This is us doing a Emergency Fire Mission (Dry Fire), it's an exercise done with no rounds to simulate a ambush style attack by enemy armor on a convoy of M109A6's. We did not use live rounds here because it was actually done on post with civilian traffic around us.

I can get you guys some actual live fire of us too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtDB_VVmnJU

This is not me, but it's what a live mission looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CD1g4lp ... 4C5D786E99

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Does the M109 actually have the ability to fire directly at opposing tanks in real life?

Yes, but I've always found the leading part of any howitzer to be rather ... Can be done though I guess. M795 or an M107 at 600+m/s on a super 8 or max hotel... thats a lot of metal and explosives! The M109's do have a direct fire ranging plate with common elevations for certain ammo.

I have a few direct fire videos from the range (degraded) on my facebook. Yes, it can be done - the elevations with charge and round combo's are displayed on a plate for the Chief and or Gunner to read.

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Yes, it would not be a good day for the crew of a T90 to be hit by a HE sent with max Hotel or the S8.

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At NTC, we actually get to live fire Excalibur - that will be a first for me. The A6 may be outdated compared to other self propelled guns - but the addition of rounds such as EC levels the playing the field

Excalibur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ipq8ZAUW-k

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The only thing it doesn't really have is an autoloader compared to PzH2000, K9, Archer, etc... But the good thing about human loaders is that they can be easily replaced in the field with minimal tools (aka your voicebox). Then again if you got your crew dying... Probably gunna be a bad day.

Anyway, I am a big fan of the Paladin. Worked on the Paladin mod for Arma 2 as the main coder (which is still ongoing). It is fairly realistic, though obviously made easier for gameplay (and in some ways harder actually than IRL since we do not yet simulate the POC), and lacking some of the more benign/boring tasks.

Speaking of excal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=542YEiDvxKo

Cool mod, but when you shoot Excal, your frontal has to be clear for 100 meters because the debris falls after the fins fold out. So you will not be firing over another gun unless you are 100 meters clear.

That mission is a high angle so that is correct as every EC mission is a high angle.

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The Autoloader is great on paper, but what happens when FDC needs adjustments in a multiple round fire mission. Say the fuze is not correct and requires a change, Also the tube can only sustain a certain amount of rounds per minute (classified) and the crew drills can be done easily to the min standard.

Figure the size of the gun needed to use the autoloader, the weight and cost of support for such a gun and it becomes something that is not nearly as reliable on the battlefield.

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Yea, I need to simulate the fin covering coming off haha. When combined with another mod in the community, ACE, the over pressure there is pretty high anyways. I'd never do that in a real game (just testing in that video, obviously, with all the debug info and color trails).

Currently working on the sight unit for when the AFCS breaks down, so you have to go lay stakes, collimator or find a DAP. Also reworking the loading interface to be more interactive (its just a boring menu now where you chose round, charge, fuze type (and time if required)). Going to have some nice drawings of the rounds: http://raceriv.com/arma2/155mm_drawings.jpg (don't mind that the M110 round has a M782 in that drawing, I know it should be an M767 ET fuze, just haven't uploaded the latest images).