WP vs NATO Artillery

[Kingfish]

In my admittedly dated book 'Modern Land Combat' http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2923 ... and-combat there is a passage in the artillery section that claims the WP artillery had a 64% greater range over its NATO counterparts. However, I can't find any online reference that supports this claim. For example, Wikipedia lists the effective ranges of the US M109 and Russian 2S3 as 11 and 11.5 miles respectively - essentially a wash in the context of SPA.

Does anyone have any info that might support this claim?

[Sheldrake]

In my admittedly dated book 'Modern Land Combat' http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2923 ... and-combat there is a passage in the artillery section that claims the WP artillery had a 64% greater range over its NATO counterparts. However, I can't find any online reference that supports this claim. For example, Wikipedia lists the effective ranges of the US M109 and Russian 2S3 as 11 and 11.5 miles respectively - essentially a wash in the context of SPA.

Does anyone have any info that might support this claim?

Yes and No; or rather No and yes

Here is a range arm from a ruler marked with the ranges of British NATO artillery.

Here is a table of WP artillery performance from British Intelligence Corps C 1985

WP artillery ranges.jpg (60.06 KiB) Viewed 1002 times

Broadly comparable weapons had comparable ranges:-
The D30/2S1 122mm guns at WP Regimental (NATO Brigade) level had a range on 15.3 km comparable to the 105mm guns of the Abbot on charge normal but 2 km less than with charge super. One can quibble about a km or so, but these are relatively minor, and when planning artillery positions to support defences you planned on normal charge.
The D20/2S3 guns at Divisional level 17.3km had a similar range to the M109A1 17.3(IIRC)
The M1976/ 2S5 27km was roughly comparable to the 1980s generation of 155mm guns FH7 24km and the 175mm US M107 had a range of 32Km

What worried NATO Gunners was the longer range and high weight of fire that could be delivered by multiple rocket launchers.
A WP Division had a Bm21 battalon of 18 launchers with a 20km range
and each Front had a brigade of 72 BM27 220mm Multiple rocket launchers

Until the 1980s only the Bundeswehr deployed multiple rocket launchers. I saw a battalion firing once at a fire power demonstration in June 1988. They shredded a grid square of Munsterlager South

So if you added up hiow much fire power could be delivered in one minute at a given range the WP could throw more HE much further.

Under Flexible response that wasn't a real problem because if it got really nasty a lance missile could render that balance irrelevant with , say 15Kt of instant sunshine. Ultimately Nuclear weapons were defence on the cheap as you could skimp on Artillery brigades and divisions if you were willing to go nuclear. This equation changed durign the 1980s wi9thn the development of improved conventional munitions. By the end of the Cold war NATO Armies were quite well equipped to slaughter WP style troops, amply demonstrated in the Gulf Wars

[Kingfish]

Thanks for the info.

I'll have to look further in the book to see what systems it claimed could out range the NATO guns to such an extent. About the only think I can think of is the 130mm M46 of which there was no NATO equivalent.

The book I referenced was published in the late 80s, so by then the MRLS was already in the field.