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Captain Adam Orton: That was the sound of an M777 howitzer, and I’m Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast. A soldier with a rifle can hit a target at a few dozen metres. A team of gunners with an artillery piece can hit all the targets at a few dozen kilometres. This episode is about what it’s like to be a gunner and what needs to happen to get rounds on target. I’m here on the road in Petawawa with Sergeant Daran Caines from the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, and he’s going to tell us what being a gunner is all about. Welcome to the podcast.

Sergeant Daran Caines: Thanks for having me.

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Capt Orton: So, the most impressive experience I’ve had with artillery is it’s literally physics in the action. When that round is coming in, you can hear it splitting through the air and just makes this “kablamo” sound, and that’s a real thing to experience. What’s it like on your end?

Sgt Caines: So, for myself, I’m a gun detachment commander. So, for us, we deploy to the field or on operations. The orders come in, we go to an area, and we set up. And with that set up, my team of gunners, so I have a second in command, a driver, and eight gunners. And we bring the gun into action. And once we’re recorded, once we’re in action, then we stand by for the call for fire.

Capt Orton: And then what happens? Big bangs.

Sgt Caines: Big bangs. That’s right.

Capt Orton: So, what’s the artillery’s role on the battlefield? Like, what does the artillery do?

Sgt Caines: I would say the artillery provides indirect fire support for forward call signs. Forward call signs being infantry and armoured, but it’s not limited to the infantry and armoured.

Capt Orton: Of course, yeah. Whoever’s up there.

Sgt Caines: Anyone can call for fire. You know, if we’re within range, we’re going to provide you that support.

Capt Orton: You want to explain maybe a little bit the difference between direct and indirect fire?

Sgt Caines: So, indirect fire, that’s like your normal fire mission that’s going to come down. So, we don’t see the target. We record these reference objects and then we aim off of those reference objects. So, we can achieve targets, you know, with conventional ammunition, 20, 21 kilometres away. And with precision guided munitions, we can achieve accurate targets up to 38, 40 kilometres.

Capt Orton: What’s a precision guided munition?

Sgt Caines: We’re talking about the Excalibur round.

Capt Orton: Yes, of course. Everybody’s favourite. I heard it recently described as firing a Ferrari.

Sgt Caines: Yeah, it’s a good way to put it. Personally, I haven’t trained on them, fired them. They’re very few and far between for domestic training. And why is because they’re incredibly expensive. But, if you can drop a laser point and it’s within the target area, within the distance, we can put a round on that laser point.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s super cool. And you have to be able to really appreciate the fact that that’s 40 kilometres away or something like that. And this thing will land within a couple of metres.

Sgt Caines: Ten metres, within ten metres.

Capt Orton: That’s wild. So that’s indirect fire in a nutshell. And then obviously direct fire is when you can see your target and you’re firing at it. And I’ve always found, as an infantry soldier, it’s like you can see what’s happening on the battlefield and you get to have that experience. But I imagine as a gunner, you don’t get that opportunity. When do gunners get to see that?

Sgt Caines: Yeah, so there are a few instances where I will get to see that round impact. So, a big thing we like to train for is called open action. So, for open actions, what happens is a gun is detached from a gun battery and they go and link up with a forward call sign, usually infantry, maybe armoured. And the situation is usually there’s something out there that they can’t tackle themselves. So, I’m going to go link in with that person. I’m going to ask them a lot of questions. I’m going to build a bit of a situational awareness of what’s around. And from there, I’m going to start building my data that I’m going to send to the gun. From there, I go back, bring the gun up, bring it into action. The gunners do their jobs, they do it well. And I stand off to the side of the gun, I issue my orders, and we fire the bullet, and I can see where it lands and adjust it onto the target.

Capt Orton: That’s really interesting, because I’ve never seen that actually in action. And if you’re from a certain era, I know people who joined in the 80s that are still around. You have people who joined in the 90s, you know. I trained for Afghanistan, got to deploy there. And I guess as a product of a 2000s Army person, the deployments that I’ve been a part of and the training I’ve been a part of hasn’t included that a lot, but that’s clearly part of the playbook. Why is that important? Where does that fit into the story?

Sgt Caines: Yeah, the situation they normally give us is that there’s a enemy vehicle out there that maybe had a mobility kill that can still fight you.

Capt Orton: Right.

