The tone of the article makes it seem like they were retired because they weren't considered useful, if that was an intentional medium term procurement decision by the UK great that is genuinely awesome and very smart I just don't understand why this information was presented with such a warped framework then by the article. From the perspective you are arguing for the UK is giving Ukraine some of their most powerful artillery with the intention of using the knowledge gained in the Ukraine war and elsewhere to build a next generation weapons system that builds on the success of systems like the AS90. Presumably Ukraine will be involved with that next generation self propelled howitzer development as well at least to some capacity.

The RCH 155 being an obvious touchstone here though I would reiterate that I think threats to artillery are so thorough and deadly on the modern battlefield that tracked and wheeled self propelled artillery are necessary to deploy in tandem to reduce predictability for enemy assets hunting friendly artillery.

I am not trying to nitpick, I appreciate your input I am just trying to explain how backwards the spin is on everything around this, it is disorienting. The article devolves into a fear of drone attacks, which is obviously very deadly, very real and very common but ultimately I think from an editorial perspective these narratives about artillery are strangely ignorant about how much force is exchanged with artillery fire on the frontlines and how the vigorousness with which drones are hunting the artillery are a reflection of how much the enemy desperately needs to destroy them.