The Bohdana self-propelled artillery system is one of the flagships of Ukraine's defence industry. It is a large 155mm gun mounted on a lorry, enabling its operators to strike the enemy precisely and quickly change position.

Say what you will about drones being terrifying, they are, but the idea of being ordered to assault a defensive line with 52 caliber 155mm howitizers terrifies me way more.

There is no defense against a 155mm shell that comes screaming out of the sky with no warning, all you can do is to stay very hidden until you are spotted and then NEVER stop moving once your location has been revealed to the enemy. The problem with this of course is that moving quickly near the enemy is a process of constantly rolling the dice about whether things are going to go south for you before you can react or not.

For example, in the process of trying to avoid an artillery barrage by moving quickly, one could easily run their entire formation straight into a machine gun nest with no cover around. Even if a catastrophe like that doesn’t happen you become far more vulnerable to drones when moving quickly than when hidden, entrenched or in a group of situationally aware troops.

Think about it as a russian, imagine sneaking through bushes and then cowering in a shallow trench with the knowledge in the back of your head that if a Bohdana anywhere within 30km gets the bead on you quick enough, you are toast if you don’t run and if you do run in a panic you are breakfast for Ukrainian FPVs.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    0·
    17 days ago

    Forgive my ignorance. Are 155mm artillery shells arriving on target at supersonic speeds? As in, if you’re the target yourself, the sound will arrive to your location after the shell has already hit you?

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOP
      0·
      17 days ago

      Transonic speeds, I think I have heard you might have a seconds warning or so, but also I think sometimes you don’t because the shell is travelling at nearly the speed of sound, it depends on charges, firing arc and other things of course.

      Forgive my ignorance. Are 155mm artillery shells arriving on target at supersonic speeds? As in, if you’re the target yourself, the sound will arrive to your location after the shell has already hit you?

      You have hit on one of the most beautiful lines from Gravity’s Rainbow about V2 rockets, this article explains it well…

      “A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.” Beautiful opening lines. As classic as any, I bet. They establish here is the relationship between cause and effect, which Gravity’s Rainbow upends. Causality. Teleology. The basic rudiments of enlightenment rationality. These are meaningless now. The key: “it has happened before.” Not only the bomb dropping. But this bomb dropping. You do not hear a V-2 bomb drop. Or rather, you hear it only after it has dropped. By the time of the screaming, it is too late.

      https://www.gravitysrainbowguide.com/

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
        0·
        17 days ago

        Transonic speeds, I think I have heard you might have a seconds warning or so, but also I think sometimes you don’t because the shell is travelling at nearly the speed of sound, it depends on charges, firing arc and other things of course.

        I suppose it also depends how close you are to the gun firing the shell. As in, you might hear the primary report from the gun when the shell leaves the barrel in a straight line across the ground to your ears, but the shell itself is traveling in a ballistic arc and may only reach supersonic speeds in the terminal phase when it is coming down on you. So you wouldn’t hear the shell arrive, but you’d be aware it is coming.

        I hope I never have to be on the receiving end to find out for sure.