Artillery - 2022 Russo-Ukraine War

Comrade Stalin called artillery the God of War. Bonaparte was first of all an artillery officer, and his mastery of the battlefield was in no small measure due to his mastery of artillery. AArtilery generally accounts for the overwhelming jaority [3/4?] of battelfield casualties. Bu tit does not provide the cinematic personal drama of close comabt arms such as infantry and armor, so astillery gets short shrift in the imagination of movie goers [and most of what most people think they know about combat is from movies.

The special military operation in Ukraine quickly turned into an artillery battle. With the advent of aviation with more or less acceptable characteristics, superguns faded into the background. It would have seemed that after Desert Storm in Iraq and the Allied Force in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), there was no doubt that aviation could win wars and the ground forces only had to formally consolidate the results achieved by aviation. In Ukraine, neither side had modern aviation. Russian aviation pressed close to the ground, and Ukrainian aviation, which seemed to have been destroyed three times already, had practically no effect on the battlefield.

The main feature of the special military operation in Ukraine was counter-battery combat. The denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine is taking place under the roar of cannonade. And counter-battery combat became almost the main type of confrontation during a special military operation.

President Vladimir Putin spoke about artillery duels when it came to why the allied forces (the Russian army and the police of the people's republics) did not storm the fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine according to the classical scheme - a swift blow: “In fact, systematic work is underway to enter the rear here these fortified areas. This, of course, takes some time. The counter-battery battle is going on there, and it will undoubtedly increase. We have a very large advantage in artillery. It will be inevitable."

The reconnaissance potential of UAVs, as well as the ability to adjust artillery fire in real time, that made it possible to increase the efficiency of using even outdated artillery weapons by an order of magnitude, not to mention modern artillery systems, especially in combination with guided munitions.

Slightly outdated, but still capable of dominating the battlefield, like a bodybuilder in a dystrophic ward, were Soviet / Russian 2S7 "Pion" self-propelled guns of 203 mm caliber and 2S4 "Tulpan" self-propelled mortars of 240 mm caliber. These large-caliber guns (203 mm) were already in the troops (60 units) and at storage bases (260 units). The top of the food chain was the tyrannosaurs of their time. The 2S7 has a firing range unattainable for smaller caliber artillery systems. The firing range of an active-rocket projectile from a 152-mm 2A36 cannon is just over 30 kilometers, while for a 2S7 Pion cannon it is already about 50 kilometers. The disadvantages of the "Pion" and "Tulip" include their low mobility and low rate of fire, The combat work of "Peony" and "Tulip" is outside, which means that the vrew are not protected in any way from fragments of exploding ammunition.

It can be assumed that firing unguided projectiles from self-propelled guns 2S7 "Pion" / 2S7M "Malka" is generally impractical due to their small ammunition and low rate of fire - it only wastes the resource of the barrel and exposes vehicles to the risk of return fire. In order to significantly increase the effectiveness of self-propelled guns 2S7 "Pion" / 2S7M "Malka" it is necessary to develop completely new rocket assisted [ru = active-reactive] guided projectiles with guidance according to GLONASS data, with a firing range of 70–90 kilometers.

The crews of the 152-mm self-propelled gun mount 2S5 "Hyacinth-S" and the towed "Hyacinth-B" took the most active part in the counter-battery fight of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a matter of fact, these guns were created for counter-battery combat. They can send high-explosive fragmentation projectiles weighing 45.7 kg to a distance of more than 28 km, active-rocket projectiles to a distance of more than 33 km, and guided missiles "Sentimetr-M1" and "Krasnopol-M1" - to 20 and 25 km, respectively.

As the direct successor of the former Soviet Army, the Russian Army placed the construction of artillery and armored forces in the most prominent position. However, due to the corruption of the army since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the armored forces that particularly emphasized the level of training actually became superficial. The current Russian Army, in fact, only artillery can fight Ukraine. Russia's military reforms in recent years have always been accompanied by the infinite nostalgia for the glory of the past and the deep helplessness of the limited conditions of the current comprehensive national strength.

Historically, the Soviet Russian army has always been "big artillery doctrine", but in the early 21st century, the Russian army greatly reduced artillery in military reforms, emphasizing the combat capabilities of armored forces and air forces, which led to embarrassing situations in the Georgian conflict.

The Ukrainian civil war in 2014 was called "artillery war" by the media. In this war, the Russian army did not adopt the traditional "steam roller" tactics, but scattered a series of battalion and company-level units into the battlefield to support the East Ukrainian armed forces in combat. In the battle, "expert-level" artillery became the magic weapon for the armed forces of Eastern Ukraine to win. The Ukrainian Krylov Tank Factory published a report after counting the tanks sent back for repair and scrapping during the war, saying that 70% of the Ukrainian tanks in the war were Lost due to top armor penetration by artillery weapons.

In 2017 the Russian Ministry of Defense began a large-scale reform of the army. The main content of the reform was to expand the scale of the artillery force on a large scale, and will form a group of new artillery regiments and brigade-level troops. This was the largest change in the Russian Army in 30 years. In terms of equipment, the newly formed troops will be equipped with "Hurricane M1" rocket launchers, MSTA-SM (2S19M) self-propelled howitzers and unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition, a batch of 2S7 203mm howitzers and 2S4 240mm mortars will be unsealed to restore them to service. The mission scope, effectiveness, range and power of the Russian artillery units will thus be greatly improved. Experts believe that after this reform, the tactics of the Russian Army will undergo significant changes and become more modern.

