UK continues collaboration with Germany on new artillery

Morning. Oh mate, I don’t know, I know zilch about capabilities vs differing platforms.
It, to me, looks top heavy and wrong. I’d prefer a more traditional looking tracked SPG.
Who knows, wheeled and firing on the move to avoid CB fire would be a game changer.
I’d like some honesty for once in procurement on what the military want, not politicians
.

Cheers mate do have same opinion some how it does look some what rushed 🍺

I’d be happy with that solution. 1 RHA and 19 support the 2 ABCTs, so I’d have them with the new system and 4RA with Archer as it’s with 7 Bde, 1 UK Div.

That would be sensible and balanced one boxer solution RCH 155 regiment per Armoured brigade…and archers for 1st division.

Interesting, so the UK may get another 50? complete boxer vehicles on top of the 600 already on order.

😁👍

🤔🤞

All M107 and M110 had a Bedford allocated in the British army

Still do, just a Man SV, in the BHQ for the BQMS AFAIK.

Understood. Sometimes one gets the elevator (lift), other times the shaft. 🥴

Sometimes our politicians meddle too much in procurement.😁

I’m afraid I’m not that convinced

Me neither mate, my maths is naff 😀

Currently Graham As90 is going out of service next March so the only 155 the British army will have is 14 second hand archers so unless someone in authority puts a stop on and retains a regiment worth plus training fleet of As90 we shall be up the proverbial without a paddle . We actually are finding it difficult already to get parts

Yes, of course David. Senior moment on my part to overlook that.
It is unbelievable. A significant army such as ours with just 14 x 155 artillery guns. 3 Div will not be able to deploy. We will be the laughing stock of NATO.

The timeline for this goes all the way back to around 2007 2008 time frame.
6 Regs of AS90, down to 5 as 19 Mech Bde went to 19 Light.
2010, 7 Armd Bde and 4 Mech Bde reformed as infantry Bdes, so down to 3 AS90 Regs.
Then the cuts as part of Strike, with 26RA converting to MLRS as part of that ridiculous musical chairs fiasco when MKRS went from regimental to batteries in other regiments then back to a regiment, but neatly removing another regs worth of AS90 in the process!
Now we give the reminder to UKR.
I knew RSA/14RA had 6 and 6 in Estonia, but didn’t know how many others remained.
Meanwhile, it’s the usual jam tomorrow and high tech glitter from CGS. At least Healey hasn’t spun anything on it yet!

It’s a laughable fiasco totally

Thanks mate. The musical chairs thing is not, as we know, restricted to the artillery.
It is hard to keep track on the number of AS-90 gifted to Ukraine. I have seen figures of 32 (20 runners and 12 wrecks) + a further 10 and also of 60. If we really come down to zero AS-90s and 14 Archers, before RCH-155 kicks in then we really won’t be ready for that war that is 3 years away!

A new CGS doing a speech to RUSI needed to say something positive, upbeat and even a bit impressive – but without speculating about increases in manpower or platform count this side of SDR. I don’t believe he can double or triple army lethality in the time stated without massive increase in defence spend – ie much more than going up to 2.5%

Healey is keeping his powder dry – wise man! Maybe he should just concentrate on improving recruiting, retention, and accomodation, for now!!

Apparently, MoD/British Army hierarchy is emphasizing expeditionary mobility, virtually to the exclusion of every other consideration. Not certain, but isn’t this concept somewhat reminiscent of the WWII BEF? The Wehrmacht’s blitzkrieg through the Low Countries and the Ardennes rather disproved the hypothesis.

Uncertain of the validity of this comparison, certainly willing to consider alternative perspectives.

The British Army has largely always been expeditionary, although the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) perhaps strangely was considered to be a home posting. Domestic operations have been few and far between, the most well known being Op Banner in Northern Ireland – and other domestic deployments have been small scale and low key such as support to Other Government Departments.

But it is the mobility point that you mention. We invented the tank and depoyed it in 1916 on expeditionary operations with the BEF in WWI – and again deployed warfighting forces including heavy equipment with the BEF in WWII.
3(UK) Div is a formation to be deployed on expeditionary operations and it includes heavy armour.
We have always had heavy, medium and light forces – and all have been deployed on various expeditionary operations.

