Artillery from the receiving end

[Bigduke6]

Depends on how badly the hi-tekkies want to respond. If a modern counter-fire radar is looking in the right direction, and the gun bunnies are ready, it's possible to get counter-battery shells into the air before the strike that provoked the counter-fire, hits the ground. In other words, under two minutes, and in a perfect situation under a minute. The technology is pretty impressive if it's allowed to do what it's designed to do.

Thing is, any fire mission these days has to jump through lots of hoops before it gets launched, mostly it's got to fit the rules of engagement including getting every one and his brother agreed that there are no civilians in the area, just bad guys. The US tries ridiculously hard to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage, and that process takes time.

Mr. Emrys may well be right, it could be something absolutely faked, for instance some Palestinians figured out where the Israelis were conducting training fire and they set up a camera and a smoke bomb and made a film about how the occupiers waste ammo on heroic rocket launcher guerillas.

But an alternative explaination of the editing is that whever this took place, my guess Iraq, the targeted US unit was being extremely careful about counter-fire, and in the spirit of not using a sledge-hammer to kill mosquitos (from the US POV) they used 1-2 guns and observed results after every shot. Or more or less what Steve suggested.

The lesson if there is one here probably is that even if the high-tekkies do everything right, they are super careful and accurate, they make minimizing collateral damage the top priority, once they decide to use "deadly force" they expend plenty of resources and don't worry about the cost, and the response is executed at impressively high standards of military professionalism - and still the insurgents wind up way ahead in the material cost and propaganda columns.

To me, just the ratio of the cost of those rockets and their launcher, vs. the cost of those guns and those shells, is nothing less than frightening; and that's even before you start calculating the cost of the insurgents and their camera vs. the cannon cockers and all the support it takes to deploy and sustain them. It's got to be 10,000, maybe 100,000 to 1 in terms of how much the Americans paid, vs. what the insurgents paid, for that little exchange.

At odds like that, it's hard not to bet on the insurgents.

[John Kettler]

Mord,

The Ostfront vets were right! Artillery firing does sound like giant doors slamming in the skies. Impressive arrival sounds, too. As for terminal effects, remind me to be elsewhere!

thefightingSeabee,

Combat camera--Taliban style--made wildly incongruous by the "Meet Sexy Women in Your Area" header! Why not DF the radio and shell that zone? Would think a volley would remove leader, team and the tube!

Regards,

John Kettler

John Kettler

[theFightingSeabee]

I don't think you can launch artillery without trying to kill the target. Considering the (possible) circumstances, they were hitting pretty closely. The NATO guys may have been firing under fire as well, adding to the slightly less-than-perfect counter fire. And who knows what type of equipment they had, they could have been just a platoon in a small outpost with none of the high tech radar.

[Yair Iny]

What's all this 100,000:1 cost thing? 155mm arty rounds don't cost that much, a few 1000$ each. The arty bns are there anyway, etc. It's not like they're shooting back tomahawks... I'd say that as far as firepower/$, a regular arty bn is pretty effective...

[Los]

Better to have a counterbattery program which forces the enemy from being with the weapons they are operating, thus making the attacks less accurate and less frequent, than allowing the operators to be on the weapons, making adjustments or taking their sweet a** time to recover their weapons or set up properly. If the program reduces the effectiveness and saves lives, it worth a couple of 155 rounds.

BTW I liked the nice reverse slope position, on the second (mortar team) video, making getting good hits on CB a little more challenging. Every little bit helps when trying to stay alive...

Los

[Bonecrusher-17]

I don't think these are 155 rounds, sounds more/looks more like, 120mm mortars effects. Hard to tell. As A 13F whos 'eaten' 155 rounds in training because FDO/Gunline was FUBAR (once even a 203mm @ 400m, ouch!) the effects looked to small to be 155. Possibly M119 (105mm). If they had been 155mm I don't think we'd have this video, the concusive wave @ 150m would have screwed this camera up considerably.

My question is if this US-vs-Insurgents in CB, was it Q-36/37 generated or was there PID from an manned OP?

