The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
I wish I could “dislike” your nonsense. Your suggestion is so pointless.
All of these shells are ~10 years old. Canada withdrew from Afghanistan earlier than the US, 2014
There was an event where the former ambassador of Spain to Georgia commented on the situation, his view is the likely balkanization of Ukraine and Poland has asked for Kaliningrad to be given to them as punishment
I don't like the fact that the Ukraine thread was reopened since the arguing tends to spill over to other non-related threads, but I noticed there's quite a bit of confusion on how modern guided artillery projectiles work.
I found this very informative photo in the PLA artillery thread. The poster points out the manpower reduction and new self-propelled chassis, but fails to point out the computer and new electronics attached to the gun. Note the lack of digitization and electronics for the old towed howizter (aka no guided artillery projectiles)! Here's some notes for the PCL 181 in the photo that the old howizter doesn't have:
This might actually be "fake news" for now since there hasn't been any actual evidence of Excalibur being used or the capability to employ the round. The first red flag is that none of the howitzers in the videos posted in this thread had electronics on or near them. Note that a battery, GPS or INU, radar, digital gun laying system, computer etc couldn't be seen attached to or near the howitzers. You technically don't need most of those electronics to employ a guided artillery projectile, but we have seen no hard evidence of a computer for each howitzer.
You need to define what you specifically mean by the term "digital targeting computer". I think posters in this thread are severely underestimating what modern artillery fire control computers do to get a firing solution. Modern artillery fire control computers perform real-time aerodynamic/ballistic simulations of the projectile that produces a trajectory solution to a target. That is to say the computer simulates how it expects the projectile to travel along its entire flight path. This enables several features in modern artillery systems:
- A computer with digital terrain data can produce accurate firing solutions in mountainous/hilly/complex terrain.
- A computer can optimize multiple firing solutions that coordinates multiple dispersed (kilometers apart) guns to strike a target at the same TOT (time on target). In this case the computer has to produce trajectory solutions to the target with a time constraint.
- Guided artillery projectiles not only contain target data, but also trajectory data. This is important since without a fire control computer it is not possible to create a trajectory solution. The guided artillery projectile can use an INU or GPS with control surfaces to correct itself back onto the expected trajectory that was computed by the fire control computer.
- Accurate ballistics simulations allows the artillery to skip the adjust fire phase and go directly to fire for effect.
An electronic fuse setter simply transfers the digital data from the fire control computer or gun computer to the computer in the fuse of the artillery projectile. A fuse setter alone is not capable of enabling the usage of guided artillery projectiles. The point is we haven't seen evidence of an electronic fuse setter, computer or fire control computer. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but there is no hard confirmation (fog of war).
I found this very informative photo in the PLA artillery thread. The poster points out the manpower reduction and new self-propelled chassis, but fails to point out the computer and new electronics attached to the gun. Note the lack of digitization and electronics for the old towed howizter (aka no guided artillery projectiles)! Here's some notes for the PCL 181 in the photo that the old howizter doesn't have:
- The electronics mounted and aligned to the gun barrel could be a muzzle velocity radar.
- There is a computer built into the platform. This is a prerequisite for guided artillery projectiles. What we don't know is if the computer has its own fire control system installed. This theoretically allows individual guns to act independant of the battery.
- There is an antenna built in to the vehicle for communications or GPS? For photo shoots the artillery pieces shoot in a line together, but in actual combat the battery commander can choose to disperse the guns. This reduces the effectiveness of counter-battery fire since each gun in the battery can fire from different locations.
Manning requirement for the traditional towed artillery vs the new self-propelled artillery. A reduction of three soldiers.
Without guided projectiles, what is the CEP of such modern artillery systems at extreme range?
Despite a very detailed simulation, there will still be an unpredictable error in the manufacturing variance of artillery rounds, propellant charges, barrel wear, wind gusts, etc.
I wouldn't know any actual CEP numbers. Most members here just quote a manufacturer/published numbers and shrug their shoulders.
The variables that you mention are what all the new extra electronics on the gun are for:
- Manufacturing variance of propellant or projectile. The muzzle velocity radar on the gun barrel is used to determine if the projectile leaves the gun barrel at the velocity specified by the weapon manufacturer. If not adjustments can be made based on recorded data for future computations.
- Barrel wear. Again the muzzle velocity radar in conjunction with a temperature sensor can determine the velocity deviation from the manufacturer specifications.
- Wind gusts. This is adjusted by collecting meteorological data. Ye old weather ballons?
Real time digital weather data is actually a super complicated topic that goes beyond artillery...
