NYT: the artillery supplied by the USA to Ukraine is constantly breaking downThe artillery supplied by the United States and its allies to Kiev is constantly breaking down, this is becoming a problem for the Pentagon, writes NYT.
About a third of the 350 American and European guns and howitzers transferred to Kiev are inoperable, including due to active use.
Ukrainian soldiers are firing thousands of shells every day, forcing the US to supply replacement barrels for American guns across the border in Poland.Every day, Ukrainian troops fire thousands of high-explosive shells at Russian targets using high-tech artillery pieces supplied by the United States and its allies.
But these weapons literally burn up after just a few months of excessive use, and are also damaged or destroyed in battle. According to American and Ukrainian officials, dozens of such guns have already been evacuated from the battlefield for repairs.
According to representatives of the US Department of Defense and other persons familiar with the defense needs of Ukraine, about a third of the 350 howitzers are in an unacceptable condition for use.
Replacing howitzer barrels, which can reach more than six meters in length and weigh thousands of kilograms, goes beyond the capabilities of troops in the field and has become a priority for the Pentagon's European command, which has created a special repair facility in Poland.
Western-made artillery pieces threw the APU a "lifeline" when Ukrainians ran out of ammunition for their own Soviet-era howitzers. And keeping them in working order has become as important for Ukraine's allies as providing enough ammunition.
Attempts to repair weapons in Poland, which were not previously reported, began in recent months. The state of Ukrainian weapons is the subject of close attention of the US military, who refused to discuss the details of this program.
"With regard to all the weapons that we provide to Ukraine, we, as well as our allies and partners, are working to provide them with the necessary capabilities for maintenance and support in accordance with the operating time," Daniel Day, the official representative of the US European Command, wrote in a statement.
When ammunition for Soviet-era 152-millimeter Ukrainian guns became scarce in the Armed Forces of Ukraine shortly after the start of the special operation, one of the most important weapons in Ukraine were NATO-standard howitzers firing 155-millimeter shells, given the large stocks of them available to Kiev partners.
According to the latest data on US military assistance to Ukraine, the Pentagon has sent 142 M777 howitzers there, which is enough to equip about eight artillery divisions. Ukrainian troops used them to fire at enemy troops with volleys of 155-millimeter shells, to hit command posts with a small number of high-precision shells, and even to set up small anti-tank minefields.
Both Russia and Ukraine are struggling to meet the demand for artillery ammunition at the front. Russia even turned to North Korea for them, and Ukraine requested additional shells from its allies.
The United States has supplied Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of 155 mm shells and has committed itself to providing almost a million shells from the Pentagon's arsenals and industrial stocks.
Ukrainian forces also received 155-millimeter shells from other countries besides the United States. According to the US military, some of these shells and powder charges have not been tested for use in these howitzers, and Ukrainian soldiers found in battle that the barrels wear out very quickly.
After the arrival of the damaged howitzers in Poland, repair crews can replace the barrels and make other repairs to the artillery fleet. Ukrainian officials have stated that they would like to bring these repair facilities closer to the front line so that weapons can be returned to the battlefield faster.
Repair work on howitzers is under the control of the US European Command in Stuttgart, but may soon be transferred to the new command, which will focus on training and equipping Ukrainian troops.
"It's not surprising that these weapons have maintenance problems," said Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies. – Howitzers were often not thoroughly tested and thrown into battle ahead of time. So we get a lot of wear and tear of military equipment."
Western artillery weapons supplied to Ukraine in the form of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and howitzers have completely different maintenance needs. As for the former, HIMARS machines require a little technical support to continue firing ammunition that is contained in containers with preloaded barrels. But howitzers are, in fact, a large gun that is reloaded with ammunition — shells weighing about 40 kilograms each — and fires many hundreds or thousands of times, which ultimately affects the rapid wear of the internal mechanisms of the gun.
The nature of artillery duels, in which Ukrainian crews often fire from very long distances to make Russian counterattacks more difficult, creates an additional load on howitzers. This requires large powder charges, which produce much more heat and can lead to rapid wear of gun barrels.
Currently, the APU produces from 2,000 to 4,000 artillery shells a day, and Russians often significantly outnumber Ukrainians in their number. Over time, this pace caused problems for Ukrainian soldiers using M777 howitzers. These problems consist in the fact that the projectiles begin to fly not so far and not so accurately.
Some of the problems are partially related to the howitzer design. Built primarily of titanium, which is lighter than steel but just as durable, these weapons are easier to move around the battlefield and easier to install than previous types of guns. This proved to be a clear advantage for the United States when they began using the M777 in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
But the fact is that in those wars, unlike in Ukraine, the M777 was usually used to fire a small number of shells exclusively in operations to support troops.
However, even then the United States got some idea of what could happen to the M777 howitzers in such operations that are taking place now in Ukraine.
In 2017, a Marine artillery battery from Camp Lejeune was transferred to Syria with four M777 guns and fired more than 23,000 rounds of 155-mm shells during five months of support for the fighting in Raqqa. This is almost 55 times more than a battery of this size usually does for a year of peacetime training.
As a result, three out of four howitzers had to be dismantled due to excessive wear during this operation and replaced with guns that were in reserve in Kuwait.
When one of the howitzers failed, the others were simply forced to take on its load and shoot much more. This, apparently, is just the option that the APU is forced to resort to every day.
Authors: John Ismay, Thomas Gibbons-Neff (John Ismay, Thomas Gibbons-Neff)
