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C3 Howitzer Replacement

105mm means 11-17km range depending on gun and ammo

155 means 39-70+km range depending on gun and ammo, and a much more impressive boom when it lands ;).

I’m of the opinion 105mm is best to be divested at this point in time, and I’m not alone.
 
105mm means 11-17km range depending on gun and ammo

155 means 39-70+km range depending on gun and ammo, and a much more impressive boom when it lands ;).

I’m of the opinion 105mm is best to be divested at this point in time, and I’m not alone.
So IF the light fighters are in mountainous territory would a light mobile gun be better? I do know that artillery in WW2 had small guns for mountain troops - what country I cannot remember.
 
So IF the light fighters are in mountainous territory would a light mobile gun be better? I do know that artillery in WW2 had small guns for mountain troops - what country I cannot remember.
Basically all of them. They had mountain guns which are essentially small pack howitzers that could be taken down carried by the the men and some mules.
 
So IF the light fighters are in mountainous territory would a light mobile gun be better? I do know that artillery in WW2 had small guns for mountain troops - what country I cannot remember.
I was with the Italian 1st Mountain Artillery Regiment back in the 1970s when they were equipped with 9 x 4-gun L-5 105 mm pack howitzer batteries - 36 guns in total. The Italians still maintain a small L-5 fleet (There are only 18 L5s left in the Italian inventory spread between two mountain and one para arty regiment) so 1 battery apiece.

1st Mountain Artillery, which now has four gun batteries, has been mostly upgunned to towed FH-70 155mm howitzers of which the army has 70. The Italians also have 64 x PzH2000 for their mechanized forces.

Range is a big factor. The FH70 has a range of up to 31 kms. The L5 around 10,000. That provides a massively larger area it can cover especially in mountains where terrain is very channeled and movements limited and slow. One big thing about mountains. Crest clearances, both at the gun position and the target area runs roughshod on range as often high-angle, plunging fire is a necessity. That frequently reduces practical range.

🍻
 
105mm means 11-17km range depending on gun and ammo

155 means 39-70+km range depending on gun and ammo, and a much more impressive boom when it lands ;).

I’m of the opinion 105mm is best to be divested at this point in time, and I’m not alone.

If, as noted in a couple of articles I posted about the US 25th Inf Div yesterday, the area of interest of the bog standard 9-man rifle squad equipped with a suas is 3 to 5 km

Then, the 11 to 17 km 105mm is a Platoon weapon.

1x 105mm will cover the area held under observation by 3x suas.
 
The issue isn't so much as to whether I can train a troop on one gun and convert it to another. Yes I can. The issues are more subtle having to do with sustainment of the systems. The big question for me is: can I take the system to war? If the answer is no, it's just an initial training system, then I say: why bother? If the war gun costs 3 x what the non war training gun costs then I'll take the 1/3 war guns every time. I'll compromise on how many I have for training as 1) I can avoid conversion and compensate for the lower number through good organization and shift wotk if necessary, but 2) I'll end up with more guns that I can take to war or replace casualties with.
Where does that math go if the question shifts from "war gun vs training gun" to "preferred war gun vs acceptable war gun"?

Hypothetical RCA shift
CMBG (x3) = 1x 8 gun SP battery, 1x 8 gun 777 battery, Plus 6 of each for schools etc. Plus 8 gun SP battery for Latvia

To accomplish this we'd need 24+6+8 = 38 new SP guns. Dollars being equal, do you take the 38 K9's/ Archers and just look after the Regs, or the 76 (being conservative) Atmos 2000/ Caesar that equips the regs PLUS 6x 6 gun Pres Batteries enabling each CMBG to field a 30/70 SP Bn?
 
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Where does that math go if the question shifts from "war gun vs training gun" to "preferred war gun vs acceptable war gun"?