Sgt Caines: So it’s a static target. It’s not going to drive away as soon as we open up fire. And we’re going to really put some precision fire, you know, direct fire onto that target.

Capt Orton: Okay.

Sgt Caines: But we talk about Afghanistan. I wasn’t in during that period, but I can’t see a lot of those situations arising. Especially, like, we provide that indirect effect. And from the people I talked to, they were able to achieve target results without having to do an open action.

Capt Orton: That’s correct. I think during my tour, we fired like a thousand rounds in combat, which is apparently a lot. And my understanding of direct fire support from the artillery has always been final protective fire, which is everything is going bad now and the bad guys are here and that’s not good. It’s like a rifle. A rifle is a standoff weapon. If you’re using a rifle at 10 metres, it’s bad. It’s got a range of 300 metres. Use all 300 metres. So artillery has, let’s say, 20 kilometre range. When you’re firing at 500 metres…

Sgt Caines: Things have gone bad.

Capt Orton: Yeah, things have gone bad. So, what other situations would you use direct fire in?

Sgt Caines: So, another situation that kind of plays out is our smoke withdrawal. So, you’re on a gun position. Maybe the enemy has broken through. So, we train for a smoke withdrawal. So, you lay down as much smoke as possible. And while your last gun is firing, the rest are packing up and leaving so that you can still provide support for call signs and not be taken out by maybe an enemy tank rolling up in your position.

Capt Orton: Wow, that’s really cool. Man, I’m already learning a lot about the artillery. So, let’s talk a little bit about the gear then. You know, you’re talking about precision guided munitions and stuff. The guns, what do we got? What are we working with?

Sgt Caines: When I was in the Reserves, we utilized the LG1 howitzer, which is a 105 mm howitzer. And then it depends on what part of the country that you’re in. If you’re on the East Coast, you’re probably going to be using the LG1s. The further you go west, you’re looking at C3 howitzers, which is another 105 howitzer.

Capt Orton: Yeah, nice.

Sgt Caines: If you find yourself in a Reg Force unit, you’re going to be looking at the M777, 155 mm howitzer. The pros to it is that it’s a versatile weapon system. It can be transported via air. So, we train often for helicopter underslung operations.

Capt Orton: Yeah, I think that is the big selling point is it can be sling loaded and dropped off pretty much anywhere, which is hard to do with most guns as far as I understand.

Sgt Caines: Guns for the most part are pretty heavy, right? The M777 is relatively light.

Capt Orton: Yeah.

Sgt Caines: But like we found ourselves in March, we hooked up to the Chinooks at 450 and we deployed to the field and that’s also how we got out of the field.

Capt Orton: Yeah, it’s super cool. And a lot of fun. Helicopters are fun in general, I would say.

Sgt Caines: Yes.

Capt Orton: And this is a weird question because it’s like what kind of ammunition? But ammunition also in some ways translates to effects. What kind of effects can you have on the battlefield with that?

Sgt Caines: So, we shoot a variety of ammunition. When you think of artillery, you think of, you know, high explosive projectiles.

Capt Orton: Yeah, big boom.

Sgt Caines: And what we can do, we can shake up how that relates to the ground. So, we can have, you know, ground burst, we can fire delay where the projectile goes in a little further. And then you also have proximity. Okay, so you’re air burst. We also fire smoke rounds and illumination rounds. So, smoke rounds, we can provide blinding or screening for friendly targets. So, you’re going to screen friendlies and blind the enemy. For illumination, we can turn the nighttime into day with a couple of “illume” rounds. We can also use that for mark missions to reference fast air in the area and bring more accurate effects from that aircraft onto the target.

Capt Orton: Yeah, and marked missions are pretty great. You have to put that dot on the ground where explosions are supposed to happen so if you’re operating at night and you don’t have situational awareness, then at least you know you have a spot where things are going to happen and you’re going to get that big boom where you want it. Speaking of big boom, how big is the boom?

Sgt Caines: So, you’re looking at a 50 metre kill radius for 155 high explosive.

Capt Orton: That’s a lot.

Sgt Caines: It’s a lot.

Capt Orton: And what kind of impact does that have on a target area?

Sgt Caines: So, I’ll give you the key phrase here: the weapon of the artillery is the projectile.

Capt Orton: All right, great. Now we’re talking.

Sgt Caines: Now I just made someone engage. I’m very happy for saying that.

