[Southack]

"Defense Minister Alain Richard, who overruled opposition by the army staff, which disliked the idea of a gun on a truck."

CAESAR has some nice features like enhanced range, but here is *why* the Army Staff dislikes truck-mounted artillery:

1. Prolonged use of the cannon on board jars loose fuel lines, transmission hoses, axle bearings, and driveshafts of the truck.

2. Loose fuel lines and transmission hoses spew flammable liquids in a combat environment.

3. Weakened axle bearings and loose driveshafts increase mechanical breakdowns in combat maneuvering.

4. Vehicle fires result in loss of vehicle and cannon.

5. Vehicle breakdowns require towing BOTH vehicle +cannon for further combat maneuvering.

SUMMARY: Towed artillery is superior for extended combat; vehicle mounted cannons are acceptable for limited combat.

[farlander]

Well - it only takes a week for the French to surrender anyway. So I think they’ve aligned their procurement with strategy quite well.

[Charles Martel]

It wouldn't take much ingenuity to come up with a compromise between truck-mounted and traditional towed guns. Any means of quickly decoupling the gun platform from the truck would prevent many of the combat reliability concerns.

The way the truck's drive axles are lifted off the ground by this system, with the gun's weight and recoil being absorbed by the ground... the French may have actually overcome many of those problems.

[Nooseman]

I would add lack of redundancy to that,no manual backup abilities would automatically disqualify it.