Hypothetical RCA shift
CMBG (x3) = 1x 8 gun SP battery, 1x 8 gun 777 battery, Plus 6 of each for schools etc. Plus gun SP battery for Latvia

To accomplish this we'd need 24+6+8 = 38 new SP guns. Dollars being equal, do you take the 38 K9's/ Archers and just look after the Regs, or the 76 (being conservative) Atmos 2000/ Caesar that equips 6x 6 gun Pres Batteries enabling each CMBG to field a 30/70 SP Bn?

The question is what’s the point of the acceptable war gun if we’re buying such small quantities to begin with? Given the numbers we in the CAF deal with, multiple fleets of similar systems are foolish.
 
The question is what’s the point of the acceptable war gun if we’re buying such small quantities to begin with? Given the numbers we in the CAF deal with, multiple fleets of similar systems are foolish.
The comparison/decision was between one fleet of 38 Armoured SP's vs one fleet of 76 (or more) Truck based SP's, edited the original for clarity
 
The comparison/decision was between one fleet of 38 Armoured SP's vs one fleet of 76 (or more) Truck based SP's, edited the original for clarity
But that’s not really a debate we’re having. I also don’t think mixed regiments of M777s and SPH makes any sense, nor does maintaining 2 gun batteries.

Your second solution is a better option, with the 3rd gun batteries being reservists - where that makes sense. More guns, of a single type.
 
But that’s not really a debate we’re having.
I responded directly to a post discussing trade off ratios, in a thread about replacement guns for the reserves- whether or not a given purchase affords the ability to equip the reserves with guns seems germane, no?
I also don’t think mixed regiments of M777s and SPH makes any sense, nor does maintaining 2 gun batteries.
Neither does having mixed Mech/Light Bde's, but that's the way the Army is set up for force generation and managed readiness. One M777 bty per LIB, at the same readiness of a given LIB. Of course, it would more "sense" if the LIB's were grouped into a Bde, and the M777's into a single 70/30 regiment as part of that bde- but that's not the army Canada has, nor the one it will be introducing the C3 replacement to.

In any case- despite the miscommunication you agree with the premise- more guns of the same time, to both RegF and Reserves. To me that means going with more of the "good enough" war gun.
 
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If, as noted in a couple of articles I posted about the US 25th Inf Div yesterday, the area of interest of the bog standard 9-man rifle squad equipped with a suas is 3 to 5 km

Then, the 11 to 17 km 105mm is a Platoon weapon.

1x 105mm will cover the area held under observation by 3x suas.
I don't even know where to start here, as honestly it appears to me you are lost but making good time.

Bear with me while I am trying to break this down:
The Squad's UAS can observe a 3-5km zone.
But the Squad isn't in isolation - it is part of a Platoon, that is part of a Company, that is part of a Battalion, that is part of a Brigade that is...

The Squad has a Javelin that is the furthest reaching Squad weapon at IVO of 6km
But the Squad has a doctrinal requirement to be able to ID targets out to 1800m, and engage out to 800m with direct fire.
Realistically the Squads UAS is going to be observing a 2-3km frontal arc - with Platoon and higher ISR systems going deeper.

The 105mm gun you mention - and where you totally lost me - is one tube it cannot cover multiple entities that have different targets.
It also isn't going to be situated within the BN footprint - but if you allocate 1 tube for each platoon, you end up needing at least 9 guns per Battalion for CS, which is a 50% increase in BTY size and tube requirements for the Artillery
You are also ignoring the Bn Mortar Platoon which is the integral fire support of the BN as one can never rely upon the guns not having higher priority items.

In short I can't make heads or tails of what you where trying to say in the above quote.
 
If, as noted in a couple of articles I posted about the US 25th Inf Div yesterday, the area of interest of the bog standard 9-man rifle squad equipped with a suas is 3 to 5 km

Then, the 11 to 17 km 105mm is a Platoon weapon.

