams and their direction circles (my brother served in battalion HQ as one of this dudes).
To my knowlidge the anti-battery radars are based on the tracking incoming projectiles eg. its affecting only after the fire has been opened. Ãn there the APU comes to its prime as the battery can shoot short bursts and then scoop out. The gun can be put on transport position in two to three minutes and the the gun just moves to the new position by it's APU and the crew travels by the hauling truck. In effect it isen't so much slower than the much more expensive SP systems. As I have told before, my experiences of SP limits to a fire demonstration show during our long, long, long, long...Lapland fire camp, when 2S5 along whit other towed systems direct fire. That old smoky locomotive didnt hit a shit and broke up just when it was time to leave the arena. You can imagine how fun and upspirit for us real gunners.

P.S: If u find my questions a little sensitive or classified, ok then just ignore. Thanks

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Actually They didnt told us not to tell anybody... Thougth that new HQ vehchiles were 'secret' systems, not offically fielded by Finnish army. All conscripts who served with them, were obligated to sing a confidental agreement and all sort of photographing was prohibited in imidiate range of these vechiles....meaning that those communication clowns (singal troops) constantly toke pics of them whit their mobile phones...