Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by Lord Jim »

I think they like the ides of a relatively low cost, long range precision weapon system that can be launched from the back of a "Standard" HGV, so have been willing to partially fund the programme. The Norwegians also like the idea and both are looking towards coastal defence for this type of system. The ability to cover a large area of coastline whilst having the launcher being inland and able to manoeuvre around terrain seems an interesting proposition.

That the US would end up using it for is probably going to be key, if they adopt it at all, considering how they appear to be chopping and changing funding priorities, though if this is under long range precision fires then it may get through.

RetroSicotte
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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https://www.janes.com/article/94009/uk- ... quirements

UK releases Mobile Fires Platform key user requirements

Rate of Fire key, current 155mm ammo highlighted as inadequate, to inform by 17th Feb.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Well, subscription wall and all that, but...
[will] "lead to a [Army] Command Acquisition Support Plan (CASP) between DE&S and the customer, which are to formally agree the outputs that DE&S will deliver"

Just guessing what that will say, after the responses will have come in, in 17 days:
- modify the platform from which the existing rocketry system is used, and order new varieties for warheads (aptly named AW)
- replace the conventional artillery wholesale, exc. for Light Forces
-- and even then synchronise the purchases with the standing up/ standing down of heavy vs. medium bdes
= in effect the first roll-out would be [by 2026?] only for a third of the artillery... which as a Corps is minute, overall
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
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Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Now who's glass is half empty? :D

Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by Lord Jim »

A couple of articles from Jane's regarding the British Army's Mobile Fires Platform (MFP) programme.
https://www.janes.com/article/94018/uk- ... ts-for-mfp
https://www.janes.com/article/94009/uk- ... quirements

The requirement to travel 520Km within 24hrs including 200 on unbounded roads which I think means non tarmac and 30km cross country, would seem to swing thing in favour of a wheeled system.

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by SD67 »

MikeKiloPapa wrote:
ArmChairCivvy wrote:
MikeKiloPapa wrote: No spade or supporting legs= knackered chassis and suspension. Will likely also mean less range and accuracy.
That is surprising as one of the early defects of the Archer platform was legs too feeble to make full use of the MRSI capability designed in
Archer's dispersion issues have considerably less to do with having "feeble support legs" , and more to do with the gun being placed on an articulated dump truck. Its not difficult to imagine the forces being imparted on the chassis pivot point during firing, especially if shooting off the vehicles centerline axis. As such its a weakness that is inherent in the design and why the choice of this vehicle for the gun was and still is daft! :roll:
I thought the latest version of Archer being proposed by BAE is on a MAN 8x8 - maybe to address the above issues

https://www.armyrecognition.com/dsei_20 ... assis.html

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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The last 2 paragraphs make for gloomy reading:


https://www.janes.com/article/94844/mbd ... initiative

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Ron5 wrote:The last 2 paragraphs make for gloomy reading:


https://www.janes.com/article/94844/mbd ... initiative
They do, as the answer has been "air" all along.
- time to think gain
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

mr.fred
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Ron5 wrote:The last 2 paragraphs make for gloomy reading:
Not really anything surprising though.
Or new, either.
The RA have been at a range disadvantage to most peer opponents in most conflicts. That they’re outgunned by Russia also isn’t a surprise.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

"the MFP will be expected to self-deploy with the UK’s Strike Brigades"
... which would appear to narrow the field of potential applicants to wheeled platforms.

In the wheeled category, there are two candidates that would have the advantage of commonality with the Strike Brigade’s existing vehicles – BAE’s Archer, which was displayed at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2019 exhibition mounted on the same Rheinmetall 8x8 truck that is already employed by the British Army, and the RCH155 artillery module for Boxer from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW).
- both Archer and RCH155 meet the 30-second redeployment-time requirement, and both feature fully automated loading systems, enabling a high rate of fire.
- however, the latter would, even after having been flattened for rail transportaion within Europe, as for max allowable height, possibly require two A400Ms to deploy by air and would likely be more expensive, outright... before the deployability disadvantage factored in (which disadvantage is not ONLY in money terms)

A good discussion of how the RFI rqrmnts, more broadly, were brought closer to earth found here: https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-bal ... s-platform
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by Lord Jim »

Is MFP funded under the current ten year EP?

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Image

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Quite amazing... serious trouble in the programmes (or are the frontline commands engaged in some sort of swaps trade, between the years?)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Says to me there's not much of a problem.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Falling badly behind in planned spending (to the background chanting of "there is no money") and only catching up in '22 and onwards?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by Lord Jim »

Seems a bit strange to me, but the impression given is that a lot has been pushed to the right or the NAO got its facts about unfunded programmes really wrong. Of course given the fanatical adherence to in year spending one could say it is no surprise that little is committed for 2024 as they will want to wait until then before actually doing anything, so we end up with the ever present bow wave effect.

Even so there appears to be uncommitted funding available even next financial year if someone actually grew a pair and got the ball rolling. in the two financial years from 2020 to 2022 there seems to be almost £2Bn uncommitted! That should be more than enough to sign an initial contract for the WCIP for example. DO we have to order all at the same time or could be split the total over two order say?

Something doesn't add up here.

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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ArmChairCivvy wrote:Falling badly behind in planned spending (to the background chanting of "there is no money") and only catching up in '22 and onwards?
Looks fine to me because committed money is well within budgets. Now as long as they don't overrun, they'll be fine**. Plenty of cash down the road.

