How did artillery get so good at killing tanks?

#ukrainewar #artillery #tanks #war #military #russiaukrainewar
Analytic look into what makes artillery a highly effective anti-tank weapon.

music :
"AERØHEAD - Fragments" is under a Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) license

[EventLabra]

Dropped a new video about tanks during the winter war if anyone is interested.

[FrankyBoy]

Drones are the best artillery spotters giving almost exact coordinates.

[csjrogerson]

Most people conceive artillery as dumb shells fired at long range in barrages. A WW2 - 2000 mentality. Smart shells, smart warheads on rocket systems and better spotting have changed the dynamic of the tactical battlefield.

[taterbug]

The new artillery rounds can calculate the enemy's pronouns in mere nanoseconds resulting in higher target identification accuracy.

[jojr]

Arty has been good at killing tanks since tanks were invented. It’s also really good at killing just about everything else on the battlefield. Since WW1, artillery has caused more battlefield casualties than all other weapons combined.

Yet for some reason every new generation has to relearn this.

[PurpleBossonius]

drone + self propelled guns = artillery nightmare just like in WOT, but irl this time

[JonathonPawelko]

I just discovered your channel, I am disappointed with myself for missing your well done content. I just took a glance at your library of content and now I won’t be sleeping for a while. You guys were holding out on me! Cheers from Canada

[robertanderson]

was field artillery from 1977-1983 Stateside and germany. only fired direct fire 1 time in Wildflicken then only 1 round M109A1 155mm.

[davethompson]

Arty has always been one of the primary killers of tanks. Air has been a very limited factor due to the huge amount of AA and Tank V Tank was a rarity.

[halfabee]

The German gunnery positions in Jersey and Guernsey in WW2 had ranges and angles scratched in the brick/stone concrete alongside the firing position. For set positions in the gun range.

[matthewgibbs]

since the 1st tank got popped by arty in ww1 it is still king of battle

[phil_]

Battle of El Guettar, 1943 battle in Tunisia: Patton used 155mm "Long Toms" to defeat the German tanks and win the battle. It turned the tide for the American Army in North Africa.

[mm]

Honestly, given the effectiveness of spotting with drones, guided artillery, ubiquitous ballistic computers, advanced shoulder launched weapons, combined arms tactics most especially in conjunction with mine fields, and the punishing match ups that Soviet tanks saw against air power in both Gulf conflicts, I think it is more than past time to seriously call into question the age-old-adage that: "the best solution for a tank is another tank". In fact, the perennial question of how well a given tank faces off against other tanks seems largely irrelevant... it doesn't actually seem to happen all that much in recent battles... so it seems odd that tank-on-tank fighting remains a way in which tank effectiveness is framed.

[PitFriend]

Artillery has always been a major tank killer, even from the very first appearance of the tank in WW1. The difference is modern artillery is more accurate and faster to lay on target which means it’s able to hit a relatively small moving target with fewer shells. Even a near “miss” can cause a mobility kill by breaking a track, and once the tank is immobilized it’s a sitting duck for later shells. Drones being able to give immediate fire results also give modern artillery an advantage hitting a moving target as the guns can correct fire quickly instead of having to rely on the relayed instructions of a forward observer. By the time those instructions are relayed from the observer to the fire direction center and then to the guns the vehicle will be somewhere else.

[grog]

Ukraine has mastered the art. Drones for spotting and accurate Western artillery and shells.

[jorgearmas]

Artillery has always been the king of the battlefield.

[alant]

This has shown how the battlefield has become a game of target acquisition - accurately done by drones mostly - and relaying this info to artillery that directs fire (indirect or other) to the target. So it's a competition of who finds the enemy first and fires first - not much different from the OK Coral really - he who draws fastest and fires most accurately, wins.

[sanxmuch]

Well, in a heat shell, when exploding, the metal remains solid and not liquid. The explosion time is too quick for the metal to change phase. The copper sting which is formed (by plastic deformation ant not by liquid deformation) would'nt have enough cohesion necessary to pierce the armor. After that, it enters the body of the tank and is considered as lethal because it can touch ammutition inside the aimed battletank or at least a vital part of it. It seems to have been observed in the Golan desert that an israelian battletank had been pierced from side to side without further damage but it is considered as a little miracle.

[leighkite]

I think the question alone brought most of us here!

[fiendishrabbit]

This isn't really a new development. Artillery as an effective means of taking out tanks has been a feature since WWI (ie, as long as there have been tanks). Mainly because do don't need a direct hit. There are many vulnerable points on a tank that can be damaged by fragments and pressure (antennae and optics might result in a mission kill. Causing tracks to snap might cause a mobility kill), but the main weakspot is the crew. 155mm artillery shells have a lot of oomph, and a near hit can be enough to shake the tank around to the point that it disorients the crew (Russian tanks have a disadvantage in this case since it takes a lot more energy to shake a 65 ton tank than a 45 ton tank), although post WWII tanks are often pressure sealed (as a means to combat nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) which means that they're shielded from the pressure wave.

Submunitions aren't that new either. The BONUS is slightly more effective than the old submunition rounds (like the american DPICM), but the main advantage of BONUS is that you're not littering the battlefield with unexploded submunitions (which can damage your own vehicles and troops).

Nor is rapidly deployable artillery observers. The main thing that has changed is that modern GPS and drones are so much cheaper and convenient than the old ways (which basically required a specialist artillery observation vehicle with laser range finger and a very very expensive inertial navigator). Meaning that modern artillery observation doesn't require specialist crew or specialist equipment to the same extent, making it cheaper and omnipresent.

One of the main new developments are computerized Command & Control systems, and Ukraine's superior and more responsive command and control is one of the things that have kept them roughly on par with Russia, despite Russias overwhelming weight of fire.