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The Caesar is the pride of the French arms industry, but it is less and less alone on the market. Latest: a Russian system.
By Théo Sauvignet
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AThen France sent thirty pieces of it to Ukraine, the Russian army presented, on May 17, a new self-propelled gun strangely resembling the French Caesar: the 2S43 Malva. This 152 mm gun – the Russian equivalent of the 155 mm NATO used by the Caesar, among others – is placed on the chassis of an 8-wheel drive truck. The system would have completed its tests and would have capacities quite close to its French counterpart: five crewmen, approximately 7 shells fired per minute, around thirty ammunition in reserve…
When it entered service in the French army in 2001, the Caesar (truck equipped with an artillery system) looked like a UFO: the guns were then, for the overwhelming majority, towed by vehicles or placed on chassis of tracked tanks and…