upload an image
Posted on 05/05/2022 3:37:28 AM PDT by tlozo
The 90 M777 howitzers that the United States is providing to Ukraine will not only make it more difficult for the Russians to move out in the open but the guns could also support a future Ukrainian offensive to reclaim Russian-occupied parts of their country, experts told Task & Purpose.
About 70 of the 155 mm guns along with roughly 70,000 artillery rounds have been transferred to Ukraine so far, a senior defense official told reporters on Monday. More than 200 Ukrainian troops are expected to be trained on how to operate the howitzers by the end of Monday with another 50 Ukrainian service members scheduled to begin training later this week.
The first Ukrainian artillerymen were trained by Canadian troops and other Ukrainians were taught how to operate the howitzers by Florida National Guardsmen, the senior defense official said at a Pentagon news briefing. Those guardsmen had been on a training mission inside Ukraine before the Russian invasion and now they are continuing their mission in Germany.
Even in this age of modern – and often over-engineered – weapons systems, artillery has proven its worth time and again on the battlefield. During the 2017 fight to drive the Islamic State group from its former capital of Raqqa, Syria, a Marine artillery detachment fired so many 155 mm rounds in support of Syrian Democratic Forces that they burned out the barrels of two of their M777 howitzers.
“The one thing on artillery is: We’ve always called it ‘the king of battle,’ back to Napoleonic times, just because there’s really no defense against it once it’s firing,” said Marine Col. James W. Frey, a senior military fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.
Another inherent advantage of artillery is that it can be fired in all weather conditions and at any time of day or night, Frey told Task & Purpose.
The howitzers will help Ukrainian forces hinder the Russian’s ability to maneuver, he said. Because it’s muddy in spring, the Russians are likely to stick to the roads when they move. Using drones and other forms of reconnaissance, the Ukrainians can constantly monitor those roads and strike with artillery when needed.
“The artillery just gives you a lot more options 24/7 without having to expose people within that distance,” Frey said.
Since the Ukrainians know their own territory better than the Russians, they can also design their defenses to channel Russian advances into kill zones, where the Russian forces could be destroyed by artillery, Frey said.
“There’s only so many lines of communication to go in and out for those roads – especially if you’re working heavier equipment and logistics that the Russians are depending on,” Frey said. “You could certainly knock that out because there’s only so many avenues of approach that they could use.
The Defense Department is also providing Ukrainian forces with 14 counter-artillery radars. Combined with those radars, which the Ukrainians have been receiving since 2015, the howitzers will allow Ukrainian forces to target and attack Russian tube and rocket artillery, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe.
“The radar intercepts incoming artillery and then your own guns can shoot back at where it came from quickly,” Hodges said. “This is an important part of the fight. And so, providing the Ukrainians additional artillery will enable them to destroy – or at least disrupt – the Russian artillery and rocket launchers that are causing the most damage against Ukrainians – but also against towns and cities.”
Artillery is generally used against targets in the open, such as air defense systems, logistics areas, and convoys of lightly armored vehicles, Hodges said. Other prime targets for artillery include command posts and headquarters.
“If you discover a division or combined arms army headquarters in a village or set up somewhere – that’s exactly what you would want to do, is hammer that with artillery,” Hodges said.
The Ukrainians claim they have already killed and wounded several Russian general officers by attacking enemy command posts, including Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov. However, U.S. officials have not confirmed these claims.
As well as providing the Ukrainians with a strong defensive capability, the howitzers would also allow Ukrainian forces to switch to offense, Hodges said. “If there is a counterattack of any sort by the Ukrainians or a conventional counter-offensive, they will need the artillery to support their attack as well,” he said.
There are two ways the Ukrainians could use their new howitzers to go on the attack: They could fire massive barrages to blow holes through the Russian lines, or they could destroy Russian artillery ahead of the attack, said retired Army Col. Tom Davis, who led the 4th Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment in the 3rd Armored Division during the 1991 Gulf War.
Every time the Russians fire one of their own artillery pieces, they will have to pack up and move to avoid the Ukrainian counter fire, Davis told Task & Purpose. The Russians also tend to concentrate their artillery “hub-to-hub” while the U.S. military keeps artillery units spread out as a form of protection.
Ultimately, the Ukrainians should receive a total of 183,000 artillery rounds for their M777 howitzers, according to the Defense Department. To put that number into perspective, Davis said that his battalion fired fewer than 1,000 rounds during the Gulf War’s four-day ground campaign.
