Discourse on Artillery - Modern Weaponry appearing in the war.

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Gary in London sent this video that I included in Bob Homans’ report yesterday. Ukrainian-made antitank missiles took out four Russian tanks and four minutes in the area of Izyum.

At the same time. Gary reports that his relatives around Kherson say that the Russians are digging in for a long defense. They are building revetment's and digging trenches. These are traditional defenses against artillery.

Among the supplies that Ukraine is getting from the west are a number of artillery systems. It begs the question, how good is modern artillery? Will digging in be an adequate defense for the Russians?

My conclusion is that in general it will not work well against missiles. We know that rockets such as the Javelin are designed to attack tanks where they are weakest – going right through the roof. The Turkish made Bayraktar system is also effective. We have not heard reports of the effectiveness of the American switchblade system, the German panzerfaust or the British NLAW system. These missiles home in on the tank itself with a warhead of about 10kg, whereas artillery is effective if the approximately 50kg round hits somewhere near an unprotected objective.

These rocket systems generally require that the soldiers using them be close to their objective. They are also expensive. I did a little bit of reading on artillery yesterday to see if my assumptions were valid.

We heard a lot of artillery used in the attempt to capture Kyiv that ended three and a half weeks ago. They destroyed the Retroville Center in Kyiv. They periodically shelled other neighborhoods.

I had assumed that the Russians were limited by the range of their artillery systems. This is true only in part.  Most Soviet-era 152mm systems such as the D20 have a range of about 10 miles.  Wikipedia says that Russians do possess artillery systems such as the 2S35 and 2S7M that are capable of up to 50km, but they are not as numerous or as versatile.  The latter does not even have a turret – the whole self-propelled system must be aligned with the target. 

An article dated 2017 stated that the objective of the United States in upgrading its artillery was to match the range of Russian systems. If the Russians had a great deal of artillery that could reach 50 km, they could have hit our house from Brovary, or more likely, sent shells over us into the city center. This didn't happen.

Such has been true of a lot of advertised Russian capabilities. Weapons like the Armada tank, are advertised as the next big thing, but they turn out not to be. They have not produced a great many and they are not in widespread use. The same, for instance, of the Kinzal hypersonic missile. Yes, they have developed them, and they have manufactured a few, but not enough to be decisive in the war.

Returning to the subject of artillery, it appears that most of the artillery systems that the Russians have been using have a range of about 10 miles.

What about the Western guns? I have always thought of artillery as a dumb munition. You send the artillery shell out through a long tube, from which it is propelled by gunpowder, the same as canons of old.  After it leaves the tube it's on its own to find the target. Traditional artillery systems used forward artillery observers. That's what Gary did in Vietnam and Laos. After the artillery fired its first salvo, the forward observer would radio back where the shells hit and the artillery team would adjust the guns to hit closer on the second salvo.  Once zeroed in, the guns would stay put and keep shooting.

Nowadays they use radar for both outgoing and incoming artillery. The incoming radar has been around for a while. When the enemy fires at you, your radar spots the shells as they lift off, and automatically aims your artillery to shoot at the place that the shells came from. There is a cat and mouse game. Our objective is to aim our guns and fire back before the enemy can move. The enemy's objective is to "shoot and scoot," moving away from where they shot before our artillery finds them in return.

I have heard about shoot and scoot quite a bit, but suspect that that is not the strategy being used by the Russians. Since the Ukrainians have had only limited artillery power, the Russians have probably not needed it. Their equipment and training (military doctrine) may not support shoot and scoot in the first place.

Returning to artillery radar, the second theme. I said that the forward artillery observers used to radio back where the shells that you fired in the first salvo hit. Gary tells me this is now done by a tracking radar. It follows our own shells as they travel toward the target. It knows the coordinates that it's aiming at, and it's able to figure out where the shells are headed. About the time they hit, or even before, it is able to compute the difference. Therefore it's possible to adjust on the fly and zero in on a target very quickly.

I find from online sources that for several years artillery shells have been able to alter their course on the fly. PGK (projectile guidance kit) fuzes use kinetic energy to steer within 6 meters by using little vanes on the shells.  A more expensive alternative called Excalibur gets within two meters, about 6 feet of its target. The problem with this one is that it's expensive, $70,000 per round. They are too costly except for special applications.

This article on artillery tracks improvements in accuracy over time.  It states that traditional artillery, the kind the Russians are presumably using, at maximum range will hit within about 900 feet of the target. PGK rounds have gotten progressively more accurate over the decade, improving from 160 to 100 to 60 feet of the target. 

Structurally, artillery shells appear to have a fuze that is attached to the shell before it is fired, it his independent of the tube. This is the way artillery has always worked.  You put the fuze on the front of the shell to control whether it explodes at or before impact. It was a logical place to add the steering function.  If the Russians are using these, I haven't read about it. They seem to be shooting at just about everything they have a chance of hitting, apartment buildings being their specialty.

Steerable munitions are especially useful in urban warfare. The Russians like to hide themselves close to hospitals and the like, using civilians as a shield. Smart munitions that one can confidently aim within a few feet of the target on make it possible to use artillery where you would otherwise be afraid of hitting civilians. The Ukrainians are putting this technology to use.  Here is a video of a strike on a Russian base adjacent to a church.  My guess is that the munitions they selected here would be more accurate than a mere 60 feet.

As far as range goes, some of the western systems being sent to Ukraine can reach 40 miles or so. This may give Ukraine a range advantage over artillery the Russians have in the field.  Combining the considerations of range and accuracy, It appears that while halfway burying their tanks would be more effective against dumb artillery than smart missiles, it will not be effective against the best modern artillery.

I posted a book review yesterday of Why Did Europe Conquer the World.  The author's four necessary conditions are:

·       Frequent war
.       Heavy military spending
·       Keeping up with technology
·       Willingness to innovate

The West, and the United States in particular, has fulfilled these conditions over the period since the Second World War. The Russians tried, but as Ronald Reagan demonstrated four decades ago, could not keep up. What we are seeing play out in Ukraine is the utility of having followed this prescription.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong men explain this stuff to a boy who was eager to learn, the good-looking women are glad we are interested, and even the 1 ½-year-old girl is getting fussy about what she wears, how she looks. 

Graham