BAE Systems receives order for more M109A7 artillery

Yes, around 179 vehicles.

Probably not; and if you have an air strike capability you have other options of course. Could the Boxer 155mm be the best of both worlds?

I’m outside of that fortress luckily!

It should do, as it’s now with 7 LMBCT.

3 RHA is switching to MLRS, that’s the cut to guns I mentioned to Geoffrey.

If the army got their act together and stopped crap cuts like 3 RLC which is due for the chop while 1 DRSB has no RLC formation to support its artillery regiments. 4 LBCT is devoid of any CS CSS regulars at all and rebuilding them and the RA is priority for me never mind wanting fantasy fleets of tanks.

To be honest I welcome the switch from the light guns to MLRS. It was known 30 years ago that 105mm artillery isn’t effective at penetrating new armour. The light guns should only have been used by the paras and the marines.
My only issue with the change is that each regiment will only get 12 MLRS with the 3rd battery being provided by the army reserve on deployment. This means that whilst it looks like an increase of rocket artillery from one to two regiments it really isn’t. The only positives for the RA that I see is that V battery RHA will be brought back, and how amazing, if in little numbers, sky sabre is.

Exactly!!! Hence the cuts, one if the batteries is going into suspended animation, N Battery to 7 RHA apparently, if memory serves.

Whether 105 is any use or not it’s still another gun regiment gone that could have had the future MF gun.

They are used, as I know you know, as the AS90 regiments of 7 Armd Bde and 2 Mechanized Bde were cut, so LG out in instead. 3 RHA, 4 RA. I guess better than disbandment.

They did the same smoke and mirrors trick when the original MLRS reg was cut in A2020 2010 cuts and the launchers placed in 3 batteries with 3 AS90 regiments. That then was reversed and a regiments worth of AS90 guns was cut to reform into a solitary regiment again.

Watch for smoke and mirrors!

Supacat had a vehicle at a recent arms show with a 105mm mounted on it. Used an American soft recoil system. The idea was to shoot & scoot. Prototype built in answer to A British request. I have no idea if the UK will order some.

It should be air portable then and even an underslung load on Chinook.
Ideal for 16 AA? Maybe Airborne can ask his brother who is/was 7 RHA.

I sometimes wonder if there’s a special course at staff college for Army officers to learn how to hide a cut in a re-organisation…!
I’m hoping that the lessons of Ukraine force a rethink on the reductions in the artillery branch, but I’m not hugely optimisitc frankly.
I’d be interested to know how the Hanwa K9 compares price-wise with the Archer and Ceasar- the Korean manufacture may well make it the cheaper option. That said, maintenance is still going ot be higher on a tracked chassis, so for my money would still go for wheels. Do the Koreans do one?
For me, if we really think we’ll need to get full tube artillery to forward deployed airbourne forces still, I’d be tempted to cut towed 105s completely and look into self propelled options that will fit in an A400 and sling under a Chinook. But I do wonder if that’s really a thing anymore, given that everyone and their dog has drones. Even with SP options, you’re going to have to be shooting and scooting constantly, and even 105s have a fairly big footprint.
To me, if you’re going forward, then 120 mm mortars and something like GL Brimstone make more sense- backed up by divisional long range fires from GMLRS and 120 mm tubes. It seems too much of a risk to me to have big(ish) tube arty in the thick of it with the paras and marines. But I’m a civvy, so could be mis-reading the lessons of Ukraine completely…

Morning Joe.
No idea re wheeled Korean.
When FCF was announced there was talk of new fires for them, including 29 RA but no announcement do far.
I did see a Twitter slide that was quickly deleted ( maybe shown when it should not have been? ) outlining some of the things they were thinking of. Drones, precision missiles, rockets, and so on.

Actually buying the stuff is another matter entirely!

I’m a civvy too as you know, and leave military realities to the experts!

Glad to know us lot on here aren’t the only ones with wish lists then- if the army are at it too!
I guess we can just sit back and hope for some good procurement news…

Been seeing quite a lot of rocket/missile systems on quite small vehicles of late, so a small footprint and agile mobility if a small load out, but then you have one or two more in support carrying spare missiles (sure I saw a Humvee set up in Ukraine of this nature). Now most of these are anti aircraft or drone units true, but what potential options and logic are there to adapt specialist vehicles, be it the lighter SuperCat vehicles or US equivalents like JLTVs to be employed as towed 105mm replacements, or is that impractical. Obviously we have had the recent 6×6 Supercat/Brimstone mashup for Ukraine which looks very useful but is this the lower limit size wise I wonder.

