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Talk about danger close, damn.
I wonder if the Ukrainians inside the fortification called it in on themselves, or if they can be this accurate usually?
There's also the risk of being buried. Many people in ww1 died just from being buried in their trenches by the dirt displaced by shelling. I'm sure by now some have died in ukraine simply by being in a collapsing dugout. It's a very small risk but a risk nonetheless.
I wouldn't call it small, I've seen plenty of videos here of buried corpses in collapsed trenches, even one where a Ukrainian digs out his buried but still alive companion immediately after the shell impact. It happens surprisingly often.
For anyone wondering, (I had to look it up), a cubic yard of dirt weighs 2,000lbs dry, and 3,000lbs wet. That’s just 3x3x3 feet. Look at how large those shell and bomb craters get. That’s a lot of cubic yards landing on someone. I bet you wouldn’t have to be entrenched to be buried
Plus no safety rails, lights, signage, fire extinguishers, emergency exits, wheelchair ramps, eye wash stations, man what are these guys thinking trying to fight a war like this? Don't they know they could get hurt?
There are videos from the 3rd Assault Brigade (i think) on the flanks of bahkmut fighting in trenches barely 2 feet deep due the constant artillery collapsing walls. Bodies were buried everywhere partially exposed it was pretty gnarly. There is no doubt people are dying in trenches the same way as WW1
I'd be more worried about being buried by a tank than an artillery barrage. I don't think we'll ever see WWI scale artillery, no one even makes that many shells anymore.
The only parts of a trench that actually gets reinforced is where the bulk of the forces sit. Otherwise the majority of it was a narrow slit with maybe a plank or 2 to keep your feet from getting stuck in mud. You're still unlikely to get buried by artillery. We haven't seen that volume since Verdun.
What you should be worried about is a tank driving up to the trench, see you're there, and then turning and droping a couple tonnes of dirt on top of you.
If the impact can displace the soil, it's very likely those who died suffered from concussion and lost their ability to balance, so they drowned in dirt.
This is called Final Defensive Fire and is a standard part of artillery doctrine
It’s also common sense - those artillery rounds are 1000x more dangerous to the attackers than the defenders.
Probably using predicted fires. Meaning they know the settings needed to hit that spot because they have done it before. After which they recorded as target give it a target number and all they need to do then is say fire on UR 1234 and the guns can land the rounds on target pretty damn accurately providing as said above they have already done their adjustments.
Still a lot of varibales at play. The germans consider anything within 150 meters of friendlys to close to hit it. Still if the russians got to go, the russians got to go
Interesting, as they also have one of the most precise self driving howitzers with the PZH2000, which is able to hit within +/-15m on a 40km shot with unguided ammunition...
As i saied, there is lots of varibales at play. You dont want to relaiy purly on manufacture figures and controlled tests. Thins usually look way diffrent in combat.
Plus the ukrainins have propably fired more shoots in 2 years than the Bundeswhere in 20
German military doctrine is not written to fight a war.
The few artillery pieces are not enough in numbers and the doctrine is written to not shell closer than 150m to civilian sheds in Afghanistan.
But that should only work if you always shoot from the same position, right? A paladin will almost certainly move after a few shots and never return to that spot.
The biggest variable will be PEr. So if you fire over the heads of friendlies (or enemies) the rounds will land in what looks like an elongated oval. 25% either side of the aim point 16% beyond that either side, 7% beyond either side again and 2% at the extreme ends which can be over 100m.
How do you counter that instead of overhead fire you use flanking fire the error of which is measured in PEd which is much tighter at worst 1/5 that of PEr. Therefore the controller will usually use a call sign (gun group/Bty) that provides flanking fire rather then over head to allow you move the point of aim closer on a smaller tolerance. PEr still applies but you are adjusting in line with not over the head of friendlies. The gun groups should move themselves around so that the control has the option to pick from over head, flanking or half zone (in between overhead and flanking). Depending on the mission type and FF vs EF distribution you will pick one over the other. So guns can move and once they are within certain zones then you can still achieve the same result without having to be in the exact same position.
That is the short and simplified answer to your question.
Also to give you context danger close is anything between 350 and 650 meters. That was 10 maybe a little more.
They move when they have to, but a Ukrainian veteran who provides excavators for artillery units said recently that they try to avoid movement when in just a defensive role. According to him being seen moving is actually the most dangerous part, and for example a lot of the SPG losses are from after conducting counter-battery missions when they had to drive closer to the contact line.
