On the night of February 11-12, 1951, three veteran Chinese Communist armies (39th, 40th, and 66th) and a North Korean corps kicked off the Chinese Army’s spring offensive against UN forces in Korea. The first assault hit the ROK Army 8, Division, US X Corps. It was then sent shattered and reeling off the battlefield. As the situation worsened, X Corps had to retreat and regroup. The Chinese advanced against Colonel Paul Freeman’s 23d Infantry Regimental Combat Team, an allied force that was still in their way. He was protecting the area around Chipyong-ni.
On the morning of 14 February, First Lieutenant Lee Hartell was riding as an artillery “air observer” in a Cessna O-1, called the L-19 Birddog by the US Army. During a Korean February, there isn’t a lot of greenery so Hartell became suspicious when he saw swaths of greenery in the river bottoms and along the ridgelines where he was flying. Hartell ordered that the pilot drop lower to take a closer look. He was surprised to see thousands of pack animals and men moving about. Many had bundles of trees attached to their backpacks and fixed to the panniers that the animals carried for camouflage. [no mention of camouflage is complete without this video]. He was looking at four Chinese Divisions (119th, 120th, 197th, and 198th), just after their victory. The divisions were heading south to the Main Supply Route for X Corps. Hartell ordered for the 15th Field Artillery’s artillery battalion to fire on him. With the aim of making the target more obvious, Hartell called for fire from his artillery battalion, the 15th Field Artillery. As they fired more shots, the larger the target got. Eventually, the entire X Corps artillery was firing as fast and efficiently as possible. Over 5,000 Chinese soldiers were dead when the last cannoneer collapsed from exhaustion. Uncounted numbers of Chinese soldiers fled to their graves, or thought they needed urgent help elsewhere.
Chinese learned a terrible lesson about American artillery’s killing potential.
Things got worse for the Chinese tidal waves as they crashed onto the unmovable Tomahawks of 23rd RCT.
I’m an infantryman, but despite the inter-branch rivalry, I’ve never met an infantry leader who had any desire to go into combat without his artillery forward observer within arm’s reach. Artillery was THE killer from its inception. While infantrymen may have fallen in love with the bayonet and the European Theater of World War II saw 70% of the casualties on both sides of the fronts, while artillery contributed 60% to American casualties in Korea. Putin’s War in Ukraine gives us data points that nothing has changed.
A lot of social media videos were posted in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion. They featured the heroic actions of Ukrainian anti tank teams. Javelin’s anti-tank missile was a popular internet meme.
St Javelin. This is the meme that awakened a nation as well as the entire world. Here we are @ZelenskyyUa has it on a T-shirt 😁 👍🇺🇦#SlavaUkraini #ukraine
c.c @MrChairmanUK @PurnL @DominicFarrell @BloodyPolitics @BWallaceMP @graeme_from_IT https://t.co/nDHpC0Clka pic.twitter.com/rWu4qqDnVy— Myson T. Potts 🇬🇧 (@android_dogma) April 30, 2022
A study of the early days of Putin’s War by the Royal United Services Institute has a very enlightening quote from an in-the-field interview. It is page 3 in the study.
As a senior adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, noted, ‘anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians down, but what killed them was our artillery. That was what broke their units’.
RUSI Special report: Operation Z – The death throes of an Imperial Delusion at Scribd
My literary prelude is because many are talking about the possibility of Ukraine importing modern tanks and high-performance aircraft. Of course, those would all be nice and will, I’m sure, happen in time. The right weapon for Ukraine’s battle right now is modern artillery, and lots of ammunition.
About 1,800 Soviet-era artillery units were present in Ukraine when it started war. They were mostly in poor condition and did not have an assigned gun crew.
Nearly 200 artillery tubes of modern design have been pledged and half were delivered. About a third of these are self-propelled guns. The rest can be towed. Many of these are M-777 howitzers. There are more than 40 multi-launchers with top quality, half of which are in Ukraine. Over 30 modern counterbattery radars units were committed. About half of them have already arrived. A total of 180,000 cartridges in modern 155mm ammunition were provided.
This is what it means and why does it matter in the current battles for Ukraine?
Russia is making limited progress in the central battle for control of Ukraine, the battle unfolding in western Donbas (read my tactical assessment in 10 Days Into Putin’s ‘New Phase’ of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, There Are Minor Advances but the Clock Is Ticking). The nature of this battle is much more like Russian doctrine than the bold, multi-pronged attack of February 24 that showed the Russian Army didn’t have the skill, will, or ability to carry out the plans generated by the General Staff. Now they’ve settled into the old Minnesota Viking offense of “one yard in a cloud of dust.”
Russia has been using airstrikes and artillery to prepare for ground movement in Donbas. However, ground movements are uneven and “plodding,” says a top U.S. defense official
This more aligns with Russian doctrine than the rush to Kyiv during the first days of war.
— Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) April 29, 2022
More on artillery: Russia using “far greater concentration of fires…more artillery pieces over a narrower front on a more restricted set of targets [with] devastating effect… what they’re not doing as well as one might expect, is integrate surveillance & recon capability”
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) April 29, 2022
They are saying that Russian artillery is devolving back to what we’d expect to see on the Eastern Front in 1944-1945. Russian artillery’s primary concern is the battlefield. The proliferation of MANPADS seems to be preventing Russian drones operating outside the Forward Edge of the Battle Area. Without drones and with what appears to me minimal electronic warfare capability, Russian artillery can’t hit targets deep behind the lines. The Russians have been swarming the area with artillery fire while moving carefully beyond it, making sure to keep within reach for resupply. This movement requires time and won’t allow for any significant advances.
