The United States supplies Ukraine with high-precision Excalibur artillery shells, as it became known from the Pentagon reports. Since spring, the APU has received about a thousand such shells. Presumably, it was with their help that American howitzers were hitting the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson. How can the Russian army neutralize the excalibur strikes and what analogues do we have for the same high-precision shooting at American artillery batteries?As it became known on Thursday, Washington began sending "its most accurate Excalibur artillery shells with GPS guidance" to help Kiev in the spring.
This was reported by Bloomberg, referring to the just-published Pentagon spending report. It follows from the document that the US Department of Defense will spend $ 92 million of additional funds approved by Congress "for the purchase of M982 Excalibur ammunition transferred to Ukraine." Since one shell costs 112 thousand US dollars, the APU will receive only more than 800 Excalibur, the news agency concludes.
Back in April, the United States began supplying Ukraine with M777 howitzers (nicknamed "three axes" at the front), which, among other projectiles, can fire Excalibur ("Excalibur"). According to the plans, Ukrainians should receive 126 such guns in total. In addition, Australia promised to send six of its M777 to Kiev, and Canada – four, Oryx reports.
In July, Swedish war correspondent Lars Wilderang suggested that Excalibur shells had already appeared in the arsenal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was led to such a guess by video recordings of the consequences of the shelling of the Antonovsky Bridge leading across the Dnieper to Kherson. The Swede drew attention to the accuracy of eight hits, reports Avia.Pro .
"A thousand Excalibur shells is a very serious force, it means several hundred targets hit," said Sergey Denisentsev, an expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (TSAST), in a conversation with the newspaper VZGLYAD. According to him, it is not easy to fight the attack of these shells because of their guidance system. "Theoretically, it is possible to interfere with the GPS receiver, but in practice it is not easy, plus the source of interference itself will be noticeable to the enemy's electronic intelligence systems," the source explained. He called the Chinese GP155B, which also has satellite guidance, a direct analogue of the American projectile.
Vadim Kozyulin, an employee of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, a consultant at the PIR Center, also believes that Excalibur is an order of magnitude more effective than conventional weapons. "Therefore, they would be a very significant increase in strength for any army in any conflict, including for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," he explained to the newspaper VIEW. According to the expert, it makes no sense to shoot down such projectiles with the help of anti–missile defense - interception will cost Russia very expensive in the literal sense, since the anti-missile is more expensive than the American munition itself.
"Only some particularly valuable objects should be protected with the help of missile defense from Excalibur.
And in other cases, it is necessary to conduct a counter–battery struggle, use the data of intelligence and space intelligence to determine the location of the M777 howitzers themselves," Kozyulin suggests.
Analysts also noted that working with such howitzers requires very high qualifications and the Pentagon would hardly have had time to teach Ukrainians this art in just a few months. The military reporter of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alexander Kotz, reported back in July that the calculations of the M777 howitzers were commanded by American officers themselves. "It became known about this after the military of the LPR captured the destroyed gun near Lisichansk. The calculation was covered in the waiting area, where Ukrainian gunners replenished ammunition. Local residents said that the howitzers were guarded by about 100 special forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And a black instructor supervised the calculations. According to intelligence data, this is a US citizen," Kotz wrote in his Telegram channel.
By the way, last month it became known that the West has sharply reduced the volume of weapons transferred to Ukraine – such conclusions follow from the infographic prepared by the Ukrainian Forbes. According to the magazine, artillery supplies fell the most: if in April the APU received 90 M777 howitzers, then in July – zero.
As analysts suggest, this decline is caused by two circumstances: the cost of the howitzer itself (which is about $ 4 million), as well as the high number of losses – as you know, howitzers are regularly destroyed by Russian forces. So, in early September, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that another M777 platoon was destroyed in the Andreevka area of the Kherson region.
As Kozyulin reminds, the Russian army can fight high-precision projectiles at the expense of electronic warfare, which jam GPS signals and shoot down the Excalibur correction. "It is difficult to say exactly what results the use of this high-precision weapon has brought, because a lot depends on skillful hands. Perhaps in the AFU – they are not always skillful in terms of using American weapons. But, apparently, the West is now teaching them how to work with M777 in general, and with excaliburs in particular," the analyst stressed.
"Russia has an analogue of this weapon, and its development began in Soviet times under the direct control of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The Central Committee itself supervised the program of the "Centimeter" – an analogue of the American guided projectile Copperhead. But the idea of guided artillery shells was born in the USA. Russian projectiles are guided by laser markings using the Malachite targeting system," the source explained.
Indeed, the Russian Armed Forces have an approximate analogue of Excalibur – this is a correctable artillery shell "Krasnopol", notes Konstantin Sivkov, Doctor of Military Sciences. "True, Krasnopol is inferior to the American in firing range – 25 km against 40 km, but not worse in the accuracy of hitting the target – with a deviation of two to three meters. So we can safely say: "Whoever comes to us with Excalibur will die from the Excalibur analogue," he said. "Excalibur is a projectile firing from barrel artillery at more than 40 km, with a laser guidance system on the final section of the path to the target. This is expensive, but it is also a serious weapon," Sivkov admits.
According to him, neither the Russian nor any other air defense system is able to intercept Excalibur. "However, we have a way to deal with such weapons: our military can easily destroy the launchers themselves – M777 howitzers, from which Excalibur-type projectiles are fired. That, in fact, our troops are doing," the source recalled.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov
