Counter-Battery Process?

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by EOT

The Allies were afraid of the Iraqi arty because they had base bleed ammunition and smooth bore arty with longer range capability. One of the reason's Gerald Bull was assassinated in 1990 for his work on an Iraqi Supergun.

Actually those guns were not smoothbores,a dicey proposition for long range artillery, they engage the rifling via small finns in a fashion reminiscent of some mid 19th century rifled guns designs. This made possible to design much more aerodynamic shells.Also "brute force" measures such as more powerful charge and longer barrel were employed.
I am not sure but I suspect that all the talks about coalitions fearing iraqi guns was more some analyst second guessing the matter rather reality. Absent good supporting C&C and reconnaissance they would be unable to exploit the extra range in any seriously effective fashion.

In any case it shoud be noted that US artillery being outranged in terms of pure gun performance is not exactly a novelty.Even the new M777 is still outranged by even such a common and antique weapon as the 130mm M46.