It is already possible using artillery locating radar and other surveillance systems, for example, to determine rapidly and with high precision the location of an artillery gun that has opened fire. There is thus a good opportunity for an enemy to open effective counter-battery fire. The artillery has therefore more or less been forced to depart from its previously fairly stationary tactics in favour of significantly more mobile tactics involving rapid engagements in the form of short intensive fires followed by immediate redeployment to a pre-determined deployment site at a sufficiently safe distance from the previous one. These new tactics have resulted in an increased need for every gun to be self-propelled and capable of carrying at least a primary requirement of ammunition.
One must also assume that coming generations of artillery will use modular type propellant charges, that is, propellant charges consisting of a number of modular charges of different sizes, such as length and, to a certain extent, diameter, of different charge strength with primarily rigid combustible outer casings, and that are combinable in various ways to provide the desired muzzle velocities. At present this system of modular charges is called M(A)CS, that is, Modular (Artillery) Charge System. Moreover, as the next generation of artillery guns is expected to be equipped with armoured protection against battlefield fragments to an even greater extent than is normal today. Next generation loading systems will be required to operate very rapidly and be capable of stowing large quantities of propellant charges and of handling all the different types of propellant charges in the M(A)CS. The propellant charges must also be stowable in the least possible space. In addition, loading systems shall be robust and durable, and the propellant charge magazine shall be replenishable in a very short time, preferably from a vehicle equipped with an automatic resupply unit.