Chinese mechanised brigades artillery choises

Sorry to not reply earlier, been bit busy elsewhere...

It seems that we both represent the too major schools in artillery, towed, o SP both having served with the corresponding type of the school that we hold better.

What comes to the mobility and the the fact that Brigades speed depends on the lowest unit in fact towed guns have far greater benefit over SP guns. SP guns are often tracked system, so their speed is far slower than those moving on wheels. Basicly the SP systmes are so low that they need special trailers to move them along which is highly expensive and still much more slower than towed guns. You see towed guns are, like the name indicates, a towed systems so they need a hauler. Hauling truck can haul the towed gun actully far faster than many other mobile unist in average mechanised brigade. From personal expereince I can tell that the 14 ton 155K98 can be towed over 110 km/h althoug not recommended. In general normal roadspeeds of 80 km/h can be ahcived.

I agree with your criterias and here's few add form my own wievs...

Like I said above about the fist criteria, SP guns do however have an advantage in this field and thats the tactical mobility. As beeing tracked systems, they have better off-road abilityes and deployment is easier as they are if looked as purely mobile platforms much more simple than towed gun and hauler combination.

The criteria two is unrelevant to comparising SP and towed systems as they both can have the same tubes and use the same ammunitions. The actual weapon is the heart of all artillery systems and it's doesen't matter which platform they are fitted. The rate of fire is another matter, but the presence of APU can give the towed guns similar autoloader capabilityes as SP sytems.

The third criteria is the most important in the face of SP and Towed systme comparison. Shoot and scoop. It's true that SP systems have a great avantage in this field, or at least the had. The APU (auxiliary power unit) fitted in modern towed guns pretty much eats the advantage of SP systems to very minium.

The shoot and scoop tactic is important when facing enemy with counter battery radars. So firing and getting out of the firepositions is highly important.
So lets look this form the Towed APU fitted guns spectrum, 155K98 for example:

The APU enables the gun moving around by itself for short distances with soem 12 km/h. It also gives power to various hydraulic systmes which reduces the time needed to put the gun in action and taking it off. The deployment to the fire position is the most time consuming phase of the entire artillery operations. 155K98 as able to be deployed in about 5 mins when arriving to the fire position. The gun itself, changed from the driving mode to the shooting mode is made in 2 minutes by three to four mens. The most timedraining task is to spade the gun down to the ground (tough some singaporean towed guns have found spadeless solution to stabel the gun). But the deployment is rahter irrelevant as the counter battery fire is only isseu when you have fired your first rounds. The disaseemble of the gun is the more relevant matter.
155K98 can be disasembled and driven out from the fire position propaply faster than oldest SP guns. In few minutes. It's slower than let say PZH2000 but still quite faster than non-APU guns like D-30, which needs about 10 minutes. I don't know exactly how fast is the counter battery firing, but asemble the ammunitions and charges plus aiming the gun needs few minutes at least so the time is just enough...

Lets look at another important priority still unmentioned, the ability to give continious fire support (which is the main task of all artillery)
The lower cost of towed guns ables 6 gun batteries and 18 gun battalions. This gives the posipility to rotate the guns deployment and shooting rate more than in 4 gun SP batteries and 12 gun battalions. Lets look this more closely form one batterys eyes:

The batterys two fireplatoons are disperenced in such a wide area if enemy counter battery fires at one platoon, the other is safe from the hits. THe first paltoon comes to the position and fires a quick burst of few rounds each and then scoops out as fast as possiple. Then when the firts paltoon is on the move or already deplying to next pre-selected fire positions, the seccond platoon does the same thing and so on. In battalion level the rotation can be made that one battery fires and other is on the move. The ammount of tubes firing have considerable effects on the very effectivness of the artillery fire.

But like you said both SP and Towed systems have their palce in the battlefield and army the size of PLA sure can afford the both systems. To which unit having which type is the key issue. As the mobility is the number one priority, the selection of the proper artillery system should be made on the fact which type of brigade you have. Amourd brigades tends to have tracked vehicles as a main mobilisation solution so tracked SP systems are naturally the best choise. But these mechanized brigades that orginally were the topic of this thread are another thing. In chinese case they are mostly fitted with the wheeled WZ551 ACPs which are naturally more faster than tracked IFVs and ACPs. So in light of this the towed artilery (with modern systems with APU) is more ideal choise. Sadly, china currently doesen't posses such a systems.