Capt Orton: Yeah, yeah…

Sgt Caines: So, what does that look like? It looks like a lot of shrapnel. So, when those rounds explode, especially if we’re talking proximity, that 50 metre kill radius, imagine 100 pounds of high explosive going off within a steel container. That steel gets turned into a couple 100 different knives going every which direction. So, don’t find yourself within that 50 metres.

Capt Orton: So that’s how the artillery works operationally. Now, let’s talk about coming out of basic training. So, you’ll learn how to tie your boots, you’ll learn how to put your uniform on, all that stuff, and off you go to artillery school. What are you learning there? How does your career kind of get started?

Sgt Caines: So, I believe the term is rank qualification one, now, these days. And what you’re going to learn is you’re going to learn about fire discipline, you’re going to learn about maybe driving some basic military vehicles, and then you’re going to learn how to communicate on a radio and how to use that radio equipment. But it doesn’t really kind of round you out to be utilized in that role in a regiment. So, then you complete that course, now you move on to a regiment. They’re going to put you in one of the streams and then get you the qualifications that you need for those streams. Those streams being one, you have your gunline stream so you can find yourself in a “recce”, a reconnaissance party, a command post crew, or on a gun det itself. You could also be employed in another stream being surveillance, target, and acquisition, and be employed as a potential drone flyer, an LCMR operator.

Capt Orton: Light, counter, mortar, radar.

Sgt Caines: Correct. Now they’ve added on air defense as well. And then the other stream is going to be the observation party. So, you could find yourself in a party with a forward observation officer, their second in command being a master bombardier or a sergeant. And you’d find yourself either as the communication operator, the radio operator, or the LAV 6.0 driver.

Capt Orton: And do people get to bounce back and forth a little bit or, like, is that your life now?

Sgt Caines: So, for the most part, once you pick a stream, well, you’re going to spend some time there. Whether that time is a year, two years… You can, you know, write your memo, submit it up, and they can change you between streams. And now that’s your career path. It’s not fixed, it’s not set in stone, but for longevity of the artillery, we wish for it to go that way.

Capt Orton: Why is that?

Sgt Caines: So, for example, if I, a sergeant, were to change streams now, it’s almost like a reset. So now I have my, you know, gun det commander course, you know, that sets me on a bit of a career path. But if I were to say I wish to change streams, now I wish to be surveillance target acquisition, I lack the courses to be in a leadership role for that stream.

Capt Orton: Right, so it’s the classic jack of all trades versus specialization gambit where the more you do a thing, the more experienced you are, you become really good at it. But if you do a little bit of everything, then you know other things, but you don’t know as much about the one thing.

Sgt Caines: Think of it as like, the artillery is very trade specific. And if you bounce between them, you kind of lose expertise in that role.

Capt Orton: Yeah, skill fade.

Sgt Caines: Well, skill fade, but I wouldn’t necessarily have the experience or the courses to go over and lead a drone crew in F Battery, for example.

Capt Orton: Right. Okay, so speaking of drones, the drone stuff, I guess, falls under STA, surveillance target acquisition.

Sgt Caines: Right. So, they have a variety of equipment that they can use for the sound detection for surveillance, you know, they’re the drone flyers of the artillery. And for that, you have a battery per regiment, or you have the regiment itself in Gagetown, 4th General Support Regiment, and they’ll be your drone flyers. So, imagine you have this regiment in Gagetown and then you have, like, a piece of that pie in each regiment across Canada.

Capt Orton: Actually, just because I’m curious, why does the artillery get drones? Where does drones fit into this? Why drones?

Sgt Caines: So, surveillance and target acquisition, so they can provide surveillance on certain targets and really paint a good picture of what’s going on in the battle space. They can also be used as observers. Those drone flyers, they see something and it’s a target that’s achievable to hit, they can provide the call for fire from the drone and that goes back to the command post. They take that information in and it comes out as gun orders and we can achieve, you know, target effect with a call for fire from a drone.

Capt Orton: And let’s talk about the observation piece then. What does that look like?

Sgt Caines: So, when these crews go out, more often than not, they’re mounted in a vehicle. That vehicle’s going to be a LAV 6.0. You’re going to have a forward observation officer, usually a sergeant or a master bombardier in the gunner’s seat, along with signallers and drivers to support that team.

Capt Orton: And how do they integrate into the rest of the fight? Like, if I think about Afghanistan, you have your forward observation officer or your FOO team and you got a captain in there, maybe a bombardier or master bombardier or whatever, they get to go out and play a little bit more?

