What are the pluses and minuses of different artillery types?
Given that they are both indirect fire weapons, what can a rocket launcher do that a howitzer can’t (or vice versa)? Range?
The first advantage of the MLRS (and the one that led the Germans to develop the Feldweber in WWII) is that each unit can be fired as its own barrage. Rather than firing 12 separate rounds, as a cannon does, the MLRS can be fired in several patterns, including all at once. This means that each launcher can put the same munitions on a target, all at one time, that it would take 12 separate cannon to do. (There are trade-offs, of course. The cannon can be reloaded immediately–in some weapons, multiple times per minute–while the MLRS requires a separate supply vehicle to bring up the next barrage of large missiles with their self-contained propellant, which take several minutes to reload.)
Other advantages to MLRS:
- we have begun developing guidance sysems using GPS, so that they are not necessarily “indirect fire” weapons;
- they carry a wide variety of “payloads” at ranges farther than a 105 mm or 155 mm gun.
For more information of the MLRS, check out the
Army Technology - MLRS web page.
Isn’t rocket fuel (or propellant, I guess) also much more dangerous than artillery shells?
Speaking purely from a Battlefield 1942 - Desert Combat mod perspective, seeing those rockets inbound means your next 30sec are going to be very annoying indeed. Arty just encourages you to find him before he reloads.
Though I do find slowly walking the rockets back and forth over an enemy point quite enjoyable. 