You cannot pick and choose your conflicts, nor can you pick and choose where your enemy is, unless you are the aggressor. So I think that your comment is somewhat unrealistic and ill-founded. I suggest that you acquaint yourself with Australian military history.
SPG is not a magic pill or the be all to end all. If you read the Think Defence article that I posted earlier in the thread about arty, it explains some of the advantages and disadvantages of SPGs and towed arty, plus tracked vs wheeled SPG. Think Defence is a good resource.
I like Think Defence and communicate regularly on the Twitters with him, but that article isn't the greatest, especially when contextualised with the ADF.
His base argument of 105 mm v 155 mm and coming up with 122 mm is fine - but not practical in reality. We have selected the 155 mm round for all our artillery needs (putting MLRS and 120 mm mortars aside) - not 105 mm. There are no MOTS guns of 122 mm that we would buy that allows integration with the US. How we got to 155 mm is irrelevant - for the next 15 - 20 years it is highly unlikely the US (and hence us) will shift away from 155 mm as the primary artillery calibre; for the next 5 - 10 years it is not happening.
His view that 105 mm is better logistically and for suppression is partially right. Logistically it is partially correct - there is little chance 100x rounds of 155 mm will ever weight less or be smaller than 100x 105 mm rounds. So? We should never reduce battlefield effect to meet logistics - otherwise we might as well go 20 mm (after all, 100x 20 mm is smaller and lighter than 100x 105 mm...). In use however, this gets less clear. A 155 mm shell is better in lethality and flexibility - so you have to fire more 105 mm rounds to achieve the same effect. From memory (doctrinal planning figures only) a Bty of 105 mm guns can cover 62 500 square meters. A Bty of 155 mm guns covers 122 500 square meters. In other words, you need 2x Bty of 105 mm to achieve the same coverage (but with less lethal effects) that a Bty of 155 mm can do. So is it really logistically better? I have to deliver twice the number of (smaller) shells, have twice the guns with twice the crew and twice the fuel....
Suppression is based only on rate of fire and time into action. I couldn't find where he states that explicitly, but it can be inferred from the first couple of paragraphs. Unfortunately, it also becomes clear he is comparing towed 105 mm to towed 155 mm. He states that the RoF of a SPG is superior to either towed option, meaning that a 155 mm SPG is actually better at suppression than a 105 mm solution (which intuitively makes sense, it has a more lethal round, fires faster and further).
The first half of the article highlights that self-propelled platforms are superior in every form of transport and firing other than air. Which, if you read my previous comparison of the M777 and SPG in Australian service) is something I have never argued with. The article also points out that towed guns are, on the ground, limited to the wheel vehicle's mobility. For the M777 it can only go where a HX77 and/or Bushmaster can go. And it doesn't like rough terrain itself. As for airlift, sure. I've never said otherwise. All I've ever said is that requires a hell of an effort - and I'm not sure that we'll have enough CH-47 or the end effects will be worth it.
Everything in that article that is relevant and correct agrees with my comments here:
Australian Army Discussions and Updates And nothing in either justifies a towed 155 mm gun. I maintain the M777 is obsolete (as is every towed 155 mm gun), and further add that in a fiscally constrained IIP it's worth spending money on Joint effects that matter - not obsolete systems that 'may' be useful in a niche role one day.
