COLMurph

[catman]

Now that you have us all thinking alike on the 175, maybe you could enlighten us with your thoughts on the 8" vs. MLRS issue.

My father was an old heavy arty redleg and we used to argue for hours about the advantages/disadvantages of tube vs. missle artillery. I guess he passed without knowing that most of the time I agreed with him, but loved to see him get wound up.

Never could get the hip shoot thing through his head. (How it all worked with mounted GPS vs. Survey) Had a couple of my friends at his place one night from a Palidin unit and they couldn't explain it either.

Just curious about your thoughts.

Trav

[colmurph]

MLRS has it all over the 8". It has a greater range, greater lethiality and with GPS it's a snap to pull off the road and do a hip shoot while on the move. I never served with 8" guns but I commanded an SP 155 BN. It was a bitch to do a hip shoot without GPS. We had that Gyroscopic thingy that sat in the back of a jeep and had to run up to speed for about an hour over a monumented bench mark before you even started moving with it.
How would you do Artillery Survey in Iraq or Afghanistan without any monumanted bench marks to start your survey from? I suppose you could pick out a prominent terrain feature to take a sighting on and then work from that but how accurate would the map data have been. I can remember some of the old French maps that we had in Vietnam where large features such as Mountains and Rivers were actually a couple of klicks from where the map said they were.
I'll take GPS any day! The best accuracy I've ever seen with survey data was a couple of hundred yards off of actual. GPS puts you within a few feet of actual. It's now possible to get first round accuracy out of a 155 which was all but unheard of unless you were shooting at a registration point on the west range at Sill and the battery was firing from one of the surveyed firing points that had been used for years. As long as the observer got the coordinates right (the same targets were used for years) you'd stand a chance of getting a first round hit.
Hip shoots used to be a pretty iffy thing but now with GPS they should be a snap. I understand the new SP's have radio commo in each track now so you don't even need to worry about running wire all over the place. The FDC can be held in the palm of your hand now too, in the form of the Texas Instruments calcualtor that can do the math for eight different tubes to get a TOT in the same hole.

[catman]

Iraq...to my knowledge all units were layed with GPS. Not sure about up north but in souther Iraq, unless you are close to a wadi or river you have nothing to associate your map with. Besides, half way through day two we were off the maps we were given. FDC turned all the maps over and drew grid squares on the back. Same-same as the terrain we were following - nothing.

I think the Paladins (M109A6?) use basically the same FCS as MLRS.

When I left service tube and rocket units were using PADS for survey. A big Hummer mounted GPS. They would lay calibration courses so the SPLL's could update and fire when needed. When we recieved a hip shoot, a SPll would leave the convoy, about 100 meters, fire rounds, reload and rejoin the convoy. Not much more than a piss break for the crew.

Not sure if PADS is still in service or not. We also had handheld units that could lay a battery within 30 meters. Close enough when you were firing 12 round ripple fire deep into Iraq. Just make damn sure you know were the FLOT is!!

Trav

[Desdichado]

Some day somewhere we'll have to fight someone who knows how to take down satellites. What good will GPS be then? I hope the young folk still know how to read a compass.

[catman]

Des...not sure what is going on now, but when I joined they were still teaching land navigation. I assume it is still taught.

Trav

[BLUEHAWK]

Maybe that was what was intended by "Star Wars" initiative? Eh?