Story will be that after the cancellation of Land17 Phase 1C, Thales Australia makes an unsolicited bid with a 155mm SPH development of the Bushmaster called the Bushranger.
That’s not What If. ADI (as it was called at the time now Thales Australia) had prepared to tender for LAND 17 the Caesar artillery system integrated onto a Bushmaster ACSV (as it was called at the time now the Copperhead) vehicle system. But the Army specified an artillery system able to fire and reload with all the crew under armour for force protection reasons in LAND 17 so Caesar and the similar ATMOS were unable to bid. The IMI bid for ATMOS was to be integrated into a heavy 8x8 MAN HX truck chassis and looked pretty cool.
My solution is simply to have the vehicles operate in a paired configuration whereby a Bushranger with the gun and some crew is always paired with a Bushmaster with ammunition and the rest of the crew. Ideal? Maybe not, but achieving an end goal.
A sub-optimal solution, Greg which doesn't provide protection while undertaking a fire mission.
It's not as if we weren't exactly spoiled for choice, there were and still are many different fully armoured SPGs available on the market which we could purchase cheaply.
As in everything nowadays, it's not necessary the hull which is the major cost in such a system either, it's the bells and whistles which go inside them, particularly the electronics which are a major determinant of costs.
The AS-90, PzH2000, the ROK K9, the M109 (in various forms and levels of sophistication), the already mentioned Donar, the Swedish Archer and the South African G6 are all examples of what is available.
The M109 represents a particularly good bargain, as does the K9. The others are successively more expensive and of varying capabilities.