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Friday, July 07, 2017

Fire for Effect

The Army wants more and better firepower to prevail in high-intensity conventional combat:

One hot-button issue has been the lack of long-range firepower in the Army, a problem that could haunt land forces in a war in Eastern Europe, Johnson said. “The greatest challenge for the Army is being overmatched” by Russian artillery and rockets. “Every one of their tanks can shoot antitank guided missiles that outrange our armor by two kilometers,” Johnson insisted. “We haven’t fought this kind of adversary since World War II.”

I'm honestly not worried that much about the range advantage Russia has in direct-fire weapons. Average ranges for tank engagements will always be much lower than theoretical ranges of their main armament on a billiard table battlefield.

But having more and longer range indirect fire support would be really good as part of making the Army heavier to survive enemy indirect fire.