[Tee tiong huat]

‘Shoot and Scoot’ – War in Ukraine Overturns Another Conventional Tenet of War. Threat from drones, loitering munitions & precision-guided weapons applies as much to artillery systems as it does with tanks & armored vehicles.

For decades conventional wisdom among military strategists has been artillery was the king of the battlefield. Only threatened by counter battery capability of enemy’s guns. If guns outnumbered or outranged those of opposition, you sited them correctly, and had a good strategy – then you would prevail.

Artillery of 20th century came in two main forms towed mostly tracked & armored self-propelled howitzers. The appearance of truck-mounted guns, France’s Caesar were seen as an interesting but inferior hybrid of the two, generally allowed guns to be redeployed faster than towed cousins, experts thought that they lacked the cross-country capability offered by tracks.

War in Ukraine has seen loitering munitions, precision-guided weapons, and most particularly drones, being the catalyst for a change in the balance of the artillery equation. Artillery is likely
probably will be indispensable weapon on battle field even more than ever, speed deployment, rapid firing moving on will be key to survivability – what the military calls: “shoot and scoot.”

An article in US military issues magazine Defense One says that Ukrainian experience, where wheeled guns have proved so effective, has impacted on US army plans for the future modernization of its artillery systems.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/34300