1x 105mm will cover the area held under observation by 3x suas.
Think that one through again. Add to your thought process the number of people required, the lack of ability to mass fires over a large front and the terminal effects of the weapons coming in.

Where does that math go if the question shifts from "war gun vs training gun" to "preferred war gun vs acceptable war gun"?

Hypothetical RCA shift
CMBG (x3) = 1x 8 gun SP battery, 1x 8 gun 777 battery, Plus 6 of each for schools etc. Plus 8 gun SP battery for Latvia

To accomplish this we'd need 24+6+8 = 38 new SP guns. Dollars being equal, do you take the 38 K9's/ Archers and just look after the Regs, or the 76 (being conservative) Atmos 2000/ Caesar that equips the regs PLUS 6x 6 gun Pres Batteries enabling each CMBG to field a 30/70 SP Bn?
But that’s not really a debate we’re having. I also don’t think mixed regiments of M777s and SPH makes any sense, nor does maintaining 2 gun batteries.

Your second solution is a better option, with the 3rd gun batteries being reservists - where that makes sense. More guns, of a single type.
The situation of a mixed regiment is not unusual and happens when you have a unit supporting an organization of mixed requirements. Back in the 90s Canadian RegF artillery regiments consisted of two M109 batteries and one LG1 battery to support a brigade of 2 mech bns and 1 light bn. It's generally not a preferred solution for the brigade as a whole in combat, but it does make sense when all you are generating is a battalion for Bosnia while retaining a stronger capability in your hip pocket.

Our operational focus for the last twenty years, at least, has concerned itself with force generating battle groups rather than brigades or divisions, and in that scenario you can get away with a lot of deviations from doctrine and go with ad hocery.

The issue should always be: what is the largest organization that your country anticipates it may need to deploy in a worst case situation and then build your doctrine and an appropriate force structure to meet that. You can always go with less in a less serious situation. If you underbuild the force structure in the first place then you risk disaster.

I think that with the Latvia mission, being for a brigade, dictates that our doctrine and structure should be, at a minimum, to build operational brigades that can operate in a division in a high intensity conflict. Canadian artillery doctrine generally contemplates a brigade with four manoeuvre units, 1 armoured, 3 infantry that generally form three combined arms battle groups. That means a 3 battery CS regiment with additional GS resources coming from a division. Notwithstanding our actual brigade structure (which has more to do with generating battle groups rather than fighting as a brigade, and which only has two LAV bns it is capable of equipping) in our doctrine we anticipate fighting at the brigade level with a unitary brigade, generally a mech one. We haven't given much thought in the past thirty years or so fighting a light brigade like we did in the 1970s. Accordingly the regiment should have the same type of guns across its three CS batteries albeit if a GS firing unit is added to it, it could be a different system to meet that requirement.

So to answer your question, IMHO the question is never what do you give the RegF and what do you give to the ResF, but what weapons systems and establishments do you need to arm your worst case deployable doctrinal establishment and then supply it with the weapon systems needed to arm it and to sustain that force through training and casualty replacement. Within that overall requirement you decide how many RegF and ResF you need to deploy it in the most likely scenarios and then assign and train those forces appropriately.

My own analysis of what Canada needs, and can provide out of its current manpower levels, is set out in the diagram I posted above. Effectively it calls for three SP regiments to support the mechanized brigades of 1 Div and three towed regiments to support the lighter force that makes up 2 Div (albeit I would also consider, maybe even prefer, having the 2 Div arty bde with two M777 regiments and one SP regiment))

@markppcli has it right. The only place that he and I diverge is that he prefers a three battery regiment where two of the batteries are RegF (which equates to a higher level of readiness) and I'm prepared to go with a three battery regiment of which only one is RegF. IMHO that's enough to sustain the force during peacetime - when the need for deployed gunners is low - but still generate a full regiment during war time. Regardless of that difference, the unit must be provided with the same weapon system for both RegF and ResF elements. I'm accepting more risk in order to build a larger artillery organization out of current RegF arty PYs.

