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[MonkeyHead]

In addition, it depends on what sort of war you want to fight. You simply are not going to take a bunch of green civvies off the streets and drop them into state of the art war fighting gear and get anywhere (even though ww2 stories of tanks rolling off the soviet production lines, onto the street to be crewed by whoever was nearby seem pervasive). However, partisan resistance movement? Sure, such things have been formed by experienced soldiers from little more than ragtag civilian groups - granted, often with help.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

It matters quite an lot, actually. Both the odds of being bracketed by that artillery, surviving it, surviving it and still able to complete a mission. Much less the counter battery work.

I always wondered how this "every soldier has a same chance to die from an artillery strike" myth was formed. I think it is because people tend to overestimate effectiveness of artillery.

[Erkki]

Rather, not every soldier has the same chance to end up under a barrage. Artillery is pretty darn effective, when it shoots the right location. In Ukraine it continues to create 80%+ of casualties, as since 1914 at least or so. You just don't want to end be at the receiving end.

Again, it depends on what kind of training your conscripts get (At one extreme, conscripted legionaries served 20 years), and what the alternative is. The US got the luxury of having two oceans between it an any threat, so it can take its time creating a proffessional army if needed. If Finland is attacked, it would at most have a few weeks to react.

US also has the luxury of being stronger than any of its potential opponents in several ways and has a network of allies. Its own allies have the luxury of having US backing them up(Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc) or be one of the members of a strong alliance(NATO members).

1200 km of common border with the only possible threat, that is much stronger, and almost similar length of coastline don't make things easy. Wartime strength of 250,000 + 100,000 in immediate reserves(almost 7% of entire population) is IMHO, among the others, necessary. During the cold war it peaked at 500,000 at one point, over 12% of the population then. That 250,000 doesn't include a single foot unit. A fully professional army with at best a single tank brigade just wouldn't cut it.

At the moment the time it would take to mobilize the key units mainly manned by conscripts is less than a week. Air force, air defenses and the navy would likely be ready within 24 hours. Conscription allows to have all the fancy toys in similar numbers to everyone else, supporting (relatively speaking, again) a very large army, because most of the manpower is in reserve and equipment in storage. And, incidentally, more artillery and than clean socks. (to be 84 more Leopards by the end of the year)

One downside is that 90-something % of male population spends approximately a year less in working life.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Rather, not every soldier has the same chance to end up under a barrage. Artillery is pretty darn effective, when it shoots the right location. In Ukraine it continues to create 80%+ of casualties, as since 1914 at least or so. You just don't want to end be at the receiving end.

There are huge difference in causalities when same artillery strikes properly prepared positions made by professional soldiers and when it strikes a crowd of armed civilians in open field.

[Sergarr]

Against third-rate artillery, maybe. Modern artillery, with time-on-target and guided munitions, will make a mincemeat out of everyone who has been hit, regardless of prepared positions and professionalism of troops.

[Morrigi]

Guided munitions are only issued in limited numbers. The vast majority of shells in the inventories of the world powers and fired on the battlefields they're involved in are still good old-fashioned high explosive. Besides, guided shells are primarily intended for use against vehicles.

[Parsely]

Against third-rate artillery, maybe. Modern artillery, with time-on-target and guided munitions, will make a mincemeat out of everyone who has been hit, regardless of prepared positions and professionalism of troops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremer_wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion

Prepared positions make it such that you need to be very, very accurate to be taken out, which means they HAVE to bring out precision guided munitions. I think nowadays the deviation is around 50m for a JDAM or an Excalibur (and getting smaller every day) so they really could effect the destruction of, say, a 10x10 bunker, without having to expend 100s of shells like you used to. But you've got to do that once for each prepared position. Against a decent FOB that's mobilized, it's going to take time. Not to mention that they're going to be doing the same thing to you in the meantime. You're in the open attacking him, that means the defender can use his batteries for counterfire on your formations that are in the open.

It also shouldn't be underestimated how much more survivable someone becomes when they transition from the standing position to the prone position, not even taking into account natural and prepared terrain he could use to cover himself.

Guided munitions are only issued in limited numbers. The vast majority of shells in the inventories of the world powers are still good old-fashioned high explosive.

