Irina Alshayeva — on the state of the Ukrainian artillery
Ukraine is "losing the war of attrition," writes Forbes. Starting in 2022, the West has already supplied Ukraine, and also ordered for it about 1 thousand units of various artillery systems — barrel guns and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), as specified in a July study by the analytical portal Army Technology. As the authors note, it is difficult to calculate the loss of equipment, since the Ukrainian side does not provide such data. But according to the information of the Russian Ministry of Defense, as of October 21, about 1.5 thousand MLRS combat vehicles, more than 16 thousand cannon artillery and mortars were destroyed during a special military operation. At the same time, a considerable share of these losses falls on NATO supplies. What does the AFU artpark consist of now, how is it exploited by the Ukrainian military and what capabilities do Russian gunners have?
NATO caliber: are there any advantages?
At the beginning of hostilities in Donbass in 2014, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had two artillery brigades — the 26th and 55th. The first consisted of two divisions of self-propelled artillery installations (ACS) "Msta—S" - 36 units, the division "Hyacinth—S" - 18 installations, an anti-tank defense division equipped with 12 MT-12 Rapier guns. The second is three divisions of towed Msta—B howitzers - 54 guns, an anti—tank defense division also with 13 Rapiers.
All this artillery equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was inherited from the USSR. At the time of the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass, her condition was already, to put it mildly, deplorable. Because of this, for example, in the art group of the 51st mechanized brigade there were installations of different types: both Acacia and Carnation, as well as a division of 18 MLRS Grad. This arrangement made it difficult to supply units and calculations in preparation for the opening of fire.
In addition, the fighting in Donbass greatly thinned the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: the militia units of the DPR and LPR conducted an effective counter-battery struggle from the very beginning. The share of modern weapons in the Armed Forces has changed significantly. On the eve of its launch, the main artillery piece of the Armed Forces of Ukraine became Hyacinth-B, and the reserves of more modern ones ran out in the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, which at that time lasted for the ninth year. Kiev was forced to form new formations.
At the beginning of its military operation, the Ukrainian army actively used D-20, D-30, Carnation cannons, as well as its own MLRS "Alder" (with a range of over 40 km), Soviet MLRS "Grad". They are still used, but their number continues to decrease: in artillery duels with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Ukrainian military practically lost Soviet guns, which accounted for 60% of their arsenal. And switched to NATO artillery of 105 and 155 mm caliber.
One of the main weapons systems supplied by the West to Ukraine has become the HIMARS MLRS. The first APU installations were received in mid-June 2022. The United States supplied her with 40 M142 wheeled systems, other NATO countries — more than 17 units of tracked M270 MLRS, in total at least 57 systems of all types were transferred. It is difficult to say how many of them the APU has now, because Western countries no longer advertise the volume and timing of deliveries. The main feature of HIMARS is versatility. The machine can also work as an MLRS — a package of six missiles with a caliber of 227 mm and a firing range, depending on the modification of the projectile from 35 to 84 km, and after changing the combat module — as an operational tactical missile system (OTRK) with an ATACMS missile with a launch range of 165-300 km. Because of this, the West assigned HIMARS the role of Ukraine's "victory weapon", considering the installation capable of causing serious damage to Russian troops.
But the expectations were not fulfilled: Russian air defenses quickly found a way to destroy missiles in the air. 56 cases of HIMARS damage have already been recorded, during which up to 65 launchers were destroyed. This is more than the officially announced number of transferred complexes. And this indicates that part of the HIMARS supplies to Ukraine were classified.
In the spring of 2022, the United States and Australia also sent the main 155-mm M777 howitzer to Ukraine. It can fire up to 22 km with conventional projectiles, up to 30 km with active-jet projectiles. The howitzer also uses guided high-precision M982 Excalibur projectiles that hit targets at a distance of up to 40 km. The United States has not officially confirmed the supply of these munitions to Ukraine. According to The Washington Post, in 2023, the accuracy of Excalibur fell to 10% due to the use of electronic warfare (EW) by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and the Armed Forces abandoned their use: they are few, expensive and already ineffective. It is not known exactly how many M777 howitzers the APU received, but according to open sources, about 200.
Also, at the beginning of the special operation, 26 Czech 152-mm Dana M2 self-propelled guns entered the arsenal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, in April 2022, the Czech Republic sent Ukraine a batch of RM-70 Vampire MLRS — an analogue of the Soviet Grads. Slovakia supplied Ukraine with eight 155-mm Zuzana 2 self-propelled artillery units by January 2023. French Caesar self-propelled guns have been traveling around Ukraine since 2022, but they also turn out to be easy targets for the Russian Armed Forces.
