French artillery now
The French guns are being deployed in Iraq, about thirty kilometers from positions of ISIS
A few days after the attack in Nice, claimed by the Islamic State (EI or Daesh), the President Hollande announced on July 22 its decision to "make available to the Iraqi forces artillery means" in As part of the Chammal operation, without giving further details.
September 6, the Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has not given more, except that artillery are currently being deployed in Iraq. "We decided to support more Iraqi forces this autumn with the aim of taking Mosul," he has said, during the Summer of Defense. "Right now, artillery pieces are installed near the front line to provide specific support to the Iraqis," he added.
For the French minister, the "fall of the alleged Islamic state is now a matter of time" since "his last supply routes from Turkey have gradually cut. "But it remains to take Mosul (Iraq) and Raqqa (Syria), which is not so simple.
Regarding these artillery pieces deployed in Iraq, their type was not specified. It may be towed 155mm guns Tr F1, propelled guns AMX AuF F1 (this model has the advantage of having been commissioned in the Iraqi forces in the 1980s) or Trucks equipped with an artillery system (CAESAR), 5 of which copies were sent to the 5th Cuirassiers Regiment, located in the UAE.
However, this deployment guns assumes the establishment of a support chain ground-floor, with forward observers, fires coordination officers, heads of parts, servers, the maintenance personnel, logisticians and a "protection" force.
The Joint Centre of concepts, doctrines and experiments explains in its publication PIA-3.2.4.1_DLOC (2015) No. 103 / DEF / CICDE / NP 08 June 2015, that "very mobile, the barrel can achieve live shot (comparable to that of a battle tank), the dipping shot or vertical shot. "
Furthermore, the same document states that a gun also requires "more constraints in 3edimension, particularly in the context of vertical shooting long range for which the boom can reach 19,456 meters," which leads to "more complex and / or require more time to reach safety before a firing ground-ground, mobile [aircraft, note] playing in the third dimension of the action area ".
Finally, when the minister says the guns are close to the front line, it is not a figment of the imagination. The publication of CICDE recalls that "guns available today within the French forces have a range of up to 38 km."
Not completely sure but make sense Caesar SPG and for number match they say
And a battery have 8
