A general survey of recent artillery developments; refurbishment is the order of the day.
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A General Survey of Recent Artillery Developments
Throughout history gunners and artillery designers have constantly striven to improve the performance of guns and ammunition. Thus, despite all the many artillery innovations that have been introduced over the last few decades, serving gunners and military planners are still
clamouring for something better. It has been the task of the ordnance manufacturers to provide them with that "something better".
Combat Enhancement
New weapons - it is a well-known fact - cost a lot of money. Artillery is no exception, although it does have the cost-effective advantage that it can continue to deliver its offensive projectiles with a steady degree of accuracy over
prolonged periods of time under a wide range of weather and other conditions. Nevertheless, new artillery systems are expensive, and as a result existing in-service equipments usually have to be either completely obsolete or worn out before any consideration is given to their replacement.
For many armies this cost factor means that they have to retain artillery equipments that have fallen well behind many of the technical developments achieved by the more well-off nations. Thus, even today, old World War II weapons such as the American 105 mm
M101 and 155 mm
M114 towed howitzers or the 105 mm
M108 self-propelled
howitzer have to remain in gun parks simply because there is no prospect of their being replaced due to a lack of funds.
This factor is apparent even in
NATO.
Some nations have so many old 155 mm M114 towed howitzers that there is no prospect of their being replaced while they are still around. This means that there are some NATO guns that cannot reach the accepted standard maximum range of 24 000 metres firing normal projectiles.
The old M114 can at best manage 14 600 metres. In any future conflict these M114 batteries
would be exposed to an overwhelming weight of counter-battery fire and would soon be removed from the action.
So many M114s are still around that several ordnance manufacturers offer re-barrelling kits to enable old M114s to achieve a performance similar to more modern gun systems. These kits differ in detail but usually offer a new barrel
39 calibres long (i.e. L/39 or 39X155 mm = approx. 6 metres)
with a chamber capable of accepting NATO standard ammunition, new equilibrators to balance the weight of the longer barrel, recoil system modifications and other changes.
The result is a weapon with a maximum range of 18 100 metres or so with their normal projectiles or the required 24 000 metres using Extended Range Full Bore (ERFB) rounds.
The most successful producer of these 155 mm M114 upgrade kits has been
RDM of Holland. They even produce new
M114s with L/39 barrels. To date they have rebarrelled (or are in the process of)
re-barrelling M114s for Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway (the new barrels are manufactured by AB Bofors of Sweden). Canada has accepted two conversions for trials but no orders have yet been forthcoming.
Other companies that have produced
M114 upgrading kits include
SRC of Belgium,
OTO-Melara of Italy,
GIAT of France (using the barrel of their TR towed gun),
Soltam of Israel and NORICUM of Austria. A plan to convert the US Army's old M114s to a new M114A2 standard using 155 mm M198-type barrels was not pursued with. As for the South Korean KH179 howitzer, it is a virtual rebuild of the old M114.
The upgrading process has not stopped with the M114.
There are still numerous Soviet-supplied 130 mm M-46 guns in service all around the world, and it is now possible to upgrade these to accept 155 mm L/39 barrels. This was started by SRC, who then appear to have passed on their know-how to the Chinese and to the Yugoslavs for these are also offering to mount 155 mm barrels on old M-46 carriages. All these conversions are known as the M46/84 or GM-85.
It is understood that RDM are also producing a 130 to 155 mm M-46 conversion, but their development owes nothing to other programmes.
The Chinese have also produced one further example of upgrading existing artillery pieces. They have produced a longer-barreled version of their 152 mm Type 66 gun-howitzer (a copy of the Soviet 152 mm D-20) known as the Type 83. Many components of the Type 66 have been carried over to the Type 83, but the longer barrel can now produce a maximum range of 30 370 metres as opposed to the 17 230 metres of the Type 66. The Yugoslavs have also carried out a re-work of the D-20 but their end-product is known as the M84.
Towed Equipments
The most important development of the last two decades in the towed artillery field has been the arrival of the many and various L/45 155 mm guns. By the mid-1970s there had been a gradual trend towards 155 mm gun-howitzers with barrels up to 39 calibres long (L/39), of which the West German/British/Italian FH-70 gun remains a prime example. Weapons such as the FH-70 are able to fire a standard shell to a range of around 24 000 metres with ease (with maximum charge), although it is often overlooked that when firing the NATO standard
projectile, the M107 high explosive, the maximum range is less than that.
The advent of the L/45 guns created a new yardstick. For them the normal maximum range is 30 000 metres (using ERFB ammunition), and this has now become the accepted norm for future artillery designs. The first L/45 gun to arrive on the scene was a product of the old Space Research Corporation of Quebec, namely the GC 45. Such was the impact of this weapon that it was forgotten that the GC 45 was little more than a
ballistic laboratory tool to test-fire the then-novel ERFB ammunition. The GC 45 was far from being a viable field weapon, but that did not prevent it from being purchased by the Royal Thai Marines or from being widely copied. The GC 45, in a revised form, is now being produced in Austria by NORICUM, as the GH N-45. It saw extensive use in the recent Iran/Iraq war.
From the GC 45 came several other L/45 guns. The Chinese WA 021 is a virtual clone of the Austrian GH N-45, while the South African G5 started life as a GC 45 derivative but has been refined to the point where it may be regarded as a virtually new design.
Other L/45 guns include the Israeli Soltam Model 845P and the
ODE FH-88 from Singapore. Another L/45 design, but of a new generation, is the SRC FGH-155, which at present exists only in prototype form. SRC is the latest configuration of the old Space Research Corporation of Quebec and at present has its main office in Belgium, although much of the actual hardware development is being carried out in Spain and elsewhere.
The FGH-155 may be regarded as the GC 45 taken to its next logical step. It has much the same performance as the other L/45 guns, but numerous changes have been made in the manufacturing methods. For instance, the barrel rifling is now much deeper, and various types of
breech mechanism are on offer to suit customer requirements. Overall there are fewer parts than with other designs. The FGH-155 has been designed from the outset to fire the long-range ERFB round: if older projectiles are used special plastic
adaptor rings have to be used.
The advent of the L/45 guns has not meant that designs with shorter length barrels have ceased to appear. Away from the long barrel designs, the
preferred barrel length is still L/39, which is used with the
FH-70, the
American M198, the
Spanish SB 155/39, the F
innish Tampella M-74 and various models from the I
sraeli Soltam concern. L/39 barrels are also used by the
French Towed Gun TR and the
Swedish Bofors FH-77A and FH-77B. The latter became one of the largest export sales successes of recent years when over 400 were sold to India, so it cannot be said that L/45 designs have
swamped the potential artillery market.
On a smaller
calibre scale, 105 mm designs are now few and far between. The few designs on the market are intended mainly for specialised troops such as mountain batteries and
commando support units. Top of the success list must come the British
Royal Ordnance 105 mm Light Gun, which has been sold to many countries and equips several
British Army regiments