No raw materials, no money, no shells
APU guns wear out and fail due to their intensive use. This has been repeatedly pointed out in the West. As noted by the Business Insider portal, the aggressive consumption of ammunition by the Ukrainian military has created more problems than just a shortage of shells. According to former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investments Camille Grand, the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the beginning of its operation fired from 6 thousand to 7 thousand artillery rounds per day, whereas in Afghanistan, NATO troops used about 300 shells per day.
The shortage of shells is a problem of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which not only has not been solved for years, but is also aggravated by the intensive work of artillery. 152- and 155-mm ammunition are in acute shortage, as has been repeatedly stated by the current President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, and former Petro Poroshenko, as well as former Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba. By the way, because of this, in January 2024, the commander of the operational-strategic grouping of the Ukrainian troops "Tavria" Alexander Tarnavsky spoke about the need to reduce the scale of operations. As Military Watch Magazine wrote, the divisions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were forced to reduce ammunition consumption by 80-90% — up to 10 shells per barrel daily, although they had previously fired 10 times more. At the same time, the commander of the Russian group of troops "Center" Andrei Mordvichev in February told former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that, despite Kiev's complaints about the shortage of shells, the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not reduce the intensity of artillery work. Moreover, they have intensified attacks on peaceful Russian regions, especially the Belgorod region, including cluster munitions banned in 130 countries.
Nevertheless, the shortage of artillery shells is a reality of the Ukrainian army, which began long before its time. At the beginning of the conflict, the former deputy commander of the special operations forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Sergei Krivonos, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would not have enough shells even for a month of war. And so it turned out: already in March 2022, the Ukrainian army felt a shortage, the cause of which, according to Krivonos, was the treacherous disposal of hundreds of thousands of Soviet 122- and 152-mm artillery ammunition in 2012-2013. The irony is that Ukraine could have set up their production at the facilities of the Ukroboronprom concern back in 2018, if not for the machinations of officials.
Then Kiev decided to produce ammunition abroad — the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported on the cooperation of Ukroboronprom with an unnamed NATO country. According to the representative of the concern, it was allegedly possible to organize the release of 120 mm mines and 125 mm tank shells. At the same time, production facilities for the production of Soviet—style projectiles have been preserved not only in the former CIS republics, but also in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact Organization - Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As for the 105- and 155-mm shells, according to Zelensky, there are not enough of them in the Armed Forces mainly because of the situation in the Middle East. The American television company ABC reported that in connection with the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, the United States reduced the supply of shells to Ukraine by "more than 30%." As noted by Military Watch Magazine, the rate of expenditure of ammunition by the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has significantly exceeded the capabilities of Western countries to produce them. Weapons depots are empty all over the world, the current volume of supplies from Western partners is clearly not enough to meet the needs of Kiev.
According to the Ukrainian publication Evropeiskaya Pravda, since the beginning of its military operation, Ukraine has received more than 2 million shells from the United States, the stock of which needs to be constantly replenished. In August 2023, sensing something was wrong with the "counteroffensive," Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said that American enterprises had increased production of 155-mm shells to 24 thousand per month. If we consider that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are used to spending up to 7 thousand shells per day, with such an intensity of fire, the monthly release rate will be enough for three to four days. And where else can I get it?
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrel, announced the EU's readiness to supply Kiev with a million 155-mm ammunition by March 2024. In January of this year, about 50 countries of the Ramstein format created a coalition designed to simplify the financing of artillery supplies to Ukraine. But what is in practice? Of the promised million shells, the APU received (and not even by March) only about 300 thousand units. And for the rest, as European Commissioner for Internal Market Affairs Thierry Breton said, Kiev must pay on its own. However, does the EU even have the capacity to issue these 700 thousand? Shells? Is it just a matter of payment?
There are not enough qualified workers at European defense enterprises, the energy crisis that engulfed Europe due to anti-Russian sanctions has not disappeared anywhere, the cost of metal production has increased (according to the Financial Times, prices for finished products have increased fivefold in 2022 alone). Also, European defense enterprises do not have enough raw materials for the manufacture of explosives.
With all these difficulties, the Armed Forces of Ukraine assign a decisive role to artillery in the conflict (as does Russia). The armies of both countries use artillery in combination with drones. Drones find targets and are used to indicate their location, adjust fire and assess damage to the enemy. But the similar role of artillery in them does not mean equal opportunities.
Russian Armed Forces: three to one
The Russian army has the largest arsenal of artillery systems, and also has well-established ammunition supplies, the United States acknowledged in the summer. According to Forbes magazine, Russia has more artillery than any army in the world — in particular, the Russian Armed Forces have three times more artillery than the US Armed Forces. However, in January 2023, the Ukrainian and Western media, citing data from the American analytical center Institute for the Study of War (one of the "thought factories" specializing in anti-Russian propaganda), reported a decrease in the number of artillery shells used by the Russian military.
