I’m sure the Artillery guys on this site know this, and I’ve read articles over the past few years about how US Arty is behind. Interesting article.
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I usually do not comment on such topics but I could not help my self this time.
US Artillery is not behind. In many aspects it is way far ahead of many other countries. Here is my reasoning:
- The most valuable asset for the Ukrainian artillery is the M142 HIMARS that the US designed and fielded. The same goes for the M270. These are the most accurate long range systems used in this conflict by far and there is no comparison with the Russian equivalents.
The M777 is also fielded in Ukraine and I have not seen any complaints.
The M109A7 has not been fielded or even the A6 or A5. And to be honest the M109A7 has nothing to do with the original M109 in any way. New platform that offers huge advantages because of its commonality with the rest of the Armies platforms (Bradley family), new electronics and other systems. The only thing common is the tube that sends the shell to the target.
The article looks to me as something that a weapon system salesman would publish so as to promote his wares. Why does the US need all those things mentioned?
I believe the US army is keeping a track of all those developments and evolutions and new technologies. But we must always take into account that the equipment used by the US Army need to be shipped at the area of engagement plus maintained and serviced on the spot. That is no easy task and besides (that will hurt a bit) the Air Force has a part in this too. I think the Ukrainians would prefer to have F-15 and F-16 with HARM, JDAM and laser guided weapons than the latest artillery platforms like the Pzh2000.
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Thanks for your comment Nikos. I see these articles all the time, especially in Popular Mechanics with headlines like: “China has a hypersonic missile and the US had no defense against it” type of stuff. Popular Mechanics is a technical magazine and none of its authors to my knowledge are military experts. There is so much to take into consideration in any conflict.
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I agree with Nikos. If you look at who wrote the above article, it is a huge advertisement for Rheinmetall products, nothing more.
I can speak as a former FIRES officer who served three times in that capacity at the Joint US/Korean Special Warfare Center JOC. Had the balloon gone up during any one of those times, that would have been my chair. I had everyting on Pen, and off, literally at my fingertips.
Accuracy is indeed one of the attributes that should be considered, in addition to range, TOT time from the halt, ease and quickness of displacement. Ease of maintenance and repair figure in as well, though not generally considered in performance. Plus you have to add our logistic capabilites to keep them fueled and fed. We’re one of the best Armies in the world at that. We’ll be okay.
Which is why when tube and/or rocket artillery, and air assets were not available to me, I could always rely on the TLAM. Its range isn’t too shabby either.
Yes, it’s true, Rheinmetall artillery product advertisement or not, that the US Army’s tubed (M109) artillery is behind and always has been. I’ve been reading the Defense articles for over three decades and the US Army has always acknowledged this problem and did some things to remedy this but ultimately failed.
It’s about 155mm’s tube artillery’s range, rate-of-fire, and multiple rounds on target impact, meaning how many rounds can the 155mm self-propelled howitzer (SPH) fire before they all land on the target at the same time (like a juggler with a number of shells in the air all landing down at once). The M109 SPH is woefully inadequate in all three areas, and we’re not talking about guided rockets or missiles. The US Army makes up for all these tube deficiencies with Excalibur GPS sells and rocket-assisted shells but those are few and expensive and GPS can be jammed.
US Army solutions were:
Crusader 155mm SPH: The goal was 40+ kilometer range and the Crusader achieved this, but in some ways, the media and critics tanked the Crusader as being too heavy at over 60 tons initial design. So the US Army reduced it to around 40 tons. Then critics hemmed and hawed about its liquid-cooled tube as being too complex and criticized that the resupply vehicle can’t fit inside the same military cargo aircraft (76 tons total) and that the autoloader might be unreliable. The three-man crew might be too small to fix the Crusader if it broke. The criticism list went on. It was tested to work and then canceled due to Defense budget cuts. The Crusader aced the rate-of-fire at 10-12 rounds per minute using an autoloader. The resupply vehicle was new too.
German 155mm PZH2000 was tested and worked to fire shells to 40+ km, but the US Army decided to go with the USA-made Crusader 155mm SPH. There was some Congressional push to just buy PZH2000s back then.
Future Combat System Non-line-of-sight Cannon (NLOS-C) 155mm was canceled and it weighed in at around 30 tons, and had the same range as the M777 155mm towed artillery. It will not achieve 40+ km range, but it was light and compact and the two-man crew sat in the hull. The entire Future Combat System (FCS) was canceled as FCS was overbudget and behind schedule and critics said it was “too light to fight” at around 26 tons of armor for the other FCS vehicles that never fully developed into prototypes, and so the FCS 155mm NLOS-Cannon was not saved or separated out and sank with the other FCS designs as one big family that just didn’t make it.
Latest try was the M109 Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) that was tested and the barrel wore out too soon after firing. The US Army canceled the program in 2024, and lately they said that it can be salvaged in the latest Defense news reports, so the jury is still out on this. The shell range of ERCA is a whopping 70 km, or 43.5 miles). Even so, it still retains the measly three rounds-per-minute fire rate and 10 rounds-per-minute fire with the dreamed of autoloader.
The US Army remedies its lack of tube artillery range, rate-of-fire, and multiple rounds simultaneous impact per target with HIMARS and MLRS rockets and missiles and other means of airborne counter-battery fire, meaning if enemy artillery fires on US forces, the Army would call in attack helicopters, drones, A-10s, USAF and Navy fighters, and MLRS and HIMARS to attack enemy artillery since enemy artillery out-ranges, outperforms, outguns, and out-fires US M109 SPH. Thus, the US military’s response to enemy artillery fire out-ranging it can be swift and deadly but expensive.
So does the US Army knew what it was doing in 155mm SPH tubed artillery to replace the M109 SPH? It sure did, but budget cuts, critics, bad publicity, politics, lack of program progress, and other performance issues kind of sabotaged the US Army’s tubed artillery modernization efforts for decades. The US Army’s M109 SPH replacements worked…they just never saw service so the M109 SPH soldiers on and on and on and on despite constant upgrades. These constant M109 upgrades never produced the artillery systems in this Rheinmetall article.
I say bring back the Crusader SPH and its resupply vehicle, make it work, and push it through this time into service. It’s been a long journey with little to show for. FCS 155mm NLOS-Cannon can be resurrected to help the US Airborne and Light Forces.
That’s just for 155mm tubed SPH artillery…I didn’t cover the rockets and missiles of HIMARS and MLRS because the article didn’t focus on that.
Photos from Wikipedia and Google Search.
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