Watch out, Russia! British Army could come out with all (14) guns blazing
BRUCE NEWSOME
THE British Army’s full-time trade-trained strength, as of January 1, 2025, is 71,151, the smallest since the 1770s. And now we know the Army is shorter of artillery guns than at any time since then. Fourteen 155mm artillery guns are with units. Really? To deter Russia? To deter China? To convince Iran that Britain still has expeditionary capabilities? To convince the Trump administration that Britain is still special?
The AS-90 self-propelled 155mm howitzer is no longer in operation. Acquisitions totalled 179 by the 1990s. By 2023, about 80 were still in service. Of these, 32 were gifted to Ukraine in 2023. As of March this year, the Ministry of Defence announced that no more were in British service, which suggests that all remaining operational systems are in Ukraine.
The only conventional heavy artillery now in British service (apart from rockets and missiles) is an ‘interim replacement’ for the first AS-90s transferred to Ukraine. This, the Archer Artillerisystem 08 from Sweden, is not much of a replacement. Only 14 were acquired to replace the first 32 AS-90s transferred to Ukraine, and some of its capabilities are inferior. It boasts the same calibre, longer barrel, longer range, and a higher rate of fire, but is wheeled (the AS-90 is tracked), and armoured only around the cab, and only thinly (the AS-90 is fully armoured). As announced in July, all 14 are deployed by 19th Regiment, Royal Artillery, under the UK-led Nato Battlegroup in Estonia, so they won’t be part of any future mobilisation: they’re already mobilised and deployed.
The Army is waiting for deliveries of the Remote-Controlled Howitzer 155mm (RCH 155), but this is another wheeled vehicle. It is not a full replacement for the AS-90. It is supposed to be a variant of the Boxer infantry fighting vehicle. Boxer is a tremendously mobile vehicle as wheeled armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) go, but no wheeled vehicle can match a tracked vehicle in difficult terrain, all other things equal.
In any case, the RCH 155 is behind schedule. The MoD cannot even say when it might arrive. In years past, the delivery date was set as 2030. But in May this year, the MoD said RCH 155 is still in ‘assessment phase’ so no delivery date or number of deliveries could be determined.
Realistically, the RCH 155 will not reach full operational capability until 2032 or 2033, and precedents suggest it could be later still. When was the last time the MoD delivered an acquisition within years of schedule?
Whatever the schedule, the RCH 155 certainly will not fulfil the promise of the latest Strategic Defence Review in June of ‘a tenfold increase in lethality’. The government promises that unmanned aerial systems, new communications, new software, new procedures, better trained soldiers, blah, blah, blah, will produce this startling increase.
What if this estimate falls down? What if the aerial systems are countered, the software is hacked, the procedures don’t anticipate something adaptive on the enemy side?
What if massing a dozen guns – even if you mass them really, really efficiently – doesn’t matter to the enemy hordes: foreseeably, say, millions of Russian soldiers or Chinese soldiers. (Officially, Russia and China are Britain’s greatest threats). I guess the Army would need 1,790 RCH 155s to reach ten-fold lethality over the 179 AS-90s acquired in the 1990s! It currently has no RCH 155s. It has 14 wheeled 155s from Sweden. It has no other 155s in service. So the British Army has 12 to 13 times less lethality than in the 1990s, like for like.
I wonder how many towed 105mm guns are still in inventory, like the ones I crewed and observed for (as part of my wider training) in the 1990s? Does anyone know?
Officially, 105s are still in use by airborne and commando artillery units: that’s two units, each with a dozen guns. More are supposed to be in store for emergency. How many? I can’t get a straight answer. Let’s assume that the two active units could double in size, given mobilised reservists and stored guns. That would give them 48 105s.
One or two 105s are at training schools. At least one is being used to train the the Army’s newest unit, the King’s Gurkha Artillery (KGA).
After the 105, the KGA is slated for training on Archers. But the Army doesn’t have enough Archers to equip a new unit. All this explains the title of a recent Spectator article, wondering what artillery guns will equip the KGA? Even though this unit is five years away from completion, it will complete before any new artillery weapon, under current programmes.
I doubt the KGA Regiment will ever complete as promised. Defence spending is supposed to rise, but slowly, and remains under pressure from spending on stickier liabilities. The government spends twice as much on servicing its debt as on defence!
I suspect that the government will fail to acquire enough 155s for the KGA, and that the KGA will be converted to unmanned aerial systems or something that the government can claim is delivering more lethality for less money.
Or the government could choose to convert the KGA from 155s to 105s indefinitely. The government could claim superior lightness! agility! deployability! But the government could not claim superior lethality. The 105 L118 is amazingly light for its class, but it does not have the range or throw-weight for the defence of Ukraine or Taiwan.
In any case, I think the KGA is a misuse of Gurkhas, who are otherwise recruited as light infantrymen, and who are celebrated, and celebrate themselves, as light infantry. I would prefer that by 2030, given no 155s to equip the KGA, the KGA is converted to light infantry. But perhaps the MoD won’t have enough money to pay them anyway, so they’ll be disbanded.
The real reason to raise a new unit of Gurkhas is that the British military cannot recruit or retain enough Britons. Attacks on the patriotic cultures that predominate have not helped. What hasn’t helped are ridiculous adverts targeted at Muslim recruits who expect everybody to stop what they’re doing for prayers five times a day.
The British Army needs more personnel in general, and more warfighters in the traditional arms, and a rediscovery of its patriotic and professional culture.
British governments have always promised lighter, smaller, quicker, more agile forces between world wars. (Remember the rise and fall of Britain’s heavy tanks between the world wars.)
British governments have always been caught out when war comes, rushing to acquire heavier weapons and more combatants for the arms, usually years later, near the end of the war (as epitomised by Britain’s tanks during the Second World War).
The current government needs to find the money for more and heavier capabilities, and to re-start celebrating British martial traditions.
There are plenty of savings to be had by cutting illegal immigration and abuses of benefits and welfare – if only the government righted its ideology, and put national security before illusory ‘human security’.
This article (Watch out, Russia! British Army could come out with all (14) guns blazing) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Bruce Newsome
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