[Goose]

I will now actually attempt to answer the question "Can drones by themselves effectively take over the counter-battery mission". The answer is, like many things in the Ukraine war, complicated. The basic answer would be "No, but...".

 

The "classical" counter-battery operation operates as follows: Artillery "spotters" maintain an alert for enemy artillery to fire. These observers may use radar, sound, or visual information to detect and geolocate enemy artillery batteries. It may require more than one observer to geolocate the enemy.

 

In today's world radar is the quickest and most accurate sensor, but the others are still used. A single radar can observe the enemy shell trajectory and determine the coordinates of the enemy battery well before the enemy round has reached its apogee. That information is then transferred to an artillery battery that ideally will have counter-battery shells in the air before the first enemy rounds hit their target. If the radar geometry is "good" the radar can geolocate the enemy battery without making any assumptions at all about the ballistics of the enemy rounds. If the geometry is particularly bad the major axis of the error ellipse may become excessively long. In that case some assumptions may be required or a second radar with better geometry may be utilized.

 

Visual observation by a forward observer (FO) is certainly a very good way to geolocate the enemy batteries, especially if the FO can actually see them (and knows where he is). The coordinates can often be passed electronically, making this type of observation as fast as the radar would have been. If they must be passed verbally or through several layers of communication delays may be introduced. If the observer can't actually see the target but rather can see the muzzle flashes/smoke the data may still be very good but is obviously somewhat less reliable.

 

Forward observers have the very important added advantage of correcting the fall of shot. All artillery has firing tables that allow taking into consideration environmental characteristics, barrel wear, etc. The goal is to allow the gun to land a shell reliably on any coordinates. In reality things don't work perfectly. If the FO can tell the battery the relative correction (if any) required. Hopefully one correction (at worst) puts them "on", but if not the FO can "walk" the shells onto the target. In an ideal world that isn't necessary, but in a real one it may be.

 

Sound was in the past often used to geolocate enemy batteries. The time of arrival of the firing "boom" can be measure at 3 points. Given the speed of sound at the given temperature and humidity a time difference of arrival can be plotted. This method was used from the 1860s on but obviously isn't all that accurate.

 

The speed of geolocation and getting shells onto the enemy battery is important for two reasons. First the goal is to minimize the effectiveness of the current enemy "barrage". Destroying the guns firing it will of course do that, so the sooner the better. Even more important in today's world is preventing the enemy from employing "shoot and scoot". The self-propelled howitzer (SPH) is ideal for this. It can fire and immediately move to a different location. While moving, the SPH can't fire. It is out of the fight for awhile. It would obviously be better not move and deliver more shells if possible. If the counter-battery fire will arrive "quickly", the decision to displace has to be made early on. This at worst greatly reduces the weight of fire the enemy artillery can deliver. If the enemy is "slow" to displace it may result in significant casualties to the enemy and render them combat-ineffective.

 

Wheeled artillery normally takes longer to displace than SPH. Supposedly the current version of the M109 can displace in 1 min 15 s if required. The M777 requires 2 min 23 s. Soviet era wheeled howitzers require 10 minutes or more. This all must be taken with a grain of salt. It assumes very well trained crews, clear orders, nobody drops anything etc. Apropos Ukraine [CB-1] is a must-read. It discusses many topics. One of them is how Russia does counter-battery fire.

When the system works, Russian targeting cycles can be completed in three minutes, while others take 30. The former is essentially the limit of what is physically possible – a 155mm shell fired to 25 km will take 75 seconds to reach the target.

In reality the Russian performance is very very rarely three minutes. This is caused by inadequate training and by their organizational structure. The artillery and their customers are from different organizations. In the Russian military everything flows up and down. Across is hard. As the article points out the concept of passing the request for fires directly to the battery commander (skipping the artillery commander) is a radical departure. Ukraine has a similar problem but to a much lesser extent. This situation is reported by many Internet sources, FWIW.

 

The idea of using e.g. a Mavic 3 instead of a 155 mm howitzer to effect the counter-battery operation is absolutely impossible. A Mavic 3 can go 25 km on a one-way mission. Its range is 30 km at a speed of 50.4 kph. At 60 kph it will take 25 minutes to reach the target. To match the speed of the 155 mm shell the Mavic would have to operate at its maximum speed of 21 m/s and be within 1.6 km of the target. Obviously impractical. Add to that the difference in kinetic effect of the minuscule warhead of the Mavic 3. By the way, at a range of 25 km the operator loses video and control at a height of 30 meters. Hard to hit anything with that constraint.

