markppcli
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Well those 40 odd regiments in reserve of course !
C3 Howitzer Replacement
- Thread starter MattGotts
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Wouldn't work with our MR/MFB or BBE's due to hydraulics for the pallets .... and wouldn't be practicable for MGB or ACROW
How so?
Colin Parkinson
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Not in the current configuration, but pretty easy to adapt. I was think more for ribbon bridges. In my day the ribbon bridges did not need hydraulics except perhaps to run the deck winch on the truck for recovery and loading. As for Arcow you need a hiab but you could get a lot of panels on that, Never worked with a MGB but seems similar to Bailey/Arcow in principle and again Hiab crane.
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HIAB would be very inefficient compared to the pallet drop hydraulic method.
FormerHorseGuard
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I was doing some thinking on this.
19 Res Arty Units, if I got the right count.
Simple math, if there was a new gun platform picked. 3 guns per unit, 60 guns that only gives 3 spares across the country. So 80 are needed in my thinking, gives 23 spares, Reg force would need some of those 23 spares for training etc. So they take 15 guns, that leaves 8 spares across the country.
Nexter will provide eight LG1 105mm towed howitzers to the Senegalese Army, the French company announced on 28 April.
The contract for the Senegal Armed Forces entered into effect on 20 April.
A unit cost of the 105 mm LG1 howitzer is $2.08 million, indicating that the Senegal procurement is worth more than $16.6 million.
www.military.africa/2022/04/senegalese-army-orders-nexter-105-mm-lg1-howitzer/#:~:text=A%20unit%20cost%20of%20the,worth%20more%20than%20%2416.6%20million.
So DND needs to find $166 400 000 to get new LG1 105mm guns, guessing the funds are in US Dollars, so 200 Million would do it
How hard is that to find?
It seems simple enough but I know I am missing something like Canadian purchasing programs and studies.
Without something simple and quick, how many Res Arty Units are going to be side line or rerolled as something else? Or units forced to merge and mothball smaller units?
19 Res Arty Units, if I got the right count.
Simple math, if there was a new gun platform picked. 3 guns per unit, 60 guns that only gives 3 spares across the country. So 80 are needed in my thinking, gives 23 spares, Reg force would need some of those 23 spares for training etc. So they take 15 guns, that leaves 8 spares across the country.
Nexter will provide eight LG1 105mm towed howitzers to the Senegalese Army, the French company announced on 28 April.
The contract for the Senegal Armed Forces entered into effect on 20 April.
A unit cost of the 105 mm LG1 howitzer is $2.08 million, indicating that the Senegal procurement is worth more than $16.6 million.
www.military.africa/2022/04/senegalese-army-orders-nexter-105-mm-lg1-howitzer/#:~:text=A%20unit%20cost%20of%20the,worth%20more%20than%20%2416.6%20million.
So DND needs to find $166 400 000 to get new LG1 105mm guns, guessing the funds are in US Dollars, so 200 Million would do it
How hard is that to find?
It seems simple enough but I know I am missing something like Canadian purchasing programs and studies.
Without something simple and quick, how many Res Arty Units are going to be side line or rerolled as something else? Or units forced to merge and mothball smaller units?
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Acquisition is more than just buying the item. It's buying the tech pubs. It's buying tooling. It's buying spares. It's infra renovations and replacement because items are differently sized. It's a ammo proving. It's integration into fire control software systems. It's creating training plans, both for conversion and steady state, for operators, maintainers and planners. It's acquiring initial ammunition. It's converting vehicles to be compatible to tow the guns...
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LG-1, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me…
All getting more LG-1’s would do it throw good money after bad.
If you want a 105mm, the L119/M119A3 is your only reasonable option.
However I would say that the large majority of those 19 units could be way better employed than by a 105mm towed.
FormerHorseGuard
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I was using it as a price point, quick research shows L119/M119A3 around 2.5 million. Still not talking a huge amount of money to come up with.
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Why not come up with a coherent structure and roles and recruit, train and equip based on that?
FJAG
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No.
Just a quick point re cost. The M777 purchase of 25 guns in 2008 was at $2,687.000.00 per gun. Any way that you cut it, the M777 is a much more complex and versatile weapon than the LG-1. True, that was fifteen years ago and the M777 line is closed down but so is the LG-1 line. The gun was first fielded in the 1990s and only around 200 - 300 or so were ever fielded which makes it a very low production run. I expect that if there's a new run for Senegal then someone is restarting a cold line which isn't too unusual. Either way the price is way high. for around 6-8 million you can start getting top of the line self propelled howitzers.