The above data collected by the electronics mounted on the gun are fed to a computer accompanying the gun. If the gun computer has a fire control system computer installed, then you compute new trajectory solutions using adjusted data that the gun crew recorded. Otherwise the gun computer sends the adjustment data to someone who has a fire control system computer. At the end of the day not having a fire control system computer means you simply can't use a guided artillery projectile. At the very minimum you would need some sort of electronic device beside the gun to receive the digital trajectory data/firing solution to input into a guided artillery projectile.
This is why the electronics and digital systems I pointed out on the PCL 181 photo are so important.
It is just assumption. However it does have certain logic in it.
First, Canada did declared it will supply Excalibur rounds with their howitzers. So it is safe to assume there are at least several rounds per gun. Maybe not more than a hundred total, but still...
Second - you need electronics and qualified personnel to fire such rounds. You can teach Ukrainian artillery crews, but it will require to fire several rounds on training grounds. Also you need to protect electronics/rounds from possible Russian agents which makes it hard to trust locals.
Third. If you have to bring in your own crew, it should be someone with plausible deniability in case he gets killed or captured (latter is not likely as guns with Excalibur rounds will be pretty far behind front line, but better be safe than trigger an escalation). And this brings the idea of using proved personnel of Ukrainian decent. Well maybe it is simpler to pass personnel as mercenaries or look for ex-military personnel with required expertise and pass them as volunteers.
Footage of the combat operation of the Orlan-10 UAV was shown by the Russian Defense Ministry. The Orlan-10 UAV began to be delivered to the troops in 2010 and by now is the most massive UAV of the Russian army used in Ukraine. The Orlan-10 has a mass of 14 kg and is capable of carrying up to 4 high-explosive shells. In various configurations, UAVs can conduct surveillance in the optical and infrared range. Orlan‑10 is capable of automatically detecting the positions of switched-on GSM phones, VHF communication stations, operating radars.
The Russian army in the Zaporozhye direction stopped an attempt to counterattack the Ukrainian armed forces. An attempt to attack Russian units by the forces of two Ukrainian mechanized battalions on tanks and infantry fighting vehicles was made near the village of Vishnevoye, Zaporozhye region. The enemy was spotted in time, UAVs and Russian artillery strikes were inflicted on parts of the Ukrainian army. After that, Russian tanks, BPM and infantry units, supported by artillery, destroyed the retreating equipment of Ukraine. According to the results of the battle, 26 Ukrainian tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles and about 100 soldiers were destroyed.
The work of Russian 120 mm mortar crews in Ukraine
The Russian army in the Zaporozhye direction stopped an attempt to counterattack the Ukrainian armed forces. An attempt to attack Russian units by the forces of two Ukrainian mechanized battalions on tanks and infantry fighting vehicles was made near the village of Vishnevoye, Zaporozhye region. The enemy was spotted in time, UAVs and Russian artillery strikes were inflicted on parts of the Ukrainian army. After that, Russian tanks, BPM and infantry units, supported by artillery, destroyed the retreating equipment of Ukraine. According to the results of the battle, 26 Ukrainian tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles and about 100 soldiers were destroyed.
The work of Russian 120 mm mortar crews in Ukraine
Professor, I was just using the terminology given by the OP. If you want, let’s call it what you want, computerized gun laying system… or in this case, possible lack of.
Your later explanation is long, but fundamentally incorrect. It is not necessary for an individual gun to perform these calculations, these will be done by the battery command post. Once gun position is properly recorded, command post can then simply bark out the bearings/elevation/propellant charges. All the additional sensors would merely provide more accurate data for firing solutions.
Similarly, command post can relay the firing coordinates as desired by the forward observer to the individual gun crew. Digital firing computer is totally not necessary to program a guided round. You can radio the coordinates and manually punch it into the fuse setter and then program the round.
So why build in fancy electronics into the gun if you can just use guided rounds on a cheap gun? Of course it is expensive in the long run to use so many guided rounds.
Trust issue has been dealt with by ripping out the digital system. They are basically left with a regular towed gun. Even if the electronics were still there, it’s not exactly black box technology like a F-22 or something. It’s much safer to train these crews. If they are already trained on artillery, then there really isn’t much to teach them.
You can keep the fundamental control structure, and just give some laptops with the indirect firing software. The biggest changes would be for the command post personnel.
Electronic fuse setter is an incredibly simple device, just punch a few buttons and connect to the round. Not much training needed.
I understand your logic, but you’ve basically come up with some Rube Goldberg way of reheating leftovers vs. Popping them into the microwave