“If they’re getting 180,000 some-odd rounds, that should give them a pretty good capability to diminish and significantly degrade a lot of the Russian artillery,” Davis told Task & Purpose. “And if they can find the [Russian] logistics spots – if they can find the places where they’ve got their supply trains, where they’ve got the fuel trucks, where they’ve got their own intel command and control organizations – if they can find those places and can take them out, then they’re going to get a real significant advantage because, apparently, the Russians are really struggling with command and control as it is.”
That is such a dumb question, I want to think for a while about a fitting answer.
Check out the UN figures for civilian deaths from the current conflict and take into account that most of them are killed in Donbas by the Ukrainian strikes.
The “heroic” story of Azov ukro Nazi regiment in Mariupol is very telling. The media portrays the story as new Alamo even though it is clear that the military took its own civilians hostage to prevent the destruction by the Russians.
That’s mightly heroic when the “defenders” are using their own people this way and the “invaders” are acting like the Russians are doing trying to save as much as possible.
“What kind of American and human being are you to suggest that Putin’s coming in “full force” is going to be a “success.””
Norse Viking is not American. He is Russian.
US Paladin self-propelled 155mm howitzers with the last generation rounds reached out with pin-point accuracy to ~40km but more commonly ~30km.
—
If you look at what I wrote you’d see I gave the ranges in MILES not kilometers. 40km with special rounds is 24 MILES. Russian modern tubes also posses pin-point accuracy. Especially in conjunction with each battery’s Orlan-10.
US:
Towed M-777: Effective firing range: 14.9 MILES; ERFB: 18.6 MILES base bleed; M795: 17.8- 23 MILES Excalibur: 24 MILES (less than Orc)
Orc:
Towed 2A36 Giatsint-B, Effective firing range (OFS): 19 MILES; (OFARS) 25 MILES (greater than US)
Self-propelled 2S7 Pion or Malka, 203mm heavy artillery: Effective firing range 23.3 MILES to 34.5 MILES (greater than US)
Self-propelled 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV, 152.4mm or 155mm, Effective firing range 24.8 MILES- 49.7 MILES (16 rnds min) (greater than US)
These Orc tubes are in theater and the M-109M is NOT.
You just cannot wait for your Orc countrymen to get their hands on the corpses of Ukrainian women and children. Mmmm good.
Your Orc buddies are being blown into such small pieces they just throw random parts into a box to send back to the motherland.
The only way this ends is with dead orcs. The more the better. The sooner the better. And then Quislings like you will have their hair shorn and signs hung around your neck.
I look forward to that day.
I’ve had the privilege of knowing quite a few WW2 veterans over the years and the guys who were in the infantry told me the one thing they feared the most was being under artillery fire.
One vet told me “You have no idea what fear is until you’ve been under artillery fire’’.
Close. GPS is not a requirement and don’t forget accurate computational procedures:
There are five requirements for achieving accurate first-round fire for effect. These requirements are:
accurate target location and size
accurate firing unit location
accurate weapon and ammunition information
accurate meteorological information
accurate computational procedures
Mar 30, 2020 TC 3-09.8 Fire Support and Field Artillery Certification
>Orc propaganda
You mean pro-ukraine propaganda like Soros, Biden, MSNBC, CNN, and Hillary Clinton?
ought-six is not human. He is CIA.
Nope just the stuff you push.
The UA had 1500 before the war, and are now facing 4000 Orc tubes.
Russian Nazi Military Members of the Russian National Unity (RNU), one of the largest official neo-Nazi groups in the Russian Federation, in the public announcement of their entry into the Ukrainian conflict in support of the invading forces. Ukraine War, 2022. https://preview.redd.it/z1km4xziafl81.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=dc0e1abc1fff41379eab1aefd962d95c119ac847
You mean the truth?
You just spout and spout - its really tedious with all your propaganda, aka “the truth”. Crawl back in your cave and sniff your stinky socks.
“...the “invaders” are acting like the Russians are doing trying to save as much as possible.”
Too funny! Really, when in their history have the Russians EVER tried to “...save as much as possible,” especially human lives? It is simply not the Russian way of fighting, and never has been.
I bet you will argue that the Katyn Massacre was just a “friendly fire” accident.
You are so transparent.
“ought-six is not human. He is CIA.”
I love it!
“there’s really no defense against it once it’s firing,”
Counter-battery fire
But, but, but...those are GOOD Nazis, because they are fighting for Russia. See, that’s how it works: The pro-Russia trolls are not really anti-Nazi; they are just anti-the other guy’s Nazis (but their own Nazis are just fine).
The term Nazi has been so overused and so widely applied that it has become meaningless, just like the other casual slander of “Racist!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.