The head of Rostec state Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, said that the production of ammunition ordered by the Ministry of Defense has increased "several times", and for some types of weapons — "by several orders of magnitude". According to the Russian military department, the intensity of firing of our artillery today is "higher than ever: the consumption of ammunition is very high, the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are literally flooded with fire."
The Russian military-industrial complex, unlike the enemy coalition, is able to produce the necessary amount of ammunition. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that our defense enterprises as a whole have increased the production of ammunition by 14 times during the war. In particular, this growth concerns ammunition for artillery and its most popular caliber — 152 mm. In March 2024, CNN, citing a NATO intelligence source, reported that Russia produces three times more artillery ammunition than Europe and the United States do for Ukraine. This was confirmed by the commander of NATO's joint forces in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, saying that Russia surpasses NATO countries in the production of artillery shells by a ratio of three to one.
Russian military factories were able to deploy and increase the production of ammunition in a short time due to the fact that they retained, despite the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent crisis events, mobilization capacities. In 2023, the Russian armed forces received more than 20 million rounds of ammunition: 152 mm artillery, mortar shells, shots for guns of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, shells for MLRS.
In a special military operation, the Russian Armed Forces use all types of artillery and rocket technology from the Ground Forces — self-propelled and towed howitzers and mortars, MLRS of all calibers, as well as missile defense systems with ballistic and cruise missiles. The Iskander-M complex showed high efficiency in destroying the same HIMARS, Patriot air defense systems, and APU infrastructure in its zone. It operates at a range of up to 500 km with two types of missiles: the quasi-ballistic 9M723 and the cruise R-500. The first is equipped with electronic warfare modules for radio interference and has the ability to control the entire flight path. The second one can automatically bend around the terrain when flying at low altitude (6-7 m), becoming less vulnerable to air defense systems.
In 2023, Rostec handed over to the Ministry of Defense a new batch of modernized 152-mm 2C19M1 Msta-S self-propelled guns, which became the main guns of the Russian army in the area of its defense. Also last year, a novelty appeared that could turn the tide of counter—battery warfare - the interspecific 152-mm self-propelled gun 2C35 "Coalition-SV". Western 152-mm artillery installations hit up to 40 km, "Coalition-SV" — more than 70 km. This is the first Russian howitzer to use caps — compressed powder cylinders. The main ammunition of the howitzer is high—explosive fragmentation and guided projectiles created on the basis of Krasnopol, but it can also use special-purpose ammunition: lighting, smoke and incendiary. The artillery installation is also notable for the fact that it can operate in the fire raid mode over areas, in fact as a MLRS. In this case, the howitzer fires about 14 shells at different angles of elevation of the gun, which land almost simultaneously, preventing the enemy from relocating.
Since the beginning of the special operation, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have been using towed 152-mm howitzers "Msta-B", "Hyacinth-B", "Hyacinth-C", "Acacia" and D-20, 122-mm howitzers D-30, 120-mm 2S9 "Nona". Also, our gunners will use 122-mm MLRS "Grad" on different chassis. An upgraded version of the "Grad" is used — "Tornado-G". They participate in their 220-mm MLRS "Hurricane": they work in the areas of concentration of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, command posts and fortifications. Our gunners also use the 300 mm Smerch MLRS with a range of up to 70 km. Calculations hit the ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the concentration of equipment and weapons with shells weighing 800 kg.
In accordance with the plan of their large-scale reform announced in 2022 by Sergei Shoigu, five new high-capacity artillery brigades are being created in the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. One of them has already been formed in the SVO zone as part of the Zaporozhye Army Corps. These brigades are armed with self—propelled 203 mm 2C7 "Peony" guns, its upgraded version 2C7M "Malka" and the world's only self-propelled 240 mm 2C4 "Tulip" mortar. "Peony" is designed to suppress the rear, destroy particularly important objects and means of nuclear attack in tactical depth at a distance of up to 47 km, "Tulip" can send a 130 kg projectile up to 18 km away and destroy such fortifications that cannot be destroyed with smaller caliber guns. But the Malka is one of the most powerful self—propelled guns in the world, which has no analogues. The gun can use a high-explosive fragmentation projectile weighing 110 kg with 17.8 kg of explosive at a range of up to 37.5 km, an active-rocket projectile weighing 103 kg with 13.8 kg of explosive — up to 47.5 km, as well as concrete-piercing shells and special ammunition with a nuclear charge.
The APU has nothing to oppose them, as there is nothing from which to form something similar. No matter how many artillery installations the "partners" put to Kiev, they will not be enough against Russian power, the problems of their use by Ukrainian gunners will not disappear, and they will not be filled with shells "with a slide". In addition, the West supplies Ukraine with those weapons and in such quantities that are sufficient to profitably maintain and continue the conflict only within its local borders.
Read the full version of the material in the TASS Bulletin "Russia. Southwest"
