Free Republic

The Senate shot down three proposals brought forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and other Democrat senators to block the sale of artillery and other weapons to Israel. In an 18 to 79 vote, the Senate rejected S.J.Res.111. The resolution prohibited the sale of: thirty-two thousand seven hundred thirty-nine (32,739) 120mm tank cartridges, consisting of 120mm M1147 High Explosive Multi-Purpose with Tracer (HEMP-T) cartridges and/or 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Multi-Purpose Anti-Tank (MPAT) with Tracer cartridges.

Nikki Haley, a former GOP presidential candidate and United Nations ambassador, wrote “Finish them” on an artillery shell while on a trip to Israel this week. Haley was photographed signing the shell Tuesday in a social media post by Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Israeli Parliament. The message on the shell read, “Finish them! America [heart] Israel always, Nikki Haley.” “This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote in a post...

The Coriolis effect describes the pattern of deflection taken by objects not firmly connected to the ground as they travel long distances around the Earth.

Demand for fake weaponry has shot up as Ukrainian troops on the front line contend with increasing Russian strikes and dwindling supplies. Mykhailo Roman, 32, an architect who produces dummy weapons out of plywood, metal and plastic drainpipe, said he has been working overtime in recent months. The married father-of-one runs a small architecture firm in Vynohradiv, a village just 10 miles from the Hungarian border in south-west Ukraine that is largely untouched by the ravages of war. By day, he mostly designs houses. But in his evenings, he has turned his skills to building a Potemkin army.

It is not reported whether UMPC control modules will be installed on them. The Russians began mass production of three-ton FAB-3000 aerial bombs . This was reported to the Russian Ministry of Defense following the results of Minister Sergei Shoigu’s trip to the enterprises of the military-industrial complex in the Nizhny Novgorod region. “Sergei Shoigu was informed that mass production of FAB-3000 has been organized at the enterprise since February of this year,” the Russian department said in a statement.

During a 14-week ‘train the trainer’ course taught at a frozen military base in Boden, Swedish Lapland, the Swedish School of Artillery instructed British gunners from Larkhill, Wiltshire, on how to fire the Swedish-made Archer howitzer systems. Defence Equipment and Support – the UK Ministry of Defence’s procurement arm – acquired 14 Archer systems from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration for the Royal Artillery, whose 32 AS90 Braveheart howitzers were donated to Ukraine prior to the new acquisition. In October 2023, the first of Britain’s Archer systems had arrived in the UK just six months after the Government signed the...

Denmark has pledged its "entire artillery" stocks to Ukraine, the country's leader has said, as Kyiv issued renewed pleas for all-important military aid in the face of Russian gains in the east of the country. "They are asking us for ammunition now, artillery now," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, said during the Munich Security Conference in Germany. "From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery." Artillery has dominated the nearly two years of war between Russia and Ukraine, but Kyiv has depleted its ammunition stockpiles and fires far fewer rounds than Russia each day. It has been...

SEOUL — North Korea fired more than 200 artillery rounds into the sea on Friday near a tensely defended maritime border with South Korea, a military official said, while residents of two South Korean islands were ordered to evacuate due to an unknown “situation.” The defense ministry would not confirm if the order was prompted by the North’s artillery firing or South Korean drills in response. However, a text message sent to residents and confirmed by an island official cited “naval fire” to be conducted by South Korean troops from 3 p.m.(0600 GMT) Friday. An official on Yeonpyeong island, which...

"Video shows an IDF soldier standing under the barrel of an artillery piece as it fires a round. She then falls out of frame."

For all its supposed modernization, Moscow's military doctrine has retained the historical Russian focus on artillery. Russian gunners proved more numerous and well-supplied than their Ukrainian enemies in the early stages of the conflict. But as Kyiv's arsenal has been bolstered by NATO systems, Russia's "god of war" has been somewhat muted... Kyiv's claimed tally of Russian equipment losses demonstrates the enthusiasm with which Ukrainian artillery and drone teams have hunted Russian big guns, as well as multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) that perform a similar function at shorter ranges. From September to November 2023, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed...

