Don't forget Aircraft.
Here's a picture of the AN-124:
Posted on 11/26/2022 1:04:44 PM PST by Its All Over Except ...
Well, the US Army doesn’t confide in me, and I doubt you are in the loop either. We both must go with “open source”.
“If you dont like these, maybe the lot of them should be sent to Ukraine. I think they would be glad to have them.”
I don’t have much say anymore in how they’re disposed of, but it does seem that our military leaders are fine getting rid of them in Ukraine, so same result.
Hopefully our next generation of big guns won’t be as gold-plated and will actually work in combat, even after 20 shots.
777 is not a great howitzer. USMC offloaded one to Pima Air Museum in AZ. After looking at it, no obvious issues, but expect it’s out of service life due to max number of retubings, or cracks in the carriage. It replaced the M198, which was twice the weight. Same heavy recoil at half the weight means metal fatigue is a major issue on the 777.
Nice...like everything else our government does.
Those aren’t his/her/cse’s thoughts.
Never done a retube on a M777; after my time in the Army. On a M198 towed 155mm howitzer, direct support maintenance could do the job in a day or 2, if authorized and if parts are on hand. Still is typically a depot level job. Again a day or two. Normally, we would get a howitzer to replace one going to depot maintenance so that we kept our combat readiness. Recoil mechanism on the 777 looks more complicated than M198, so retube might take a little longer. Still days, not weeks, assuming barrels and mechanics are available.
You can look all this stuff up you know. Ex. different 152mm systems and ammo have different max ranges cited. Same goes for 155mm, etc.
In general the cited 152mm ranges seem optimistic in practice, or maybe it’s that the CEP at range can get pretty bad. Generally the Nato 155mm seem to outrange Russian 152mm.
Interestingly the Russians seem to have begun drawing the very old D1(M1943)152mm howitzers out of stock, equivalent to US M114 155mm, as there are stockpiles for their shells, which are apparently incompatible with the modern 152mm.
So two days from now this article will become obsolete.
Don't forget Aircraft.
Here's a picture of the AN-124:
I shouldn’t even bother with dim-wits. Maybe it’s because some others, a little brighter, might read this.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/11/politics/us-artillery-south-korea-ukraine/index.html
No it’s not the US military, nor the GWOT, but people make do.
Like the Vietnamese did for instance.
If the howitzer breaks down, why not load the thing in a semi truck (they seem to have lots) and get on the road to Poland?
The roads aren’t cut. You don’t need a helicopter for everything. If the gun is out, then you do without for a while. Maybe shift some other gun.
What, when buys them from Ukrainian farmers after the war? Or did I miss the parade through Red Square of captured American artillery?
Please read 68 and 77, and adjust for local combat conditions.
Russia’s Artillery Is Wearing Out And Blowing Up==
The difference is that Russian art barrels are cheap and plenty stored during soviet times. So they spend them now.
Also there are millions of shells in old soviet depots which usage time expiring soon. They spend them too now.
“If the howitzer breaks down, why not load the thing in a semi truck (they seem to have lots) and get on the road to Poland?”
J.C., you are incapable of learning.
“Why not load it on the back of a magic fairy unicorn, and fly it on pixie dust to Poland.”
Equally realistic.
Interestingly the Russians seem to have begun drawing the very old D1(M1943)152mm howitzers out of stock, equivalent to US M114 155mm, as there are stockpiles for their shells, which are apparently incompatible with the modern 152mm.==
Because they are working and a lot of them in stock. Better spend them now when they still good. New ones will go to stock for next war.
“”I was in bn FDC, it was all manual; charts and darts, charge sticks and firing tables””
I was in FDC for a while but it was too tame for me, my son was also FDC.
In what way are we dim-wits?
Most of the world doesn’t operate with US resources. But they still operate.
You should see distribution wiring in some places, that would reduce a US distribution engineer to catatonia. I used to bring pictures back from the Philippines just to shock people. But it all works. Not safely, or terribly reliably by US standards, but 99/100 the lights still come on.
Real life is like that. If you have the stockpiles of stuff and helicopters to haul things and total air supremacy, well, that’s nice. But if not, you deal.
Ukraine troops probably stole the tires.
So how is it the Ukes can get these weapons to the front, keep them firing for months, with all the logistics that requires, with the mighty Russian Air Force, and it’s drones overhead, until they need new barrels and depot level maintenance, but the Ukes can’t withdraw them from the front and send them to a depot? Why are the Russians more able to hit them going west, than they were when heading east, or being used operationally for months?
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