You are correct about my lack of experience RE: artillery, but I think you are relying on obsolete tactics and weapons information.
Two hours after a 9-11 attack an air package of B-1 and B-52 bombers can leave US bases with CAP and refueling assets sufficient to get them into the theater and engage the enemy. They can fly the distance and be in the battle 12 hours later. They can attack armor and troop concentrations in any weather conditions using GPS based weapons such as the AGM-154 and or laser guided munitions. The US hasn't produced a daylight, fair-weather aircraft in 20 years. Everything flies all the time, providing the guys hunkered down on the ground can find them targets. Arty is only going to provide continuous coverage if the terrain and the weather permit them to advance - again, we are talking about offensive operations. Arty can't advance if its stuck in the mud and the snow, if bridges are washed out, if 5,000ft sheer cliffs are ahead in the line of advance or if any of their support troops or vehicles have similar logistical problems. I know the manta, the reality is quite different.
Take a look at a topo map of NE Afghanistan and tell me with a straight face you can find any use for SP arty in any role, let alone an offensive one. In addition, even the very steep and narrow (too narrow for a HumVee) and bedless roads there are impassable 5 months out of the year due to snow, so SP can't function in any role that requires it to move, in which case there is no point to the SP. Better to go with very light towed and chopper it up to the high ground.
Now you may object that bombers can't operate without air superiority, but arty can't either. Your SP won't last till sundown on the first day against a foe with standoff anti-armor bombing capabilities, or ATACM BAT P31 type rocket counter-battery fire the AF didn't knock out. Ask the Iraqis in the last two wars. They had the Denel long range guns and the MLRS units scoot and shoot and air harassment rendered them ineffective even though they were fighting from positions they had months to prepare.
The primary issues are therefore, how much does it cost, and how fast can it get into the fight. An arty shell is cheap, but that doesn't take into account the fact that to get the gun to fire it into position the AirForce first had to win the air war, and then a few tens of thousands of troops had to be shipped into the theater, along with all of their equipment, and to do that a half dozen airbases had to be captured, repaired and defended. The airlift to get the SP stuff into the theater had to be made available â “ displacing other assets. Then the stuff has to be unloaded, configured and manned. Since the SP arty isn't a viable force fighting alone it has to advance along with â “ or more likely, behind - tanks and infantry. So now you have your gun in place and you can start to scoot and shoot your $5,000 shells - ignoring the 5 billion dollars it cost to get them there and the continued billions it will take to service the HUGE logistical train to keep all the parts of that train that the enemy can engage safe and functioning.
By the time the arty is ready to attack 30-70 days has passed and the offensive part of the war is long over, with a victor clearly established, assuming you are not fighting a bunch of 3rd world losers. Airpower, even if there are no forward bases available, can now destroy anything with more metal than a bicycle in a couple of weeks in nearly any theater with nothing on the ground to feed, cloth, water, grease, gas or DEFEND. The Iraqis made it very clear, they hated their armored vehicles because they were metal coffins.
If you consider the fight from the time the first arty is ready to fire then you have an argument. But of course, wars aren't fought that way. The war starts when something happens half way around the world, with no warning, and it's go time.
I will therefore repeat. Arty is now a defensive weapon. Once you own the air and most of the ground, and are interested in holding onto it, and you have to have all those assets in theater anyway for follow-on operations and security, arty is a good marginal investment. It provides cheap area coverage, especially in defense of point targets like airfields, road junctions, harbors and ports, and the air assets are now freed up enough to provide the needed lift to get them there. As for protection, it's always an issue. Dead guys make poor gunners, and they will be dead if they don't have effective protection from aerial bombardment, infantry and logistics. They guys that attacked Omaha beach can give you an earful about attacking heavy guns with the natural protection of sheer cliffs â “ in spite of air-superiority and massive naval counter-battery fire.
I don't think it is a contradiction to say that initial offensive operations belong to air assets, but follow-on defensive operations can be greatly benefited by the inclusion of arty in the mix.
During the siege of Kae Sahn we used B-52's to provide massive firepower. Even way back then no one suggested we try to drive 500 SP artys up the road to engage the enemy. They would have been picked off in a few hours. They also could not have provided the same volume of destruction. There was a pre-SALT Treaty time when the US had 750 B-52's, a relatively small plane by today's standards, and with each of those carrying say 50, 500lb bombs - or 83 as some were configured - there is no reasonable amount of arty on the planet that could compete, and the logistical train that would have to be protected would be staggering even if someone were foolish enough to build and deploy such arty. A Bomber is arty with a 1-12,000 mile range. The enemy can't touch it.
Arty usually is a static weapon on the current battlefield, except for being flown from one hot spot to another â “ not driven where the Omars can pick you off like they did the Soviets. This is another argument for lightweight air-mobile guns. This is in fact the way guns are being used in Afghanistan. They are unloaded from C-130 and C-17s, towed into position, engage the enemy as long as the enemy is in the area, and then moved to the next hot spot. Of course the AC-130 gunship is an arty system that can be flown right up to the enemy's front door at 20 times the speed of any SP system, is not encumbered by terrain, logistics or most weather, and so is a massively superior search and destroy system. As for counter-battery fire, air is vastly superior for the destruction of enemy arty and no US foe in 15 years has had intact systems to worry about after the initial air campaign destroys most of the heavy metal â “ including all the prime movers. I would not suggest we do away completely with SP. In a large scale assault such as Iraqi Freedom it had an important supporting role in some battles, but it still generated a lot of logistical support requirements and if not for a sandstorm halting the advance, would likely not have been able to keep up with the attack. The fact that there are such things as sandstorms makes it important not to put all ones eggs in one basket.
As for lighter weight arty systems -it seems like the weight of towed arty has primarily one purpose, to control recoil. In the same way that we don't fly concrete bunkers into theaters from the homeland, but instead envelope sand in sandbags to provide protection, why aren't artillery pieces designed to be very light and have cavities that can be filled with indigenous materials to provide the weight needed for controlling recoil?
I would like the benefit of your experience, but it will only be valuable if you think of these old friends in the new contexts they will have to fight in. I still think there is a place for arty, I just don't think that place is in offensive operations. It's too slow, too heavy and to encumbered by terrain, weather and logistics.
I respectfully invite your response.
solidpoint.
