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POKROVSK, Ukraine — Camouflaged in a heap of branches cut from nearby trees, the weapon that Ukraine hopes will make a critical difference in its war with Russia is all but invisible from more than a few feet away. Soon, a single round shoots out with a boom and a howling, metallic shriek as it sails toward Russian positions. It is the American-made M777 howitzer. It shoots farther, moves faster and is hidden more easily, and it’s what the Ukrainian military has been waiting for. Three months into the war in Ukraine, the first M777s — the most lethal weapons...

Ukraine's armed forces released a video on Sunday (May 15) saying it said showed servicemen firing new U.S. M-777 howitzers at the front line in the east of the country. The video showed its soldiers firing an artillery gun. Reuters could not independently verify the video. The U.S. embassy in Kyiv said on Sunday that Washington has delivered all but one of the 90 artillery pieces they were due to send. The M-777 howitzer consignment is part of a huge outlay of weapons from Washington to help Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion, which began on Feb. 24. The M-777 is...

The Australian government has responded to appeals by the Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia for providing heavy artillery weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces as the war intensifies in Donbas. “We need some heavy weaponry – we need jets, we need tanks, we need productive vehicles, we need heavy artillery, we need offensive weapons. We need some real stuff,” said the Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, during an event hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on April 26. “We are there in the trenches for your people basically – because if we fall, the consequences we’re going...

WASHINGTON – The first U.S. 155mm howitzers from the latest $800 million military aid package for Ukraine have arrived in Europe as American troops there begin training Ukrainian forces on the artillery, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday. Some – but not all – of the 18 howitzers and 40,000 artillery rounds that the U.S. is sending Ukraine as part of the aid authorized April 13 by President Joe Biden have arrived in Europe as the U.S. delivered another four flights of military aid during the past 24 hours, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity....

US Howitzer field trial report leaked, Army seizes computers in probe shishir gupta Posted online: Mon Feb 14 2011, 08:15 hrs New Delhi : In what the Army suspects is a case of “commercial espionage,” pages have been leaked from the classified report of the just-concluded field trial of the M777 ultra-light Howitzer that from the United States this year. The Army Headquarters has ordered the Director General Military Intelligence (DGMI) to conduct an inquiry. The acquisition, through the government-to- government foreign military sales route, is worth over $ 647 million for 10 regiments (160) guns. And is meant to...

Remaining without a single purchase of artillery guns since Bofors scandal broke out two decades ago, India has lined up series of procurements of such weapons to bridge the growing gap in the operational preparedness of its Army. Among the guns it plans to buy soon include towed, wheeled self-propelled, tracked self-propelled and ultra light howitzers. Defence Ministry sources on Friday said these acquisitions are at various stages of procurement and these guns would strengthen the artillery arm of the 1.13 million strong Army. While it has scheduled trials for two such weapons in the coming months, the Defence Ministry...

New Delhi, Jan. 1: The government has authorised an outright purchase of 145 ultra-light howitzers from the US, a highly-placed defence ministry source said today. The ultra-light howitzers are for the mountain artillery divisions of the Indian Army to be used in high-altitude frontiers opposite Pakistan and China. They can be transported slung from some helicopters. The defence acquisitions committee has decided to take the foreign military sales route. Foreign military sales is a US programme of government-to-government sales of military hardware bypassing a lengthy system of competitive bidding. But bidders who lose out to foreign military sales orders allege...

Canadians exchange fire with Taliban Quick response to RPGs fired at base Chris Wattie National Post February 20, 2006 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Gunmen launched three rocket-propelled grenades at a Canadian fire base in the mountains north of Kandahar, the first time Canadian soldiers have come under direct fire since a battle group deployed to southern Afghanistan. All three of the powerful explosives missed the ''platoon house'' in the village of Gumbad, 60 kilometres northeast of the city of Kandahar, but the soldiers of A Company, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, immediately opened up on the spot where the weapons were...