7 ms·

What should be compared is what comes out of the canons and NATO can afford to widely use those 100x more expensive ammo.

sudosysgen 4y ago
No, they simply cannot. No country can afford to replace dumb shells with smart shells completely, they are simply prohibitively expensive for anything except very high value point targets. They are completely useless for area fire, for example. GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Laser guided artillery shells are another story, but they don't have any more range.
- fvdessen 4y ago
  The USA has 7500 excalibur shells in stock. So it’s clearly not an anecdotic piece of equipment. They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    7500 shells is a very small amount. To give you an idea, the US has millions of artillery shells. They represent a fraction of a percent of the US arsenal. They aren't anecdotal, but they are exceptional.
    - tomatotomato37 4y ago
      Trying to follow the conversations here I think the problem is you both are trying to compare apples and oranges, or more appropriately the $10 bullets of an anti-material rifle with the $0.3 ammo used in a submachine gun. Just because they are both shot out of a barrel doesn't mean their purpose is the same. It's better to think of the excaliber rounds as more of cruise missiles with odd launch characteristics than as a tool for bombardment
      - the_af 4y ago
        If I'm following this conversation right, that's what u/sudosysgen seems to be saying...
        fvdessen 4y ago
        My point, which was probably badly made, is that the article compares the artillery capabilities while (among other things) completely ignoring the existence of the various smart shells (rocket assisted, bonus rounds, airburst fuse, laser guided, etc, etc). Those of course do not replace the dumb shells completely, but means that a NATO artillery in a standard configuration can, when needed, shoot the equivalent of a cruise missile, clear trenches with airburst, etc. Russia can't afford those shells at all and only has dumb rounds. Those difference in capabilities clearly matter. And even smart rounds aside, there is also the question of the communication links, the targeting systems, how reliable is the gear, how trained the soldiers, the software used to coordinate the strikes. How much time does it takes between a soldier requesting a strike and it actually happening ? Ukraine does it in 5 minutes, with shots scheduled on an individual gun basis across multiple units, meaning there's no obvious place to counter barrage at. etc. etc. You can think of artillery as a parcel delivery problem, except you're delivering explosives, and this article is comparing competing solutions by comparing the volumetric capacity of their delivery trucks, a component they've chosen because coincidentally they're the better at. But you have to look at the whole solution and how all the pieces work together.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those. Tanks and artillery pieces are probably blown up by BONUS rounds instead. https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/155-bonus https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/155-bonus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors/Nexter_Bonus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors/Nexter_Bonus ------- It seems like Excalibur rounds are basically just a slightly cheaper "hellfire-like missile" kind of thing. But there are other 155mm rounds that are probably cheaper and more effective at destroying tanks. (Ex: because BONUS rounds have no GPS-guidance, they cannot be jammed) Tanks and artillery pieces also __move__. It takes 1.5 minutes for a typical artillery shell to land on its target, and Tanks/artillery could very well be moving at 30mph. By the time the artillery shell reaches there, the enemy has moved and you miss. In contrast, BONUS rounds scan a 30,000 square-meter area and shoot at the first vehicle that they see. So if you place the BONUS round in the right area, even if the enemy has moved, you'll successfully kill them.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Well, there's the "hidden" effect of suddenly making a random M777 gun on the battlefield suddenly a guided weapon. If Russia sees a battery (6x M777 guns) moving into 40km range of a battalion headquarters, or an airport with expensive helicopters... or some other important defense point, what does Russia do about it? (Assume the M777 guns are shooting-and-scooting, so there's a very low chance you actually hit them with any long-range guided munition) If the M777 guns have dumb shells (only 20km range), the threat can be ignored. But if the M777 guns have Excalibur rounds, then all your $million helicopters are about to be blown up ------- Ukraine doesn't need a lot of Excalibur rounds. They just need "enough" to demonstrate to Russia that they're on the battlefield, and that Russian commanders need to plan around them.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Sure, I agree. I just take issue with using Excalibur rounds for the range and comparing it to dumb rounds. If Russia sees a battery of M777 guns moving into range, they will simply blow them up with MLRS in "fuck that grid square" mode. There is no need to use long-range guided munitions - counter-battery fire is precisely what MLRS is great at. Also, for the scenarios you describe, an M777 with Excalibur rounds is not the weapon of choice. Again, that's another situation where MLRS is great at. Not only will you be able to destroy all of those helicopters, you'll be able to do some extra damage and kill more people, at an even greater range. The use of and M777 with Excalibur rounds instead of an MLRS is really in those situations where you have few, immobile, very small targets. Both of the situations you describe would require area fire. > Ukraine doesn't need a lot of Excalibur rounds. They just need "enough" to demonstrate to Russia that they're on the battlefield, and that Russian commanders need to plan around them. For all the situations you explained, they already have to worry about much longer-range MLRS fires. For other situations, they already had to worry about the Soviet Krasnopol shells that Ukraine has (and used). The situations in which they have an extra headache really are marginal. Essentially the only real situation where something like Excalibur will make a difference is if there is a very valuable enemy position in proximity to an allied position such that MLRS is not viable, where laser-guided artillery is not viable (too far or can't get a drone or other designator up there), but at the same time a mortar isn't enough. It for sure is valuable, but it is only a unique capability in very specific cases.

