Modern Times
Today the gun finds itself in an area that seems to be gone for good. The class of small and highly mobile artillery has been filled with increasing capacity by the man-portable mortar, which replaced almost every artillery piece smaller than 105 mm. Gun-howitzers fill the middle ground, with the world rapidly standardizing on the 155 mm NATO or 152 mm former USSR standards. The need for a long-range weapon is filled by rocket artillery, or aircraft. Modern gun-artillery such as the L118 105mm light gun is used to provide fire support for infantry and armour at ranges where mortars are impractical. Man-packed mortars lack the range or hitting power of gun-artillery. In between is the rifled towed mortar; this weapon (usually in 120mm calibre) is light enough to be towed by a Land Rover, has a range of over 6,000m and fires a bomb comparable in weight to an artillery shell.
Read more about this topic: Field Gun
Famous quotes containing the words modern times, modern and/or times:
“How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“Do not forget! For those green times now laugh
In glee with sport and thought and lily dance;
And fate in vanity now leaps to chaff
Me smiling at her winking circumstance.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)