Quote Originally Posted by COMMAR View Post
(I) What your not taking into account is nobody fights in Artillery Duels anymore.

(II)The M777 is a system of systems that play their particular role to make up the Fire Support backbone of the MAGTF. The defining role of the MAGTF is to use Speed & Dispersion to rapidly mass fires at the time & place most advantageous to the MAGTF.

(III)There's a reason why I'm not comparing the M777 to or against Self-Props. B/c against a Maneuvering Combined-Arms Enemy S-P's are sitting ducks. And operating within a Maneuvering C-A Unit an S-P would be out paced.

(IV)S-P's serve a purpose, sure in its realm its a Beast, especially some of the newer Euro models.. but in an Army. In a Static Conflict, a well matured battlefield w/well established lines, or slowly moving forward behind steady advancing lines, sure.

(V)But in a fast moving Expeditionary Setting against a C-A enemy, it'd get ground up.

(VI)With that said, an S-P has no place in a MAGTF, so no need to add it to the discussion, convo triage.

(I)
Oh, really? I tell you artillery duels might become as much the centre of arty thinking as they were in the 80's once a Western force faces a true threat instead of beating up some almost defenceless remote country. The sensor and communication technologies have improved and might sense and track hostile artillery quite Star Trek-like.
Why did you mention" stand-off" ad compared with the range of other guns if you didn't think of an arty vs. arty threat??

(II)
"system of systems". You seriously drunk that Kool-Aid. It's a gun made of expensive metals.

"mass fires". Seriously, you cannot "mass fires" with a single arty battery. That term has already a defined meaning, and everybody with understanding of military doctrine and military history should think of something entirely different when he reads "mass fires" than the MAGTF is capable of.
Besides; how does this "mass fires" fit to your earlier focus on Excalibur???
"The defining role of the MAGTF is to (...) mass fires at the time & place most advantageous to the MAGTF."
The snake bites its tail.

(III)
SPHs are sitting ducks compared to a towed howitzer? I've never heard a greater defiance of reality. The M777 can leave its firing position in no less than a minute or two, while SPHs do so in seconds after their last shot.
The M777 is less off-road capable and slower when towed than a SPH and utterly dependent on aerial transportation (and a air situation that allows for the use of rotor aviation!) for any fast movement.
The M777 is the sitting duck.

(IV)
You sure don't understand the potential or history of SPHs. Hint: They were first developed for and deployed by armoured divisions. They were meant for mobile warfare, not for anything associated with slowness. That were the towed guns.

(V)
"Fast-Moving Expeditionary Setting"? Seriously, there has never been an expeditionary setting that beats the operational or advance speed of conventional warfare. The advance to Baghdad in 2003 was about as slow as some of Napoleon's campaigns, for example - a far cry from feats like 300 km in four days as they were achieved against multiple hostile divisions with tanks of 40 km/h top speed and trucks of 60 km/h top speed along only two roads.
I don't see why SPHs which are mobile on their own should have any problems in high-speed ops if well-maintained. Meanwhile, I can easily imagine how a M777 battery waits for helicopters and doesn't get that kind of transportation because of the threats and competing demands (or takes away this rare asset from very important competing demands).

(VI)
Oh, really? MAGTFs have tanks, right? I see absolutely no problem with a self-propelled system in an MAGTF. They're incapable of facing first rate forces without their heavy vehicles in any mission but defence on closed terrain anyway, lacking combined arms qualities. Therefore they could limit themselves to mortars on 100% airborne missions.