Time to Move Beyond Cannons

Time to Move Beyond Cannons

by

L. Lance Boothe

Reading is fundamental. This is also true for arithmetic. While it is only a lot of reading if you do it, so too with math – a professional fighting force should struggle with neither.

Yet in the US Army, a struggle with math is happening, particularly in the Field Artillery. For a combat arm which demands meeting the five requirements for accurate predicted fire (target location and size, firing unit location, weapon and ammunition information, meteorological data, and computational procedures) as essential to putting steel on target, one would think arithmetic near reverential. Calculus and geometry, simply being able to count to ten, and doing math in increments of 10s, 50s, or 100s applies to just about every one of the “five requirements” in some form or fashion. Yet some artillerymen cannot seem to do the simplest math of all – merely counting munitions and systems.

While “sight-to-crest,” standard and nonstandard factors, “met worksheets” for applying data from ballistic MET (meteorological) messages, the tabular firing table (TFT), graphical firing tables (GFT), “charts and darts,” muzzle velocity records for calculating muzzle velocity variations, and high burst mean point of impact worksheets for solving the gunnery problem (the practical application of the science of ballistics) would be a stimulating discussion, suffice it to say math is involved.[1] And that arithmetic goes a bit beyond balancing your checkbook, which the bank does for you now anyway. Perhaps this is the problem – computing power, which alleviates the individual from doing math. Recalling my days in a fire direction center (FDC) with a battery computer system (BCS), now the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), we still laboriously and quickly checked the computer with our TFT, GFT, chart with “whiz-wheel,” range-deflection protractor, and calculations from MET data correction sheets along with a handheld computing device called the back-up computer system (BUCS) – a calculator to check another calculator. Dual independent checks make the gunnery world go ‘round. It is all about the math.

The FDC is not the only place in artillery world where math matters. Once upon a time, howitzers had to be laid on a common azimuth. To put the guns on that azimuth required either an aiming circle (a surveying telescope, but without the laser of today’s devices) or the trusty old M2 lensatic compass. After “declinating” (not an English word, but Army-ese) the aiming circle on a designated spot (OS – orienting station) put in by “survey” (a position and azimuth determining system – PADS – now just a handheld GPS device) you get to apply TFOOL-ULU or SAD-ULU to the aiming circle to lay the guns. If all this makes you sad, it ought to. But a picture, even if it is a picture of words, is worth a thousand words. The irony should not get lost. Here is my cheater card received from the schoolhouse nearly 35 years ago, which I carried for years when in uniform:

Note the far-right column, the one where each step literally begins with words “MATH STEP.”  Get the idea?

Now, I could also go into counting and converting mils to meters for adjusting observed fire (the first requirement for accurate predicted fire – target location and size), but it should be rather obvious by now artillery is a branch which lives and dies by math.  

Of course, technology has moved on. The guns lay themselves through on-board GPS and compute gunnery solutions. The FDC is mere redundancy now, a back-up. There is not, and never was, manual gunnery for rockets. Those firing solutions are done on-board the launcher by the common fire control system (CFCS). In my day, we just called it the fire control panel. Now, forward observers lase a target to get its precise location and elevation. Computers run the show and will only do so more in the future. But the US Army Field Artillery School still teaches manual gunnery. Today’s artillerymen can still do arithmetic, which makes the reluctance on the part of the Army to convert its entire artillery park to rockets so puzzling. One system with the firepower of 18 to 24 howitzers sells itself; at least, one would think. We shall circle back to this math shortly.

Enter direct support artillery rockets (DSAR), known officially as Direct Support Fires Technology (DSFT). Do not ponder too long how we got from calling it rockets in a direct support role to “fires technology.” At least, the direct support part is unambiguous – baby steps. This is just the way the Fires Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate (FCDID) and US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center (DEVCOM AvMC) roll. Nothing like obscuring a capability through opaque and nebulous naming conventions. In the Army, we like to confuse ourselves as much as our enemies. This is “standard data” as we would say in the artillery. Anyhow, for our purposes, I shall call this capability DSAR (direct support artillery rockets), which paints a better mental picture.