I have to confess that my knowledge on APUs is close to nonexistant, but I could enlighten you a bit about conuter battery fire.
In general, the enemy has to be located, the artillery has to move to aim and to fire.

Ill go in for Tube Based counter artillery first.
Moving Aiming and Firing speeds depend on the artillery system used. A PZH gets the Job done in about 1 minute.
After this minute, the ammunition has to travel to the enemy and (hopefully) hit them. This varies with the distance and (slightly) with the used projectile.

The other side is actually locating the fire.
To do this, there are 2 possible options:
A: Standart (active) Fire Finding radars.
These radars can pick up artillery shells on the fleight (with varying degrees of reliablity), transmit these to their command and than issue conuter battery fire. However, this is an active system, and therefore can be easily detected by counter radar units.
B: Seismic: Another way is to track the kinetics of the rounds when they hit earth. Using sophisticated measures, the direction and distance the artillery shell came from is extractable from the information recorded on the impact.
This system is passive (emits no signs to be traced by the enemys anti radar) but takes a bit longer (enemy position is know when the shell hits, with basic fire finders its known when the shell is fired) and is a bit less reliable (it also relies on semi exact wind/weather data for example).


The detection system for MLRS/MARS like missle artillery are practically the same, they get additional range and a very heavy effect on impact but loose the ability to deliver sustained fire.

On of my gripes with towed artillery is the difficulty in dishing out counter battery fire. It is true that the time to deploy does not count as much during a normal fire setup, but in a CB-Situation this time is critical (well, towed vs. towed artillery is a race who can assemble or disassemble his gun faster).

Of course, a Battalion or Platoon of guns may sit a firing position and wait till the other side exposes themselves, however, chances are that a fast SP-Artillery can still be to fast or to hard for them.
Although I would still rather not been hit, a PZH can theoretically stand Bomblett and not direct HE hits.
In addition, sitting with a towed gun in a firing position is not something you should do if you are up against an actual enemy army.

If going for towed artillery, one may counter this disadvantadge by utilizing rocket systems to compensate, but this would (as, ifrc rocket launchers can be quite expensive).

To sum it up: If you are up against modern (really shiny type) Howitzers, Counter Battery fire can hit in (1 minute for going in and firing, 15 secs for getting information, lets say 20 secs shell flying time) under 2 minutes.
If you are the one counter firing, you can, against towed forces, propably dominate the artillery battle and thus gain a significant advantadge.

Addendum: Regarding the rate of fire, SP-Howitzers can limit the quantiative disadvantadge by spending less time with scooping and thus more with shooting.
Bascially, you fire, get the heck away, go to another position and fire again, this is usually done in 4-5 minutes, compared to the propably quite more minutes towed guns would need.

I do not know how good towed guns are at conducting MRSI (Multiple rounds Same impact, you shoot several rounds with one gun, which, due to some fancy calculating, hit their target at the same time.) maneuvers, but I recon that this propably is a bit more difficult if the firing system is not computerrized
However, towed artillery probaply still has an advantadge in alpha strike (fire everything you got at the same time) situations.

You raised good points. In this counter battery fire issue, the biggest thing that intress me is the complete time from the first rounds fired by the enemy artillery, the time of detecting them, calculating the fire and get that information to your own units, repreard the ammunitions and fire them agaisnt the enemy.

Most important in my wievs are the time that it used in your own artillery units to aim the gun and most importantly, reprear the ammunitions and charges. I'm not sure how exactly it is done with the PZH2000 but in both D-30 and with 155K98, the basic idea was that you prepare the ammunitions and make the proper charges when you know where to shoot, in practice the Hq gives you command to prepare 10 number 2 charges for instance.

In counterbattery firing, you cannot know where the target is untill it fires it's first rounds. Then only can the calculators count the needed charges and pass that order to the firing units. Preparing the charges takes, depended on the ammount of need 1-3 minutes. The more rounds you need to fire, the more time you need to prepare more charges.

