2023-12-14 17:11:46
Providing Coast Artillery units with the capacity to launch missiles was one of the needs identified some years ago by the Field Artillery Command (MACA) and now, finally, the Army has begun the process to have this capacity, as confirmed to Infodefensa by Colonel Rafael de Felipe, director of the Artillery Academy, in the traditional institutional speech of the Arma on the occasion of the Santa Bárbara holiday.
The colonel explained that the Artillery Training and Doctrine Headquarters (Jadart) has participated “in the processes of obtaining” a new direction of fire and missiles to provide the Coast Artillery Regiment (Racta) No. 4 with “the missile capacity of coast”.
In fact, the Field Artillery Command (MACA) has already presented the Operational Need document with the requirements that the new missile system for Racta No. 4 must meet, although it is not known at what point the program is and if there are already a decision made about the chosen system.
The Coastal Artillery Regiment (Racta) No. 4 is distributed between the barracks of Camposoto, in San Fernando, and those of El Bujeo and Punta Camarinal in the municipality of Tarifa. “It is the only unit of the Army that is equipped and trained to generate defense and coastal control capacity at any point in Spanish geography, or in any other place where international commitments require it,” highlights the Army itself. of Earth.
The regiment’s main means is the 155/52 mm model V07 towed howitzer – the coastal version of the SIAC. The unit has 16 pieces that will be updated within a recent contract signed by the Army and the company Santa Bárbara Sistemas, the manufacturer.
It also has veteran systems, at the end of their operational life, such as the acquisition and exploration radar (RAE), the 9KA mobile coastal fire direction or the Hercules command and control system, along with mobile observation posts. The latter, more modern, arrived in the early 2000s.
Throughout its five centuries of history, coastal artillery batteries have been deployed throughout almost all of our geography wherever danger could come from the sea, having participated in numerous key episodes.
However, little by little, weapons have evolved, war tactics have changed and the function of shore batteries gradually disappeared until they became a vestige of the past. The Armed Forces changed and, above all, the way of understanding defense changed: it was no longer necessary to have the entire country full of barracks or batteries located at strategic points to ensure an armed response.
Today, there is only the aforementioned Coast Artillery Regiment number 4 (RACTA-4), which now assumes that function alone and with very different means and capabilities than then. It was maintained given its proximity to the Strait of Gibraltar, the most sensitive point on the coast in a hypothetical conflict and where the use of artillery would be most logical if necessary.
Although its old Vickers 152, 4/50 cannons – the fixed batteries – have been silent for at least 12 years. In September 2008 they fired their last shot to immediately become artillery relics. The pieces were replaced by the 155/52 towed howitzers, of national manufacture (Santa Barbara), with which the regiment had begun to be equipped since 2001.
Its main headquarters is the “Camposoto” Barracks, in San Fernando, where the headquarters of the Regiment and the bulk of its units are located. It also has two detachments, one in the “El Bujeo” Barracks and the other in the “Punta Camarinal” Barracks, both located in the municipality of Tarifa (Cádiz).
The missions of RACTA 4 as coastal artillery are to contribute, within the joint/combined-joint framework, to the control and defense of the coasts, in particular the Strait of Gibraltar, and, in addition, the mobile ACTA units may be assigned to the operational plans that are determined for the defense of coasts in areas other than the STROG
Among its weapons, it has an acquisition and scanning radar for automatic tracking of multiple targets and GPS navigation.
Likewise, it has 155/52 APU SBT-1 cannons, of entirely Spanish development (Santa Barbara), whose advanced design meets the requirements of modern field artillery and coastal defense missions, with a rapid deployment capacity, a excellent first-round hit probability and a quick “shoot and slide” capability for greater survivability, according to the manufacturer itself.
General Dynamics’ Automatic Weapon Placement System (AGLS), Digital Navigation Targeting and Targeting System (DINAPS), and Fully Automatic Ramming System (FIRS) are integrated into the SIAC for superior performance. It is capable of firing 10 projectiles in the first minute, entering position quickly (enter: 2 min. / away: 1.5 min.) and has a firing range of more than 40 km with base-bleed ammunition, more than enough to stop any attack that may come from the other side of the Strait. In fact, its main function is to hit targets at sea. Each of the cannons weighs 13,380 kilos with a firing tube of more than eight meters.
Of its 16 pieces, four were built as such and 12 were obtained from the modernization of examples of the V06 version, with 9KA-410 mobile fire direction (the others available for this model are fixed). It incorporates a series of modifications with respect to the field artillery version, such as the integration of specific software that allows continuous aiming of the target, what is known as “pursuit shooting”, and it is also contemplated to provide it with automatic aiming.
As a complement, it has mobile observation posts with all-weather vision system (TV – IR); 62X zoom on TV and 10X on IR; manual and scheduled scan function.
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