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There are still weather conditions they cannot fly in, period.... Artillery can still fire in those conditions though.

Yep. As long as you're within about 24km of your artillery. (30-something with ERFB). Usually, in practical terms, far less... which means you have to bring it with you, or you have to convince your enemy to revert to the operational art of the First World War (see Korea).

This article shows the kind of weak imagination that our branched officers have. The artillery guy quoted thinks the US is in a bad way because other nations have longer range artillery: "they can outrange us." Maybe they can... can they do any good with it? They outranged us badly in Vietnam (The Soviet 130mm gun was the longest-range gun in the world, then). Saddam outranged us enormously in both Gulf Wars, but you can see what good it did him. (Well, it left a lot of unfired 155 HE lying around, with which to make infernal machines). For every allied soldier killed by the Iraqi's cannon fire, dozens (hundreds?) have been killed by the abandoned cannon shells. And Iraqis who stood by their guns in the combat phase were not rewarded for at -- at least not on this side of the Styx.

So this genius quoted in the article gets into an appendage-measuring thing with all the nations rushing to buy bigger guns. Why bother? Increasing the size of guns, you quickly run into diminishing returns... going to the 52 calibre 155 from the 39 buys you what, maybe another 6,000 metres? And you wind up more roadbound, and bridge-restricted, than presently. And if you are within 30 or 40 K of the enemy, you are not only in easy range of his air, you are liable to be suddenly introduced to his armour (in both cases, "if any.")

Artillery will remain necessary where we're looking at large forces along fairly static lines having to defeat massive human wave attacks. We know where that is, and might be. And for that we need to retain artillery -- not out of concern for the two nights a year that even the birds are walking. For counterinsurgency war, it's not helpful until the war has reached Mao's Third Mobile stage (it's easier to explain stuff using Mao's three stages than our doctrinal seven. Mao was a monster, but a clever one). Otherwise even a firebase (a very artful doctrinal innovation from Vietnam) is more of a target and a drain on the counterinsurgents... as is a mobile column of an arty unit, as is the same unit in a garrison type compound.

I'd rather put the research into improving registration and fire control in mortars. If we could somehow apply computers and get the artillerist's art accessible at the section and platoon size patrol level, we might have something revolutionary. Compared to artillery fire direction and control, mortar operations are crude.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

The given with artillery being that if it isn't within 29thou meters(M109 Paladin)you aren't hitting it.
Of course, there's been brainstormed ideas for increasing range beyond RAP rounds, and increasing accuracy with GPS.
But, to do either they MUST make it capable of withstanding the shock of launch and other fun physical effects.

Yes, other countries outrange us, but we're more accurate.
Other nations also have larger bore artillery.
(South Africa for one.)

Artillery is useful for blowing things up, killing people, and breaking things.
(I wasn't very popular with the brass when I stated that our mission was exactly that. I guess I was supposed to be PC about it.)
That, and there are psychological purposes to it.
Popping illume rounds over someone makes for effective psyche attacks.
Never felt as visible and vulnerable as I did when illume was lighting up the area.
Maybe artillery could be more readily utilised and efficient if it could move with the manuever units and provide fire support near instantly.
We were supposed to get a digital fire control that would have added some neat stuff to the system.
That neat 'map' that shows up on the combat info system would have been accessable to us, and we could have had FDC 'drag and drop' targets from that.
That is, IF the system worked as planned, and hadn't had so many hands in the till and protecting their personal pet projects.
The Brits have a digital system out already somewhat similar to that mentioned.
Not sure if it has the neat 'toys' in it.

My first day in uniform at Fort Sill, we had an officer stand up and tell us that if it were up to him, we (artillery) would be shut down.
Not sure what his beef was, but I'd heard his attitude repeated by several others - almost all of them from exclusively SF or other 'elite' group backgrounds.
My personal response was, "Who do you call for support when you can't get air support?"
I wasn't very popular in uniform.