I am definitely against cuts, but on the flipside it’s worth seeing the affect that 12 HIMARS have had on the Ukraine conflict; the precision of GMLRS dos seem to make up for some quantity. And if the switch has been 105s to HIMARS? That’s actually a significant increase in capabilty for a change!

What the hell, DM. You do love your acronyms, don’t you? Haha. There’s more in that para than in an episode of ‘Line of Duty’. I don’t know more than half of them! 🙁 And some don’t appear lookable upable.Just sayin’…

😆 all are lookable upable, otherwise I’d not be talking of them here.

Acronyms are everywhere in MoD and I use them too as it saves much typing.

Which are you not up to speed with?

LMBCT Light Mechanized Brigade Combat Team, Future Soldiers new look 7 brigade, the desert rats.

RHA Royal Horse Artillery.

DRSBCT Deep Recc Strike Bde Combat Team, a renamed 1 Artillery Bde, which is an administrative formation. MoD say it’s also a merger with 1 Armoured Infantry Bde but that’s cobblers and spin as much of that bdes units are either not in the DRSBCT or their kits getting chopped.

But MoD like to make it look better…

RLC Royal Logistics Corps.

LBCT Light Bde Combat Team.

CS CSS Combat Support and Combat Service Support, the all important enablers that gel with the teeth arms to allow a bde to fight, that is the RA, RS, RE, RLC, RAMC, REME, RMP. You don’t need those translated too do you?!😉😆

BTW I like my enablers…they’re constantly ignored for the sexy stuff.

Many thanks for the translations, Daniele. My trouble is, I’m rubbish at memory-retention of such things. I don’t even know the basic formations of the British Army, nor even the key senior officer ranks, despite growing up with efforts at education from my dad (who was in REME and then an inspector at IFVME).

I think I need to write down a list of all your offerings and keep them by my side. Yes, I’ll do that. You are right about my knowing the more common established ones; it’s the more recent ones reflecting changes in doctrine / policy which I stumble over.

He might have known Ian M and Graham, two of our regular posters here who were also REME.

That’s a nice idea, but I think there’ll be a generation gap here. My dad’s long dead: he served in Cyprus, Alexandria and Palestine (later to become hotspots all!) after WWII.

Ah, I’m sorry to hear that Shelley. As for the acronyms, just ask and happy to help. 👌

My memory has always been bad, I remember going through repetitive routines prior to exams knowing even then 48hours would likely be the maximum stickability for many. Those with good memories just don’t understand this problem and it’s not a visible disability. Now in my 60s it’s far worse and yes it does get frustrating when esp as a non military bod a lot of these acronyms are used though I understand why they are. There was one on here used by someone on here which I spent best part of 30 minutes trying to look up and failing as such things as Australian sewage systems and US educational institutions for infectious diseases seemed unlikely explanations. Unless you live with them they are difficult to remember indeed it’s why institutions so often go to great lengths (and often streaky reasoning) to create memorable words or letter combinations out of the individual letters as it’s easier to remember for less experienced or engaged minds.

If you ever need to know something, details, ORBATS, ongoing or previous plans/changes or general chit chat Daniele is the site ninja on up to date military knowledge! I’m ex mil and would love to use Daniele as my encyclopaedia as his knowledge far outstrips mine and most others 😂👍!

DM for Minister of Defence!

👍🇬🇧👍

Oh yes, Airborne. I’ve been plugging into DM’s compendious knowledge of military matters for some years now.Respect!

I don’t know how he does it; that must be a heck of a lot of reading.

PS. I just had to look up ORBATS! So now I know. Thanks.

This version of the Mi09 is now based on the Bradley chassis so is basically a different vehicle from the A6.
It is supposedly built with an upgrade path for the extended range canon which will swap put the 52 cal for a 58 cal and push the range out to previously impossible levels, especially with smart munitions.
Other than the name 109 , those versions jave been upgraded so often it’s hard to compare models amongst users.
Unfortunately AS-90 was starved of upgrade cash, it was due to get a longer barrell over a decade ago.

Cheers David. Starved for cash. That’s a new one isn’t it!😟

The ex British M109’s were sold to Austria, who upgraded them, and they recently sold them on to Latvia.
QED: there was nothing wrong with them.