So it takes at least 5 mins (in my obinion) when the counterbattery fire can be started so that gives at least theoretical changes to APU fitted towed guns to scoop out, as they are in effect a some sort of "self-proppelled guns"...without APU, there is no change against effective counterbatteryfire.

Addendum: Regarding the rate of fire, SP-Howitzers can limit the quantiative disadvantadge by spending less time with scooping and thus more with shooting.
Bascially, you fire, get the heck away, go to another position and fire again, this is usually done in 4-5 minutes, compared to the propably quite more minutes towed guns would need

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Thats true as towed artillery, regardless of the APU needs almoust ten minutes to deployment. Getting out of the fire positions can be done in mere minutes if using APU, but getting in the new fire positions needs lot more time. This disavantage can be however compensate with higher ammount of tubes in single battery or battalion.

I do not know how good towed guns are at conducting MRSI (Multiple rounds Same impact, you shoot several rounds with one gun, which, due to some fancy calculating, hit their target at the same time.) maneuvers, but I recon that this propably is a bit more difficult if the firing system is not computerrized
However, towed artillery probaply still has an advantadge in alpha strike (fire everything you got at the same time) situations.

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The D-30 used tradditional optical aiming devices, but 155K98 uses Talin-2000computerized navigation, positioning and aiming system. We never practiced that MRSI type of shooting so I cannot say wheter 155K98 can do it.

Some points about the PZH-2000. Please bear in mind, that this propably represents german only technology.

Charges: Although the older British and American Charge Systemns (We called the Beutel or Stabladungen, the stuff everyone else is using) are still in use, the actual system is the "Modulares Treibladungsystem". It consist of up to 8 identical charges, which you can attach on each other like in a Lego Set.

A PZH has some 200 in it, which are just taken out and stitched together.
This drastically reduces the preperation time.

You can just plonk them together, and it can also be done while driving (if its not to shaky). The PZH targetting computer can be directly fed with the targets data and also starts calculating while driving to the firing position.
Once there, the Gunner hits the "Auto-Aim" button and the turret automatically (and pretty quickly) moves where it is supposed to be. The Shell (PZH loads some 70 rounds iirc, and the computer knows which round is where) is automatically loaded, the loader inserts the charge (loading is a matter of 4 seconds per shot) and you are ready to fire.

Under exercize conditions, we needed one minute to fire off, you can add the time intervall for the flying rounds and the time intervall from transmitting the information, but its still fast enough to get someone who needs more than 2 mins to move out.

You can also load the shell (which will propably be Bomblett or HE) before any fire oder gets in and drive around with it in the barrel, gets you another 2-3 seconds.

Its not like with the M109 where you had to manually get the turret into the right angle (which is quite difficult), you drive in, stop, rotate the turret and fire.
This is the actual point for the PZH, counter battery fire in less than 2 minutes, + near immunity to CB fire because of armour/scoot out speed.

Thanks for the information...We used bit similar system with the 155K98 and in fact almoust all western 155mm artillery systems uses these individual charges. We called the system a "finnish system" as the opposite was the "russian system" which we get used with the D-30. The Finnish system was like you descriped but we had to first unload the bags form their containers (tough this was propaply a peacetime safety meassures, in war more compact storing methods would be used) and tie the bags of powder together. The aiming of the gun was done manually, but with the TALIN-2000 system you just moved the wheels untill it says "good" in the terminal.

The russian charge system was bit different...The D-30 used these old cartus-type of charges where the bags of powder was stuffed in these metal shells. Preparing those took lots of more time as did the preparation of ammunition (The russians had this weird habbit of stuck this extremely poisonous crease to everythin made from metal so we had to scrats the directional circles (the swalloed part of the ammunition) clean before they could be stucked to the tube...Also the numeratical system regarding the charges where different in the "finnish" and "russian" systems, in the finnish one, number one charge was the smallest eg. one bag of powder and in the russian system, the number one charge was the third largest (largest beeing the full charge and seccond the serial charge) eg. one bag taken of from the charge...Using those two systems paralel was bit confusing as they often don't choose no spacescientist to artillery


But i'm actullay quite impressed of the PZH2000 performances, but then again it's propaply one of the best SP systems in service anywhere in the world...