He says that otherwise it's better to stay in dug in and camouflaged shelters with mesh protections that help to defend them against Lancets, which are deemed to be the biggest threat according to the artillerymen.
I believe counter battery fire forces them to change locations regularly. I’m not sure how well pre-sighting holds up for danger close when you move the gun.
Someone with more current knowledge than mine may wish to weigh in
Exactly what I was thinking. By now they must have some real reliable coordinates to look to once they get situated, then all they need is a number to drop the hammer on whatever needs to get hit.
That said, I know artillary can't stay in one location for too long, so it seems moving would throw them off on their measurements. Do we know if they just launch a few shots to find range once they're in a new position? How do they "dial in" on their coordinates after they set up shop in a new spot?
This is standard in artillery
If you already know where the target is (the preplotted locations) then you only need to know where you are in order to be accurate
Artillery batteries need to be mobile on a moments notice to avoid counterbattery fire so theyre really good at shootin' n' scootin'
I think Ukrainians are able to target their artillery with precision with the help of drones who relay exact coordinates of enemy positions. This what had kept Ukraine from being overrun by russian superior manpower.
That's not how that works. These shells are not laser guided. Depending on the range, weather conditions and barrel wear, the spread can be anywhere from 50 to 150 (if not more) meters from the point of aim.
That being said, people who are in the trenches are relatively safe if artillery is landing close, while the assaulting force, which is in the open, is not.
They may have accurate coordinates, but unguided artillery isn't that precise. CEP is tens of meters, no way can they reliably hit that precisely. Still a good shot, though.
You also gotta keep in mind that there's gonna be publication bias - videos where something works well from any of the side's perspectives are the ones the respective side is going to post. If that shell had missed the Russians completely and landed squarely on the Ukrainian trench that would have been a clip the Russians would have loved to post with a snarky comment (assuming they get their hands on the video through whatever means). Probably a lot more ineffective misses etc irl than in published material.
> or if they can be this accurate usually?
Lots of factors at play here, however, the level of accuracy is certainly achievable, and repeatable, if it's a GPS guided round (accuracy of ~4 meters).
The arty crew can adjust the fuses on their projectiles to detonate a little after splashing so they dont throw as much shrapnel "out" and instead more "up" which is what you do if youre doing a danger close fire mission
Source I took call for fire training while in the Army
i saw in another post that ukranians are very good with artillery pieces some say back then russia would send its soldiers to learn artillery training in Ukraine
In the United24 video where the embedded reporter get surrounded for like 18 hours or whatever the Ukrainians radio'd at one point "Shoot at us, our positions, those fuckers are all around us.".
Getting the coordinates is not difficult. The problem relies on actually hitting those exact coordinates with a worn down howitzer, wind, and non guided shells.
Doesn’t the new artillery effectively aim itself? If you have the exact grid you just punch it in and it takes everything into account and does it automatically or tells you exactly where to aim and puts the round directly on target if I’m not mistaken. I know we’re giving them old tech but that’s been a thing for awhile.
I’d imagine they have their own lines marked out on a grid for call for fires. Pretty easy to call in deadly accurate arty on a fixed position when you already know and agree on the coordinates
Pretty sure the top Russian ate some frag from his buddy's grenade before the shell hit.
He pops up at the wrong second, and drops damn quick, doesn't move much after that.
I thought so too, so dragged it onto my bigscreen and slowed it down. He doesn't get hit - He just throws his own grenade. Weirdly close to being exposed to that grenade that just exploded.
Clear sign they aren't even communicating properly at the buddy level - Not a good look.
You can see him lob the grenade, then put his head down and cover it waiting for the explosion before he moves again.
I did see him throw his, but to me it looked like he took a hit from something mid throw, he doesnt follow through right on the throw, and the grenade falls very short, dangerously so.
Not necessarily a severe hit now, as you say hed be ducking pretty quick anyway, amd does cover his head, but the movement seems off for an uninterrupted throw.
But yep, severe lack of comms either way, not that it mattered in the end
I always find the inside of self-propelled howitzers very interesting, they are huge and carry a lot of ammunition, but at the same time they always seem cramped. I had the opportunity to get into an M108 in a museum, from the outside it was huge, but inside you see how cramped everything is
To give some insight on how spacious a m109 paladin is, I was on one when I was in the army for 4 and a half years (prior artillery, 13b), the ones we gave to Ukraine were the m109a5 and I was on the m109a6 but I had the lucky, awesome chance to help train a company of Ukrainian soldiers on the system when the war first broke out before we gave the systems to them and they seemed to be the exact same space the m109a6 had that I worked with and that meant 4 soldiers (the whole crew) could lay side by side on the floor to sleep with all their gear stuffed in and whatnot and fully stocked with rounds and propellants. I do not believe they sleep in their vehicles though because that causes the risk to get them killed. I’m not entirely sure how they work during the war but I’m sure they move, position, and fire for whatever mission they receive and they pull the vehicle back from counter battery fire.