Yes I did have to smile at the thought.

Yes the Poles don’t want Poland to end up looking like Ukraine should the Russians invade. They’re looking to stop them at or close to the border and defeat them in battle.

As for your shopping list, the Sea Ceptors should be fitted when the T45’s are in for the power upgrade. But we can’t have them all in at the same time, as the carriers would be stuck in port until completed.

Type 26 was never planned for 26 hulls. It’s was planned a like for like replacement for the 13 T23’s. Only 8 of the T23’s are sub-hunters so it made sense to get T31s for the GP role where the expensive acoustic measures of the T26 aren’t required.
That Australian and Canada have bought the design is to build themselves is not going to reduce hull cost. It may reduce costs in common equipment fitted aboard them all, but that’s not going to be a huge saving.

You’re assuming Australia is going to buy British, no guarantee. More likely they’ll want to build a supplied British or American design themselves – but with the reactor supplied complete by U.K. or USA. As for your build rate, it’s not possible and capacity would take years to expand. Before the SSNR, the Astute class needs to finish being built, and then the Dreadnoughts.

Use the T31 as standard design going forward for GP frigates, autonomous mine-hunter motherships, etc, etc. Have continuous frigate production line launching 1 per year, and selling as used after 20 years service.

All frigates and destroyers with anti-ship and Mk41 VLS.

The biggest reveal from the Ukraine war is the rate of consumption of munitions during wartime. I suspect the U.K. needs to order far more of all complex munitions to ensure a large wartime stock, and ensure we have multiple operational domestic sources of shells, bombs and bullets.

The increase in army won’t happen, you’d have to double pay to increase to those numbers. The reason why the army was cut was that they couldn’t get recruits to fill the existing posts. That was before the post-pandemic recruitment shortage.

Truss is economically illiterate, her promises are purely to get votes, not because she believes in them. The MoD will get more money from 2.5% in an economy run by Sunak than from 3% of Truss’ smaller economy.

We live in a aspirational capitalist economy, nothing wrong with being rich.

Nothing wrong with being rich so long as It isn’t at the expense of most people in the country getting poorer. Everyone needs to get wealthier together. If it isn’t like that you get the us and then situation which just breeds hatred and jealously.

If you don’t have people who are wealthier then there’s no motivation for people to work hard and get on in life. What you get is everyone reduced to the same level, which results in uncompetitiveness, stagnation, and poverty (cf Eastern Bloc, ‘45 to ‘91).

Jealousy and hatred is a personal choice based on character, just because someone is poor doesn’t makes them envious and jealous. Plenty of poor people without those vices, and plenty with money who do have them.

That’s a rather Black and White take there is far more grey between those extremes both of which will only lead to eventual societal collapse.

Geez and how well that aged by comparison to the above.

How would this be funded? Raise taxes? Borrow or cut expenditure elsewhere?

Geez that didn’t age well.

Zero Chinooks aboard CSG.

I’d had thought geography pretty important if you’re in the army…

Presumably he thought they could pitch tents on the flight deck to house the refugees and then order take-aways from to be flown in from the nearest McDonalds…

This is what makes me angry. The French have sold lots of Cesars. What are they doing right?

Watching the Cesars on Forces TV this morning, I was impressed with the simplicity and speed of the French system. 60 seconds to fire from pulling up, 5 rounds fired in 80 seconds, then back moving within 60 seconds, all before their rounds have hit the target.

Belgium is buying nine Ceasr platforms, heavily armoured for less per unit than the US is paying for its units. The Ceasars they are buying include everything to get them into the field, quite a bargain.

“5 round in 80 seconds”?!?!

The AS99 can do 3 in 10 seconds, and 6 in 60 seconds.

Any replacement for AS90 needs as good or better rate of fire, and should require smaller crew than Caesar.

Not sure what your point is. We bought 179 AS90s to replace very old M109s and that was a good decision. We should have upgraded AS90 some years later and there was a programme, but it got stopped, that was the problem.

Steve, you are quite right, add to that they don’t have anywhere near the heavy life capacity the US has. Plus, they have seen how deadly land-based antiship missiles are. The Taiwanese most likely have those units in very well concealed positions looking over the Formosa Straight.

