How and why Europe is replenishing tube artillery in the drone warfare era
The South Korean Hanwha K9A1 Thunder SPH has chalked up an impressive number of sales in Europe and has a clear development path for the future. (Photo: Hanwha)
Modern conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war have exposed gaps in Western artillery, with European militaries increasingly looking to invest in longer-range systems with a focus on logistics and resilience.
Despite other weapon systems dominating the headlines, conventional tube artillery is still used extensively by both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and is on the procurement lists of most European armies.
Even in the fast-moving arena of modern combat operations, some things remain constant: field artillery is still the only weapon system that can provide indirect fire support to ground forces on a 24/7 basis for 365 days a year.
For many years the US M109 155mm/39cal self-propelled howitzer (SPH) was the most widely used such system in NATO, but almost all members have replaced this with new tracked or
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