A brief history on the development of DSAR is in order. Rumbling, bumbling, and stumbling into history as the Army is wont to do, it dawned on the powers-that-be that perhaps having a one size fits all rocket caliber (227mm or 8.9-inch to be exact) doesn’t provide the greatest of flexibility in either the present or future fight. How or why it took decades to figure this out remains a mystery, but along came the war in Ukraine. Again, another epiphany was had by leadership – massing fires still matters. And this becomes particularly true when fighting an enemy with a rather robust and effective electronic warfare capability, if nothing else. In yet another unprecedented step, the institutional Army decided to learn from an ongoing conflict. GPS aided munitions such as the M3l series of guided rocket (G-MLRS in the profession’s parlance and popularized in the press) are not optimized for an environment where the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL). As the layman may observe, the Army loves acronyms. In fact, soldiers probably could not communicate amongst themselves without them. Anyhow, DDIL is Army-ese for interference related to the EMS. This is not good for everything from computers to radios, and certainly global positioning system (GPS) transmitters and receivers. In fact, it is so bad for GPS reliant munitions that they may not function effectively. This is problematic to say the least as the putative Ukrainians have found out.[2] There is a reason why the vaunted HIMARS (the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), which Ukraine demanded they must have to win the war, and NATO leadership thought such a “game-changer,” have all but disappeared from the news.[3] To sum it up, while the idea for DSAR predates the Ukraine-Russia War, that war seems to have accelerated interest in developing DSAR for the reasons previous stated.

So as the wheel turns, the Army has gone from looking at 2.75 to 6-inch rockets with ranges from approximately 30 to 80 km, appearing to settle on the 4.75 inch (120mm) unguided rocket with a range out to 50 km, maybe more, maybe less. The compromise here is probably about right. The 4.75-inch rocket is around half the size of the current rocket, but more importantly 30 rockets can be packaged into the standard HIMARS or MLRS (M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System) munitions pod. The lethality of the 120mm rocket is that of a 155mm high explosive (HE) cannon projectile. So, in a smaller caliber munition, you get the same bang. But not just the same bang, but also the ability to strike targets faster, more accurately, and in greater volumes than with howitzer projectiles. And here is where we come back to some rudimentary math. An MLRS uploaded with two pods of DSAR (that would be 60 rockets) has the firepower of a battalion with 18 or 24 howitzers on any given fire mission. Two DSAR pods provide the equivalent of a “Battalion 3 Round” of HE (three volleys from 18 cannons). ONE launcher generates that firepower.

If we do a little more math, we find one battery of launchers (preferably multi-mission remote/robotic autonomous systems, but that is a discussion for another time) could provide fire support to three brigade combat teams (BCTs). It is called economy of force – something oft discussed and rarely practiced. Nine launchers (we must return to that number per battery) uploaded with 60 rockets a piece with resupply trucks hauling eight pods each gives the supported BCTs 9,180 rockets. This dwarfs the unit basic load of a howitzer battalion, assuming 18 guns, which is roughly 3,700 projectiles. In fact, at over 9,000 rockets per launcher battery that is about 1,600 more munitions than provided by two howitzer battalions and about 2,000 less than carried by three cannon battalions.[4] Life is about compromises at times. Here is one. If we consider that one rocket battalion brings just over 27,500 rockets to the fight, it represents the firepower of a little over seven howitzer battalions. The DSAR numbers sell themselves – ONE rocket battalion is the equivalent of SEVEN howitzer battalions.

