The British Army has a long and unfortunate history of condemning soldiers to death by sending them in to battle with inadequate equipment procured on the grounds that urgency was more important than efficacy (during the Second World War two thirds of it’s tanks were obsolete before they even left the factory) and,as old habits die hard,herein we shall discuss it’s recent decision to procure the,fashionable,Archer Artillery System.
Picture: Grand Logistics
All armies organise themselves differently and are constantly changing but typically shorter ranged weapons are held at lower levels and longer ranged weapons are held at higher levels due to differences in their vulnerability,mobility,logistic demands,reaction times and effective ranges and weapons such as the Archer Artillery System are often held at the brigade or division level,usually operating within the range of enemy corps and divisional level artillery but without the range of enemy battalion level weapons.
Picture: Grand Logistics
When threatened by counter battery fire divisional artillery may engage the enemy front line from without the range of it’s counterpart,thereby limiting it’s exposure to enemy corps level artillery which if indirectly observed shall not be able to put rounds on target before even a towed artillery piece,such as An Independent Army For An Independent Nation’s proposed Field Gun,is able to complete a fire mission and leave the area due to the long time of flight but even then divisional artillery remains vulnerable to directly observed fire (the effects of which may be mitigated by an infantry screen,air defences,camouflage,obscurants and decoys) when conducting slow paced infantry operations.
As it is time consuming to detect,identify and destroy thousands of small,low value,targets which do not wish to be detected,identified and destroyed (clearing a small town of infantry often takes months) a manoeuvre force which rapidly advances in to enemy territory must do so through terrain which has not been thoroughly cleared and therefore it’s artillery shall be exposed to engagement by direct fire weapons such as the Kornet missile and directly observed artillery fire,the effectiveness of which increases,due to reduced dispersion and time of flight,as the force advances towards the enemy’s guns and for this reason a Royal Horse Artillery regiment in each heavy cavalry division of An independent Army For An Independent Nation shall be equipped with the Chaplain self propelled gun-howitzer (based on the same hull as the Royal Engineers' Chastiser assault howitzer) which shall have tracks,heavy armour and dischargers for decoys and obscurants.
To seize unoccupied terrain light forces must move faster than their medium and heavy opponents,a role which implies and is implied by road and air mobility,and for this reason every light infantry division shall be equipped with the Ox,Mule and Pony vehicles and the division’s artillery regiment shall be equipped with the Five and a Half Inch Gun Howitzer which may be towed on narrow roads or across weak bridges,carried by the Hermes helicopter or air dropped in quantity by the Centaurus aircraft.
The Archer Artillery System shall be adequate for supporting slow paced infantry work,which could be done at a lower cost by a towed weapon,but it lacks the mobility,protection and countermeasures to support a rapidly advancing heavy cavalry force,is too wide to exploit narrow roads and too heavy to cross weak bridges,be lifted by helicopter or be dropped by parachute,yet some think equipping the British Army with an armed dump truck would be transformational.