The use of heavy weapons supplied by the West in the fierce battle raging on the outskirts of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia in May, is inflicting a significant toll on enemy lines, Ukrainian commanders have told Reuters. Buoyed after the capture last week of the key village of Klishchiivka, Ukrainian troops have lauded the 155 millimetre howitzers as key equipment being provided by the United States and its NATO allies. Unit commander Oleksandr said Ukraine's armed forces "very much rely" on heavy artillery, including the Polish-made Krab gun and the U.S.-made M109 self-propelled howitzer. "Even one gun can...

Russia has managed to overcome sanctions and export controls imposed by the West to expand its missile production beyond prewar levels, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, leaving Ukraine especially vulnerable to intensified attacks in the coming months... Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West. Russia’s production costs are also far lower than the West’s, in part because Moscow is sacrificing safety and quality in its effort to build weapons more cheaply, Mr. Salm said. For instance, it costs a Western country...

Where is the Ukrainian army’s 117th Mechanized Brigade? The answer to that question has implications for Ukraine’s 18-day-old southern counteroffensive, which has been making slow progress along several axes in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. Kyiv and its foreign allies spent months standing up, training and equipping nine new brigades specifically for the counteroffensive, plus additional brigades that would function as a reserve. But so far we’ve seen just three, maybe four, of the brigades in action alongside older Ukrainian formations. The 117th Mechanized Brigade is one of the missing brigades. Where the brigade is, and what it’s waiting for, could...

There will be no Ukrainian counter-offensive until Kyiv’s Western “partners” send more weapons and ammunition, President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned. In comments to Japanese media quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), President Zelensky insisted: “We can’t start yet, we can’t send our brave soldiers to the front line without tanks, artillery and long-range rockets.” “If you have the political will, you can find a way to help us. We are at war and can’t wait,” he added, emphasising that Ukrainian forces are also “waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners.”

So just how badly are we depleting our own arsenal of military hardware as we keep sending more and more arms to Ukraine? You rarely hear a peep about this from our swamp-dwellers in Washington, but our supplies, particularly ammunition, are obviously running low. This week we tapped into an infrequently-mentioned stockpile that we keep in Israel for short-notice use, both for American missions in the Middle East and for our Israeli allies during emergencies.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian shelling hit the southern Ukraine port city of Mykolaiv during the night, damaging a medical treatment facility, the city’s mayor said Sunday. Mykolaiv and its surrounding region have been hit daily for weeks in the conflict. On Saturday, a child was killed and five people were injured in rocket attacks in the region, governor Vitaliy Kim said. Mykolaiv city mayor Oleksandr Senkevych did not specify whether there were any injuries in the overnight attack, which he said also damaged some residences.

LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine (Tribune News Service) — The first shell was the worst, mostly because it came as a surprise. But then the soldiers thought it was OK to get up, dust themselves off. That's when the second one landed, and it was the worst. The third one is when they understood they were being hunted and somehow that shelling was now the worst. Their commander, a breezily confident 31-year-old named Levan, gathered his squad and waited for the bang of outgoing artillery. He made a dash around the corner to the next block, taking cover beneath the trees before sprinting...

Former British Army Intelligence Officer and Chief Executive of McKenzie Intelligence, Forbes McKenzie takes us through what's happening in the east of Ukraine and Russia's tactics.

Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now almost solely reliant on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay. “This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”. “Everything now depends on what [the west] gives us,” said Skibitsky. “Ukraine has one artillery piece to 10 to 15 Russian artillery pieces. Our western partners have given us about 10%...

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a leading Senate advocate for supporting Ukraine’s war against Russia, crossed into Ukraine Sunday and called on the Biden administration to step up its shipments of artillery. Portman announced his visit while at the Ukraine-Moldova border crossing at Palanca. “I also had the opportunity to speak with several Ukrainians crossing the border and hear about their concerns about what Russia was doing to their country,” he tweeted.