[Battlefront.com]

Yair Iny,

What's all this 100,000:1 cost thing? 155mm arty rounds don't cost that much, a few 1000$ each. The arty bns are there anyway, etc. It's not like they're shooting back tomahawks... I'd say that as far as firepower/$, a regular arty bn is pretty effective...

It's got to do with the total cost of the entire equation on one side vs. the entire equation on the other side and then comparing it to relative goals of each. This is the whole problem with asymmetrical warfare which, we hope, CM:SF shows off quite nicely

The primary problem facing a conventional army is that over time the costs of sustaining it add up to a large amount of money. Even short term it's quite expensive. Unsustainable in the long term. So if an insurgent force can just wait it out, eventually that artillery battery will be withdrawn.

Considering that the Taliban is almost entirely self funded by opium sales and other illegal activity (as well as foreign fund raising, of course), they DO have financial sustainability. That's absolutely a problem.

What has to happen is the big, expensive military has to get things fixed in such a way that when it withdraws (as it absolutely must do) whatever it hoped to achieve has been and can continue to be after it leaves. Vietnam is an example where withdrawal obviously failed. Haiti, Somalia, and other hell holes where the US has gone in without a long term plan (or even a medium term plan) are still more examples. Bosnia and Kosovo, on the other hand, are examples of success. Iraq is too soon to call, but it's not looking too badly now. Afghanistan, unfortunately, isn't.

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Well what, there are about a dozen 155mm rounds fired, right?

If you go to this linkie, you can find out how much use taxpayers have, er, shelled out out for batches of the M795, er, shell.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/m795.htm

I didn't work through all the contracts but it works out to between $250 and $850 per shell. Call it $500 average. This is not including the detonator, but who cares?

Ok, that means maybe 6 grand or so and that's the raw ammo cost of that little stonk.

The rockets cost, well be generous and call it 50 bucks.

So ammo tradeoff, the Americans are outspending the insurgents about 120 to one in that little exchange. So I may have to back off from my 10,000 to 1 guess.

Of course, once you start factoring in TDY pay, combat pay, Snickers and a good selection of non-bootleg DVDs in the local PX, a couple of M109 howitzers, firefinder radars, JSTARS, plenty of fun and training at Fort Sill, TRATs twice a day and fresh hot chow once; that's alot of resources that you have to put into place, to drop those relatively inexensive M795 shells on target.

And if you match the price of all that "infastructrure", against the cost of a half day's work by about four guys (two doing the rocket, one with the camera, and one lookout), well it's pretty clear if the point is to waste ammunition the Iraqi approach is alot more cost-efficient.

Good thing the US taxpayers are so generous, and that they have so much money to spend on little exercises like this.

[Yair Iny]

OK, I completely agree that a western armed force is heaps more expensive than the insurgents they face, no doubt that is one of the big asymmetries in the whole asymmetric warfare situation. Was just pointing out that as far as, call it incremental costs (as opposed to the fixed cost of maintaining the force in theatre), artillery is one of the more cost effective weapon systems out there. Compare this to firing a javelin at a sniper with an M14, now there's a 100,000:1 cost differential

I remember it used to be one of the big selling points of the F16, saying it has such a sophisticated Fire Control Radar that it can drop dumb bombs with precision. In fact, the Osirak reactor was hit with dumb bombs, and everyone, except for the US and Israeli Air Forces, who understood the capabilities of the (then new) F16, thought they had to have used guided munitions given the hit ratio they achieved. Kind of the same thing with artillery nowadays, very sophisticated systems for aiming, but the rounds themselves are pretty cheap and dumb. Never mind that my F16 analogy now falls short, because everything being dropped nowadays is guided

[DaveDash]

Yair Iny,

It's got to do with the total cost of the entire equation on one side vs. the entire equation on the other side and then comparing it to relative goals of each. This is the whole problem with asymmetrical warfare which, we hope, CM:SF shows off quite nicely

The primary problem facing a conventional army is that over time the costs of sustaining it add up to a large amount of money. Even short term it's quite expensive. Unsustainable in the long term. So if an insurgent force can just wait it out, eventually that artillery battery will be withdrawn.