Sgt Caines: I would say yes, 100%. So those forward observation parties are going to be attached to the infantry call signs or armoured call signs that cross that line of departure. And they’re your first point of contact when you want fire support.

Capt Orton: You know, let’s start from the beginning of what a task looks like. So, you’re in your armoury or you’re operating out of your regiment or maybe a forward operating base and it’s go time. We’re going to go out and we’re going to fire some rounds. What does that look like? Actually, if you could start by introducing the team. Who’s all involved in this?

Sgt Caines: So, for the gun line, it’s kind of broken down into three parties. So, you have your guns, which is going to be broken down into troops. Right now we’re operating with two guns per troop. So that’s your gun line crew. Then you have your reconnaissance party. So, the recce party will be kicked out. They’re the people to receive orders and they’re the first ones out the door. What they’re going to do is they’re going to go out and prove the area and set up and be ready to receive the guns, make sure the position is suitable. And then your other crews or parties within a gun battery is going to be your command post. And they’re the, in my mind, the brain of the gun battery.

Capt Orton: Right.

Sgt Caines: So, the BC, the battery commander, issues orders, comes up with a plan, issues it to the guns, CP crews, and recce party. The recce party’s going to go out and start doing their business. And then once we receive, you know, the all clear from them, we’re going to now push out to the field. We’re going to occupy that gun position. And as soon as we’re recorded, we are ready to provide a call for fire.

Capt Orton: When we talk about M777s, I think they’re towed. So, you’re hooking them up to trucks, you got trucks and stuff like that rolling out. What kind of gear are you moving with?

Sgt Caines: Right now, the make up of a gun line is, like, for myself as a det commander, I have two trucks. They’re both Mack trucks, eight wheeled vehicles. You have a gun tow variant and a troop carry vehicle. So, you have your driver, your gun det commander in the gun tow with, you know, obviously towing the gun. You have all your gun stores and your ammo, and then your troops are going to operate out of the troop carry vehicle.

Capt Orton: What happens now?

Sgt Caines: We link in with the recce party, and then we bring the guns into action. So, the gun truck pulls up, I walk the gun onto position, the crews dismount from their vehicles, they come back out, unhook the gun, and, you know, we go through our drills to bring that gun into action. Once the gun is in action, we have our ammo sitting behind the gun. It all happens within I’m going to say three to four minutes.

Capt Orton: It’s pretty quick.

Sgt Caines: It’s pretty quick for a big artillery piece.

Capt Orton: Does it feel quick?

Sgt Caines: It doesn’t at the time because you’re lifting some pretty heavy things.

Capt Orton: Yeah, I bet.

Sgt Caines: Which can make time drag on a little longer, but it does, relatively, it happens quick.

Capt Orton: And then the crew has put the gun in position. Fire mission is coming down the pipe, I guess.

Sgt Caines: Unfortunately, it’s never that fast because, you know, you’re waiting for that call for fire. So now that you’re ready to provide that call for fire, the first thing that happens as soon as the gun’s brought into action is you’re going to push out some local defense. So, as much as you’re supposed to be operating in a relatively safe area, it doesn’t mean that the enemy can’t be in your area, right?

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s right.

Sgt Caines: So, we’re going to push out some machine guns, we’re going to push out some Carl Gs, so Carl Gustav 84 mm, and we’re going to utilize our armoured vehicles that roll with the gun line. So, for example, in Canada, we have TAPVs. But in Latvia, you have TAPVs and your command post and maybe a recce unit would utilize a LAV 6.0. So, you’re going to put those out into some key areas to provide security for your gun line.

Capt Orton: TAPV is tactical armoured patrol vehicle.

Sgt Caines: Correct. And on top, we have a C6 general purpose machine gun and a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher.

Capt Orton: So, you do your own local security, generally speaking, and based off what you just said?

Sgt Caines: Correct.

Capt Orton: Wow.

Sgt Caines: Our big mandate is to be able to provide our own local defense of the gun line provided by ourselves.

Capt Orton: Okay, that’s interesting. Pre-podcast, looking at some stuff and found out that TAPVs were also a part of the artillery loadout. And I was like, I wonder why that is? And now I know.

Sgt Caines: We use them a lot for the recce parties, reconnaissance parties, that go out. So one, they’re going to use that vehicle to prove the area safe. If anyone shoots at them, they know that they’re probably not safe.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s right.

