scott@graft.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) (02/07/91)
From: scott@graft.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs? I thought our artillery batteries were equipped with a sophisticated system which detects incomming rounds, backward computes the launch locations, and then sends off the data to nearby guns which commence a counter-battery mission even before the enemy rounds hit the ground? Why don't we hear about this system being used? Is it because the Iraqi's have yet to fire on something with this equipment? Do all our arty batteries have this system? How long does it take for a launched round to fall back to the ground? /-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Scott Silvey | DOD Spokesman Pete Williams on Cruise Missiles: | | scott@xcf.berkeley.edu | "We just don't discuss that capability. I can't | | | tell you why we don't discuss it because then I'd | | Flames to /dev/null | be discussing it." | \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) (02/08/91)
From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) > Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers > went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs? I thought our artillery > batteries were equipped with a sophisticated system which detects incomming > rounds, backward computes the launch locations, and then sends off the data > to nearby guns which commence a counter-battery mission even before the > enemy rounds hit the ground? Why don't we hear about this system being > used? At this point, Iraq does not have very good intel/recon of allied lines and positions, so it conducts "recon by fire", meaning it takes a couple of shots in the hope that the allied artillery will return fire and give away its location. So the counterbattery radar data is used to target strikes by aircraft (response time should be only minutes anyway). They are also using the battleships to suppress artillery; if in range, the BBs fire on the coordinates provided by the counterbattery radar.
muller@ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B Muller) (02/08/91)
From: muller@ecn.purdue.edu (Mark B Muller) >Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers > went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs? It is probably a question of range. I would imagine that their arty is firing at targets close to the frontier (within 4 miles?) and are firing their maximum range. If our artillery had the same range as theirs (in fact the mainstay of their artillery, the russian built 122mm howitzers, which are either towed or self propelled, out range our standard 155mm, 203mm and 105mm howitzers, although I can't quote any figures to back this up at this time. However, the MLRS system in our inventory has about 20 miles of range, out ranging just about everything on the battlefield, but we don't have a lot of them), then our arty would have to be as far forward as the positions being shelled, putting them in danger of receiving fire, as well as putting them close to the action. In US doctrine, the limited arty we have (by soviet standards) is far too valuable to risk doing this. This is evidenced by the reports of our arty'f use that were on CNN about a week and a half ago, where the guns were brought up into position and fired for about ten minutes, and then pulled back to safety. For the Harrier (or other attack planes, for that matter) there is little risk for them to drop some cluster bombs, and they have the advantage of being able to tell if they hit their targets or not, unlike most arty units. I can't comment too much on our counterbattery systems, except that the best way to detect enemy arty is through a radar system designed for the purpose, which, in the US Army, are divisionally assets that would likely be found with MLRS units, as they are also at the divisional level, as well as being dedicated for the counter battery role. They are also few and far between, with a corps having typically a battalion of 27 launchers. As for flight time, it depends on the range and the gun being used, but is typically on the order of one to two minutes. *-------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Mark Muller Undergraduate at Purdue University * * muller@gn.ecn.purdue.edu Aeronautics & Astronautics Engineering * *-------------------------------------------------------------------------*
tkogoma%triton.unm.edu@ariel.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk) (02/08/91)
From: tkogoma%triton.unm.edu@ariel.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk) In article <1991Feb7.012842.329@cbnews.att.com> scott@graft.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) writes: >Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers > went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs? Actually, I think that the reason is that the Irqai artty outranges ours by about 10 km. Kinda hard to kill something you can't reach... (The range figure I pulled from various media sources. So blame them for any inaccuracy.) -- Capt. Gym Z. Quirk net.terrorist (reformed) | This space tkogoma@triton.unm.edu | intentionally (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | left blank
brooksp@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Peter Brooks) (02/08/91)
From: Peter Brooks <brooksp@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> From scott@graft.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) >Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers > went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs? This was covered on ABC and in the paper last week. Our artillary generally has a 15 mile range, while the Iraqi arty has a 30mile range. Far safer to use Harriers for counterbattery operations, and to use our shorter range (but more accurate?) artillary in the mobile "shoot and scoot" mode it seems designed for. The nice tactical benefit that the Iraqis gave us is that they mass their artillary for long bombardments. Makes for more bang for the buck if you get a pile of ammunition, too. Pete Brooks
emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery) (02/09/91)
From: emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery)
Iraqui artillery basically comes in 2 flavors, Soviet and South
African. Most of the soviet stuff is 122mm and 152mm. The max range
on those guns is similar to (or less than) our equivalent 155mm and 8"
guns. Saddam has about 200 South African G-5 155mm cannon. With
base-bleed projectiles, these have a range of 40km, compared to our
cannon max range of 30km (M198 155mm towed howitzer firing rocket
assisted projectiles). Saddam also has some Soviet 130mm guns which
apparently he has been retubing with the G-5 tube or similar. So
Saddam has a small proportion of cannon that outrange ours. However
most of his stuff is old Soviet stuff, and we can easily range it.
Our rocket launch system (MLRS) has a much longer range (actually I
think max range is even classified). It runs in my mind that the
current statement is "in excess of 40km". This is better than the
Soviet-made BM-21 MRL that Saddam has, and I don't think he has any of
the newer BM-22/BM-27 MRL with a longer range and larger warhead.
>From what I've been able to put together, most of what Saddam's been
firing is MRL and not cannon artillery.
If I were to go play in the sand, I wouldn't be too much concerned
about the long range guns. I'd be much more concerned about the MRL
(which fire a tremendous amount of stuff in a very short period of
time, making them very hard to find and kill. Also, they're very good
chemical delivery systems...) And I'd be most concerned about the
sheer numbers that Saddam has (I think he has 3 guns to our 1).
dave