No matter how the exact math turns out, it is certain to favor DSAR and a launcher-based artillery force. [5] A 1:1 ratio of DSAR rocket to 155mm HE projectile is assumed. As of the writing of this piece, DSAR (aka direct support fires technology) is under development, so perhaps the ratio will change. What can be guaranteed, if the Army gets the memo and acquires DSAR, is that given the technological trends in lethality (with warhead variety)[6] and energetics, the ratio is only going to increase in favor of DSAR.[7] My guess is one rocket to three 155mm HE projectiles, if not more. In the past and now, six M30 rockets (DPICM – dual purpose improved conventional munition) with 404 submunitions (M85) each is the firepower equivalent of a little more than 24 M483A1 (DPICM) 155mm projectiles with 88 submunitions each (64x M42 and 24x M46 bomblets).[8] This is a “Battalion One Round,” meaning all 24 howitzers[9] in the battalion (assuming 24 as it once was and may be again) firing a single volley. That is literally half of one M270A2 launcher’s firepower capacity because its Launcher Loader Module carries two pods of six rockets (227mm) each. One M30 rocket six-pack translates into the firepower of one howitzer battalion on any given fire mission, and that of another howitzer battalion if the M270 fires the other rocket six-pack. Six DPICM rockets (M30s) dispense 2,424 submunitions capable of penetrating several inches of steel over approximately a 100m radius, assuming a circular sheaf. Twenty-four DPICM cannon projectiles dispense 2,112 submunitions over about the same radius, but note, it takes 24 howitzers to deliver less munitions on target than from ONE HALF of ONE launcher (M270A2). Future growth potential in magazine depth may exceed this, but for now, a DSAR pod is projected to hold five times more rockets than the current 227mm rocket container. This point cannot be over emphasized. In addition to the lethality differential between rocket munitions and cannon munitions that exists now, which will only widen in the future, launcher magazine depth will increase where that of howitzers remains stagnate.

Given the dangers of doing math in public, please indulge me in one last foray. Consider the costs involved here in systems and the potential savings. A self-propelled howitzer in a wheeled variant costs anywhere from $4.5 to 8 million in yesterday’s dollars; in a track variant $14 million ($18 million if you go high end like the PzH2000). The M270A2 (MLRS) costs approximately $10 million per system; the M142 (HIMARS) costs about $7 million. But let us compare apples to apples as the colloquialism goes and look at track system versus track system – M270A2 launcher compared to M109A7 howitzer. Looking strictly at howitzers, a battalion (18 systems currently) costs approximately $252 million. Based strictly on launchers, a rocket battalion (also 18 systems) costs approximately $180 million. To equip a division artillery (DIVARTY) with four howitzer battalions (a future plan for DIVARTYs) that bill comes to over $1 billion just in howitzers where two launcher battalions would cost about $360 million in launchers alone. A few things are obvious here. First, elected officials can count, if nothing else. Second, a fair number of them are always looking to cut the military budget. Third, whenever politicians are told more can be done with less, which is really not true – generally, less is done with less, but on rare occasion the same can be done with less – they suddenly get interested. Here is a case where, in fact, money could be saved and the warfighter gets the same, if not more, fire support from fewer and better artillery systems. Launchers have more firepower than cannons. All of this would certainly get the attention of Congress. Put the numbers before them. The numbers sell the capability.

Usually, in the acquisition business within the Department of War (pardon me, I mean Defense), the driving principles, dare we even say first principles, are good, fast, cheap. Pick two. If you want the item fast and cheap, then do not expect it to be good. If you want the item fast and good, then it will not be cheap. And if you want the item good and cheap, then good luck on seeing it anytime soon. By the time it rolls off the assembly line it could be facing obsolescence. But every once and awhile the planets align, fair winds blow, the world is in balance, and lo and behold a system comes along at the right time, which promises to be good, fast, and cheap. DSAR hits the trifecta.

DSAR – direct support artillery rockets – along with loitering autonomous munitions (intelligent drones) are the wave of the future. I have written about the latter for Military Review to deafening silence from Army leadership. Regardless, the storm is building. Intelligent machines are upon us and will overtake us, redefining warfare in ways we cannot possibly imagine. Yet given the trendlines in recent conflicts from eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Mideast, a prognostication with some degree of assurance can be made that massed firepower will still matter in the future. The EMS will only get more contested. And we must have munitions that function within that contested environment. In the here and now, all that matters is how do we get the best bang for our buck as we strive to develop an army for the future. DSAR is before us.