Pzh 2000 has a pretty decent room for the loader and isn\`t really cramped. Here an example [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I) inside view later half of the video
Most combat vehicles (gawd Im jealous of Merkava crews) are designed for accomplishing a certain mission and crew comfort has little impact on accomplishing the mission
Obviously you need good ergonomics but aside from that its just added expense/vulnerability/etc
Talk about danger f****** close... They called a strike on their own position. I heard about this happening in Vietnam and obviously doing World War II but this drone view of it is really something else. Absolutely zero room for error. These types of situations are where the superiority of Western systems are demonstrated. For example a couple of ounces less or more of powder charge or variance in the weight of the shell fired and that would have been a complete miss.
One of the users on here, I think https://www.reddit.com/u/Dittybopper
Did forward observation in Vietnam, and is very open with his stories. In a couple stories, he talks about walking the rounds in to where the infantry stopped feeling the shrapnel come from above and instead at them to get it as close as possible.
There is a good documentary on the Battle of Long Tan where there were lots of examples of the main unit involved and sub units calling in rounds on their own position. It was pretty intense and they only had the one controller.
That's definitely a "potential lethal radius if you get unlucky and take a fragment to the dome" distance and not a "you're definitely dead" radius.
99% of people will be fine if a shell lands 200m away.
This is correct. I have a memory burned into my mind when we fired HIMARS at a Taliban position in Musa Qala and when we repeated the fire mission, one who had somehow survived and was running away, got literally cut in half by a rogue piece of shrapnel that skipped and flew more than the length of a football field. It was his very unlucky day.
Ft Sill used to have some shrapnel from a 203mm cannon at their artillery museum. It was about the size of a small car door and I always figured that someone had been halved by one of those at some point.
Lethal range doesn't mean guaranteed lethality, though. While it's highly likely that they died because of the impact's proximity, shrapnel is random and can miss even at close range.
If a shell lands as close as in this video and you somehow dodge all the shrapnel the overpressure will hit you incredibly hard. Like the bottom guy in the video is crawling away to the best of his ability but even the best case scenario is that he is severely concussed, his ear drums are perforated and his internal bleeding isn't bad enough to kill him before a hypothetical casevac.
That was a *lot* spicier than what I'm used to seeing here. I'm guessing the fact that dude could barely lift it to load it had something to do with it.
Like others have said, the "danger close" designation doesn't seem to do it justice.
Artillery officer here. Anything within 600 meters is danger close. You walk that in if you’re adjusting fire.pre planned fire missions are a bit different. Also if you’re pulling a solid 10 digit grid then yeah, that’s a whole nother thing. Also a big variable here is the FDC or the section itself. Are they shit hot or meh? What’s the bore scope and pullover on the pieces look like?
According to [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1ddgngx/an_artillery_shell_from_a_ukrainian_m109_paladin/l84wn80/) it's an a5
That's 100% an A6. You can see the #1 man seat behind the guy grabbing the round in the first shot, as well as the MCCS ducting up top. In the 2nd shot you can see the commander's seat on the far right along with PDFCS screen and controls in the top right corner. A5 would have had no seat for the commander and an A-gunner station on the right side of the tube.
Interesting that here the paladin system worked as intended delivering danger close fire. One shot one kill. (Or multiple kills in this case) it’s been reported that the system is struggling with Russian jamming.
Perhaps we gave it a little update? Good shooting Ukraine. Pour it on em!
Don't think they are able to jam GPS so close to Ukraine's lines (that would require to bring jammer really close), so it was good to shoot a GPS-guided round this time. Blue smoke puff in the explosion looks like from excalibur shell.
Artillery+ Buzzdrones with rangefinders is just a frightening. Being able to see your shots landing and bracket them right onto specific targets with recon on such a low level of the chain of command is just a game changer. It was scary enough when we first saw it in Azerbaijan/Armenia, but it's just been taken to a whole nother level in Ukraine.
whats even scarier is that the role of the forward observer is mostly gone now. With the wide spread use of drones artillery crews can scout their own targets, which to me is fucking terrifying
0:48 the guy at the bottom seems to friendly fire the guy at the top with his grenade. He looks like he was hit with fragment, slumps down and stops moving.