With the PLA converting more and more from Soviet- to Western-type artillery, Fire Control and Communications are going to be major challenges, as I'm sure the PLA is by now well aware of. Progressively retiring older Soviet-type pieces and replacing them with NATO-type pieces means far more than just physically replacing artillery pieces and retraining crews. It means changing over to an entirely different concept of warfare.

It's relatively easy to get adequate fire support from great masses of towed guns, but replacing many towed guns with fewer self-propelled guns (in armoured and mechanized formations anyway) while still getting at least a similar (and preferably better) level of fire support means very heavy dependence upon communications nets, satellite GPS (ideally), and large numbers of munitions vehicles and lots of repair and recovery teams. It is unclear that China (as yet) is able to defeat Western-type electronic jamming of its artillery communications nets, not to mention any satellite GPS system it may rely upon. And I have seen no information on how the PLA organizes its Fire Control Direction Centres or on its Artillery communications and fire control procedures (amongst other things).

Presumably, the PLA has been working on such problems for a while now, but there is a great gap to be bridged between the Soviet-style system (with armour and infantry units being restricted to calling upon only the commander of the artillery battery firing in their support for fires, thus greatly reducing the radio communications issues involved) to the NATO-style system with complex radio communications nets, relatively sophisticated fire control planning and procedures, and the measures taken to counter electronic jamming - and I'm not even going to get into NATO-type artillery logistical support. It's a tremendous transition, and it will take a lot of time, trial and error to get it right.

It has to be said that the old Soviet-style system of artillery support had its advantages. One, the Soviets often used preplanned barrages straight out of the World Wars, with even the guns themselves arranged in a straight battery line for ease of plotting fires and laying guns. Of course, the Soviets also surveyed battery positions manually (much, much slower than GPS, but invulnerable to any jamming), and often used the Self-Propelled Guns in the direct-fire role, thus negating not only most jammming, but in fact dispensing with practically any need for pre-planning of fires at all, just moving along behind the tanks and firing over open sights at anything that moved. Granted, SPG losses would go way up, but direct fire is a few times more effective than indirect fire, and short of destroying the SPGs themselves, such fires cannot be disrupted by electronic jamming. And the Soviets had plenty of SPGs to replace any that they lose in any case. Plus, Soviet radios used vaccuum tubes, so EMP couldn't really harm them much.

THAT said, the self-propelled artillery that the PLA is re-equipping its mechanized brigades with is necessary given their potential areas of operation. Central Asia is frequently suggested as a possible battlefield for China, given the vast petroleum deposits in the region. A threat to those deposits might compell Chinese intervention (possibly under SCO auspices, most members of which are the very Central Asian countries with those deposits). Western China and Central Asia feature both hard rock and soft sand deserts, as well as rugged plateaus and mountains; much of the region is not only passible to heavy armoured/mechanized forces, it is positively conducive to them. Some of the "Light Mechanized" units that China is forming and experimenting with appear designed to operate in the mountains as well as Light Infantry. The SPGs that the PLA is re-equipping its armoured and mechanized brigades with are the Type 89 155mm tracked SPG (126 per mechanized Group Army) and the SH-2 122mm wheeled SPG (36 per mechanized Group Army).

If the PLA has access to satellite GPS (or at least something approaching it), then it can dispense with having to survey battery positions prior to battle (or even worse, having to survey them immediately prior to occupying the battery position). SPGs make this much easier than towed guns (though that advantage is somewhat negated by inceasing automation for towed artillery).
Self-propelled guns do offer much greater tactical mobility if they are tracked (and are subject to significantly lesser hull and suspension stresses than wheeled SPGs). Wheeled move much faster on roads than tracked SPGs, and as such are perhaps better suited to General Support than Direct Support roles, as they may have greater opportunity to use roads and less need to move cross-country with the armour and infantry forces. It is interesting that the armoured/mechanized Group Armies that the PLA is reorganizing and re-equipping are being equipped with both tracked and wheeled SPGs.

