U.S. Army Artillery Trains for High-End War With Helicopter-Supplied Gun Raids.

Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment conducted a gun raid at Fort Riley using helicopters to fly 155mm ammunition directly to firing positions.

U.S. Army artillery crews executed a gun raid on December 5, 2025, testing their ability to keep 155mm howitzers supplied by air rather than a ground convoy. The exercise, conducted by the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, showcased how aviation-delivered ammunition can shorten firing timelines and reduce exposure to enemy counterfire in a contested environment. The training reflects how the U.S. Army expects to sustain artillery fires in future high-end conflicts where roads, convoys, and static supply lines are vulnerable.
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U.S. Army Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, 1st Infantry Division conduct a gun raid at Fort Riley, Kansas, validating rapid 155 mm Paladin artillery employment and helicopter-delivered ammunition resupply to sustain fires while minimizing exposure to enemy counterbattery threats (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

A gun raid is, at its core, a speed problem. The unit must occupy, deliver effects, and displace before an opponent can fix the firing position and respond with counterbattery fire. While the specific scenario at Fort Riley was framed as a capabilities test, the method shown is a recognizably modern answer to the counterfire race: shorten the time the guns sit still, and do not tie ammunition flow to predictable ground routes. In the DVIDS description, the battalion “tested their capabilities by flying in ammo to their field artillery guns,” a simple line that signals a much larger training purpose.

For an armored brigade combat team like 2ABCT, the gun system at the center of that purpose is the M109A7 Paladin family of vehicles, a self-propelled 155mm howitzer designed to move with Abrams and Bradley formations and still deliver sustained indirect fire. The M109A7 mounts a 155mm, 39 caliber cannon and engages targets with separate loading ammunition, projectile, and propellant handled as distinct components rather than fixed cartridges. In U.S. Army testing documentation, the Army describes the platform’s employment in the armored brigade fires battalion and notes engagement ranges on the order of roughly 22 km with standard projectiles and around 30 km with rocket-assisted projectiles, figures that align with the practical planning ranges most Paladin units train against for time-sensitive fires.

The photos from Fort Riley show crews handling full-size 155mm projectiles, the kind of heavy, awkward loads that shape the pace of any sustained fire mission. A common U.S. standard high explosive option, the M795, weighs about 103 pounds and can be filled with TNT or an insensitive explosive formulation, underscoring why ammunition handling discipline, crew drills, and safe fuzing procedures remain central to artillery readiness. In the field, that weight translates directly into fatigue, loading speed, and ultimately how long a battery can remain lethal during repeated displacements.

The other half of the raid equation is resupply. In routine operations, Paladin batteries rely on the M992A3 Carrier Ammunition Tracked to move rounds and charges close to the guns while sharing automotive commonality with the howitzer. Department of Defense operational test reporting describes the M992A3 as designed to carry about 12,000 pounds or up to 98 rounds in various configurations, a critical buffer that keeps a battery from going silent after a short, intense mission. The Fort Riley event deliberately stressed a different method: aerial delivery of ammunition to the guns to prove the unit can rearm without waiting for ground echelons to fight their way forward.

That is where the CH-47 Chinook seen in the imagery becomes more than a backdrop. The Army’s published CH-47 data lists a sling load capacity up to 26,000 pounds on the center hook, enough to move meaningful quantities of 155mm ammunition, pallets, rigged bundles, or critical support loads in a single lift. In practical terms, that capacity allows commanders to treat ammunition as a maneuver enabler, repositioning it to whichever firing element is best placed to support a breach, cover a retrograde, or mass fires for a decisive window.

The operational point is optionality. A gun raid supported by air-delivered ammunition complicates enemy targeting, reduces dependency on exposed road networks, and rehearses the kind of distributed sustainment the U.S. Army expects to need against peer surveillance and long-range strike. Fort Riley’s training slice shows an armored brigade artillery battalion treating logistics as part of the fires fight, not a separate problem to solve after the mission.