The extra calibre roughly doubles the amount of explosive that fits inside. nato artillery rounds have a diameter of 155mm, 33mm more than munitions fired by much of Ukraine’s legacy Soviet fare. Today’s nato standard for shell size is another plus. Doppler radars clock the speed of projectiles as they leave the gun barrel. Systems also take into account the temperature of the propellant loaded into the detonation chamber. Artillery crews routinely loft instruments on a helium balloon to measure temperatures and wind speeds. Andrii Moruha, a Ukrainian veteran who now works for Come Back Alive, a local charity that, among other endeavours, trains artillery crews in the country’s east, says every drop of 10☌ shaves about 55 metres off a 4km shot. Ukrainian officials have requested archer guns. In good weather its archer howitzer lands unguided rounds within about 20 metres of targets 30km away. bae Systems, a British arms giant, offers similar accuracy. In one test in windless weather a caesar howitzer lobbed eight out of eight shells into a “box” 40 metres square, says Olivier Fort, a former colonel who led studies in artillery doctrine for the French army, and is now Nexter’s programme manager for future artillery. In practice, precision is often greater than this. But Ukraine is unlikely to receive the 60 launchers that an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s president, has said would be needed to halt Russia’s advance.Īs for the accuracy of non-rocket-propelled artillery, Nexter says that, at ranges up to about 30km, caesar drops unguided 43kg shells within 140 metres of the target. Training people to use this sort of kit will take three weeks. Britain and another, unnamed, country are meanwhile sending a similar system, mlrs, to Ukraine. And Lockheed Martin, the American firm that makes gmlrs rockets, says the satellite-guidance kit works even amid jamming. Those systems fire 280kg warheads.Ī three-man himars crew can launch a salvo without leaving the lorry’s armoured cab. The Russian Smerch and Uragan rocket artillery in wide use in Ukraine offer less precision but more punch. These, which cost about $160,000 a pop, can reportedly punch a 91kg warhead into a moving vehicle more than 70km away. Ukraine, however, is to receive shorter-range gmlrs rockets. The m142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as himars, can fire a munition called atacms a staggering 300km. On May 31st America announced it would send Ukraine guided rocket systems. Nexter plans to introduce one such in 2025.Ī far more expensive approach is to put rocket engines on shells. Some shells are also designed with pop-out fins large enough to provide a “gliding phase” of flight. That reduces drag-inducing turbulence enough to add several kilometres to a projectile’s range. In flight, this gizmo releases compressed gas that fills what would otherwise be a trailing area of low pressure. For long shots, a ring-shaped “base bleed” device is often screwed onto the bottom of a shell. And to give shells more time to gain speed, a caesar’s gun barrel is, at just over eight metres, about two metres longer than the trf1’s. (The recipe for this is closely guarded.) To stop energy from the blast escaping through the barrel’s rifling grooves, shells are fitted with a ring of softer metal that creates a tight seal. To contain this propellant’s explosion, the chamber is made of a stronger steel alloy than is used in the trf1. At 23 litres, it is roughly four litres larger than the trf1’s chamber and can thus be packed with about 30kg of propellant. The secret of caesar’s range is its detonation chamber-the part of the gun where the propulsive charge explodes.
So far, France has anted-up five or six of a promised dozen caesar howitzers, enabling Ukrainian crews to smash targets 50% farther away than they could manage just a few weeks ago. This can hurl shells about 40km, which is 16km farther than the firm’s previous model, the trf1, could manage. Top of the list at the moment is the French caesar system (pictured above), made by Nexter, a firm in Versailles. And Ukraine is pinning many of its hopes of doing so on the sophisticated guns and ammunition it is receiving from well-wishers in the West. Whoever wins this duel will therefore probably win the war.