You can’t use commercial vessels for a beach landing against a well defended country, it would be a turkey shoot. You need to get huge amount of hardware across first so you can secure a port. The Falklands was different as Argentine pulled it’s navy, most of its heavy gear and it’s airforce prior to the task force arriving and was therefore also operating at range.

After the initial foothold is secured then the commercial stuff will come into play, but getting and securing that foothold would be extremely hard

You would be talking Normandy level of ships.

But you can use roll-on/ roll-off vessels once you’ve secured ports with your advance forces.
The U.K. has the Point Class for this very purpose, sea-lift into ports.

You can, but they will be attacking a country that will have plenty of advance warnings and there are only so many ports to defend. It would be very hard to secure and hold one without a land bridge.

But they will have air superiority, a huge numerical advantage, and the traditional laisser faire attitude that communist regimes have towards casualties. You can be sure they’ll pound Taiwan for weeks before they launch an assault to take a port.

Air supremacy will be hard to maintain though, as Taiwan has had decades to prepare it’s air defense and it would be a gamble by China as to whether the US would get involved. Should the early bombardments hit any of the US bases in the country the US probably wouldnt have a choice as public opinion wouldnt accept US forces being killed.

If the US gets involved then the air supremacy will be heavily weakened, as the US could deploy a few carrier strike forces there in not too long a period. Providing both jets and missile defenses from the escorts.

There aren’t any US bases in Taiwan.
At most there’s 40 marines attached to the American Institute that acts as an unofficial embassy. The bases they had were all shut in the 70’s.

China’s naval expansion programme, especially with regards to carriers, submarines, and anti-ship ballistic missiles are all focussed at neutralising the threat from America’s carriers.

I stand corrected. I read there are around 2k troops in the country according to the dod, so I assumed they would be in a base, guess they are using local ones.

I guess a handful of US casualties is not going to trigger a war, would need to be a much bigger number, several hundred.

And they’d probably be withdrawn as preparations for invasion became obvious – as happened with USA and U.K. troops prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yes the USA has lost troops in numerous incidents over the decades and not gone to war over them. The days of the War of Jenkins’ Ear are over.

Yeah that is my assumption also, the last thing the US wants is a war with China, it just can’t win. Even if it wins militarily, it’s game over for them economically.

The world would so what they did with ukraine, help but from distance

With the interconnectedness of economies globally these days, a war between any 2 G7 states could cause a global economic meltdown – between the largest even more so. Throw in the impact of climate change and it would make the depression of the 1930’s look like a minor blip.

Depresssion comes no where near the losses caused by ww1 or ww2, but yeah another world war just doesn’t make sense in 2022, no country would come out of it better off.

The big unknown is how much China is embedded into western polictics.

We know Boris slipped his minders to spend time with a KGB spy during the NATO meeting on the response to the poisoning on UK soil, as confirmed by Boris himself (based on his responses to the committee he should be investigated for treason but won’t be), this was also confirmed by the fbi. We know that trump was deeply in russian influence. No doubt more will come out from across Europe. I suspect Putin thought his money and influence had brought off the west and that they would turn a blind eye to the Ukraine invasion, clearly it didn’t play out like that.

We have no idea on regards to China but we do know economically they have control through huge holdings on US debt, US/UK key companies etc etc, they may consider they have a better hand and for sure tiawan without western support is stuffed in the medium term in any war.

Spycraft and corruption are by and far more powerful than any weapon or miltary.

Oh that is hilarious!!! I really haven’t read anything so funny all week.

So here the facts:
• Boris did not ‘slip his minders’
• Boris bumped into the former KGB spy at a party
• Plenty of former KSB/ FSB have worked for us, hence the ‘former’ bit.
• Boris is the western leader Putin hates most. Boris started supplying weapons to Ukraine before any other nation and British contributions to Ukraine’s war effort is second only the USAs. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard to suggest he’s under Russian influence, the facts of the last 5 months prove that.
• Trump was not under Russian influence other than a degrees of gratitude for helping him with the election. Except Putin wasn’t helping him, he was stopping Hilary Clinton who he loathes from her time as Obama’s Secretary of State. Putin would have helped anyone to beat her.
• What we do know is the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party on people within the Labour Party. The huge amounts of money funnelled to Barry Gardiner is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Yes Chinese companies have infiltrated the West, exploiting the West’s greed to use their cheap labour. They also hold blocks of western debt, though actually the developing world is more exposed debt-wise to China.
• However China has huge debts too. It’s rapid growth has resulted in huge amounts of loans being taken out to fuel even further growth. The Chinese property market, banking sector, and various domestic industrial sectors are huge bubbles just waiting to collapse the Chinese economy. That’s why such huge efforts were made to save Evergrande.

