Jane's is reporting that the Royal Artillery is considering a series of new equipment programmes to update its regiments and adapt itself to better support the "strike brigades".
There is no shortage of good requirements. A "new" one is "Strike 155", for the purchase of a wheeled or towed 155mm howitzer for the Strike Brigades.
It can't be defined as a truly "new" requirement, of course, because it comes after LIMAWS(Gun) was cancelled years ago.
If there was the funding, purchasing perfectly good off the shelf guns would not be particularly problematic. Sweden will put 12 Archer on the market soon; France would be all too happy to sell CAESAR, and Royal Artillery troops have already trialed it in the field in several occasions.
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| The BAE-Bofors Archer. 48 were produced, 24 each for Sweden and Norway, but the latter eventually pulled out of the programme. Sweden has announced the intention to take all 48 but put 12 up for sale. 12 are not enough for the UK's requirement of two regimental sets, but would be a beginning. |
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| The Royal Artillery has already trialed the french CAESAR in the field |
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| In the photos by Army Recognition from Eurosatory 2016, the Nexter CAESAR 8x8, a more capable development with autoloader, better protection and mobility. Another obvious candidate. |
There is Project Congreve, for introducing new capabilities and eventually looking at the replacement of GMLRS and Exactor.
GMLRS could really do with a purchase of some Alternative Warhead rounds, to restore the area-annihillation capability that was once the pride and reason d'etrè of the system.
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| The two GMLRS launchers as used by the US Army. The british variant is known as B1 rather than A1. Arguably, the british army does not really need to rush into procuring a wheeled launcher: while its strategic mobility would be better, it would not change the equation by much. The Strike Brigades will use vehicles no lighter than 30 tons and will have tracks in it (Ajax, Terrier) regardless of what happens to the artillery element. A wheeled launcher will not realize the dream of an air transportable brigade, so its procurement is arguably at the bottom of the priorities list. The actual problem is that the British Army has no more than 35 - 36 operational M270B1. Ideally, there should be 4 Precision Fires batteries in the army (one in each armoured and strike brigade). There are currently 3, with only 6 launchers each. A fourth should be formed for the second Strike Brigade, and ideally the number of launchers should grow to 8 or 9. There is also a reserve GMLRS regiment (101 RA). |
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| The Alternative Warhead seeks to generate area-destruction effects similar to those offered by the old submunition-laden rockets, without generating an UneXploded Ordnance (UXO) hazard on the ground. The ban on submunitions left the British Army with only the unitary warhead rocket: excellent for many things, but insufficient, alone, to cover all needs. |
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| GMLRS and ATACMS family tree |
Up to 2010 the Royal Artillery was also planning an ATACMS purchase. Of course, that, as well as everything else, did not progress. But now they might just be in time to buy into its successor, if there is real money for it, and not just dreams.
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| Long Range Precision Fires will deliver ATACMS-like range and effect, within a thinner body allowing carriage of two missiles in each standard pod. |
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| Long Range Precision Fires will give the US Army a tool to fight back against the vast arsenal of Iskander missiles that would have to be faced in a clash versus Russian forces. It will complement, at lower cost, the deep strike capability of aviation. |
If they are looking for a lighter, wheeled replacement for the tracked M270B1, there is of course the US HIMARS readily available. Even this requirement would not be new: the british army years ago had attempted to get a GMLRS launcher that could be slung under a Chinook, no less, the LIMAWS (Rocket).
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| LIMAWS - Rocket (LIghtweight Mobile Artillery Weapon System) was the british answer to the US HIMARS. Even lighter and easier to deploy, it could be carried under slung by a Chinook. LIMAWS R was cancelled. It employed a single, standard GMLRS 6-rocket pod, just like HIMARS. |
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| The M777 Portee combined a Supacat high mobility vehicle carrying the gun crew and the ammunition and an M777 howitzer. The gun could be towed or carried and deployed in the field rapidly. The gun cannot fire when mounted on the truck, but the hybrid vehicle resulting could be carried (vehicle and gun separately) under slung by Chinook. LIMAWS - Gun was cancelled. |
Another project is the purchase of a new weapon locating radar, to succeed to MAMBA, which has a 2026 OSD. The weapon locating radar requirement is also nothing new. In its earlier incarnation, the Common Weapon Locating Radar was once to enter service by 2012 to replace COBRA, and lately MAMBA too, with a single type covering both the High (COBRA) and Low (MAMBA) spectrum of the mission. The British Army evaluated the SAAB Arthur C for the requirement, a perfectly sensible candidate. But of course, that project fell apart too, with nothing purchased and COBRA removed from service with only MAMBA left. More luck this time...?
Then there is an equally long-running ambition to purchase guided, long range ammunition (Excalibur, Vulcano, SGP all good choices readily available) and a requirement for a course-correcting fuze to improve the accuracy of the normal shells and reduce CEP. Requirements that have all been around since before 2010 and that have a tentative delivery date of 2018.
AS90 could really, really do with a 52 calibre barrel, putting it at least on par with other contemporary artillery systems. The longer barrel was part of the Braveheart upgrade which, you have surely guessed it already, fell apart years ago.
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| The Braveheart long barrel would remove the current range disadvantage of AS90 |
The US Army suffers from the same weakness: 39 caliber barrels in a world of 52 calibers. A 24 km reach versus 30 and more. There can be no doubt about it being a significant disadvantage.
The US Army is upgrading its Paladin self propelled guns but hasn't changed their barrels yet. It is, however, working on creating a long-barrel M777. The british army has done nothing about this disadvantage ever since Braveheart was cancelled.
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| M777 ER in front, and standard M777 behind. 1000 pounds and 6 feet of difference. |
Eventually, the L118 Light Gun will need a replacement as well, of course, and the Royal Artillery is also aware that if MORPHEUS progresses and replaces the Bowman radio and data infrastructure it will have to develop a new artillery-specific fire control application to replace the current one.
The Royal Artillery modernization programme used to be called "Indirect Fire Precision Attack Capability", but it produced little more than nothing. The procurement of the SMART 155 mm round carrying guided anti-tank submunitions was cancelled soon after the contract was signed, LIMAWS went nowhere, Braveheart was cancelled, Fire Shadow is lost in some unknown dimension of the universe and everything else is changing name and waiting for tomorrow.
Let's see if under new names it goes any better...