Considering that the Taliban is almost entirely self funded by opium sales and other illegal activity (as well as foreign fund raising, of course), they DO have financial sustainability. That's absolutely a problem.

What has to happen is the big, expensive military has to get things fixed in such a way that when it withdraws (as it absolutely must do) whatever it hoped to achieve has been and can continue to be after it leaves. Vietnam is an example where withdrawal obviously failed. Haiti, Somalia, and other hell holes where the US has gone in without a long term plan (or even a medium term plan) are still more examples. Bosnia and Kosovo, on the other hand, are examples of success. Iraq is too soon to call, but it's not looking too badly now. Afghanistan, unfortunately, isn't.

Steve

While I definitely see your point, it's all relative. Yes the stuff the west uses is pretty expensive, but I'd be surprised if Afghanistan takes up even 0.1% of U.S. GDP per year, which is definitely sustainable economically. Even Iraq, which is fussed about as being expensive is 0.5%-0.7% of GDP per year which is sustainable, compared to Vietnam which was 1.5%-2.0% per year.

If the Taliban had any way of effectively causing any attrition then it might be an issue, but the amount of attrition they cause is pretty much negligible in terms of equipment and economics to the U.S. at least.

What is not as sustainable is the political/people will IMO. That is a much greater problem than the cost of bombs.

I am also fairly certain that the ROE has changed in Afghanistan to target poppy fields generating income for the Taliban.

In that video of the Taliban firing mortars, it looks to me like the Apache is taking out a spotter or something, given the elevated position that they are firing upon.

[DaveDash]

OK, I completely agree that a western armed force is heaps more expensive than the insurgents they face, no doubt that is one of the big asymmetries in the whole asymmetric warfare situation. Was just pointing out that as far as, call it incremental costs (as opposed to the fixed cost of maintaining the force in theatre), artillery is one of the more cost effective weapon systems out there. Compare this to firing a javelin at a sniper with an M14, now there's a 100,000:1 cost differential

I remember it used to be one of the big selling points of the F16, saying it has such a sophisticated Fire Control Radar that it can drop dumb bombs with precision. In fact, the Osirak reactor was hit with dumb bombs, and everyone, except for the US and Israeli Air Forces, who understood the capabilities of the (then new) F16, thought they had to have used guided munitions given the hit ratio they achieved. Kind of the same thing with artillery nowadays, very sophisticated systems for aiming, but the rounds themselves are pretty cheap and dumb. Never mind that my F16 analogy now falls short, because everything being dropped nowadays is guided

Also to further your point, due to the manufacturing techniques and what have you of a modern computerized society, it's probably just as cost-effective to create guided munitions than unguided. GPS, computer parts, etc, are as cheap as chips these days.

[Clavicula_Nox]

I am also fairly certain that the ROE has changed in Afghanistan to target poppy fields generating income for the Taliban.

Can't go after the fields until alternative economic means are in place; otherwise we cut a significant amount of the country's income and piss off the locals.

By "can't", I actually mean "Shouldn't", but the US Army doesn't like unconventional warfighters, like myself, nor do they like thinking outside the box. Maybe Petraeus will inject some sanity into the whole thing, or maybe he will try, and commanders on the ground will continue to do things their own, US Army institutionalized way.

[Battlefront.com]

DaveDash,

We're getting a bit off topic, but I want to illustrate why cost matters in an asymmetric environment where very "expensive" soldiers with $80,000 missiles are killing barely trained snipers with $50 rifles.

While I definitely see your point, it's all relative. Yes the stuff the west uses is pretty expensive, but I'd be surprised if Afghanistan takes up even 0.1% of U.S. GDP per year, which is definitely sustainable economically.