Someone hasn’t read the written statement that he made or listened to the interview he did and just reading the daily telegraph.

Someone is as accurate at predicting my reading habits as he is about foreign interference in British politics. In other words, completely and utterly, and ridiculously wrong.

ps: primary news source, BBC

pps: try viewing the world impartiality instead of through your twisted political bias and you might actually learn something.

Plus any invasion would need months of build up from China which would be easily spotted, as happened with Russia. In that time I’m guessing huge amounts of anti air and anti ship equipment would be donated /brought by Taiwan, as we have seen with Russia, just this time around the west and Asia would be quicker as they have learnt their lessons

So a couple of months of rushing air-defences in to counter a Chinese build-up of land attack missiles it’s been building at pace for years…

The difference between Russia and China is that Putin only got the Ukraine invasion into his head during the pandemic lockdown. His military were in no shape with regard to equipment, training, tactics, or organisation to fulfil his plans…
China has been planning and provisioning for the invasion of Taiwan for decades already.

I could counter that with Russia has been planning for invading/defending Europe since ww2 and had a land bridge allowing ease of movement. All of Russia’s miltiary was geared for a war just like ukraine, but they botched it.

Russia stopped planning to invade Europe after the USSR disintegrated. It scrapped most of its new weapons programmes, scrapped or let rust ships, submarines, etc. it’s obviously not be maintaining the stocks of Soviet equipment it inherited from the way vehicle tyres failed during the advance into Ukraine. Russia’s military has mainly been focussed on putting down separatist forces, such as Chechens.
Putin had talked big about new weapons since he took over but… how many squadrons of stealth aircraft do they have? How many regiments of Amata tanks do they have? How many destroyers or larger have they built since the USSRs collapse?
Pretty much everything they’re using in Ukraine is vintage Soviet.

Where have the likes gone?

👏👏🙂

For some strange reason in the US it’s the hard right that’s pro-Russia.

Actually it’s the hard-right and hard-left that support Putin, and it’s not just in America but the U.K. too. It’s quite surreal watching these two extreme wings of politics often supporting the same things.
While both have a tendency to authoritarianism – and Putin is a classic dictator – it’s more the case that they will support anyone and anything that’s against western liberal democracy. Their support is driven by hatred of the west as it currently is.

They’re not just simpletons but pitifully clingy to their lost dream… pretty pathetic really 🤷🏻‍♂️

Is he based near Milton Keynes? 😄

Bravo. I’ve often mentioned the positions I read about regards “Young Labour” and, strangely, nobody on the Labour leaning side wants to dispute it!

I guess they loathe the Tories so much their own self loathing lunatics can be ignored. But worrying if that lot are the up and coming “Young Labour” Some of the positions of the LP membership are not much kop either. Anti NATO, Anti AUKUS, and so on.

Agreed, not so much young and stupid but just young and cluelessly stupid! Many will mature out of their unrealistic view of the world and the west, a few will not. Just a bunch of sad no marks who seem to have a rose tinted view of the old USSR! Typical intolerance from a group of leftist Nazis who don’t like free speech and the ability of people to challenge their sad views!

What’s a 5th type columnists? Not heard that term before.
Young labour I need to look up that. I take it they take normal labour to the left by about 3 miles.
I’m Scottish so Tory is a bad word 😂😂. I’m a floater, offer me something nice and I’m yours.

I looked up what a fifth columnist is.
A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation.

We have plenty of them in the UK it seems.

You must be very young if you had not heard the term fifth columnist!

I will always be young so long as the person I’m being compared to is older.
I’d heard of ww2 stuff like lord hawhaw ( hope that’s the right name) doing fake news etc.
Until Ukraine I’d never noticed people going so hard against the general direction of thought.
I mean I do remember people saying Afghan is a mess, the British are struggling in south Iraq due to numbers etc, Iraq war is illegal, but there was normally a little bit of truth in the report somewhere and the reporting was never like what I’ve seen recently.
Maybe it’s with the instant access to internet now, where before if someone talked nonsense not many would listen.

Not just in war. Pretty much the entire anti-vaxx/ plandemic/ 5G death masts conspiracy nutter brigade are supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.