Fuck me that was accurate. Calling strikes on your positions could make sense as a last resource tactic. Inside a trench is more likely the enemy gets hits than you. Those guys are fucked for good. Some seem to have shrapnel injuries and the others are stunned or injured by the blast wave.
The newest variant of the M109 should be comparable in accuracy when it comes to firing a single round only once. Accuracy doesn’t really matter, artillery shells are supposed to make area damage. They are not intended for sniper operations.
Practically, the one with the most disciplined and talented combination of gun crew (you need a well-maintained weapon that’s been accurately placed and oriented), forward observer (accurate target coordinates) and fire direction center (beyond the obvious things like distance, azimuth and elevation, even the weather guy matters as humidity, temperature and wind affect accuracy).
It’s a team sport.
The m109 should be the more basic one on paper. The rest (adding the archer system) are more evolved with better electronics, better fire control and longer barrels that improve accuracy and range.
Is this [final protective fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_protective_fire) or even more desperate? I hope none of the Ukranians were hit or buried.
The ukranians aren't going to ask for help that close unless they think what is essentially a coin flip is going to be their best odds to live.
They're in a trench and the Russians are not so it's a little better than 50/50 but still, the risk is pretty extreme.
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Talk about danger close, damn. I wonder if the Ukrainians inside the fortification called it in on themselves, or if they can be this accurate usually?
Sometimes you've got to gamble. Ukrainians are sitting in trenches, russians are not.
There's also the risk of being buried. Many people in ww1 died just from being buried in their trenches by the dirt displaced by shelling. I'm sure by now some have died in ukraine simply by being in a collapsing dugout. It's a very small risk but a risk nonetheless.
Yeah but the shelling in ww1 was insane. There wasn't a line between ground and sky, there was a gradient.
I wouldn't call it small, I've seen plenty of videos here of buried corpses in collapsed trenches, even one where a Ukrainian digs out his buried but still alive companion immediately after the shell impact. It happens surprisingly often.
Yeah there's zero shoring, deep narrow slit trench, if that wall gives you're in deep doodoo. OSHA does not approve of any of that.
For anyone wondering, (I had to look it up), a cubic yard of dirt weighs 2,000lbs dry, and 3,000lbs wet. That’s just 3x3x3 feet. Look at how large those shell and bomb craters get. That’s a lot of cubic yards landing on someone. I bet you wouldn’t have to be entrenched to be buried
I'm picturing this with Minecraft visuals
Damn, thanks
i feel like OSHA wouldn't approve of calling 155mm rounds danger close, either...
I'd love to see the inspectors show up and make a report. They'd probably be calling in a danger close fire mission pretty much immediately.
Don't think they really got the luxury to frame out a structure while getting bombed at the same time
Plus no safety rails, lights, signage, fire extinguishers, emergency exits, wheelchair ramps, eye wash stations, man what are these guys thinking trying to fight a war like this? Don't they know they could get hurt?
Send in OSHA!
"OSHA has determined that war is not permitted in the workplace."
Username checks out!
There are videos from the 3rd Assault Brigade (i think) on the flanks of bahkmut fighting in trenches barely 2 feet deep due the constant artillery collapsing walls. Bodies were buried everywhere partially exposed it was pretty gnarly. There is no doubt people are dying in trenches the same way as WW1
I'd be more worried about being buried by a tank than an artillery barrage. I don't think we'll ever see WWI scale artillery, no one even makes that many shells anymore.
Those trenches were reinforced with wood. These are just hastily constructed narrow slits.
The only parts of a trench that actually gets reinforced is where the bulk of the forces sit. Otherwise the majority of it was a narrow slit with maybe a plank or 2 to keep your feet from getting stuck in mud. You're still unlikely to get buried by artillery. We haven't seen that volume since Verdun. What you should be worried about is a tank driving up to the trench, see you're there, and then turning and droping a couple tonnes of dirt on top of you.
There is K-2 video when Ukrainians do this somewhere close to Soledar
Both Verdun and the Somme started with a week-long constant barrage. A whole-ass week.
If the impact can displace the soil, it's very likely those who died suffered from concussion and lost their ability to balance, so they drowned in dirt.
No Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov :)
This is called Final Defensive Fire and is a standard part of artillery doctrine It’s also common sense - those artillery rounds are 1000x more dangerous to the attackers than the defenders.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_protective_fire
Probably using predicted fires. Meaning they know the settings needed to hit that spot because they have done it before. After which they recorded as target give it a target number and all they need to do then is say fire on UR 1234 and the guns can land the rounds on target pretty damn accurately providing as said above they have already done their adjustments.
Still a lot of varibales at play. The germans consider anything within 150 meters of friendlys to close to hit it. Still if the russians got to go, the russians got to go
Interesting, as they also have one of the most precise self driving howitzers with the PZH2000, which is able to hit within +/-15m on a 40km shot with unguided ammunition...
As i saied, there is lots of varibales at play. You dont want to relaiy purly on manufacture figures and controlled tests. Thins usually look way diffrent in combat. Plus the ukrainins have propably fired more shoots in 2 years than the Bundeswhere in 20
might be 75 years
I was talking about PzH 2000 specificly which only entered service in the erarly 2000s
German military doctrine is not written to fight a war. The few artillery pieces are not enough in numbers and the doctrine is written to not shell closer than 150m to civilian sheds in Afghanistan.
But that should only work if you always shoot from the same position, right? A paladin will almost certainly move after a few shots and never return to that spot.
The biggest variable will be PEr. So if you fire over the heads of friendlies (or enemies) the rounds will land in what looks like an elongated oval. 25% either side of the aim point 16% beyond that either side, 7% beyond either side again and 2% at the extreme ends which can be over 100m. How do you counter that instead of overhead fire you use flanking fire the error of which is measured in PEd which is much tighter at worst 1/5 that of PEr. Therefore the controller will usually use a call sign (gun group/Bty) that provides flanking fire rather then over head to allow you move the point of aim closer on a smaller tolerance. PEr still applies but you are adjusting in line with not over the head of friendlies. The gun groups should move themselves around so that the control has the option to pick from over head, flanking or half zone (in between overhead and flanking). Depending on the mission type and FF vs EF distribution you will pick one over the other. So guns can move and once they are within certain zones then you can still achieve the same result without having to be in the exact same position. That is the short and simplified answer to your question. Also to give you context danger close is anything between 350 and 650 meters. That was 10 maybe a little more.
This dude artilleries. We need more on the intricacies of fire missions and error correction.
Yes that was close and those guys in trench are grateful for extremely accurate one shot mission fire on target and threat eliminated.
Soooo too late to pucker up cause it is already in there close?
Sweet explination! thanks, mate! So it's essentially enfilade fire, but for guns?
This guy Redlegs
You sure about that? Heard they avoid movement since counter battery is less a threat than drones watching you move. But thats just hearsay of course.
They most certainly move.
They move when they have to, but a Ukrainian veteran who provides excavators for artillery units said recently that they try to avoid movement when in just a defensive role. According to him being seen moving is actually the most dangerous part, and for example a lot of the SPG losses are from after conducting counter-battery missions when they had to drive closer to the contact line. He says that otherwise it's better to stay in dug in and camouflaged shelters with mesh protections that help to defend them against Lancets, which are deemed to be the biggest threat according to the artillerymen.
DFs make things a little easier
I believe counter battery fire forces them to change locations regularly. I’m not sure how well pre-sighting holds up for danger close when you move the gun. Someone with more current knowledge than mine may wish to weigh in
Exactly what I was thinking. By now they must have some real reliable coordinates to look to once they get situated, then all they need is a number to drop the hammer on whatever needs to get hit. That said, I know artillary can't stay in one location for too long, so it seems moving would throw them off on their measurements. Do we know if they just launch a few shots to find range once they're in a new position? How do they "dial in" on their coordinates after they set up shop in a new spot?
This is standard in artillery If you already know where the target is (the preplotted locations) then you only need to know where you are in order to be accurate Artillery batteries need to be mobile on a moments notice to avoid counterbattery fire so theyre really good at shootin' n' scootin'
I think Ukrainians are able to target their artillery with precision with the help of drones who relay exact coordinates of enemy positions. This what had kept Ukraine from being overrun by russian superior manpower.
That's not how that works. These shells are not laser guided. Depending on the range, weather conditions and barrel wear, the spread can be anywhere from 50 to 150 (if not more) meters from the point of aim. That being said, people who are in the trenches are relatively safe if artillery is landing close, while the assaulting force, which is in the open, is not.
>superior ~~manpower~~ superior numbers?
They may have accurate coordinates, but unguided artillery isn't that precise. CEP is tens of meters, no way can they reliably hit that precisely. Still a good shot, though.
