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From: emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Computerized Counter Battery Artillery
Message-ID: <1991Feb9.025836.207@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 9 Feb 91 02:58:36 GMT
References: <1991Feb8.013051.16534@cbnews.att.com>
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From: emery@aries.mitre.org (David Emery)
Iraqui artillery basically comes in 2 flavors, Soviet and South
African.  Most of the soviet stuff is 122mm and 152mm.  The max range
on those guns is similar to (or less than) our equivalent 155mm and 8"
guns.  Saddam has about 200 South African G-5 155mm cannon.  With
base-bleed projectiles, these have a range of 40km, compared to our
cannon max range of 30km (M198 155mm towed howitzer firing rocket
assisted projectiles).  Saddam also has some Soviet 130mm guns which
apparently he has been retubing with the G-5 tube or similar.  So
Saddam has a small proportion of cannon that outrange ours.  However
most of his stuff is old Soviet stuff, and we can easily range it.  

Our rocket launch system (MLRS) has a much longer range (actually I
think max range is even classified).  It runs in my mind that the
current statement is "in excess of 40km".  This is better than the
Soviet-made BM-21 MRL that Saddam has, and I don't think he has any of
the newer BM-22/BM-27 MRL with a longer range and larger warhead.  

>From what I've been able to put together, most of what Saddam's been
firing is MRL and not cannon artillery.

If I were to go play in the sand, I wouldn't be too much concerned
about the long range guns.  I'd be much more concerned about the MRL
(which fire a tremendous amount of stuff in a very short period of
time, making them very hard to find and kill.  Also, they're very good
chemical delivery systems...)  And I'd be most concerned about the
sheer numbers that Saddam has (I think he has 3 guns to our 1).
	
				dave