South Africa’s Rejected Cannon Is Humiliating Russia

A Soviet-equipped army in Angola kept firing shells that landed kilometers short, at an enemy battery it could hear but never touch. The gun killing them was designed by a man two governments had already thrown in prison for building it. This is the story of the South African G6 Rhino and the G5 towed howitzer, the long-range artillery born under a total UN arms embargo and built from the rejected designs of Canadian ballistics genius Gerald Bull. We trace the weapon from Bull's extended-range full-bore shell and his 1980 US conviction, through the base-bleed and V-LAP rounds that pushed range past fifty kilometers, to the G6-52 that reaches beyond sixty with a shell you can buy off a shelf. We break down the 47-tonne wheeled chassis, the shoot-and-scoot design philosophy, and the combat proof at Cuito Cuanavale in 1988, the largest conventional battle in Africa since World War II. Then we put its numbers against what Russia actually fires into Ukraine today, the 2S19 Msta-S, the 2S3 Akatsiya, the 2S5 Giatsint, the 2S7 Pion, and against America's own failed Extended Range Cannon Artillery program that the US Army shelved in 2024 after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars. We also flag the honest limits: thin armor, drone vulnerability, and the reconnaissance an army needs before extreme range means anything. Bull was assassinated in Brussels in 1990. His guns outlived him by forty years and still hold the range crown. If you want to understand why a weapon works and not just watch it fire, subscribe and stick around. . . . . #G6Rhino #Artillery #GeraldBull #MilitaryHistory