Ah... the old GDP % argument Well, it's a fundamentally flawed way to think of this stuff. What really counts is how much tax revenue the US government receives and how much it is spending. Why? Because that is what determines the tax rates, tax burdens, and influences spending priorities. That in turn influences overall economic sustainability, citizen happiness, and political stability. According to one number I just looked up, Homeland Security and Defense consume $3 of every $10 in collected tax revenue in 2008. That's a far more relevant number than comparing to GDP because, first of all, GDP is a make-believe number (OK, it's a very complex estimate) while taxes and government services are directly measurable. When I look at my W2 at the end of the year I don't think "gee... the GDP is so great, I should be happy that I'm paying this much and have to spend thousands a year on my own health care, drive on 50 year old bridges, have a 100 year old sewer log (they used wood for pipes back then) that just burst, etc. etc."

The war in Iraq alone will have cost us US taxpayers about $1 trillion (est) by the time combat troops leave, then a smaller amount per year for however many years we're there with a fairly large footprint. No matter how you look at it, $1 trillion over 8 years is a lot of money. Here's an example.

Take $1 Trillion and divided it up by 8 years and you get $125 Billion per year. Take that and divide that up by 50 states and you get $2.5 Billion per year per state. My State's entire budget is $6 Billion a year and this year our revenue projections are showing a $1 Billion shortfall. So, in theory, the Feds could hand us enough money to cover our entire budget shortfall this year AND give us another $1.5 Billion to address long term problems we don't have the money for. AND they could do this every year for 8 years.

Obviously this analogy is impractical and not even fair (our state certainly didn't contribute the same as California to the Fed tax pile ), but it's not meant to. What it's meant to do is show why the GDP argument is such a horrible way to figure out what the value of a Dollar is to the people. I bet you if you polled my state back in 2003 and asked "would you rather go to war against Saddam or have $2.5 Billion given to you" I very much doubt this GOP leaning state would have opted for war. Call it a hunch

Now, back to the reality. An insurgent force which is basically self funded through illegal trade and diverse external funding can fight indefinitely as long as they can find the warm bodies to keep the attacks going. There is no occupying nation in the history of the modern world that can wait out such an enemy. It just doesn't work because the hit to GDP doesn't tell the real story. Which is why our military leaders have been saying for years and years that there must be a political solution to Iraq and Afghanistan because we can't out spend or out wait our adversaries.

Steve

[Clavicula_Nox]

Also to further your point, due to the manufacturing techniques and what have you of a modern computerized society, it's probably just as cost-effective to create guided munitions than unguided. GPS, computer parts, etc, are as cheap as chips these days.

Yup, we certainly win Hearts and Minds by dropping 2,000pound bombs in neighborhoods.

[Battlefront.com]

Clavicula_Nox,

Can't go after the fields until alternative economic means are in place; otherwise we cut a significant amount of the country's income and piss off the locals.

Yup. From what I remember 2008 more opium came out of Afghanistan than in any prior year ever. Could be wrong about that, but me thinks I'm not. Raids on poppy fields have been token affairs to show the media.

By "can't", I actually mean "Shouldn't", but the US Army doesn't like unconventional warfighters, like myself, nor do they like thinking outside the box. Maybe

Some experimental efforts to get farmers to grow something other than poppies hasn't done so we. Why? No markets for the crops, no transportation network to get them to market, and no support to see them through until the kinks are worked out. Contrast this with hundreds of years of experience and infrastructure to move poppies to market. It's going to take a huge effort to switch their single largest portion of the economy. Not to mention there are a lot of rich guys with weapons who don't want it to change

Petraeus will inject some sanity into the whole thing, or maybe he will try, and commanders on the ground will continue to do things their own, US Army institutionalized way.

The thing is the military shouldn't be doing this at all. It needs to be a civilian run deal with the military providing enforcement when sensible policies are threatened by criminal activity. Having the military rebuild countries is like having the local police run the local schools or hippies running major corporations (Ben & Jerry's is a notable exception ). Actually, on second thought... based on recent events I'd give the hippies a shot at it since all those guys with MBAs didn't do such a great job.

The military exists to defend and to attack, not to hold people's hands and tell them how great it would be to turn their lives upside down for reasons they couldn't care less about. Use a hammer to pound a nail, not peel a banana.