Surely it can be said that in a first-world-on-first-world situation either side would be sure to have lots and lots available. I mean a shower of dumb bombs has it's uses since in an army versus army situation you don't have to worry about collateral, but I don't doubt everyone would have as many precision bombs and shells handy as they could get their hands on in order to take out snipers, armored vehicles, and infantry in cover.

[Sergarr]

Guided munitions are only issued in limited numbers. The vast majority of shells in the inventories of the world powers and fired on the battlefields they're involved in are still good old-fashioned high explosive. Besides, guided shells are primarily intended for use against vehicles.

Unguided shells are mostly useless. Guided shells and, generally, guided munitions are so much more effective at their jobs that everyone who can use them, uses them. ATGM missiles in Syria are used against infantry on a regular basis, and that's among a third-rate military. A first-rate military would use (and uses - look at how modern NATO fights) significantly more guided munitions than unguided ones, because firing unguided munitions is literally a waste of time and manpower, when you have guided munitions available.

All these "inventories" of unguided shells are mostly wasting storage space, and the only reason why they're still there is because 1) utilizing shells is really costly and dangerous, and 2) sometimes, you can modernize those into guided ones, like with JDAMs.

[Parsely]

Unguided shells are mostly useless.

Maybe in the context of a war against insurgents. In a modern war they can be very useful against indiscriminate targets, like motor pools, warehouses, enemy encampments, and large enemy formations, where missing by 50 meters doesn't matter so much. They are also much, much easier on your wallet. Unguided shells are dirt cheap compared to the guided munitions.

http://www.pmulcahy.com/ammunition/howitzer_rounds.html

A 105mm Excalibur shell costs 68,000 dollars in 2016. An unguided round costs about 1500 dollars. You can debate me on the exact number but I assure you it's somewhere in that neighborhood. 60 to 1 is a pretty strong ratio I would say. It's been said before, but it bears repeating: quantity has a quality all of it's own. Is every target you shoot at worth 68,000 dollars if a battery fires 60 shells that can potentially do the 60 times the damage (one for range and 59 more on target, but it should be said that by then infantry could have taken cover) and for the same amount of money it would cost to shoot a single guided munition?

[Sergarr]

Unguided shells are mostly useless.

Maybe in the context of a war against insurgents. In a modern war they can be very useful against indiscriminate targets, like motor pools, warehouses, enemy encampments, and large enemy formations, where missing by 50 meters doesn't matter so much. They are also much, much easier on your wallet. Unguided shells are dirt cheap compared to the guided munitions.

Actually it's in reverse - unguided shells are only useful against insurgents, which have insignificant forces and thus are unable to suppress or destroy either the launching devices or the supply lines.

Against a modern opponent, you won't be able to fire much more of unguided munitions than guided ones, before you get your unguided shell storage facilities destroyed by a precise-guided bomb or a drone-fired missile, or get your artillery wrecked by enemy's guided shells landing right on top of your artillery battalions. After that, it's just a matter of time until the rest of your forces is fixed by the enemy's heavy mechanized formations and destroyed completely by unerring deadly fire.

Like, why do you think all modern militaries invest in guided/precise/network-based stuff so hard? It's because it counters everything else. Just like stealth does. That's why Russian military is investing so hard in acquiring all of these things, you know.

[Amperzand]

PTW

[Tack]

Conscript, Professional - it all seems to come down to 'Screw that, Be the guy with the artillery'.
They have artillery? Don't waste money on troops. Have more, more advanced artillery, and shell their artillery to shit. Then shell their troops to shit.

When you realize that their standard infantryman is outfitted and trained towards the single purpose of killing your standard infantryman, and can do somewhere in the vicinity of JfS against a tank...
Well, massed infantry becomes a joke, or a bunch of bullet-sponges between the big armoured enemy, and the single dude trained in Javelin usage in your platoon.

[Helgoland]

The thing is: People trained for killing infantrymen usually are pretty good at killing artillerymen too. The basic mechanics of bullet goes in, brain comes out are the same.

[Sergarr]

Artillerymen tend to hang out far beyond the range of bullets, though. Self-propelled artillery, bitches!

[Sheb]

Yeah, but they're out of range of bullets because you have allied infantrymen keeping the enemy out of range. The all-artillery scheme Tack is proposing might work in a few RTS, but is otherwise crap.