One last comment about Canada's ad hoc arty structures. If you look at an American arty bn all that you will see is a HQ battery and three gun batteries while Canada has a HQ battery, two gun batteries, an OP battery and an STA battery. The limited numbers of gun batteries is purely an available PY issue resulting from giving up a gun battery to create the STA battery and more heavily manned FSCCs and FOO detachments. It has nothing to do with doctrine. Similarly, the Canadian four gun battery is entirely due to the fact that M777s have ten man detachments v the seven man ones for the previous systems. It's not a doctrine thing. I think we have too many batteries and need to reorganize.

When the artillery reorganized subsequent to 2005 it had to do so without any additional RegF positions being allocated. Canada has been thinking at the battery level for several decades now. That's because in 2005 the army declared that artillery regiments were merely force generators of composite batteries put together in building block fashion from several diverse troops. Regiments are no longer "force employers". When you think primarily at the battery level weird things happen at the regimental one. Doctrine still exists (albeit it should change with what we're learning in Ukraine) however the funding, personnel and equipment needed at the regimental level to fully organize and train as per doctrine, simply isn't there.

Ukraine has pulled us out of that thought process and folks are working hard to get back on track while looking at the future. It's anyone's guess as to how many resources will be made available to do that.

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I responded directly to a post discussing trade off ratios, in a thread about replacement guns for the reserves- whether or not a given purchase affords the ability to equip the reserves with guns seems germane, no?

Neither does having mixed Mech/Light Bde's, but that's the way the Army is set up for force generation and managed readiness. One M777 bty per LIB, at the same readiness of a given LIB. Of course, it would more "sense" if the LIB's were grouped into a Bde, and the M777's into a single 70/30 regiment as part of that bde- but that's not the army Canada has, nor the one it will be introducing the C3 replacement to.

In any case- despite the miscommunication you agree with the premise- more guns of the same time, to both RegF and Reserves. To me that means going with more of the "good enough" war gun.
The good enough war gun assumes two things

- that we ever order based on budget, ie we have 20 billion what gets us the most guns?

- be that we can realistically get this other gun for cheaper than anything else


The first Ken is categorically false, we will issue a tender for X number of guns and buy the one that wins the bid. We will not offer industry a dollar value and ask for max amount of guns.

Second point is debatable the “good enough gun” is what in your mind ? I don’t think we’re going to see substantial savings between an M109 or a Caesar.


The better questions to ask are what do we operationally need, and how do we man it.
 
The first Ken is categorically false, we will issue a tender for X number of guns and buy the one that wins the bid. We will not offer industry a dollar value and ask for max amount of guns.
That is not actually an impossible scenario. Some projects adopt a fixed budget approach and ask industry for what can be done within a specified budget (normally including some items such as spares and tooling in the total).
 
That is not actually an impossible scenario. Some projects adopt a fixed budget approach and ask industry for what can be done within a specified budget (normally including some items such as spares and tooling in the total).
Not impossible but generally unlikely and non standard?
 
The first Ken is categorically false, we will issue a tender for X number of guns and buy the one that wins the bid. We will not offer industry a dollar value and ask for max amount of guns.
That wasn't the assumption- the assumption was that the organization would be able to look at a rough estimate of its budget, it's organizational needs, and make informed strategic decisions to shape the procurement to suit - ie, assuming that I'm right about the below, making the decision to tender for a trucked mounted gun rather than tracked and armoured / armoured automated module.
Second point is debatable the “good enough gun” is what in your mind ? I don’t think we’re going to see substantial savings between an M109 or a Caesar.
OS, from what I've seen reported a K9 and Archer are in the 11-12 million dollar USD range, ATMOS/ Caesar in the 5-6. I might be wrong on that though. If I am- forget the whole line of questioning.
 