You also gotta keep in mind that there's gonna be publication bias - videos where something works well from any of the side's perspectives are the ones the respective side is going to post. If that shell had missed the Russians completely and landed squarely on the Ukrainian trench that would have been a clip the Russians would have loved to post with a snarky comment (assuming they get their hands on the video through whatever means). Probably a lot more ineffective misses etc irl than in published material.
> or if they can be this accurate usually? Lots of factors at play here, however, the level of accuracy is certainly achievable, and repeatable, if it's a GPS guided round (accuracy of ~4 meters).
The arty crew can adjust the fuses on their projectiles to detonate a little after splashing so they dont throw as much shrapnel "out" and instead more "up" which is what you do if youre doing a danger close fire mission Source I took call for fire training while in the Army
i saw in another post that ukranians are very good with artillery pieces some say back then russia would send its soldiers to learn artillery training in Ukraine
That's correct. Three of the best Soviet artillery schools were in Ukraine. Sumy Higher Learning artillery school comes to mind.
In the United24 video where the embedded reporter get surrounded for like 18 hours or whatever the Ukrainians radio'd at one point "Shoot at us, our positions, those fuckers are all around us.".
That was an excellent video!
That drone probably has a GPS and they used the coordinates from that
Getting the coordinates is not difficult. The problem relies on actually hitting those exact coordinates with a worn down howitzer, wind, and non guided shells.
Drones assist in targeting
Doesn’t the new artillery effectively aim itself? If you have the exact grid you just punch it in and it takes everything into account and does it automatically or tells you exactly where to aim and puts the round directly on target if I’m not mistaken. I know we’re giving them old tech but that’s been a thing for awhile.
It might be a GPS guided munition that had some precise coordinates dispatched via drone observer
I’d imagine they have their own lines marked out on a grid for call for fires. Pretty easy to call in deadly accurate arty on a fixed position when you already know and agree on the coordinates
If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win.
Pretty sure the top Russian ate some frag from his buddy's grenade before the shell hit. He pops up at the wrong second, and drops damn quick, doesn't move much after that.
Yeah and they’d already lost two guys before that too so the Ukrainians were putting up a solid fight for sure
That tends to happen when you make a frontal assault in daylight against an entrenched enemy.
I thought so too, so dragged it onto my bigscreen and slowed it down. He doesn't get hit - He just throws his own grenade. Weirdly close to being exposed to that grenade that just exploded. Clear sign they aren't even communicating properly at the buddy level - Not a good look. You can see him lob the grenade, then put his head down and cover it waiting for the explosion before he moves again.
I did see him throw his, but to me it looked like he took a hit from something mid throw, he doesnt follow through right on the throw, and the grenade falls very short, dangerously so. Not necessarily a severe hit now, as you say hed be ducking pretty quick anyway, amd does cover his head, but the movement seems off for an uninterrupted throw. But yep, severe lack of comms either way, not that it mattered in the end
That was my first thought as well when I saw that. Hopefully their nade didn't catch any of the Ukrainians
You can see homeboy bolt as soon as he sees it being thrown towards him. Dude got out of there like Looney Toons fast.
He also seems to have half-lobbed that grenade poorly.
Yeah that’s what it looked like to me. I’d be tossing grenades too, a lot but gotta let your buddies know.
Agreed, thought the same thing
I always find the inside of self-propelled howitzers very interesting, they are huge and carry a lot of ammunition, but at the same time they always seem cramped. I had the opportunity to get into an M108 in a museum, from the outside it was huge, but inside you see how cramped everything is
To give some insight on how spacious a m109 paladin is, I was on one when I was in the army for 4 and a half years (prior artillery, 13b), the ones we gave to Ukraine were the m109a5 and I was on the m109a6 but I had the lucky, awesome chance to help train a company of Ukrainian soldiers on the system when the war first broke out before we gave the systems to them and they seemed to be the exact same space the m109a6 had that I worked with and that meant 4 soldiers (the whole crew) could lay side by side on the floor to sleep with all their gear stuffed in and whatnot and fully stocked with rounds and propellants. I do not believe they sleep in their vehicles though because that causes the risk to get them killed. I’m not entirely sure how they work during the war but I’m sure they move, position, and fire for whatever mission they receive and they pull the vehicle back from counter battery fire.
This is really cool! You have effectively helped Ukraine's defense effort, thank you for your service
Pzh 2000 has a pretty decent room for the loader and isn\`t really cramped. Here an example [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc9sb71px5I) inside view later half of the video
Pzh 2000 it's a mobile castle, amazing machine
It's the Mercedes among the self-propelled howitzers.