Steve

[Clavicula_Nox]

Steve, no arguments from me on any of that. I can't comment on the effectiveness of poppy field raids, I really don't know, but I think you're right; just a smoke screen to say we're doing something.

I go back and forth on civilian leadership of the military. More and more I see our country being staffed with civilian *******s, and it seriously worries me to know they're in charge of things.

I'm not sure of "The Answer" in Afghanistan; when I was there, I was pretty busy going after bad guys and didn't have near-enough immersion as I did in Iraq, we were just too busy. Most likely, like Iraq, it isn't going to end well for us. Karzai and most of the Northern Alliance types are Iran backed; and for Iraq, Maliki and most of his buddies are also Iran backed. Waste of time? Probably.

[Battlefront.com]

I go back and forth on civilian leadership of the military. More and more I see our country being staffed with civilian *******s, and it seriously worries me to know they're in charge of things.

My opinion of the competency of senior military leadership prior to Iraq and post Iraq aren't even remotely the same. Take a guess if my opinion went up or down

We are a civilian government, so for better or worse we have politicians in charge. However, even if the Constitution allows for absolutely asinine appointments by the President, that doesn't mean he's obligated to stick horse lawyers in charge of FEMA or oil lobbyists in positions to control environmental science information. There are a fairly wide range of people, sometimes referred to as "competent", that can be appointed instead

Personally, the answer to me seems to be pretty clear... have a professional, dedicated, country rebuilding force. Currently we need to put a screw into a board and all we have are hammers and pliers. Both suck One of the many big reasons why Iraq and Afghanistan are so f'd up is because there weren't any plans on what to do after the country was invaded (not to mention after the shooting started).

The State Department and the Pentagon had all kinds of frameworks ready to go. Probably millions of man hours put into writing them. But they were left on the shelf because there was no time to read them and, no doubt, it would raise questions that the people in charge at the time didn't even want to think about. In other words, the entire planning process for the war was highly politicized and extremely short term. If there were a department that was sitting around planning for this sort of stuff I think we'd be a lot better off. Er... as long as it wasn't politicized and starved of funding like FEMA was.

Have them be under military authority for the initial phases, then switch rolls when a certain level of stability is reached. Politicians will keep butting in, of course, but I'd feel much better knowing that someone was being interfered with who actually knew what they were doing instead of having everything be done seat-of-the-pants by totally inexperienced people. Like one of the senior officials at the State Department in charge of Iraq and Afghanistan policy that I went to school with. Oh boy did I have to bite my tongue when I saw her at our high school reunion

Steve

[Clavicula_Nox]

My opinion of senior (and junior - mid grade) military leadership plummeted the moment I reported for duty at my first unit. In only a few minutes, I saw just how screwed up the system was and was forever scarred by it. With very few exceptions, I think the good officers tend to stay until they reach Full-bird, or LTC, then get out; and that's even if they're able to shine above their bootlicking peers.

The more I read about the opening stages of Iraq and Afghanistan, the angrier I get. I'm not a pacifist by any means, but I'm not stupid, either, and Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld were stupid. I guess I believed in the whole mission for awhile, but now? I can't.

[Battlefront.com]

My opinion of senior (and junior - mid grade) military leadership plummeted the moment I reported for duty at my first unit. In only a few minutes, I saw just how screwed up the system was and was forever scarred by it. With very few exceptions, I think the good officers tend to stay until they reach Full-bird, or LTC, then get out; and that's even if they're able to shine above their bootlicking peers.

A good friend of mine retired as a LTC. I used to joke with him about becoming a General. I can't use the exact words he spoke to me, since this I'd have to ban myself , but it basically boiled down to "over my dead body". He was a soldier's soldier... not a politician in uniform, which apparently is what most senior officers become. We certainly got some first hand examples of that from Iraq. You know, the Generals that said "everything is fine, Bush is giving us everything we ask for, etc." and then afterwards they say the exact opposite... things were going terrible, they were being interfered with at every level by civilian ideologues, and that sensible requests for things were routinely ignored because they were politically inconvenient. I would like to think I'd have resigned my commission rather than take part in something like that.

