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US Artillery Delivered to Ukraine Is More Than Guns It Is a Game Winning Change From the Present (plus some war and weapons pr0n) – Opinion

By Pluralist / April 30, 2022

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. After the initial assault on the ROK Army 8th division, which was assigned to US X Corps, the army fled the field in a state of shock. As the situation worsened, X Corps had to retreat and regroup. They advanced on the last allied force in their path, which was the 23d Infantry Regimental Combat Team of Colonel Paul Freeman. This team was defending Chipyong-ni’s high ground.

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. The pilot was to lower his plane so that he could have a better view. To his great surprise or perhaps not, thousands upon thousands of people and animals were moving around. For camouflage, most had numerous bundles of branches attached to their bags and to their panniers. [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 requested that his artillery battalion (15th Field Artillery) fire on him. With the aim of making the target more obvious, Hartell called for fire from his artillery battalion, the 15th Field Artillery. They shot more, and the targets got larger. Eventually all of the artillery from X Corps started firing at a rapid pace. More than 5,000 Chinese soldiers died when the last cannoneer fell from exhaustion. Uncounted number of Chinese soldiers crawled to their deaths or decided to go elsewhere.

Chinese soldiers were brutally taught the lesson of American artillery’s deadly killing power by Americans.

Next day, things turned very bad for the Chinese tide as it crashed on the immovable Tomahawks at the 23d 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 front, while artillery contributed 60% to American casualties during World War II. Putin’s War in Ukraine gives us data points that nothing has changed.

Many videos featuring Ukrainian anti-tank team exploits appeared on social media in the wake of the Russian invasion. Javelin’s anti-tank missile was a popular internet meme.

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.

As a senior adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, noted, ‘anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians
Our artillery was what brought them down. That was what broke their units’.

RUSI Special report: Operation Z – The death throes of an Imperial Delusion at Scribd

My literary preface is because many are talking about the possibility of Ukraine supplying modern tanks and high-performance aircraft. Of course, those would all be nice and will, I’m sure, happen in time. For the current battle in Ukraine, however, modern artillery is being used and plenty of ammunition are available.

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 capabilities, of which about half are in Ukraine. More than thirty counterbattery radar units of modern technology have been pledged; only half of them have yet to arrive.  A total of 180,000 cartridges in modern 155mm ammunition were provided.

It is important to understand what this means in light of the continuing battles in 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.”

 

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. It seems that the proliferation of MANPADS has prevented Russian drones (FEBA) from operating beyond 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 saturating the area with artillery fire while moving carefully beyond it, making sure to remain within the range of any resupply. This type of movement is slow and will not allow for significant progress.

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. This was made to be used in the USMC, 82d Airborne and 101st Airborne where weight is a concern. Every gun has the ability to locate its own target and determine how it should fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RafiRMulfGI

French CAESAR 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

British AS-90, 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

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). The weapon can also be connected to Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance system (ISR). It is capable of reaching supply and communications nodes, artillery, and air defense systems. It is used by the general to protect something important.

Here’s what happens when an MLRS is, I believe in the video the Russian-built BM 21 GRAD 122mm missile launcher is linked to drone ISR capabilities.

AN/TPQ 36 Firefinder anti-battery radar system. It can detect mortar fire and incoming artillery up to 15 miles from the target. The Q-36 calculates the origin point and impact distance to the nearest 10 meters as soon the round passes through mask. 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 troops are being outsourced from their units to be trained in Europe. 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 are training German gun crews in Germany for M-777. France and Germany also provide training elsewhere. New classes have begun after the completion of initial classes on Q-36 and M-777.

As the speed of their operations is slower than two weeks ago, I suspect this is happening to all branches of the Ukrainian Army.

Ammunition.

The one thing that stands out in all of the artillery strike social media videos is the fact that no side uses other than point-detonating (PD) fuzes. A PD fuze explodes when it touches something such as dirt. The PD fuze, which is inefficient, has two main purposes in the US Army. If you are targeting troops in the trenches or within bunkers, you will need the PD fuze to get the shell below ground. The impact can cause damage in the 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. These steel fragments can cause death to people as well as unarmored cars. They also strip antennas off armored vehicles and break optics. Variable time super-quick (VT Super Quick), is a similar device to PROX. This time, the mechanical timer triggers the airburst. It can also be set up to activate 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.

US sends about 184,000 rounds 155mm ammunition. It should ease the problem of the Ukrainians suffering from a lack of ammunition. This will accelerate the NATO standardization process. (See 40 Nations Meet in Ramstein to Coordinate Ukraine Assistance and More Integrate Ukraine into NATO). It will prove decisive to have better ammunition and better guns.

Improved 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. It’s currently acquiring the MQ-1C grey Eagle, the predecessor of the MQ-1 predator.

One last note.

The enemy on the battlefield is artillery, which the Ukrainians know well and have used their artillery effectively. However, the guns are outdated and ammunition is scarce and unreliable.

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.

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Pluralist

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