The situation of a mixed regiment is not unusual and happens when you have a unit supporting an organization of mixed requirements. Back in the 90s Canadian RegF artillery regiments consisted of two M109 batteries and one LG1 battery to support a brigade of 2 mech bns and 1 light bn. It's generally not a preferred solution for the brigade as a whole in combat, but it does make sense when all you are generating is a battalion for Bosnia while retaining a stronger capability in your hip pocket.

I think that with the Latvia mission, being for a brigade, dictates that our doctrine and structure should be, at a minimum, to build operational brigades that can operate in a division in a high intensity conflict. Canadian artillery doctrine generally contemplates a brigade with four manoeuvre units, 1 armoured, 3 infantry that generally form three combined arms battle groups. That means a 3 battery CS regiment with additional GS resources coming from a division. Notwithstanding our actual brigade structure (which has more to do with generating battle groups rather than fighting as a brigade, and which only has two LAV bns it is capable of equipping) in our doctrine we anticipate fighting at the brigade level with a unitary brigade, generally a mech one. We haven't given much thought in the past thirty years or so fighting a light brigade like we did in the 1970s. Accordingly the regiment should have the same type of guns across its three CS batteries albeit if a GS firing unit is added to it, it could be a different system to meet that requirement.

My own analysis of what Canada needs, and can provide out of its current manpower levels, is set out in the diagram I posted above. Effectively it calls for three SP regiments to support the mechanized brigades of 1 Div and three towed regiments to support the lighter force that makes up 2 Div (albeit I would also consider, maybe even prefer, having the 2 Div arty bde with two M777 regiments and one SP regiment))

@markppcli has it right. The only place that he and I diverge is that he prefers a three battery regiment where two of the batteries are RegF (which equates to a higher level of readiness) and I'm prepared to go with a three battery regiment of which only one is RegF. IMHO that's enough to sustain the force during peacetime - when the need for deployed gunners is low - but still generate a full regiment during war time. Regardless of that difference, the unit must be provided with the same weapon system for both RegF and ResF elements. I'm accepting more risk in order to build a larger artillery organization out of current RegF arty PYs.
Maybe I'm playing fast and losing with the relationship between force generation and force employment but my basic thought process was:
  • the CA is in a death pact with 3x largely symmetrical, mixed weight CMBG's, and MRP
  • the RCA has 6 under strength RegF gun batteries, and an a soon to be unequipped PRes artillery suitable only for individual level augmentation
  • the CA is going to prioritize maintain rotational BG level deployment capability calling on the RCA for a standing gun battery (soon to be SP) in Latvia, and the ability to surge anM777 battery for a QRF/secondary Light BG deployment
At issue:
  • the CA will be adding a SP L52 155mm,, and they should be looking to equip the PRes (and make better use of them)- how is this best accomplished?
Agreed upon
  • a non-deployable training gun is a waste of money, and we should only be purchasing one type of gun.

My thinking was that IF I'm correct about their being a roughly 2:1 acquisition cost ratio (not to mention the training, O&M, and infrastructure deltas) between certain "war gun" options, the budget allotment sufficient for a "high end" war gun purchase scaled to outfit above mentioned skeleton symmetrical army and objectives, could instead be used on twice the number of "good enough" SP's to greatly increase the depth of the artillery park by equipping a number of PRes batteries with the same war gun as the RegF. With said PRes batteries formed, equipped, and used to provide sub-unit level augmentation to the arty Bn's the RCA would be able to field hybrid SP regiments in the pursuit of making the closing the gap from the bolded to the underlined. If, for example, 4 Div, as a force generator had (in terms of guns):

D Battery 2 RCHA - 6x Atmos
F Battery 2 RCHA - 6x M777
30th Field - 6x Atmos
11th Field -6x LG1

Then in war time 2 CMBG as the force employer would have it's 3x 155mm CS batteries.

Of course, it's all probably moot. We'll get 14 109A6's for a single Latvian battery plus trainers and call it good.
 
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