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Test Drive: Lada Versus a Porsche
There are lots of military blogs that are written about the successes and failures of Ukrainian forces and Russian forces. That’s all well and good, but no matter who the blogger supports, they are not out on the battlefield. Let’s look at a weapons system Ukraine is using in its war with Russia, via Radio Free Europe.
Radio Free Europe is a US government agency with reporters in the battlefield. Some of those reporters are embedded with Ukrainian forces, others report from Ukrainian cities that have endured battle damage.
Poland has provided Ukraine with AHS Krab 155mm howitzers:
The AHS Krab (Polish for crab) is a 155 mm NATO-compatible self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer designed in Poland by Huta Stalowa Wola (HSW), by combining the South Korean K9 Thunder chassis with a British BAE Systems AS-90M Braveheart turret with French Nexter Systems 52-calibre long gun and Polish WB Electronics’ “Topaz” artillery fire control system. The 2011 version used a Nexter Systems barrel and UPG chassis.
The 2016 production batch utilized the Hanwha Defense K9 chassis with KMW+Nexter Defense Systems long gun, Rheinmetall barrel and STX Engine-MTU Friedrichshafen engine. As of 2016 full-rate production of 120 Krabs for Polish Army has started with deliveries to be completed by 2024. As of 2019, Huta Stalowa Wola started using barrels of their own manufacture in successive production batches. – from Wikipedia
The following video gives the viewer a look at the Krab in the field. One personal observation I will make is that to operate so close to Russian-controlled areas indicates Russia has not established air superiority over the battlefield.
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Published in Military
A 155mm shell 50 meters away can really screw up your day.
Being able to fire-and-scoot makes counterbattery fire very difficult.
Interesting – Thanks
I presume the built-in tea kettle comes standard with every British turret.
;-)
Wow! Amazing you have to get blow by blow coverage of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia on Ricochet! Kudos to this post! Wonder who are the reporters imbedded with the Ukrainian troops – and from what outlets? Thank you for the updates – more than Brandon’s administration is offering even though the taxpayers are sending billions.
They are Radio Free Europe reporters. “Current Time” is part of the Radio Free Europe organization. They have conducted “man on the street” interviews in Russia.
They have reporters in Eastern Europe, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Link
As Brits say you need to find some time for a “cuppa” at some point during the day.
I look for stories that you might not see from other sources. I’m more interested in stories from those who are in the fight. There is nothing wrong with reading stories about Nimitz, Halsey, or Patton. Most of the mainstream media is doing their reporting from Kyiv, or Lviv.
The grunt who is doing the heavy lifting captures my interest. The most important place in the world for them is where they are fighting, not New York, not DC, London, or Moscow. This holds true for American forces that fought in Iraq, and Afghanistan.
That is some high speed low drag Teflon coated science fiction level stuff.
I tell the gun the target location and the brain on the gun does what used to take five guys in the fire direction center.
But seriously though, in WWII German snipers would wait for British tankers to stop and get out of their tanks to make a cup of tea. That was when they started building kettles right into British tanks.
Until the EMP, anyway.
No, military electronics are immune to EMP. Expensive to build circuits with every conduction path paired and twisted (literally or via balanced foil routing) to be magnetically neutral. Down to the metalization in the chips. But that’s what milspec calls for.
Are we certain that the electronics in the OP’s mentions are made that way?
Certain? No.
But I’d be shocked if any modern gear from a western nation wasn’t. The magnetic field calculations aren’t nuclear secrets–anyone can do them. It’s just expensive to implement.
Given the state of this science, I think it is fair to put the burden on you to demonstrate that they aren’t.
Maybe. but if they’re working on a budget and they can get 5 without EMP protection for the price of maybe 3 or 2 or even just 1 with it, and if they’re not THAT worried about someone using EMP… who knows?