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To: ckilmer; SpeedyInTexas; BeauBo
But the reputation that the ukes and their western weapons now have is for accurate counter battery. basically the drones or other devices find the coordinates for whatever and communicate those directly to the artillery piece. or in a slower routine —the coordinates are sent to a third party which then gives the coordinates to the artillery piece.

This is basically correct.

The accuracy of the GPS coordinates given to the counter battery artillery piece determines the accuracy of the shot.

In the current battlefield situation, the drones that are providing surveillance and video, including Mavic 3s (picture below), provide highly accurate GPS coordinates. However they don't have the range to fly to where the Russian artillery would be located.

Most of the videos of "One shot One Kill" show armored vehicles or buildings being destroyed.

The counter battery radars simply do not have the accuracy of the drones. A 50 foot error in GPS coordinates could produce a miss, and without real-time surveillance, there is no way to correct. In that situation, the counter-battery would lay down a "pattern".

I believe most of the UKR counter battery is being performed by HIMARs rockets or "guided" ER shells like Excalibur.

Terminal guidance will ensure "One shot one kill".

Even with the slower rate of uke artillery fire —the ukes should be taking out whole sections of the russian artillery for portions of the front.

But that does not appear to be happening.

It's not happening because of "shoot & scoot".

Can russian artillery fire on uke positions without itself coming under uke guns?

That's the $64,000 question.

UKR does not have enough HIMARs to cover the entire front.

ckilmer...thanks for your post.

BeauBo...please expand or correct anything I have said. Send more artillery!

48 posted on 12/02/2022 7:51:42 AM PST by FtrPilot
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To: FtrPilot; ckilmer; SpeedyInTexas

I have been wondering about the counter battery equation in this war for some time as well. It has been such an Artillery heavy conflict, that countering Artillery has been one of the central challenges. Because it is so important, they are likely careful about classifying the specifics about how it is going.

HIMARS seemed to help significantly reduce the overwhelming Russian Artillery advantage, when it showed up in theater, but more is obviously needed.

I really don’t know what the problem is, but my leading theories are the sheer relative quantity of Russian guns, and the technical ability to get accurate and timely targeting data to the Ukrainian guns.

The War in Ukraine guy has often criticized Ukrainian Command for not allocating resources for counter battery, but they may just have not had the budget to give.

The Ukrainian Army has had to absorb a crushing amount of Artillery fire, in a kind of “Rope a Dope” struggle, of waiting for the Russian Artillery to punch itself out, due to gradual attrition. It has been a toe to toe slugfest, with a much bigger opponent.

I’d love to see a “Silver bullet” solution sweep the Russian Artillery from the battlefield (maybe a bunch of better drones, with long range and duration, that can designate targets right into some fire control system). In the absence of a “Silver Bullet” technical solution, it looks like Russian Artillery is on track to punch itself out during 2023, with quality declining as it does.

If we cannot, or will not provide a near term technical solution, the current approach of providing NATO guns, ammo and training seems like it will do the job eventually, but at withering cost to Ukrainian lives and infrastructure.

The more, the sooner, the better.

Send more Artillery!


49 posted on 12/02/2022 9:08:04 AM PST by BeauBo
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