In many areas, Ukraine will have qualitative advantages over Russia thanks to the West’s artillery and other ancillary material.
Equipment.
M-777 155mm ultra-lightweight howitzer. Don’t be fooled by the towed part. The towed part was created for the USMC and the 82d Airborne. The gun is able to find its target, calculate the firing strategy and then locate it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RafiRMulfGI
French CAESAR 155mm self-propelled howitzer.
British AS-90 self-propelled howitzer, 155mm.
German Panzerhaubitze 2000 (PzH 2000) 155mm self-propelled howitzer.
Slovak ZUZANA Self-Propelled Howitzer, 155mm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxvPqwf503g
US M-109 Paladin 155mm self-propelled howitzer.
Multiple Rocket Launch System US M-270.This weapon’s main advantage is its ability to outrange any Russia-made ammunition (depending on which type). It can be integrated with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems (ISR), which allows it to reach supply and communication nodes, artillery, and other air defense systems. The general is able to manage something critical.
It is what happens when an MLRS (in the video I believe the system is the Russian-built BM 21 GRAD 122mm Rocket Launcher) is connected in with drone ISR capability.
Ukrainian forces destroyed over 30 #RussianSuspilne was told by the National Guard that vehicles were found in Kharkiv.#RussiaUkraineWar pic.twitter.com/MyVhlC8Mr3
— SUSPILNE NEWS 📰 (@suspilne_news) April 30, 2022
AN/TPQ 36 Firefinder anti-battery radar system. The system can locate mortar and artillery fire coming from as far away as 15 miles. Once the round has cleared mask (that is it appears above any clutter or surface on the horizon), the Q-36 will calculate the point-of-impact and origin to within 10 metres. The Q-36 can also be connected to firing batteries so that it can literally perform counterfire operations on enemy artillery, before the first round hits.
Training.
Ukrainian soldiers are being taken out of their units and sent abroad to train in various European countries. We are using the time-tested method brought to the United States by Baron von Steuben, that is, “train the trainer.” We aren’t training complete crews for each gun; we are training people who will go back and teach other soldiers how to use the gun. Canada and the United States provide training to German M-777 gun crews. Training is also provided at other locations by France and Germany. Classes for Q-36, M-777, and Q-36 are now in session.
As the speed of their operations is slower than two weeks ago, I suspect this is what is going on in Ukraine’s Army.
Ammunition.
What is striking about all the video artillery strikes on social media? The fact that both sides use only point detonating fuzes (PD) as their primary fuze. A PD fuze explodes when it touches something such as dirt. This fuze is inefficient and has only two main uses in the US Army. The PD fuze can be used to cause a shell explosion below ground level on targets with entrenched troops or bunkers. You also have the ability to cave in earthworks. If the enemy is very, very close to you, PD lets you bring artillery to what is called “DANGER CLOSE” while minimizing the risk of fragmentation wounds to your own troops. For troops in the open or thin-skinned vehicles or moving armor, the fuze of choice is a proximity fuze, called “PROX” Proximity fuzes have a sensor that detects something solid and detonates at a preset height. This causes a torrent of steel fragments at high speed to do the damage. They can kill unarmored and human beings, as well as destroying antennas and causing damage to armored vehicles. The Variable Time Super Quick (VT Super Quick) is similar to PROX. The airburst can be achieved by a mechanical or electronic timer, which can then be programmed to trigger on impact.
The addition of PROX and VT Super Quick to the quiver of Ukraine’s artillery will make the guns much more deadly.
While we don’t know this for sure, there is an assumption that some of the artillery ammunition will be the GPS-guided M-982 Excalibur round. Excalibur is capable of hitting targets up to 40 miles from the nearest target with +/-2 meters accuracy.
About 184,000 rounds of ammunition in 155mm are being sent by the USA. The US is sending about 184,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition to Ukraine, which should help alleviate the current ammunition shortage. It will speed up NATO standardization (see 40 Nations Meet At Ramstein To Coordinate Ukraine Aid, and Continue Integrating Ukraine into NATO). It will prove decisive to have better ammunition and better guns.
Better ISR
Ukraine is having great success with the Turkish Baykar Bayraktar TB2 drone and jury-rigging cheap civilian-spec drones with munitions. Ukraine is soon to have an even more powerful system. The MQ-1C Gray Eagle, which was the precursor to the MQ-1Predator is being acquired by Ukraine.
🇺🇦🇺🇸⚡️According to the Ukrainian MoD, they anticipate a positive reply from the US on the issue of General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones. pic.twitter.com/OWpXxBHHxn
— Ukraine War Report (@UkrWarReport) April 27, 2022
One last note.
Artillery can be a killer on the battlefield and the Ukrainians were skilled in using their artillery. However, the guns are outdated and ammunition is scarce and unreliable.
NEW: The UK has been “scouring the earth” for 152mm artillery ammunition – the ammunition Ukraine’s military needs for their existing guns to combat Russia, defence minister @JSHeappeyTells @SkyNews
— Deborah Haynes (@haynesdeborah) April 26, 2022
The artillery support Ukraine’s partners are assisting with is much more than delivering guns. Instead, Ukraine is getting top-quality guns plus the training, ammunition, and ISR support needed to turn it into a ferocious weapon to drive the Russians out of where they don’t belong and back to where they do.