As to whether wheeled SPGs are suitable as Direct Support Artillery for mechanized brigades equipped with armoured cars (wheeled APCs) rather than tracked APCs or IFVs, I have to say that, while it may be logical, I do not see any reason to have mechanized brigades equipped with wheeled armoured vehicles, unless such formations are restricted to internal security tasks. Heavy, tracked IFVs can do practically anything a wheeled APC can do, and have a much better chance of survival on the battlefield. The PLA's emulation of Western, especially NATO, concepts appears to extend to the Stryker Brigade, and for the aforementioned reasons, as well as many others, I do not see it as being a good idea. Slavish emulation of Western armies' ideas does not ensure the acquisition of Western standards; conversely, it can lead to adoption of Western errors and mistakes.

Notwithstanding what I have just written, in at least two senses, however, the PLA has broken with Western/NATO concepts here. The reorganization of the armoured/mechanized brigades of the heavy Group Armies has been along the lines of the Soviet Unified Army Corps, or Operational Maneouvre Groups (things that 20 years ago or so used to give some in NATO nightmares), but composed of almost US-style Brigade Combat Teams. As a result, the PLA's heavy Group Armies have gone from a more conventional composition of 3 Armoured Divisions and a Mechanized Division to a strange Soviet OMG/US BCT hybrid of 2 Armoured "Brigades" and 2 Mechanized "Brigades", along with a brigade each artillery, engineers, etc, air-defence battalion, etc. A very eclectic synthesis of concepts, but I fear that it they may be mismatched, especially given the coupling of heavy/tracked armoured brigades with the wheeled fighting vehicles and SPGs of the mechanized brigades. This is not WWII.

It remains unclear if the PLA, as it continues to re-equip its mechanized forces with SPGs has achieved at least a basic competency in NATO-style artillery operations. Even if it has, or will do so soon, it will still have some way to go to master more advanced NATO artillery concepts such as Dispersed Gun (which at least some in NATO have given up on because of the expense involved) and Silent Battery. Even much older, simpler, though less effective (though jam-proof) counter-battery measures such as flash spotting and sound-ranging that some NATO artillery troops still practice or have reintroduced over the last 15 years or so (due to issues with or the vulnerabilities of artillery- and mortar-locating radars) may or may not be in the PLA's repertoire. Given the PLA's clear emulation of many Western concepts, there may well be a great deal left for the PLA to master to bring it up to NATO standards, particularly in its armoured and mechanized/light mechanized brigades.

I would suggest that if the PLA is intent on being able to fight mobile, high-intensity land campaigns, that it invest in Heavy armoured forces with tracked vehicles and SPGs (Type 89 in many respects is much superior to M-109A6 Paladin, though somewhat inferrior to PzH 2000), and dispense with the "Mechanized (actually Motorized) - including Light and Amphibious" - Brigades and their wheeled vehicles and SPGs altogether (the SH-2 wheeled SPG is of only 122mm calibre, whereas Type 89 is 155mm/45calibre and has superior cross-country with its tracks, while SH-2, while of the superior 155mm/52 calibre, being wheeled, is suitable only for general, not direct, support). For regions in which Heavy forces are not suitable due to extreme climate or terrain, neither wheeled SPG is suitable, nor even desirable compared to towed artillery. I fear that the PLA, regardless of what its choice of piece for its mechanized brigades, so long as they are wheeled, is either way still barking up the wrong tree. And that is setting aside the matter of whether China is successfully mastering Western/NATO-style artillery operations and procedures in the first place.

Yes, the PLA has access to satellite GPS, even the US system. Notwithstanding, they may also have access to GLOSNASS. Not to say the least, they have their own, the Beidou system, which seems to be expanding and getting more accurate. The Beidou system also doubles as a communication system which is where it differs from GPS.

Well my obinion about chinese future artillery directions haven't changed that much from what I tried to explain when I orginally started this thread.

Norfolk raised some good points and I wish to reply to few of them.

