self-propelled artillery
Sign in to saveAlso known as SP artillery, mechanized artillery, SPA, locomotive artillery
artillery mounted on a vehicle for mobility and protection
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
British AS-90s firing in Basra, Iraq, 2008 A Panzerhaubitze 2000 of the German Army arriving in Afghanistan A 2S19M2 Msta-S of the Russian Army
Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and self-propelled rocket artillery. They are high-mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “self-propelled artillery” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.