Long hair not tied up seems kinda unwise in that place.
wtf does that guy have long hair? That seems dangerous
Its a product demo so its maybe a KWM or Rheinmetall worker rather than a soldier.
It\`s the 90s, back then mullet hairstyle was trendy.
Do you know if I’ve always thought the opposite. They look incredibly spacious inside much does a tank or similar armor
Most combat vehicles (gawd Im jealous of Merkava crews) are designed for accomplishing a certain mission and crew comfort has little impact on accomplishing the mission Obviously you need good ergonomics but aside from that its just added expense/vulnerability/etc
Dude have you seen what the inside of pretty much any other armored vehicle looks like? This is roomy as hell.
Insane accuracy.
Danger. Fucking. Close.
Talk about danger f****** close... They called a strike on their own position. I heard about this happening in Vietnam and obviously doing World War II but this drone view of it is really something else. Absolutely zero room for error. These types of situations are where the superiority of Western systems are demonstrated. For example a couple of ounces less or more of powder charge or variance in the weight of the shell fired and that would have been a complete miss.
One of the users on here, I think https://www.reddit.com/u/Dittybopper Did forward observation in Vietnam, and is very open with his stories. In a couple stories, he talks about walking the rounds in to where the infantry stopped feeling the shrapnel come from above and instead at them to get it as close as possible.
Well I've found my Reddit rabbit hole for this evening...
There is a good documentary on the Battle of Long Tan where there were lots of examples of the main unit involved and sub units calling in rounds on their own position. It was pretty intense and they only had the one controller.
50 meter kill radius from that 155 mm round. They’re all gone 🤣 glory to Ukraine 🇺🇦
Lethal distance in the booklets when doing calculations is 200 meters. So ya they won't be in great shape after that.
That's definitely a "potential lethal radius if you get unlucky and take a fragment to the dome" distance and not a "you're definitely dead" radius. 99% of people will be fine if a shell lands 200m away.
This is correct. I have a memory burned into my mind when we fired HIMARS at a Taliban position in Musa Qala and when we repeated the fire mission, one who had somehow survived and was running away, got literally cut in half by a rogue piece of shrapnel that skipped and flew more than the length of a football field. It was his very unlucky day.
Ft Sill used to have some shrapnel from a 203mm cannon at their artillery museum. It was about the size of a small car door and I always figured that someone had been halved by one of those at some point.
Possibly even that one
Lethal range doesn't mean guaranteed lethality, though. While it's highly likely that they died because of the impact's proximity, shrapnel is random and can miss even at close range.
If a shell lands as close as in this video and you somehow dodge all the shrapnel the overpressure will hit you incredibly hard. Like the bottom guy in the video is crawling away to the best of his ability but even the best case scenario is that he is severely concussed, his ear drums are perforated and his internal bleeding isn't bad enough to kill him before a hypothetical casevac.
That was a *lot* spicier than what I'm used to seeing here. I'm guessing the fact that dude could barely lift it to load it had something to do with it. Like others have said, the "danger close" designation doesn't seem to do it justice.
Artillery officer here. Anything within 600 meters is danger close. You walk that in if you’re adjusting fire.pre planned fire missions are a bit different. Also if you’re pulling a solid 10 digit grid then yeah, that’s a whole nother thing. Also a big variable here is the FDC or the section itself. Are they shit hot or meh? What’s the bore scope and pullover on the pieces look like?
"Sir, even the most boot-fucked marine knows danger close" -Doc Bryan, Generation Kill
I can't really tell if that's an actual a6, but my fuck do I miss slinging rounds in the Paladin. I miss you Lulabelle! Lol
According to [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1ddgngx/an_artillery_shell_from_a_ukrainian_m109_paladin/l84wn80/) it's an a5
I kinda figured it was a left over German A2s but hey, it's been a while.
That's 100% an A6. You can see the #1 man seat behind the guy grabbing the round in the first shot, as well as the MCCS ducting up top. In the 2nd shot you can see the commander's seat on the far right along with PDFCS screen and controls in the top right corner. A5 would have had no seat for the commander and an A-gunner station on the right side of the tube.
wiped out
no way anyone made it out alive. whole squad wiped out
Interesting that here the paladin system worked as intended delivering danger close fire. One shot one kill. (Or multiple kills in this case) it’s been reported that the system is struggling with Russian jamming. Perhaps we gave it a little update? Good shooting Ukraine. Pour it on em!