 

The Russian Lancet is "better", but has similar problems. At its cursing speed of 110 kph it can cover the 25 km in about 13.6 minutes. Its 5 kg warhead is much larger than the Mavic 3 can carry. The Lancet can also dive on the target at a speed of 300 kph, assuming the operator can line it up for a direct top-attack.

 

13.6 minutes is however an eternity in "classical" counter-battery operations. A single 155mm tube can fire 2-3 rounds per minute. Lots of shells downrange before you can leisurely displace after 10 minutes. None of these drones can be effective when used this way. However that isn't the whole story. Classical counter-battery requires that the enemy first reveal his position by firing. This is necessary because all the detection systems require it. If the enemy doesn't fire, radar can't find him, sound detection can hear him, and there are no muzzle flashes or smoke. If the FO happens to stumble across an enemy battery he can utilize counter-battery against it, but this is relatively rare. Drones change the equation.

 

The greatest contribution drones make to destroying enemy artillery is their ability to do visual reconnaissance behind the opponent's side of the FEBA. Not many FOs want to cross the FEBA and those that do are limited to their line of sight. Drones can (in theory) fly across wide areas looking for targets of opportunity. One important such target class is enemy artillery. The drone can then assume the role of FO. If there is a friendly battery within range, the drone can bring down an artillery strike on the enemy artillery. This can be done even after the enemy does a "shoot and scoot" maneuver. The drone may take awhile to get there but it still has a reasonable chance to locate the enemy. Drones can easily see vehicles moving on the roads. Scooting under these conditions is arguably more dangerous than trying to hide. The drone can also do a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) of previous counter-battery efforts.  An example of this new type of counter-battery can be found here [CB-2]. In this case the enemy was detected by the dust cloud raised by firing, but a drone was used to spot fall of shot and correct. The counter-battery wouldn't have been successful without the "drone FO".

 

There is another branch of expansion that reconnaissance by drones makes possible. That branch uses long-persistence drones to search for targets of opportunity. If no friendly artillery is within range a drone, such as the Lancet is dispatched to engage the target. Early in the war the Lancet was used for target acquisition and subsequent attack. While it met with some success in as a loitering munition obviously many Lancets found no targets or only low value targets. [CB-3] is a report of such operation.

 

[Goose]

I will now actually attempt to answer the question "Can drones by themselves effectively take over the counter-battery mission". The answer is, like many things in the Ukraine war, complicated. The basic answer would be "No, but...".

 

The "classical" counter-battery operation operates as follows: Artillery "spotters" maintain an alert for enemy artillery to fire. These observers may use radar, sound, or visual information to detect and geolocate enemy artillery batteries. It may require more than one observer to geolocate the enemy.

 

In today's world radar is the quickest and most accurate sensor, but the others are still used. A single radar can observe the enemy shell trajectory and determine the coordinates of the enemy battery well before the enemy round has reached its apogee. That information is then transferred to an artillery battery that ideally will have counter-battery shells in the air before the first enemy rounds hit their target. If the radar geometry is "good" the radar can geolocate the enemy battery without making any assumptions at all about the ballistics of the enemy rounds. If the geometry is particularly bad the major axis of the error ellipse may become excessively long. In that case some assumptions may be required or a second radar with better geometry may be utilized.

 

Visual observation by a forward observer (FO) is certainly a very good way to geolocate the enemy batteries, especially if the FO can actually see them (and knows where he is). The coordinates can often be passed electronically, making this type of observation as fast as the radar would have been. If they must be passed verbally or through several layers of communication delays may be introduced. If the observer can't actually see the target but rather can see the muzzle flashes/smoke the data may still be very good but is obviously somewhat less reliable.

 

Forward observers have the very important added advantage of correcting the fall of shot. All artillery has firing tables that allow taking into consideration environmental characteristics, barrel wear, etc. The goal is to allow the gun to land a shell reliably on any coordinates. In reality things don't work perfectly. If the FO can tell the battery the relative correction (if any) required. Hopefully one correction (at worst) puts them "on", but if not the FO can "walk" the shells onto the target. In an ideal world that isn't necessary, but in a real one it may be.

 

Sound was in the past often used to geolocate enemy batteries. The time of arrival of the firing "boom" can be measure at 3 points. Given the speed of sound at the given temperature and humidity a time difference of arrival can be plotted. This method was used from the 1860s on but obviously isn't all that accurate.

