Survivability.

This is coolbert:

From the blog of the Dupuy Institute blog "Mystics & Statistics" and thanks to same.

As was determined in 1976. Vulnerability of self-propelled artillery as compared to the towed variety.

A 1976 study to a large extent [?] based on data from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973?

"Artillery Survivability In Modern Combat"

Devoted readers to the blog are invited to read the entire article. A hard read I might suppose for anyone not so conversant in military tactics/weapons/techniques.

Those conclusions and observations of the study paragraph as extracted in entirety:

"Most of the artillery weapons in World War II were towed weapons. By the time the United States had committed small but significant numbers of self-propelled artillery pieces in Europe, German air and artillery counter-battery retaliatory capabilities had been significantly reduced. In the Korean and Vietnam wars, although most American artillery was self-propelled, the enemy had little counter-artillery capability either in the air or in artillery weapons and counter-battery techniques. It is evident from vulnerability testing of current Army self-propelled weapons, that these weapons–while offering much more protection to cannoneers and providing tremendous advantages in mobility–are much more vulnerable to hostile action than are towed weapons, and that they are much more subject to mechanical breakdowns involving either the weapons mountings or the propulsion elements. Thus there cannot be a direct relationship between aggregated World War II data, or even aggregated Korean war or October War data, and current or future artillery configurations. On the other hand, the body of data from the October war where artillery was self-propelled is too small and too specialized by environmental and operational circumstances to serve alone as a paradigm of artillery vulnerability."

My intuitive response is that towed artillery if it can OUTRANGE the adversary just fine. OUTRANGE as meaning relatively secure from adversary counter-battery fire from either tube artillery or rocket artillery.

Data too from the 1976 study admittedly not so large to be able to make very reasonable inferences that are unquestionable? Weapons, tactics, methods and techniques of war and war-making stuff greatly changed during that now almost fifty year period since the end of the 1973 war!

coolbert.