daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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Not enough to ditch the Frag Vest apparently
That tac vest must have cost a bunch...
Not enough to ditch the Frag Vest apparently
Reminds me of working with the Aussies in Egypt.That tac vest must have cost a bunch...
Not enough to ditch the Frag Vest apparently
Reminds me of working with the Aussies in Egypt.
Everyone showed up to our combined range day wearing only issued kit as per the Canadian TF Comd's direction.
Steyrs look cool, but I preferred firing the C7.The Aussies, including the RAN Clerk and Quartermaster showed up with SORD plate carrier rigs and Steyrs, while we all looked on enviously.
Steyrs look cool, but I preferred firing the C7.
Incidentally, at least based on the Internet, AUSSOF use the M4 series of rifles, not Steyrs.
What, you don't like going fishing?My point still stands on the fighting order though.
I knew a guy who said it was good for carrying some of his novels he used to read during his down time…What, you don't like going fishing?
Tolerance for non issued load bearing kit is high, but 0 for armour / helmets.Not enough to ditch the Frag Vest apparently
Tolerance for non issued load bearing kit is high, but 0 for armour / helmets.
No more what range standing orders dictate. Usually it’s soft armour as a minimum and plate carriers would take our absurdly over sized softer armour so ya know.Let me guess; the CofC is going with the “VAC won’t cover you if…” BS?
That's if you focus on that one type of munition and getting a hit. And even then it's not true but is the result of the fact that there are more videos from loitering munitions and they make their way onto the internet.@FJAG on the SPH vs Towed Howitzer debate. One thing I've noted that needs to be considered is the effect of loitering munitions or other types of attacks on these weapons systems.
I've seen a number of videos of attacks on gun positions using loitering munitions where the attack did far more damage to an SPH due to ammunition cook off inside the vehicle which resulted in a total loss of the system.
This did not occur with a towed howitzer. The cannon had some scrapes and dents, it may have required new optics but it was otherwise still usable.
Agree with all of the above, and my statement was just an anecdote, it is an area that requires further study.That's if you focus on that one type of munition and getting a hit. And even then it's not true but is the result of the fact that there are more videos from loitering munitions and they make their way onto the internet.
The first thing is that there are hundreds of times more dumb artillery flying around then loitering munitions. Near misses from dumb rounds kill and maim towed gun crews and destroy electronics and optical equipment with slinters which render them ineffective until repaired. SPs survive that. A hit by a loitering munition on a towed gun will also disable/destroy a towed gun. A near miss probably won't because it has a much smaller charge and fragmentation effect than a dumb round.
One can easily defeat the jack in the box effect on an SP by keeping the ammo stored outside of the gun rather than inside, but that just opens some of the crew up to near misses and creates a new set of problems. In addition, as air defences against drones mature, it will become much easier to stop loitering munitions and UAV laser designators from getting through to the rear areas where the guns are. Dumb rounds on the other hand, guided by weapon locating radars and GPS, will remain virtually unstoppable.
The Oryx website isn't much help in that it lists various losses but doesn't show the ratio of types of guns deployed in the first place. Plus I'm not sure how to interpret an "abandoned" gun from a "captured" one. In its rawest and least useful form the ratio of "destroyed" guns to "damaged" ones is: Russian Towed 51/6; Russian SP 187/6; Ukrainian Towed 51/11; Ukrainian SP 54/17. In all cases "destroyed" outnumber "damaged" significantly albeit that Ukrainian guns have a lower ratio of destroyed to damaged than Russian ones and the SP destroyed to towed ratio is higher for the Russians while lower for the Ukrainians. I'm guessing that the fact that there are many more SPs destroyed or damaged has more to do with the ratio of the types of guns deployed and how they are employed rather than vulnerability, but, as I said, I don't have those statistics yet so find it impossible to analyze.
IMHO it's unsafe to draw any conclusions from a small sampling of videos which make it onto the social media because of their dramatic effects. I've worked on towed and SP guns and, quite frankly, when the shooting starts I'd rather be inside a steel box then outside it. I'll keep that attitude until the statistics tell me otherwise.
I'll add one more macabre observation that I get from those videos - its the number of times that people seem to be able to get out of tanks and APCs and the like after they are hit and start to "cook-off". Before all this, I would have thought that virtually impossible.
Again, I'm not so sure that it has performed better than expected.Agree with all of the above, and my statement was just an anecdote, it is an area that requires further study.
There are indicators though that towed artillery has performed better than expected while some SPH has suffered higher losses/performed worse than expected. The question becomes why?
Some of the SPA (and other items) are exceedingly maintenance intensive.Agree with all of the above, and my statement was just an anecdote, it is an area that requires further study.
There are indicators though that towed artillery has performed better than expected while some SPH has suffered higher losses/performed worse than expected. The question becomes why?
Tracks in the snow?Agree with all of the above, and my statement was just an anecdote, it is an area that requires further study.
There are indicators though that towed artillery has performed better than expected while some SPH has suffered higher losses/performed worse than expected. The question becomes why?
There are indicators though that towed artillery has performed better than expected while some SPH has suffered higher losses/performed worse than expected. The question becomes why?
Canada made extensive use of SPs during the latter phases of WW2 by way of the Sherman mounted 105mm Priest (There was also the 25 pdr Sexton. By the end of the war Canada employed 48 of each - based on eight-gun batteries with three per regiment so 4 regiments in total). 3rd Div had them for the landing at Normandy and the subsequent breakout. There were also 150 self propelled 17 pdr anti-tank guns and 75 armoured FOO vehicles in 4 and 5 Armd Div which had also received the SP guns after Normandy.Wild guess here: we have tons of historical knowledge on the employment of towed guns in a major conventional war, including what gets crews killed and what keeps them alive. That’s already well baked in to doctrine and learning. SPGs haven’t actually had much modern testing in a conventional peer conflict. That, possibly coupled with a bit more complacency due to being under armour, might encourage crews to linger on a position longer than if they were towed?