While unguided cannon projectiles are certainly unaffected by EMS disruption, it simply takes too many howitzers at too great a cost per system too long to deliver and sustain any meaningful volume of fires on a near transparent battlefield against peer adversaries. Howitzer speed and survivability is suspect given what we see playing out in Ukraine. In that war, artillery is producing more than 80% of the casualties.[10] The overwhelming majority of the artillery munitions being fired are unguided. These “dumb” munitions do their work through mass. These munitions function regardless of EMS interference. These munitions are accurate enough when the five requirements for accurate predicted fire are met. When high explosive overpressure with fragmentation gets within 50m of someone, they have a bad day. This said, precision strike has a time and a place, but it is not at all times and in all places. Balance is required. Let sophisticated (and relatively expensive) autonomous attack munitions with their automatic target recognition software, multifaceted seekers, enclosed network, inertial and terrain associating navigation, and hardened circuitry (among other EMS and directed energy countermeasures) go after exquisite targets. Let the dumb munitions do what they do best, create mass destruction on all other targets. Artillery is predominantly for area fires, not extreme range sniping. Dumb munitions are cheaper than precision ones, and as the war in Ukraine is reteaching us, if we let it, the preponderance of munitions fired, now and in the future, will not (and cannot) be guided strictly by GPS.

 As a last thought, please consider that in theory loitering autonomous munitions are optimized for engagement where target acquisition is less than optimal. They are designed to hunt. The form factor, communications array, internal circuitry, and seeker required to do this is unlikely to survive the shock from the force of being shot (i.e. exploded out) from a cannon. These things, outside of the circuitry, probably cannot be miniaturized to fit within a 155mm shell in any reasonable and affordable way that would justify the effort versus simply lobbing 95-lbs (if memory services, it is really only 35-lbs) of high explosive at the target. More importantly, putting smart drones in cannon projectiles would not be cost effective when compared to DPICM. As the war in Ukraine is demonstrating, DPICM remains effective. It is not at all obvious that delivering smart drones via cannon projectiles can work or would be any more affordable than DPICM. Which brings us to the crux of the matter, DPICM comes in both 155mm projectile and 227mm rocket form in the US inventory (please reference Endnote 8 again). But only rockets are proving a more efficient and affordable delivery means for both DPICM and autonomous attack munitions. Yet one more reason why cannons are fading into the past.

So, while any argument for the versatility (and utility) of cannons becomes more and more moot given the math and the advent of intelligent attack munitions, there will still be some light fighter out there clinging desperately to the towed howitzer. (Yes, that is right “towed” as if being a cannon were not bad enough now that we are nearly a century deep into the era of mechanized warfare and rocket propulsion; let that sink in.) While it is beyond the scope of this article to go into the obsolescence of the airborne and air assault operational paradigms, one becoming obsolete within the very war it was introduced, nothing suggests rocket launchers cannot provide the same degree of fire support than towed howitzers do for these operations. If indirect fires are required below the minimum range of rockets, use mortars. To argue for the continued and future use of antiquated towed artillery is ignorant. Anyone with lingering nostalgia for cannons ought to read the late artilleryman Colonel David E. Johnson’s book Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917–1945. You may get a chuckle out of his references to articles published in the late 1920s and early 30s expounding on the virtue of horses over the combustion engine. Many of these articles appearing in the Infantry Journal of all places. Yes, that is right, the Infantry Journal, the infantry was the proponent for tanks at the time, and all the horse lovers at Fort Riley were losing their minds over engines replacing horses. You cannot make this stuff up, I dare you. Only in the Army can such incongruence and advocacy for the obsolete based solely on emotional appeal make print in official publications. Let us not be those guys – antiquated thinkers. Let us do better in the 21^st Century. Like with America’s worst general Douglas MacArthur “going over the top” in WWI with no gas mask and nothing but a riding crop, actions such as these and the mentality that foster them are vestiges of the past that need to be buried in it. Let the dead bury their dead.[11] We have put our hand to rockets and to look back is folly.

Undoubtably, I will get a considerable amount of hate mail over daring to suggest that the sun has set on cannon artillery. My own community will brand me a heretic no matter how sound the assessment. This is how we roll in the Field Artillery. But before what has been written here is declared anathema, note how behind the Army is in its thinking. According to a recent Hoover Institute report, “Marine command decided that a few missile systems would produce, through precision, better fire support than the 96 artillery tubes that were jettisoned.”[12] Does this sound familiar? The math is obvious to the Marine Corps. We (the US Army) do not need to be Mensa members to figure it out either.