 

The speed of geolocation and getting shells onto the enemy battery is important for two reasons. First the goal is to minimize the effectiveness of the current enemy "barrage". Destroying the guns firing it will of course do that, so the sooner the better. Even more important in today's world is preventing the enemy from employing "shoot and scoot". The self-propelled howitzer (SPH) is ideal for this. It can fire and immediately move to a different location. While moving, the SPH can't fire. It is out of the fight for awhile. It would obviously be better not move and deliver more shells if possible. If the counter-battery fire will arrive "quickly", the decision to displace has to be made early on. This at worst greatly reduces the weight of fire the enemy artillery can deliver. If the enemy is "slow" to displace it may result in significant casualties to the enemy and render them combat-ineffective.

 

Wheeled artillery normally takes longer to displace than SPH. Supposedly the current version of the M109 can displace in 1 min 15 s if required. The M777 requires 2 min 23 s. Soviet era wheeled howitzers require 10 minutes or more. This all must be taken with a grain of salt. It assumes very well trained crews, clear orders, nobody drops anything etc. Apropos Ukraine [CB-1] is a must-read. It discusses many topics. One of them is how Russia does counter-battery fire.

When the system works, Russian targeting cycles can be completed in three minutes, while others take 30. The former is essentially the limit of what is physically possible – a 155mm shell fired to 25 km will take 75 seconds to reach the target.

In reality the Russian performance is very very rarely three minutes. This is caused by inadequate training and by their organizational structure. The artillery and their customers are from different organizations. In the Russian military everything flows up and down. Across is hard. As the article points out the concept of passing the request for fires directly to the battery commander (skipping the artillery commander) is a radical departure. Ukraine has a similar problem but to a much lesser extent. This situation is reported by many Internet sources, FWIW.

 

The idea of using e.g. a Mavic 3 instead of a 155 mm howitzer to effect the counter-battery operation is absolutely impossible. A Mavic 3 can go 25 km on a one-way mission. Its range is 30 km at a speed of 50.4 kph. At 60 kph it will take 25 minutes to reach the target. To match the speed of the 155 mm shell the Mavic would have to operate at its maximum speed of 21 m/s and be within 1.6 km of the target. Obviously impractical. Add to that the difference in kinetic effect of the minuscule warhead of the Mavic 3. By the way, at a range of 25 km the operator loses video and control at a height of 30 meters. Hard to hit anything with that constraint.

 

The Russian Lancet is "better", but has similar problems. At its cursing speed of 110 kph it can cover the 25 km in about 13.6 minutes. Its 5 kg warhead is much larger than the Mavic 3 can carry. The Lancet can also dive on the target at a speed of 300 kph, assuming the operator can line it up for a direct top-attack.

 

13.6 minutes is however an eternity in "classical" counter-battery operations. A single 155mm tube can fire 2-3 rounds per minute. Lots of shells downrange before you can leisurely displace after 10 minutes. None of these drones can be effective when used this way. However that isn't the whole story. Classical counter-battery requires that the enemy first reveal his position by firing. This is necessary because all the detection systems require it. If the enemy doesn't fire, radar can't find him, sound detection can hear him, and there are no muzzle flashes or smoke. If the FO happens to stumble across an enemy battery he can utilize counter-battery against it, but this is relatively rare. Drones change the equation.

 

The greatest contribution drones make to destroying enemy artillery is their ability to do visual reconnaissance behind the opponent's side of the FEBA. Not many FOs want to cross the FEBA and those that do are limited to their line of sight. Drones can (in theory) fly across wide areas looking for targets of opportunity. One important such target class is enemy artillery. The drone can then assume the role of FO. If there is a friendly battery within range, the drone can bring down an artillery strike on the enemy artillery. This can be done even after the enemy does a "shoot and scoot" maneuver. The drone may take awhile to get there but it still has a reasonable chance to locate the enemy. Drones can easily see vehicles moving on the roads. Scooting under these conditions is arguably more dangerous than trying to hide. The drone can also do a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) of previous counter-battery efforts.  An example of this new type of counter-battery can be found here [CB-2]. In this case the enemy was detected by the dust cloud raised by firing, but a drone was used to spot fall of shot and correct. The counter-battery wouldn't have been successful without the "drone FO".

 

There is another branch of expansion that reconnaissance by drones makes possible. That branch uses long-persistence drones to search for targets of opportunity. If no friendly artillery is within range a drone, such as the Lancet is dispatched to engage the target. Early in the war the Lancet was used for target acquisition and subsequent attack. While it met with some success in as a loitering munition obviously many Lancets found no targets or only low value targets. [CB-3] is a report of such operation.