They also have their own logistical issues as well i.e. the artillery has to be transported....Good luck with that in a theatre of war and in rough terrain.
Here's a post I read on a forum full of serving soliders and a guy from a US artillery unit talks about both;
Since I’ve served in both, I can sum it up as following:
When talking about the same caliber guns (155mm) and not some toys you can mount on a helicopter,
self propelled is better in any aspect related to the mission: it moves faster, deploys faster, less sensitive to rough terrain, can be ready for fire faster, [usually] have better supporting devices such as gyroscopes and GPS, can relocate faster, can deploy in a better protected locations or in small and dense locations and it is basically better in any other parameter I can think of when it comes to conventional warfare which involves intense firing and moving.
So why use towed artillery, you ask?
Because everything I mentioned above comes with high cost:
- Cost in developing and producing the self-propelled guns.
- Cost of maintenance - 500hp+ diesel engines, complex hydraulics, wiring, Continuous track, skilled mechanics and technicians for all these sub-systems and other aspects which cost a fortune to maintain compared to towed guns.
- Cost and long-term availability of parts which most are produced specifically for this type of vehicles, as opposed to towing trucks which can be easily replaced.
- Cost of training - I can’t testify for every military in the world, but where I come from, properly training a team of self-propelled gun took 2 months while towed gun crew could be trained in 2–3 weeks, not to mention that engine-hours for training cost more in orders of magnitude. This also means a faster turn around time to replace missing men, if needed. On top of that, operating SP guns required special skills for each member of the crew, skills that you lost if you haven’t done it often enough (extremely important for reserve units). With towed units you simply have one team leader, one guy responsible for aiming and all the rest are performing roles which are easily refreshed after 1–2 hours in the field.
I’m sure there are some things I missed. T
he bottom line is that towed artillery is something many countries can afford obtaining in large numbers without draining their defense budget. However, while towed guns are great on static battle, i.e. standing in one place for days and providing firepower,
they are a nightmare (compared to self propelled) when they need to move away from paved roads and travel around sand dunes or rocky terrains. Try just once to take a U-turn with a towed guns battery over such road and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
