ARTILLERY CAPABILITY IS NOT SIMPLY A GUN, IT IS THE WHOLE SYSTEM

Long-range is not a case of conducting a few trials, it is a case of standing hundreds of rounds in high charges, without any incident, even in very harsh climatic conditions, and all of this with very high precision, says OLIVIER FORT COLONEL (RETD.) Artillery Marketing Director, Nexter, and former French Artillery Capability and Doctrine Director

- OLIVIER FORT COLONEL

What have been the major developments- related to artillery systems over the last decade?

In the past decade a lot of artillery, but still not all of them, have shifted from 155 mm 39 Cal to 155 mm 52 Cal. This is the most important development. A lot of artilleries have also shifted- or started to shift from soviet standards like 152 mm to NATO standards 155 mm.

Shifting from 39 Cal to 52 Cal is not menial. The internal pressures are much higher. In that respect, Nexter analyzed that, and conducted specific developments in its breech and other features which have proven very wise. Before you have tested your 52 cal with many high charges fire missions, without mishaps, and particularly security mishaps, you don’t know if the biggest threat to your gun will be your own fire mission instead of the enemy. Usually, qualification missions involve a few hundreds of rounds, but in CAESAR’s case thousands of rounds at high charges in real operations have confirmed the trials

Before the last decade of course, the major revolution in artillery is the availability of navigation units and GNSS systems. And simultaneously IT systems have allowed to compute complex artillery fire missions in a short time. Modern artillery C2 systems have been another major revolution.

How are customer preferences for artillery systems expected to evolve over the course of this decade?

The major requirement requested by a lot of customers is an increased range.