Sgt Caines: And it does provide a little bit of armour for security of the crews. And now we have a weapon system that we can engage back with.

Capt Orton: It’s interesting because I think of like infantry tactics, for example, and you’re setting up in a hide, which is basically just a spot you’re going to be for a while to kind of sort your stuff out and get some sleep or whatever, you do that security process, which is you roll in, you sweep the whole area, you make sure there’s no surprises like landmines or things like that, and then you get all set up. And so, you have that same process because there’s nothing worse than setting up your artillery and finding out that there are bad guys there the whole time. And now you have that problem.

Sgt Caines: Or you find yourself in a minefield.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Okay, so then fire mission comes in. What happens?

Sgt Caines: So, a call for fire, you’re going to receive that warning order. The warning order is going to be a variety of things. It could be a fire mission one gun, fire mission battery, fire mission regiment. So, what does that do? We now take our positions in action on the gun. So, we’re going to elevate the barrels and ready for orders to come out from our command post. So, we’re going to get a ammunition order. At a minimum, we’re going to receive an ammunition order, a bearing, an elevation, and a method of adjustment or fire for effect. So, depending on what the mission is, we could go into adjustment, which means there’s a target out there. We’re going to put a round on the ground, see where it lands, and adjust that onto that target. Or, if the guns are dialed in and we can achieve first round results, we’re going to go right into fire for effect.

Capt Orton: And the adjusting of rounds onto a target is a real art, I would say. Have you done any of that stuff yourself?

Sgt Caines: As a gun det commander, we do train for it. It is not in the realm of what I would be expected to do all the time in the field. That’s going to fall onto the observation party itself. So, you’re going to have people very well trained on bracketing procedure to achieve positive data. Okay, we know where these rounds are going to go. And then when the adjustment is over, the guns open up and all the guns will fall onto that target.

Capt Orton: If I’m calling in a fire mission, as an example, I’m in a place and I’m looking at a target. So I know where I am relative to that target but then there’s a lot of math that I assume needs to happen to make sure that all the things are pointing right there. And then all of a sudden, you also have to deal with the problem of where are the friendlies and all that stuff. So I feel like that’s a lot of paperwork.

Sgt Caines: Paperwork, not so much. It’s a lot of communication.

Capt Orton: Right.

Sgt Caines: So, with that communication piece, like, you have to take into factors, considerations of is air moving in the area, friendly positions. So not only is this information coming in, but it also has to be double checked to make sure that we’re not going to put those effects that we talk about onto something that we don’t want to have that effect onto, being friendly soldiers, civilians, collateral damage, XYZ. There’s a lot of different factors that play into it.

Capt Orton: And I assume also a lot of computers doing some of that math for us.

Sgt Caines: Right. So, we train for both. We train to do it, you know, there is the command post crew going through this information. I mean, let’s talk about factors on the projectile, rotation of the Earth, drift, the spin of the bullet is going to move it a certain direction. Weather plays a huge factor. So, if we’re not utilizing the computer system, it can take a very long time. With the computers and the digitization of the artillery these days, it can shorten it drastically, like in a big positive way.

Capt Orton: Speed and quality. So, what are people doing, like, your gun team – how’s that moving?

Sgt Caines: In the fire mission?

Capt Orton: Yeah.

Sgt Caines: So, what you’re going to see is the gunners, bombers, standing at the gun, waiting for the orders to come down. And once that’s achieved, you’re going to see them… it’s almost like artillery ballet.

Capt Orton: A dance.

Sgt Caines: A dance where it all kind of comes together. So, you have your loaders and people that work the howitzer. So, just to load around, for example, you set the fuse, put it on the tray, drop the tray, the charge bags go in, the tray is then raised, the breach is closed, the gun is primed, and now you’re ready to fire.

Capt Orton: And how many people does that take?

Sgt Caines: So, on a gun detachment, you’re looking at 10. It can be done with less than 10. It’s not ideal, but it’s possible and is done more often than we might like. But the fact is like, I can run a gun with four to five people.

Capt Orton: Yeah, there’s a discussion. We were talking about military effectiveness in general around the office. And the thing is, you get speed and accuracy. And anytime you take stuff away, you get less of one or both of those. And so conceivably, less people means less fast or potentially less accurate, depending on…

Sgt Caines: You also have to think too, like sustainment. Like how long can you sustain a high rate of fire? Because obviously, as time goes on, people become tired. Those bullets weigh 100 pounds apiece. And when you’re slinging 40, 50, 60 bullets at a time, that can take its toll on a gun crew.