** yes I wet myself laughing writing that.

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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And here's what they want to spend all that mountain of future cash on:

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RetroSicotte
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

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Interesting, thanks for that spot.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

17 bn, to get a Division up and running in a way that conforms with the strike concept
- redlining a bde in 2010 was saving a bn
... quite some inflation there? (Yes, I know: defence is a hotbed of technological competition between leading nations; some others can spend less, as they only want to deter those "leading" nations from entering their own space)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

Lord Jim
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by Lord Jim »

Back to the RA and RHA, I think as a start they should aim to equip a Regiment, one equipped either with AS-90 or the 105 Light Gun and re equip it with a wheeled platform, my bias is to wards Archer and HIMARS. I would give it three eight Gun Archer Batteries and one eight launcher HIMARS Battery. That would give the "Mechanised Brigade(s) fire support that can self deploy as per the list of requirements. With Archer you would also need a number of the Reload platforms based on the same 8x8 MAN chassis. so say 32 Archers, 10 HIMARS, and 16 Limbers would cover the Regiment and leave a number for training etc.

Once that is achieved the pressure is off so to speak and rather than move to replace another AS-90 Regiment I would look at equipping a Regiment to provide support to our High Readiness forces, namely 3 Commando Brigade and 16 Air Assault. They desperately need something with greater range than the current 105 Light Guns allocated to them. The obvious choice in my mind would be the M777A2 with the longer barrel and greater range. It is light enough to be easily moved by either Chinook or Merlin, and could easily be towed by a Viking or Coyote. A towed precision system like Extractor should also be included.

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by J. Tattersall »

With the USMC reducing to only 5 tuned artillery batteries (a reduction of 16 batteries) and increasing missile batteries to 21 (an increase of 14 batteries) there's an increasing compare and contrast for the Royal Artillery.

In particular, should the balance of the RA move from close support to more depth strike; to what extent should artillery rebalance from the ability to suppress towards more precision strike/ destruction; and finally should the RA have a littoral denial capability (land based ship missiles) especially for homeland defence (e.g. English channel, St. George's channel, North Sea)?

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by mr.fred »

J. Tattersall wrote:With the USMC reducing to only 5 tuned artillery batteries (a reduction of 16 batteries) and increasing missile batteries to 21 (an increase of 14 batteries) there's an increasing compare and contrast for the Royal Artillery.

In particular, should the balance of the RA move from close support to more depth strike; to what extent should artillery rebalance from the ability to suppress towards more precision strike/ destruction; and finally should the RA have a littoral denial capability (land based ship missiles) especially for homeland defence (e.g. English channel, St. George's channel, North Sea)?
I think you’d need to be able to answer what the lack of close support would mean.
I’d really worry about using artillery for destruction above suppression. Granted shells have tended towards larger calibre over the last century, but previous instances of relying on artillery for destruction all share a common feature: Not working, usually at extreme cost to the front line forces.

Anti-ship weapons is an interesting one. Would you give them to the artillery on the basis that they have the focus on land-based weapons, or the Navy who are focussed on dealing with ships? Looking at modern and future long range precision weapons for land combat, there’s a trend to make them capable of anti-ship, so we might end up with the Artillery having the capability almost incidentally.

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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

J. Tattersall wrote:With the USMC reducing to only 5 tuned artillery batteries (a reduction of 16 batteries) and increasing missile batteries to 21 (an increase of 14 batteries) there's an increasing compare and contrast for the Royal Artillery.

In particular, should the balance of the RA move from close support to more depth strike;
The trends summarised above omit the fact that USMC relies on 120 mm mortars to do the job we have the LG for... which sort of relates to the leading sentence in the next quote:
mr.fred wrote: I think you’d need to be able to answer what the lack of close support would mean.
I’d really worry about using artillery for destruction above suppression. Granted shells have tended towards larger calibre over the last century
Calibers went up from the WW1 front-line, direct-fire typified by the French 75 mm to WW2 with those relying on artillery en masse favouring 152-203. After that, ever since the US Long Tom the trend has been down
- in the West 105-155
- Russia 122- 152 (with the 203 not dying out in the same way as in the West)

I agree that suppression beats destruction on most occasions, despite the
- ever increasing capability (and range) of rocketry
- and the precision rounds (122 mortar and 155 for field artillery)
which will remain specialties and challenge targeting. My bet is that Bonus-like precision rounds where the targeting is approximate (Exactor falls into the same category) and the round or submunitions see to the final "approach" will make a storng come back and tank-to-tank 'first kill' matches will decline in expected frequency and importance
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

mr.fred
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Re: Royal Artillery/Royal Horse Artillery future developments

Post by mr.fred »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Calibers went up from the WW1 front-line, direct-fire typified by the French 75 mm to WW2 with those relying on artillery en masse favouring 152-203. After that, ever since the US Long Tom the trend has been down
- in the West 105-155
- Russia 122- 152 (with the 203 not dying out in the same way as in the West)
I don’t think that’s quite true. While the middle of the 20th century saw the high end of land artillery cannon calibre which has since ebbed, the mainstay of the artillery was much smaller, the larger calibre being special heavy artillery. For the more numerous field artillery the British used the 88mm 25pdr, the US used 105mm. It wasn’t until the 70’s that 155mm became the standard.

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