The more I read about the opening stages of Iraq and Afghanistan, the angrier I get. I'm not a pacifist by any means, but I'm not stupid, either, and Wolfowitz, Feith, and Rumsfeld were stupid. I guess I believed in the whole mission for awhile, but now? I can't.

Theoretically there is nothing wrong with either mission in my book. Afghanistan was a direct response to 9/11, kicking Saddam out of power removed a really nasty piece of work from a deeply troubled region of the world. Having said that, timing and execution are entirely different matters. The right cause for the wrong reasons isn't acceptable. Going to war without a plan is somewhere on the thin line between gross incompetency and treason IMHO, no matter how just the cause is.

But I digress

Steve

Steve

[Dietrich]

I think all this arguing about the worthwhile-ness of hurling half a dozen 155mm shells at an insurgent rocket launcher or mortar position ought to be weighed (at least partially) against the feelings one would have if one endured a sudden and unsettingly accurate insurgent artillery attack and then heard friendly howitzers thumping in reply.

If I were in camp, mortars started landing all, I flung myself under the nearest sturdy object, and then, as the dust started to settle, I heard one-fifty-fives booming in the distance, I'd be thinking, not "what a stupid waste of money and firepower", but "yeah, get 'em." But then again, I've never actually had such an experience.

[JonS]

... I'd be thinking, not "what a stupid waste of money and firepower", but "yeah, get 'em." ...

Sure. Most people would probably react the same way in those circumstances.

However, as a tax payer you're entitled to think about other things than the poor soldiers hurt feelings. The soldiers aren't out there to work on their tans, collect allowances and medals, and burn ammo to make themselves feel better.

[Dietrich]

as a tax payer you're entitled to think about other things than the poor soldiers hurt feelings. The soldiers aren't out there to work on their tans, collect allowances and medals, and burn ammo to make themselves feel better.

Is it simply a matter of the soldiers' hurt feelings? Am I supposed to believe the rationale could be or should be "no one got actually killed during that last mortar attack, so we're going to conserve ammo and not perform any counter-battery missions"?

Permit me to rephrase the question: What if 81mm (or even 120mm) mortars were used for counter-battery fire against OPFOR mortars/rockets? Less costly per projectile, right?

Besides, I had been operating under the assumption that just because I'm entitled to do something doesn't mean I'm beholden to do such or that that which I'm entitled to do is or should be the overriding concern. I just get bored with snidely looking at things from the armchair-general perspective. And I'm sympathetic with the grunts.

[purpheart23]

Sure. Most people would probably react the same way in those circumstances.

However, as a tax payer you're entitled to think about other things than the poor soldiers hurt feelings. The soldiers aren't out there to work on their tans, collect allowances and medals, and burn ammo to make themselves feel better.

Your right, we're out there to get blown up, shot, and burned. To hell with morale. Lets let em hammer us all day. Pissing about a couple of artillery shells. You want to see your tax dollars hard at work go down to the social security/welfare offices on the 1st and the 15th of each month.

Back OT: This is a single cannon delivering these rounds. A platoon/battery counter fire mission would be much more devastating. As far as swatting a fly with a sledge hammer, im assuming "we" should let the "fly" buzz around all day doing whatever it likes without a single thought that it might get swatted. In my experience that is not the answer.

P.S. I'm a Soldier and I pay taxes

[JonS]

[You're] right, we're out there to get blown up, shot, and burned.

You are a tool of foreign policy, not the vice versa. If you aren't advancing foreign policy at an acceptable cost, you're failing. If you don't like the job, quit.

There's an old saying that runs something like "If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined up." Soldiers are tools. Tools get abused. Deal with it, and stop behaving like a whiny little b!tch.

[purpheart23]

Warrior ethos. "I will always place the mission first, I will never accept defeat, I WILL NEVER QUIT, I will never leave a fallen comrade," sorry boss they got me for life.

And I'm sorry if I don't agree with you and your opinion. This umm......discussion? Is over for me. I'm gonna go burn some more taxpayer money. Tried to be cordial.