Gunnerlove said:
Just like with the M777. You have to do all of the above but manually. On the Caesar you flick a switch to retract the spades, crank the wheel and give it some gas to re-lay the gun. If you think the triple seven is as quick or easy you need to give your head a shake.
For how we are using the M777 we could be using any towed gun (M198) or wheeled SP howitzer.
As far as fire power the Bofors Archer packs far more per unit (read faster rate of fire and less response time) in a far less labour intensive system.
have you ever worked with Giat?
OK, I gave my head a shake, and I still don't rate the Archer and especially not the Ceasar very high.
Let's see, asymmetric threat, small gun det on the FH77 and Caesar who's providing force protection?
Both are complex vehicle designs requiring their own integrated logistic support, none of which exists right now in the CF inventory, nor has any other country commited to deploying either type in any significant quantity. Need another for instance? How many countries bought the LG1? And how're we doing for sustainability with that?
The basic concept ties the ordnance to the vehicle, can you dismount the gun from the truck and have any kind of operational mobility?
It's still a truck, what kind of tactical mobility and survivability do you have as opposed to a truly armoured SP gun? Think a heavily loaded Ceasar or Archer is very maneuverable in bad terrain? Air-portable off of ships? Air-dropable? These are capabilities that are being considered right now.
As for the Archer's multiple round impact, this is a capability in many designs, the Archer is not the only holder of that.
There are a lot of factors that must be weighed before committing to a system.
For what the M777 is being used for right now, it's doing the job much better than something like the Archer would. The gun was bought as part of a UOR, and this means it is mission specific, there is also a considerable logistic support infrastructure behind it and it's growing, unlike Archer or Ceasar, what does this tell you? This does not mean the entire fleet is going M777, but a truck mounted gun would give us the disadvantages of a towed gun and few of the advantages of a truly self-propelled one, besides being almost impossible to sustain.
In my view a mix is need, a few self-proplled, some towed, I'm not sure what kind of self-propelled, but I would hate to see it on a truck.
In my view the truck mounted self-propelled gun is a throw-back design for a time when artillery supposedly could operate somewhat behind a FEBA, this condition does not exist anymore and is unlikely to again.