First is the general idea of wheeled vs. tracked vehicles based divisions/brigades. I agree, and I think its rather obvious that having only one alternative is more logical than mixed systems...to certain exeptions.
The thumbrule is that the divisions or brigades manuverings are tied to the speed and mobility of the slowest/lowest units. If the main manuverable units, eg. infantry battalions are using wheeled ACPs or IFVs, the firesupport, supply and communication elements should not use tracked vehicles as the strategical mobility of the wheeled vehicles cannot be fully utilizased.
Tracked vehicles can ofcourse be transported via trailers but against each vehicle, you need one hauler and one trailer and the logistical nightmare is just around the corner. Also you cannot use trailers in tactical transition phases which can however be almoust as long as strategical transitions. And even if the distances are shorter, you are still as slow in general retrospect as your slowest tracked units.
In divisions where the tracked vehicles are the main methods of transport, the situation against wheeled vehicles aren't fully adoptible as anotherway around. No matter what sort of division you have you cannot fully replace the common cross-country truck as the main vehicle for various support units. Also as the overall manuverability of the division/brigade is already tied to the slowness of the tracked ACPs, IFVs or MBTs, having units that are considerably faster isen't much of a factor.

As for artillery point of view, I personally see no real benefits of tracked vehicles. Their only real benefit is the better cross-country performance, but in reality it's not that much of signifigance. In enviroment where even the modest motorised units can operate needs some sort of roadnetwork to begining with. Places where it doesen't exist is rarely the place for so large scale engagements where you would need divisional level firesupport missions. Having said so the cross-country performances of modern trucks and even more so of the ACP hulls are ususally enough for places were there is even modest infrastructure.
For example we managed to get quite tight locations with our Rasi cross-country trukcs and where it couldn't go was already non-suitable for fire positions no matter what type of platform you were using. With the APU we could get the guns to be driven straight to the fire position if the passageway was too narrow for the hauler.

The main requirement for todays artillery is the mobility and I prefer the fast and longreaching strategical mobility far above some theoretical tacktical reach. Artillery units needs to be fast and be able to change fire positions rapidly and using all the possiple reach which the combat enviroment offers to you. So thus having wheeled artillery units are much more desirable even in divisions/brigades where the main manuveralbe unit uses tracked vehicles. At least the artillery gets in place right on time and the battalion commander has one stress-element deleted when he doesen't have to wait as the tracked SP guns changes firepositions.

I'll continue more about this alongside with the firecontrol/navigation issues later today.

Gollevainen said:

Well my obinion about chinese future artillery directions haven't changed that much from what I tried to explain when I orginally started this thread.

As for artillery point of view, I personally see no real benefits of tracked vehicles. Their only real benefit is the better cross-country performance, but in reality it's not that much of signifigance. In enviroment where even the modest motorised units can operate needs some sort of roadnetwork to begining with. Places where it doesen't exist is rarely the place for so large scale engagements where you would need divisional level firesupport missions. Having said so the cross-country performances of modern trucks and even more so of the ACP hulls are ususally enough for places were there is even modest infrastructure.
For example we managed to get quite tight locations with our Rasi cross-country trukcs and where it couldn't go was already non-suitable for fire positions no matter what type of platform you were using. With the APU we could get the guns to be driven straight to the fire position if the passageway was too narrow for the hauler.

The main requirement for todays artillery is the mobility and I prefer the fast and longreaching strategical mobility far above some theoretical tacktical reach. Artillery units needs to be fast and be able to change fire positions rapidly and using all the possiple reach which the combat enviroment offers to you. So thus having wheeled artillery units are much more desirable even in divisions/brigades where the main manuveralbe unit uses tracked vehicles. At least the artillery gets in place right on time and the battalion commander has one stress-element deleted when he doesen't have to wait as the tracked SP guns changes firepositions.

I'll continue more about this alongside with the firecontrol/navigation issues later today.

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If it is true that self-propelled artillery in general, and tracked SPGs in particular, are quite unnecessary and don't offer much in the way of practical advantages, then we could buy a lot more towed arty (up to a usable, supply-able point) and probably still save money (not just on the pieces, but also on al lot of spare parts, fuel, mechanics, tolls, equipment, etc.). I'm still not totally convinced that towed arty is preferable to self-propelled (and especially tracked) arty, but if the tactical advantages of SPGs to towed guns are at best marginal, then it only makes sense to go for the towed pieces.