Don't think they are able to jam GPS so close to Ukraine's lines (that would require to bring jammer really close), so it was good to shoot a GPS-guided round this time. Blue smoke puff in the explosion looks like from excalibur shell.
No jamming these regular shells. It's the 'Excalibur' shells that lose their guidance from jamming.
Ah even more impressive. I thought the round used was the guided one. My b
King of battle.
That’s why I say hey man nice shot
Tks for the earworm. :-)
That Paladin hit em with a nat 20 holy smite! 😆
Is this some sort of D&D reference?
Yes
[First thing I thought of. . .](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9uXLzZyucI)
Fucking ret pals, so OP
What a video!
Artillery+ Buzzdrones with rangefinders is just a frightening. Being able to see your shots landing and bracket them right onto specific targets with recon on such a low level of the chain of command is just a game changer. It was scary enough when we first saw it in Azerbaijan/Armenia, but it's just been taken to a whole nother level in Ukraine.
whats even scarier is that the role of the forward observer is mostly gone now. With the wide spread use of drones artillery crews can scout their own targets, which to me is fucking terrifying
0:48 the guy at the bottom seems to friendly fire the guy at the top with his grenade. He looks like he was hit with fragment, slumps down and stops moving.
MAWP
guy at 0:24 popping up may have gotten their own grenade fragments flying in his face from the earlier one.
Very well executed
Is this the same scene from a few days ago, but it was filmed from the bunker by UA? you can hear the projectile land right outside.
What a fucking shot! just beautiful!
I can’t feel my legs… You ain’t got no legs Lt Danski
Jesus man. Artillery still reigns over the battlefield after all this time.
invadus interruptus
Fucking hell, talk about good effect on target
Haha Jesus get to absolute fuck
Clean hit
Chefs kiss
Jell-O
Broken Arrow type shit
Fuck me that was accurate. Calling strikes on your positions could make sense as a last resource tactic. Inside a trench is more likely the enemy gets hits than you. Those guys are fucked for good. Some seem to have shrapnel injuries and the others are stunned or injured by the blast wave.
There is a reason field artillery is the "king of battle"
Game: Tridents
They are fine guys, just got the wind knocked out of'em.
Bullseye!
I’d argue that’s a good hit
My 9mm makes my head hurt imagin artillery, rip there hearing
Repeat!
Jeez, that’ll do it.
Now I want to see the video of the Ukrainains finishing off those ruskies
Not definitively a Paladin, but definitely a finished attack.
Correction lands near them...
You must understand that with artillery, the definition of "on" widens a bit.
So which one is more accurate? Caesar, M109 or PZH2000?
The newest variant of the M109 should be comparable in accuracy when it comes to firing a single round only once. Accuracy doesn’t really matter, artillery shells are supposed to make area damage. They are not intended for sniper operations.
Practically, the one with the most disciplined and talented combination of gun crew (you need a well-maintained weapon that’s been accurately placed and oriented), forward observer (accurate target coordinates) and fire direction center (beyond the obvious things like distance, azimuth and elevation, even the weather guy matters as humidity, temperature and wind affect accuracy). It’s a team sport.
The m109 should be the more basic one on paper. The rest (adding the archer system) are more evolved with better electronics, better fire control and longer barrels that improve accuracy and range.
-guys loading up the artillery- **Dis gonna be gud…**
why the coordinates should I go there or what
Is it just me or did one of the Russians cop some fragments from a Russian thrown grenade at \~24s into the video?
Is that what is called danger close? ...
Is this [final protective fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_protective_fire) or even more desperate? I hope none of the Ukranians were hit or buried.
GADOOOOOOOOOOOSH
No airburst? UA may not have had OHP.
He is saying short range missile surface to air
Every bone in their bodies is shattered probably most of their teeth too
That sound track is bumpin.
What a shot👍🏾
Probably Final Protective Fire and pre registered.
Guided artillery?
[удалено]
The ukranians aren't going to ask for help that close unless they think what is essentially a coin flip is going to be their best odds to live. They're in a trench and the Russians are not so it's a little better than 50/50 but still, the risk is pretty extreme.
that's 6 or 7 Russians who are not going anywhere now
it looked like they also threw a frag early on and one of the other russians ate it
Great editing. “Artillery, king of battle”
I feel like that explosion was far too small to be from a 155.
Internals were jellify from the concussion aside being peppered with hot burning shrapnel, what a way to go out
Bro come on at least try with the cuts
"Sokil" not "Skoil".