Our LG-1s have not been stellar guns. It's too heavy for a Griffon to lift and with a Chinook you can lift M777s.
The ResF arty has 16 regiments and 3 Independent field batteries. You should expect each regiment as capable of fielding a battery (you should expect but these days they rarely deliver) Independent field batteries are about a half battery. All those units combined should allow you to raise around 5 18-gun regiments.
All that, however, doesn't address the overarching need for the Canadian army and thereby the Canadian artillery.
The army currently has three manoeuvre brigades supported by three 8-gun regiments. So the very first requirement is a need for an additional 30 guns to round out those regiments. The next question is what type of guns? My preferred solution has always been to concentrate the M777s in one brigade and provide the other two with some form of tracked or wheeled armoured self propelled gun for 36.
That means for a proper operational mix we would need 36 new SPs plus spares and trainers so lets say 46. the M777 regiment would need 18 which leaves 6 unallocated guns which could be reassigned.
So that takes care of the RegF so the question is what does the ResF need? That's a complex question because we need to know several things:
1) are we forming any additional operational brigades out of the Army Reserve in general? If so they need 18-gun regiments each (that's roughly 3-4 current regiments to form a full one). The type of gun should conform to the type of brigade - a light brigade should have M777s
2) will any of the current regiments be allocated to air defence? In the recent past we had two ResF regiments with a total of five air defence batteries allocated to air defence
3) will we allocate ResF personnel to Surveillance and Target Acquisition artillery ie countermortar radars and UAVs? If so we could allocate probably 3 - 4 ResF regiments to that role.
4) will we form any missile or loitering munition artillery? HIMARS is a very desirable deep fires system that can easily be run by reservists. At most we would buy an 18-launcher battalion - again that's probably 3 - 4 ResF regiments. The same for loitering munitions. There are numerous excellent solution coming out for over-the-horizon anti-armour loittering munition/suicide drones etc. Again, a system that ResF units can run very well. Again, 3 - 4 ResF regiments for an 18-launcher battalion.
Where I'm going with this should be clear. We need to get out of the business of just buying a passel of guns which have little operational value as training aids and try to figure out what we want our army, and thereby our artillery, to look like when its grown up and equip for that. Artillery is very well served by the reserve force model. It should be an integrated plan.
We used quite a healthy percentage of the ResF gunners on Afghanistan rotoa both on the gun line and in STA. There's a great opportunity coming up to make the ResF artillery much more relevant if we simply take the opportunity to work it out.
Colin Parkinson
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Your talking about this sort of stuff?
daftandbarmy
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It seems the UA likes the 105mm....
MilEME09
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They have praised it vs 122mm, while we keep going in about 155, and expensive systems. The war in Ukraine has also shown the need for a cheap, and quick to mass produce system. A updated version of say the C3, redesigned from the ground up, without heavy digital assets would have its place for sure.
markppcli
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Ukraine is going to love everything they get given in any media piece. This is controlled government messaging with a point: “we are grateful, we are making good use of this, we want more.” We should be careful in reading too much into the “a Ukranian said they liked it” pieces.
MilEME09
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Well look what they had before too, I mean going from hot garbage to semi decent is a upgrade
FJAG
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There really is no discussion about the gun itself here. The Ukrainians already have a large quantity of old D30s which IMHO are superior to most of the 105mm calibre guns due to robustness, a bit more terminal effects and generally decent range. The sole problem with the D 30 is keeping up the ammo supply.
I'm with @markppcli; the Ukrainians are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. They won't say unfavourable things about equipment they are gifted. 105mm guns are going to increase the ammo supply available to them and that's a great thing.
One comment about the video. That's a well maintained gun position. Decent camouflage and procedures on the gun platform and a well developed "stand easy" bunker.
FJAG
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Not doubting that they are doing it but that can be a bit risky. The ranges and generally open terrain in the east limit good positions and viable arty manoeuvre areas. Having a hide to keep going back to can result in track patterns and other signatures that make that a bit riskier than moving from austere position to austere position. There's a bit more randomness in that.
