UkraineSay what you will about drones being terrifying, they are, but the idea of being ordered to assault a defensive line with 52 caliber 155mm howitizers terrifies me way more.
There is no defense against a 155mm shell that comes screaming out of the sky with no warning, all you can do is to stay very hidden until you are spotted and then NEVER stop moving once your location has been revealed to the enemy. The problem with this of course is that moving quickly near the enemy is a process of constantly rolling the dice about whether things are going to go south for you before you can react or not.
For example, in the process of trying to avoid an artillery barrage by moving quickly, one could easily run their entire formation straight into a machine gun nest with no cover around. Even if a catastrophe like that doesn't happen you become far more vulnerable to drones when moving quickly than when hidden, entrenched or in a group of situationally aware troops.
Think about it as a russian, imagine sneaking through bushes and then cowering in a shallow trench with the knowledge in the back of your head that if a Bohdana anywhere within 30km gets the bead on you quick enough, you are toast if you don't run and if you do run in a panic you are breakfast for Ukrainian FPVs.
Forgive my ignorance. Are 155mm artillery shells arriving on target at supersonic speeds? As in, if you're the target yourself, the sound will arrive to your location after the shell has already hit you?
Transonic speeds, I think I have heard you might have a seconds warning or so, but also I think sometimes you don't because the shell is travelling at nearly the speed of sound, it depends on charges, firing arc and other things of course.
edit this is a good discussion on this
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/how-come-you-can-hear-incoming.217026/
Forgive my ignorance. Are 155mm artillery shells arriving on target at supersonic speeds? As in, if you're the target yourself, the sound will arrive to your location after the shell has already hit you?
You have hit on one of the most beautiful lines from Gravity's Rainbow about V2 rockets, this article explains it well..
“A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.” Beautiful opening lines. As classic as any, I bet. They establish here is the relationship between cause and effect, which Gravity’s Rainbow upends. Causality. Teleology. The basic rudiments of enlightenment rationality. These are meaningless now. The key: “it has happened before.” Not only the bomb dropping. But this bomb dropping. You do not hear a V-2 bomb drop. Or rather, you hear it only after it has dropped. By the time of the screaming, it is too late.
https://www.gravitysrainbowguide.com/
Transonic speeds, I think I have heard you might have a seconds warning or so, but also I think sometimes you don’t because the shell is travelling at nearly the speed of sound, it depends on charges, firing arc and other things of course.
I suppose it also depends how close you are to the gun firing the shell. As in, you might hear the primary report from the gun when the shell leaves the barrel in a straight line across the ground to your ears, but the shell itself is traveling in a ballistic arc and may only reach supersonic speeds in the terminal phase when it is coming down on you. So you wouldn't hear the shell arrive, but you'd be aware it is coming.
I hope I never have to be on the receiving end to find out for sure.
I hope I never have to be on the receiving end to find out for sure.
All I know of artillery barrages is thankfully how artists and writers have attempted to portray them in the best way they can... and the only real thing I have taken away from those attempts to explain it come back to the same basic aspect that you can't and really don't want to know what experiencing sustained artillery is like until you experience it.
What is worse is after you have just been subjected to the physical experience of artillery as an annihilating force that has reoriented how you perceive your whole experience of reality everything sometimes doesn't just oddly fall silent because the sound of heavy armor rumbling and squeaking, already far closer than you thought could happen, has filled the air. Barely holding down complete panic you creep towards the entrance of the basement you are hiding in and peak out noticing in your last moment the recon drone overhead and an Abrams barrel pointing right back at you below.
This is the most terrifying way to die even in an era of drones because there is no defense, you are like a bit of scum being steam cleaned off the side of a house by a process so much larger and more kinetic than you that any choice you make feels meaningless in a existentially lovecraftian horror way.
Drones are terrifying but this is what full scale war looks like, drones are part of an iron fist that makes the idea of wasting time shooting at the drones as terrifying as not shooting and hoping they don't see you because of what the consequences are that do come to you when you reveal yourself to a nearby cannon.
Another way to say this is that as far as armies are concerned one of the primary roles of helicopters are for artillery spotting since the helicopter just needs a radio and a really good pair of binoculars to become a decisive tool for sustained artillery barrage. You can't make an action movie scene about artillery spotting in a helicopter but as far as the people on the ground being spotted by the helicopter are concerned, that is an irrelevant point. A helicopter runs out of ammo quick, an artillery battery by definition does not. The same logic applies to drones.
That was a really cool article, lots of interesting details. Its cool that these things are completely mechanical, no computers/ electronics or anything like that which help make them easy to repair as they take hits.
I am actually not sure about the towed howitzer version but while the self propelled Bohdanas do have a set of entirely mechanical/old school equipment to use the howitzer they also have a very advanced digital fire control system.
This cannon is lethal to ANYTHING from point blank range to ~35km away and it can keep firing all day and night if needed, the Bohdana expresses the technologically advanced industrial might of Ukraine in the most unarguable fashion possible.
You can see the computer terminal to control the digital aspects of the bohdana on the right.
The big flat box on top of the rear end of the barrel on the Bohdana that gives it its distinctive look is meant as an enclosure for digital fire control systems that can utilize digital sharing of targets and firing solutions. So... very NOT oldschool too!
I imagine in a trench you do end up using things in the simplest way possible that you can, but this capability does make the Bohdana a very advanced technological weapon if that is what is needed.
It is intimidating as hell that Ukraine can integrate fiddly advanced digital systems for quickly sharing coordinates and entering in firing solutions elegantly into a mass production of completely analog cannons that can flatten russian armored columns from sheer physical force. That marriage of the complex and brutally practical with such a large production capacity (~40 a month!??) makes the prospects for russia's longterm success in the Ukraine War comical.
russia is fucked
I am actually not sure about the towed howitzer
It literally says it in the article. There are no electronics required to operate it.
"There are no fuel or oil tanks here, and no electronics. The gun is entirely mechanical. It is simply metal that can be repaired even at the firing position," emphasised Chief of Staff "John".
The gun is equipped with mechanical aiming mechanisms.
Yes, there are definitely bohdanas being made this way but my point is more like this is an optional budget option on a factory model that is designed to also be equipped with advanced electronics.
In an entrenched towed howitizer battery the idea of what a "digital fire control system" becomes abstract. Firing always comes down to humans pulling the gun out and maneuvering it into a firing position calculated beforehand and translated into a simple set of instructions that can be rapidly accomplished by the crew. The person sitting nearby with a computer acquiring targets, finding firing solutions and assigning them is using digital equipment though so... yeah I guess the cannons are totally analog but that kind of misses the point to me is all I am saying. Does only calling it a digital system if the computer is physically bolted to the gun really make sense if you think about how it is being used?
I agree with you that it is badass these can be used in a totally analog way, I guess it is a well established precedent with howitzers but also a lot of countries have foolishly convinced themselves towed howitzers are obsolete which I believe deeply misunderstands how towed howitzers are actually utilized in a critical fashion in modern wars.
The way they talk about these in the article, I don't think they view them as budget, and view them very strongly as a strength. When you incorporate the digital aspects (which is also very cool) 1 bad hit from a drone and it's potentially out of service for an extended period of time.
Yes the targeting instructions are still digital and allow for very fast coordination, but that laptop is also easily replaced if destroyed.
They talk about these things taking multiple drone hits and being back in service a couple days later.
I didn't mean budget, I meant "barebones" I guess.