Nostalgia dies hard. Cannons adorn my office and home. In fact, every Saturday weather permitting I roll out my fully functional eight-pound Napoleon cannon, which I restored, to proudly display to passers-by. I recognize that cannon for what it is – an antique – and I treat it as the relic it is. The US Army has a bunch of relics adorning its motor pools around the world. These cannons are a waste of money and space and do nothing to enhance any future warfighting ability. Let us put aside emotional attachment to them and employ our reason as our brothers in the Marine Corps have done. War requires us to be clear eyed and coldly rational – time to move beyond cannons. War does not respect sentimentality.

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Postscript. Bureaucratic inertia is a thing. Acquisition programs are in motion now, were set in motion years prior, and will continue in years to come to deliver systems for the Army of 2030 and beyond. The problem with our acquisitions process is that it holds the future hostage to the present. Decisions are being taken now by those who will not be around to be held accountable for their decisions, much less subject to the ramifications of their decisions. This is a problem.  And it is a huge problem because those who will suffer the consequences of those decisions will be our children and their children. Throwing our hands up in the air and saying we cannot do anything about the Defense Department’s institutional inertia because we believe ourselves hostage to the vicissitudes of Congress and its funding cycles or the rigidity of the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process is the shabby excuse of defeatism. Mostly, we are just trapped in our own biases and by our intuitions, and hostage to the mindsets they produce. We owe it to our kids to be as forward looking as humanly possible. We owe generations of soldiers to come (again, our kids) to give them the best tools possible to do the job. In this case, to fight and win our nation’s wars. Nothing is more serious in its consequences than war. This is why I write so poignantly. The time for being gentle is long past. The powers-that-be are not listening or do not get it or both. This is how, at least, it looks from my perspective as a mere cog in the DoD machine. Policymakers and military leaders must pull in the reins. They must halt the institutional inertia on sunset capabilities like howitzers. It is not at all obvious that we are on the right path for future success. A comprehensive reevaluation of systems and programs is necessary for the Army. If this means the production of howitzers must stop immediately and the ones we have get mothballed, then so be it. Turning the Titanic around is far preferable to hitting the iceberg. Look how that turned out.

My certitude on DSAR is based on the math as presented in this article.

When I entered the Field Artillery (FA) in the First Infantry Division’s DIVARTY, the M270 (MLRS) had been fielded and it was recognized that the MLRS battery assigned to the DIVARTY had the firepower equivalent to one cannon battalion. Not much has changed since. It has not helped that cannon and launcher technology has changed so little that this firepower disparity persists today. MLRS replaced the 8-inch howitzer. Within the FA community at the time, there was a fair amount of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over replacing a cannon system, much loved by artillerymen, with rocket systems. There is no manual back-up to MLRS (it just becomes an expensive paperweight when the electronics fail), so the old-timers had their reservations, complaining and pining for the M110, but time marched on. As MLRS proved its reliability and lethality thanks to the First Gulf War, the 8-inch howitzer, which also saw action in that war, faded into the past along with 8-lbs Napoleon cannons a century or so prior. So forgotten is the M110 today that if one fell from the sky and landed in front of today’s generation of artillerymen, few of them would have any clue as to what it is, and none of them could tell you what all the arguments pro and con were regarding phasing it out and phasing in MLRS. This is why the coming firestorm over touching the “third rail” in the FA branch – cannon artillery – will be so contentious and disappointing, ultimately proving much ado about nothing. When the exact math based on the most updated numbers that can be gleaned from behind the “pay wall” of officialdom gets done, it will show (actually reconfirm) the disparity in the firepower ratios between rocket and cannon systems whether 1 to 7 as I claim or 5.5 to 1 or even a mere 3 to 1. It doesn’t matter. The math favors rockets and that will matter to a cash strapped nation and potential zero growth Army. The only question will be can the FA community accept the math without being force fed? Unfortunately, the US Army Field Artillery has a bad track record with innovation and embracing cutting edge of technology within the last few decades. As a result, Army artillery entered the Global War on Terror without the precision munitions required to be effective in counterinsurgency operations and ended up playing second fiddle to the USAF. Artillery has been trying to regain its place in the sun ever since. Some artillerymen will get what is written here, some won’t, and some won’t try. Regardless, it would be refreshing if the branch could get out of its own way and embrace technology as it did when some very forward-thinking artillerymen introduced MLRS into the force, and of course, just do and respect the math.

The opinions expressed and analysis presented in this article are those of the author.