To date, Ukraine has gained at least 390 towed artillery pieces and 440 self-propelled guns. NATO’s “big guns” have worked well in Ukrainian hands, but they are suffering heavy losses to Russian action. As photographs of a successful attack Faced with the build-up of Western aircraft, they recommend that Ukraine want to keep its artillery pieces moving, avoiding predictable operational patterns.
Open source knowledge gathered through the Oryx site’s tireless researchers suggests that Ukraine’s heaviest towed artillery (weapons that cannot move and are heavy enough to present an occasional mobility challenge) are under attack. The casualty rates in Ukraine are brutal. Of the approximately 152 giant M777 155mm towed howitzers that “officially” arrived in Ukraine, more than a third have already been broken up or destroyed.
Images of Russian movements with NATO-compatible 155mm howitzers show symptoms that effective target weapons had become static assets on the battlefield: firing from positions filled with piles of shells or moving away from ancient places on the battlefield. The guns suggest they were firing from a single position long enough for the heavy Russian command and apparatus to spring into action, ambushing the large Ukrainian guns.
But mobility is not the only answer. Russia is also targeting obsolete self-propelled artillery systems, weapons that can move under their own power. The AHS Krab, a Polish-designed South Korean-British hybrid weapons system, and its functional U. S. equivalent, the M-109 cell-working howitzer, suffered a severe blow, with casualty rates of between eighteen and twenty-one percent. Of the more than 180 copies delivered, at least 36 were broken or destroyed.
Again, photographs of the successful Russian movements suggest that roughly a portion of the destroyed cellular howitzers were trapped on static firing platforms or had been installed, operating from detectable positions.
By contrast, smaller, cellular artillery platforms seem to be affected at all.
So far, at least 166 towed 105mm artillery pieces have arrived in Ukraine. Among the diversity of British L118/119s, American-made M101s and M119s, as well as some 105mm OTO Melara Mod 56 howitzers, open-source researchers have shown that there is damage to a single 105mm gun.
This decrease in the rate of losses would possibly reflect the relative mobility of the small platforms, as well as their proximity to the front line.
105 mm guns generally weigh only part of the weight of a 155 mm M777. While the 105mm shells are smaller and have much less power than the more diverse 155mm shells, the smaller guns work close to the front line, where defenses and jammers can make life a little more complicated for Russia’s fleet of artillery fighter drones. Changing tactical cases can also force cannons to move around the battlefield. By contrast, crews of 105mm guns, operating 16 kilometers from their targets, know that they can be attacked through a wide diversity of Russian ammunition, and can be asked to fire and move reflexively.
The French-made CAESAR 155mm gun, mounted on a truck, also performed well in Ukraine. About 49 of those cellular and fast cannons are in service in Ukraine. And while howitzers have been used extensively, they seem difficult for Russia to catch. The open-source researchers reported only two results.
Again, the group of these unarmored gun cars is incentivized to shoot and move. And unlike Ukraine’s tracked self-propelled artillery, the wheeled howitzer, while it may not be as “mobile” as a tracked vehicle, is much more complicated for the Russians. analysts to locate.
The German 155mm Panzerhaubitze (PzH) 2000 self-propelled gun also appears to be avoiding damage. Although this cannon (the longest-range howitzer ever provided through Ukraine) suffered from reliability issues and was forced to leave the battlefield for repairs, it was also subject to peak usage rates. Despite heavy use, only one of the 20 cannons was reported to have broken due to Russian action. Again, this low loss rate would possibly reflect the high profile and specialized nature of those platforms, forcing Ukraine to focus on minimizing the dangers to those long-range and impact platforms.
Of course, open-source knowledge isn’t everything, but the visual knowledge we have to date offers compelling clues as to why Ukraine is wasting some artillery platforms more than others.
Given the heavy losses of towed heavy 155mm guns that Ukraine has suffered, Ukraine’s long-term assistance will be aimed at ensuring that Ukraine maintains sufficient means of mobility and sufficient new gun crews to allow its valuable 155mm howitzers to move around the battlefield. Open source knowledge reflects a genuine trend, it is vital to perceive the difference in loss rate between the smaller 105mm gun and the larger howitzers. Foreign observers can help Ukraine identify operational vulnerabilities more quickly, driving operators away from heavily used munitions, refueling, and firing positions before Russia has a chance to capitalize on Ukraine’s mistakes.
While Ukraine has the challenge of hiding its 155mm tracked self-propelled guns in Ukraine’s muddy fields, it is appealing to compare the way the Ukrainian military treats its fleet of professional-grade KRAB and M-109 guns to the way the military operates its valuable PzH. -2000.
Casualty rates may also reflect the difficulty of adopting an arsenal that meets NATO standards. Although the KRAB, M-109 and M777 howitzers closely resemble their old-school Soviet-era counterparts, they are very different animals and will need to be used in other ways. Traders who are forced to operate platforms that don’t have an undeniable Russian analogue may also find it less difficult to adopt new habits.
Of course, mobility is the only answer. In the future, a complicated generation and other efforts to block and block the diversity of Russian attack and reconnaissance drones will be essential. But the basics matter. The patterns seem clear: the more Ukraine’s high-value apparatus moves—and the more it evolves into unpredictable patterns—the harder it becomes for Russia to hit it.
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