The new 2S35 Koalitsiya-sv self-propelled gun entered service at the end of 2023, in the Russian armies, and would have quickly joined the theater of operations in Ukraine.
Equipped with great mobility, a high rate of fire and a significant range, it has nothing to envy of the best European systems which, today, allow the Ukrainians to compensate for the unbalanced balance of power between the two armies.
What are the characteristics of this system, its strengths, but also its weaknesses and constraints, and how could its arrival in Ukraine influence the course of the war?
In this section:
If Russian artillery impresses with its firepower, and especially with its density, the 2S3 Akatsiya and 2S19 Msta-s self-propelled guns, used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces, have clearly shown inferior performance. to those of Western systems, notably the most modern such as the German PZH-2000, the Swedish Archer and the French Caesar.
But the arrival of new Russian systems, the 2S43 Malva mounted gun on the one hand, and especially the 2S35 Koalitsiya-sv tracked self-propelled gun, on the other, and new guided and added range munitions, could well shake up this relationship of artillery force in Ukraine, while the armies of Kyiv rely, in part, on the operational added value offered by Western systems, to contain the numerical and logistical superiority of the Russian armies.
2S3 Akatsiya, 2S19 Msta-s: Russian artillery today still relies on Soviet systems
At the end of the 80s, Soviet self-propelled artillery was more or less on par with NATO. Indeed, the 2S3 Akatsiya tracked self-propelled guns and the (then) new 2S19 Msta-s, equipped with 152 mm tubes of 29 to 47 calibers, displayed ranges, rates of fire and precision comparable to those of the M-109 American, British AS-90 and French AuF1.
Thus, the Msta-s could send up to 8 152 mm shells in one minute to 25 km with conventional shells, and 28 km with BB shells, where the AuF1 GCT (for High Rate of Fire) carried at 23,5 km with standard shells and 28 km with RTC shells, with a rate of fire, again, of 8 rounds per minute.
After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Russian armies, like those of all the former Soviet republics, had, in fact, firepower, in terms of artillery, which was both effective and particularly dense, as well as considerable reserves. Therefore, it did not appear necessary, at that time, to begin the development of new systems.
In addition to the economic and social difficulties that Russia encountered in the 90s and 2000s, the absence of a symmetrical threat encouraged Moscow not to invest in this area, as in many others, concerning its defense. What's more, the American armies, the only potential adversaries, or considered as such by Moscow, did not seem in any hurry to develop new systems at that time.
2S43 Malva and 2S35 Koalitsiya-sv: the Russian response to the European Caesar and Pzh-2000 enters service in 2023
This is why, apart from the few more modern European systems, equipped with longer tubes and more advanced ballistic computers, such as the German Pzh2000, the Swedish Archer or the French Caesar, the artillery systems present in Ukraine, by both the Russian and Ukrainian armies, were mainly systems inherited from the Cold War, and more or less modernized since.
At the beginning of the 2010s, to cope with the performance of these new European systems displaying a range of up to 40 km with conventional shells, and more than 50 km with extended range shells, as well as a precision significantly higher than the previous generation systems, the Russian armies undertook to develop new artillery means.
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The 2 radar tiles installed on each side of the tube are interesting because they should make it possible to improve the precision of the shots very quickly, even with unguided shells, and thus exploit the rate of fire of the piece, the capacity to detect the enemy artillery fire and finally the ability to detect drones or missiles. Improvement to adapt to Caesar
There is something which is absolutely not addressed in this article and which would also tend to clarify the picture for the Ukrainians. Is this vehicle what it is advertised to be? It is still possible to doubt it, Russia has already used the decisive weapon on numerous occasions in this war: The BMP Terminator proved to be as mediocre as it was undermanned, just like the T14 Armata whose impressive performance on paper remains to be demonstrated and which has never entered the active production phase, or the SU 57 which are supposed to be stealthy and undetectable but which never approaches the front line for fear of being shot down by an S-300 more than 40 years old…