Capt Orton: What is your, let’s call it, maximum rate of fire, non-sustained?

Sgt Caines: You’re asking all the hard questions here. There is a textbook answer. I think it’s, the correct answer is five to six rounds a minute, but it’s not sustainable. And sustained rate of fire, you’re looking at three rounds per minute.

Capt Orton: Well this is a thing that comes up in a lot of philosophical talk is sustainability, right? Which is people say 110% is impossible, 120% is impossible. Disagree. I would say you can do 120%, but it’s just not sustainable. It’s unrealistic and usually comes at a cost, right? Which is maybe you’ve sacrificed on the back end your ability to do other stuff later and so on and so forth. I think that’s what we’re talking about. And you said, what was the sustain rate?

Sgt Caines: Three rounds per minute.

Capt Orton: Yeah, pretty reasonable. And so you’ve done it. Recce parties have done all their stuff. You’ve rolled out, you’re all set up, you’ve received orders, you’re firing things. Now you’ve fired. I’m assuming one of two things happens, which is either you stay there and do more firing later, or it’s time to get out of Dodge.

Sgt Caines: That is correct. So, given the scenario, given the situation, we could encounter a high counter-battery threat. If that’s the case, when you fire, you have unmasked your guns and you’re now a potential target. So, we could receive counter-battery fire within as little as six minutes. So that gives us six minutes from the time we fire our first round to complete our fire mission and get 400 metres down – we train for 400 metres down the road.

Capt Orton: How do they know where you are?

Sgt Caines: So, as much as we have our surveillance target and acquisition capabilities, so does the enemy. So, they have detection equipment out there, drones, a lot of detection equipment that can pick us up and say, we think the enemy is right here. So, when we fire, we produce a little blip on the radar, for lack of a better term. Now they know where we are and we have to leave.

Capt Orton: Yeah, and how quickly can you get out of there?

Sgt Caines: So, we trained for this scenario often in Latvia. And in Latvia, we had our time down to 6 minutes and 47 seconds to be 400 metres down the road from the time we fired our first projectile.

Capt Orton: So let’s talk about recent deployments. You said you were in Latvia. How was that?

Sgt Caines: Yeah, so Latvia was my first deployment. We went from May of 2023 to December 2023, so a six-month stint. I was with D Battery 2RCHA. You’re looking at a training exercise once a month, and a lot of opportunity to train with other nations. So over there, we were comprised of Canada with a gun battery. The Spanish had a gun battery. Czechoslovakians, Czechoslovenians, and Latvians have their own artillery. We didn’t play a lot with them, but with the multinational artillery brigade, we were able to achieve some good training and a lot of interoperability.

Capt Orton: Yeah. One of the previous episodes we were talking about kind of the Multinational Brigade and all that, there’s a lot of artillery going out there. I’ve heard of large infantry formations doing lots of infantry stuff. I haven’t heard a lot of large artillery formations doing a lot of artillery stuff. What’s that like?

Sgt Caines: It’s cool because in Canada we see, you know, very limited use of artillery. It’s a regiment, it’s a battery going out to achieve, more often than not, just training aims. But over there, they understand that it’s a big key player on the battle space. And the fact that when we go out the door, it’s not just Canada fighting all these battles on their own. We’re going to have to work with all these other nations to achieve NATO aims.

Capt Orton: Did you learn anything or is there a big takeaway that you got from being out there that you’re just, like, huh, that’s useful to me now?

Sgt Caines: I would say the digitalization of the artillery is definitely the way to go and it is the way the Canadian military is going. Yeah, I would say digital fires can greatly reduce the sensor to shooter link. And we can really provide that time. Before it might take ten minutes to see those rounds on the ground, now we can achieve it in much less time.

Capt Orton: I really like the usage of that word sensor to shooter link because it sounds very technical, but it’s very straightforward. It is the path from I need this thing to...

Sgt Caines: Providing that effect.

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Capt Orton: Yeah, very cool. On that note, thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Sgt Caines: Thanks for having me.

Capt Orton: That was Sergeant Daran Caines from the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery here in Petawawa. And I’m Captain Adam Orton for the Canadian Army Podcast. Orton out.

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