sudosysgen 4y ago

No, they simply cannot. No country can afford to replace dumb shells with smart shells completely, they are simply prohibitively expensive for anything except very high value point targets. They are completely useless for area fire, for example. GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Laser guided artillery shells are another story, but they don't have any more range.

fvdessen 4y ago
The USA has 7500 excalibur shells in stock. So it’s clearly not an anecdotic piece of equipment. They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  7500 shells is a very small amount. To give you an idea, the US has millions of artillery shells. They represent a fraction of a percent of the US arsenal. They aren't anecdotal, but they are exceptional.
  - tomatotomato37 4y ago
    Trying to follow the conversations here I think the problem is you both are trying to compare apples and oranges, or more appropriately the $10 bullets of an anti-material rifle with the $0.3 ammo used in a submachine gun. Just because they are both shot out of a barrel doesn't mean their purpose is the same. It's better to think of the excaliber rounds as more of cruise missiles with odd launch characteristics than as a tool for bombardment
    - the_af 4y ago
      If I'm following this conversation right, that's what u/sudosysgen seems to be saying...
      - fvdessen 4y ago
        My point, which was probably badly made, is that the article compares the artillery capabilities while (among other things) completely ignoring the existence of the various smart shells (rocket assisted, bonus rounds, airburst fuse, laser guided, etc, etc). Those of course do not replace the dumb shells completely, but means that a NATO artillery in a standard configuration can, when needed, shoot the equivalent of a cruise missile, clear trenches with airburst, etc. Russia can't afford those shells at all and only has dumb rounds. Those difference in capabilities clearly matter. And even smart rounds aside, there is also the question of the communication links, the targeting systems, how reliable is the gear, how trained the soldiers, the software used to coordinate the strikes. How much time does it takes between a soldier requesting a strike and it actually happening ? Ukraine does it in 5 minutes, with shots scheduled on an individual gun basis across multiple units, meaning there's no obvious place to counter barrage at. etc. etc. You can think of artillery as a parcel delivery problem, except you're delivering explosives, and this article is comparing competing solutions by comparing the volumetric capacity of their delivery trucks, a component they've chosen because coincidentally they're the better at. But you have to look at the whole solution and how all the pieces work together.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those. Tanks and artillery pieces are probably blown up by BONUS rounds instead. https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/155-bonus https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/155-bonus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors/Nexter_Bonus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors/Nexter_Bonus ------- It seems like Excalibur rounds are basically just a slightly cheaper "hellfire-like missile" kind of thing. But there are other 155mm rounds that are probably cheaper and more effective at destroying tanks. (Ex: because BONUS rounds have no GPS-guidance, they cannot be jammed) Tanks and artillery pieces also __move__. It takes 1.5 minutes for a typical artillery shell to land on its target, and Tanks/artillery could very well be moving at 30mph. By the time the artillery shell reaches there, the enemy has moved and you miss. In contrast, BONUS rounds scan a 30,000 square-meter area and shoot at the first vehicle that they see. So if you place the BONUS round in the right area, even if the enemy has moved, you'll successfully kill them.
dragontamer 4y ago
> GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Well, there's the "hidden" effect of suddenly making a random M777 gun on the battlefield suddenly a guided weapon. If Russia sees a battery (6x M777 guns) moving into 40km range of a battalion headquarters, or an airport with expensive helicopters... or some other important defense point, what does Russia do about it? (Assume the M777 guns are shooting-and-scooting, so there's a very low chance you actually hit them with any long-range guided munition) If the M777 guns have dumb shells (only 20km range), the threat can be ignored. But if the M777 guns have Excalibur rounds, then all your $million helicopters are about to be blown up ------- Ukraine doesn't need a lot of Excalibur rounds. They just need "enough" to demonstrate to Russia that they're on the battlefield, and that Russian commanders need to plan around them.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Sure, I agree. I just take issue with using Excalibur rounds for the range and comparing it to dumb rounds. If Russia sees a battery of M777 guns moving into range, they will simply blow them up with MLRS in "fuck that grid square" mode. There is no need to use long-range guided munitions - counter-battery fire is precisely what MLRS is great at. Also, for the scenarios you describe, an M777 with Excalibur rounds is not the weapon of choice. Again, that's another situation where MLRS is great at. Not only will you be able to destroy all of those helicopters, you'll be able to do some extra damage and kill more people, at an even greater range. The use of and M777 with Excalibur rounds instead of an MLRS is really in those situations where you have few, immobile, very small targets. Both of the situations you describe would require area fire. > Ukraine doesn't need a lot of Excalibur rounds. They just need "enough" to demonstrate to Russia that they're on the battlefield, and that Russian commanders need to plan around them. For all the situations you explained, they already have to worry about much longer-range MLRS fires. For other situations, they already had to worry about the Soviet Krasnopol shells that Ukraine has (and used). The situations in which they have an extra headache really are marginal. Essentially the only real situation where something like Excalibur will make a difference is if there is a very valuable enemy position in proximity to an allied position such that MLRS is not viable, where laser-guided artillery is not viable (too far or can't get a drone or other designator up there), but at the same time a mortar isn't enough. It for sure is valuable, but it is only a unique capability in very specific cases.