Artillery are ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines. As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower.
Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and rocket artillery. They are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
Counter-battery fire is a battlefield tactic employed to defeat the enemy's indirect fire elements, including their target acquisition, as well as their command and control components. Counter-battery arrangements and responsibilities vary between nations but involve target acquisition, planning and control, and counter-fire. Counter-battery fire rose to prominence in World War I.
A counter-battery radar or weapon tracking radar is a radar system that detects artillery projectiles fired by one or more guns, howitzers, mortars or rocket launchers and, from their trajectories, locates the position on the ground of the weapon that fired it. Such radars are a subclass of the wider class of target acquisition radars.
Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement.
In land warfare, artillery sound ranging is a method of determining the coordinates of a hostile battery using data derived from the sound of its guns firing, so called target acquisition.
Hughes AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder weapon locating system is a mobile radar system developed in the mid-late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company and manufactured by Northrop Grumman and ThalesRaytheonSystems, achieving initial operational capability in May 1982. The system is a "weapon-locating radar", designed to detect and track incoming mortar, artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at battalion and higher levels in the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, Australian Army, Portuguese Army, Turkish Army, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Hughes AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder Weapon Locating System is a mobile radar system developed in the late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company, achieving Initial Operational Capability in 1980 and full deployment in 1984. Currently manufactured by ThalesRaytheonSystems, the system is a long-range version of "weapon-locating radar", designed to detect and track incoming artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire. It is currently in service at brigade and higher levels in the United States Army and by other countries. The radar is trailer-mounted and towed by a 2+1⁄3-short-ton (2,100 kg) truck. A typical AN/TPQ-37 system consists of the Antenna-Transceiver Group, Command Shelter and 60 kW Generator.
The SLC-2 Radar is a Chinese active electronically scanned array counter-battery radar designed to locate hostile artillery, rocket and ground-to-ground missile launchers immediately after firing, and to support friendly artillery by guiding counter-battery fire.
The Artillery Battalion is the Norwegian army's Brigade Nords artillery battalion. The unit numbers some 550 soldiers and officers.
The Saab Giraffe Radar is a family of land and naval two- or three-dimensional G/H-band passive electronically scanned array radar-based surveillance and air defense command and control systems. It is tailored for operations with medium- and Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) missile or gun systems, or for use as gap-fillers in a larger air defense system.
Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar, abbreviated C-RAM or counter-RAM, is a set of systems used to detect and/or destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds in the air before they hit their ground targets, or simply provide early warning.
The Swathi weapon locating radar is a mobile artillery-locating, phased array radar developed by India. This counter-battery radar is designed to detect and track incoming artillery and rocket fire to determine the point of origin for counter-battery fire.
AN/TPQ-53 Quick Reaction Capability Radar is a mobile active electronically scanned array counter-battery radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The radar is specifically designed to locate the firing positions of both rocket and mortar launchers.
Direct fire or line-of-sight fire refers to firing of a ranged weapon whose projectile is launched directly at a target within the line-of-sight of the user. The firing weapon must have a sighting device and an unobstructed view to the target, which means no obstacles or friendly units can be between it and the target. A weapon engaged in direct fire conversely exposes itself to direct return fire from the target.
The Artillery is a formation of the Singapore Army, comprising four active battalions—the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Battalions—and an undisclosed number of reservist battalions. The primary role of the Artillery formation is to deliver timely, accurate and effective fire in support of the manoeuvre force to accomplish missions. As an indirect fire support system, the gunners rely on the forward observer and target acquisition elements to provide the target's location, which is then passed to the command post to direct the gunners to fire.
The AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) is the United States Marine Corps next-generation Air Surveillance/Air Defense and Air Traffic Control (ATC) Radar. The mobile active electronically scanned array radar system is currently being developed by Northrop Grumman and was expected to reach initial operating capability in August 2016.
Aistyonok is a portable counter-battery radar system developed and produced by the state-owned Almaz-Antey corporation for the Russian Armed Forces.
Zoopark-1 1L219 is a counter-battery radar system developed by Almaz-Antey for the Soviet Armed Forces. It is a mobile active electronically scanned array radar for the purpose of enemy field-artillery acquisition. The system can detect mortar shells at a distance of up to 20 kilometers, up to 30 kilometers for artillery shells and up to 50 kilometers for ground-to-air rockets, determining location of origin of a fire. Moving ground targets can be detected at a distance of up to 40 kilometers. It reached initial operating status in 1989.
The Ground Master 200 Multi-Mission family is a series of medium-range radars manufactured by Thales Group. The GM200 MM family features 4D Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology, which is a ‘dual-axis multi-beam’ technology providing flexibility in both elevation and bearing.