Medium and light forces are deployable to meet a greater range of overeas scenarios against a greater variety of protagonists, than heavy forces. So could be seen as ‘more useful’.

There is a tendency to buy fewer tracked platforms than we had previously (only 148 tanks) or abandon tracked platforms in favour of wheeled (Warrior giving way to Boxer; AS-90 giving way to Archer and Boxer RCH-155). This is more politically driven than some product of a rethink of army doctrine.

Certainly it is easier (and cheaper) to deploy wheeled vehicles overseas (and then support them from an engineering and a logistic perspective) than tracked vehicles. They are also cheaper to buy in the first place. Politicians and bean-counters like that.

But sometimes only heavy tracked vehicles will do on the job on an expeditionary operation, which is why we have 3 Div.

Thanks for the tutorial, it was beneficial. 👍 The point I attempted, but failed, to make w/ my previous post is that w/ only 14 Archers and (eventually) 148 CR-3 available, the British Army should be very judicious re its selection of foes, over the near-term. 😉

Thanks. These figures are totally tragic, when you consider we had 179 AS-90s (and of course other artillery assets) and also placed orders for 386 CR2s in the post-Cold War era.

Of course it is not the British Army that ever selects its foes – it is our ruling politicians who will be required to deploy forces on NATO ‘call-outs’ and will also be minded to deploy forces in ‘Coalitions of the Willing’ as led by the USA.

🤔😳😱☹️ Shouldn’t someone be writing open letter editorials in influential newspapers? Contacting local PMs?

I’m sure someone in authority probably is fully aware of the situation there’s people higher up the food chain than I at the school of artillery that know the score

…MPs? 🙄

MPs, you probably mean – we only have one PM – Mr Starmer.

Sadly no-one is very interested in our lack of artillery. Not Joe Public, not the Tories, not British Industry.

Don’t forget CGS words, twice as lethal by 2027! With half the firepower, or less, re 155mm.

The only thing that is lethal is ‘enemy forces’ – ie a beancounter with the ear of the PM and a sharpened pencil, ready to cut once more.

That’s interesting.

There’s no plans as far as I know to alter the infrastructure at the school of artillery to accommodate archer and regarding mlrs we don’t have enough for two regiments the mod has procured some from norway and even the mlrs gate guard at Rsa has been bought back into service

I had not expected that comment! Looks like the ILS process went askew!
The newer Rheinmetall version is only 43 feet!

I know mate, I said 1 RHA, the AS90 outfit.
3 RHA I understand has 2 fire batteries, like 26. I was expecting a 3rd fire battery for each, but if they’re not taken out of suspended animation and reformed where else do the additional MLRS go.
Which is why 1 RHA has been suggested as they’ll soon no longer have any guns.

Fair enough but there still isn’t enough mlrs the Norwegian ones are being stripped of norwegian stuff before shipping for conversion to gmlrs the only guns 1st have now are the six in Estonia.

i think they have been fitted to a wide range of vehicles. pretty sure even the lorries have then fitted now. i will try to ask some one who worked for me as he was a vehicle electrician in REME

I’d be interested. Your mate was a REME VE? He must be an ‘old sweat’ – we phased the trade out some 20-30 years ago. Since then VMs do a VE module in Basic Class 3 trade training (ie Phase 2 trg) and more later.
Not a good idea to have phased out VEs as vehicle electrics and electronics have grown in complexity etc massively over the years.

I had a chat with him. he has been out for 30 years + so it was all very out of date. However he said the BV was a life saver and on exercise you learnt pretty fast that it was a good way to keep in everybody good book if any faults with them were fixed them ASAP. He could only remember them being on AFV vs Land Rovers as the current draw was a lot and required good battery’s. Also said he could remember the yanks have portable Coke Cola machines on exercise in Germany !!

Thanks Simon. The current drawn by BVs is colossal. My LR could power one as it was a 24V FFR vehicle, but of course it was not a standard fitment on a LR. Never heard about the Yanks’ Coca Cola machine – mind you – we did not exercise with them in Germany as they were CENTAG and further south than us in NORTHAG.