In 2013-2017, the Russian Army has formed 7 self-propelled artillery regiments, which are assigned to 5 mechanized infantry divisions and 2 tank divisions. It was also planned to build another one to be equipped with the 22nd Army of the Black Sea Fleet, which was responsible for the defense of the coast of Crimea. The Ministry of Defense will reportedly change the structure of existing artillery regiments and brigades. The previous artillery regiment had two battalions, one of which was equipped with self-propelled howitzers and the other with BM-21 rocket launchers. The artillery unit of the synthetic brigade was comparable to this strength. Artillery regiments and brigades added a battalion equipped with 220mm Hurricane rockets.

The "Hurricane" rocket launcher will make the "arms of fire" of division and brigade units longer. "The range will be increased to 70 kilometers, compared with the 20 kilometers of the previous 'Hailstorm', The upgraded "Hurricane M1" rocket launcher will gradually replace all other rocket launchers in active service. According to experts, due to the modular loading technology, the speed of reloading and launching has been greatly improved. In addition, the "Hurricane M1" was also equipped with guided munitions.

In addition to long-range artillery and rocket launchers, the newly formed artillery regiments and brigades will also receive a new piece of equipment, which was drones. The "Oran-10" artillery reconnaissance drone will significantly change their tactics. The drone has been combat-proven over the past few years.

Shortly after the February 2022 start of the "special military operation", there were pictures and videos on the Internet showing that Russian artillery, especially the artillery units of the Donbas militia, used some old-fashioned artillery from World War II, such as the M1938 122mm howitzer. At the time it was believed that the Donbass militia lacked equipment. However, now, this situation was spreading to more and more Russian troops, and the old D20 howitzers and T-12 anti-tank guns have reappeared in the hands of Russian artillery.

On Ukraine's hundreds of kilometers long front, the battle was dominated by artillery. It was a war of attrition on a largely static line of contact, neither side could fight effectively without artillery, and the consumption of ammunition was enormous. The situation has changed little for several months. Before the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out, no one in the Ministry of Defense of Western countries expected this. No one believed there would be another protracted conventional war in Europe. And conventional warfare was also an industrial war. Arms companies have adapted to peacetime. They invest in counterterrorism systems, ultra-modern warplanes or warships, high-tech missiles, space weapons or autonomous combat machines, not "dumb bombs" - the military term for the thousands of artillery shells being fired from Ukraine's howitzers.

There were tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers within the range of Russian artillery bombardment. The Ukrainian military revealed that Russian artillery used cluster munitions in the bombing. Russian artillery took artillery cover at night, causing great damage to the Ukrainian soldiers.

Although its accuracy was not worth mentioning, this kind of street fighting was equivalent to nailing the defenders to the position. Shooting can be organized with simple coordinates. It does not need to be accurate, but the amount of ammunition was important. Throughout the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russian army achieved three victories so far: the Battle of Mariupol, the Battle of Severo Donetsk, and the Battle of Suledar, all of which were backed by the Russian local supply center and railway network.

It was reported that the Russian military industry can produce 160,000 rounds of shells per month, and it was likely to continue to increase production capacity, it was obvious that it still cannot meet the consumption of the front-line Russian army. Look for ammo supplies. Excessive consumption of shells not only burns money crazily, but also has a serious impact on artillery. The Russian Ministry of Defense plans to open more repair shops to repair artillery and other technical equipment damaged on the front line. The existing repair system has already Unable to meet needs. In addition, there was a complex logistics distribution system, which was not the strength of the Russian army. Whether it was various vehicles, loading and unloading, or overall scheduling, the Russian army was not good at it.

The Russian occupying army used missiles produced 2 weeks ago to fire at the territory of Ukraine. Military expert, former SBU employee (2004-2015) Ivan Stupak told about this 16 August 2023, on the FREEDOM TV channel. “The Russian Federation is really preparing for this. But with regard to missiles, there is such a dualistic approach. On the one hand, they seem to be accumulating — there is understanding, and on the other hand, we find rockets at the sites of shelling from yesterday, a week ago, and we see the date of manufacture — “August 2023". That is, completely fresh, made literally two weeks ago and immediately sent to combat positions and sent to the territory of Ukraine, to the objects of Ukraine. This is the approach,” said Stupak.

Approximately every 10 days, Russia launched an average of 20 missiles over Ukraine. This is the indicator that they can now issue, taking into account production capabilities. Oleksandr Kovalenko, military and political commentator of the “Information Resistance” group, reported this 17 August 2023, on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel. This is how he commented on Bloomberg’s information that the Russian Federation has been using “fresh” missiles, literally off the assembly line, more and more often. They have not yet passed all the tests, but they are used by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for shelling of Ukraine.

“They are in a hurry, emergency mode of production. Bloomberg is not revealing some secret information, something new. Since they are in emergency mode from 2022, they lack technical control. They do not carry out technical control during the assembly of missiles, do not check the correct operation of all systems. For example, if the rocket has a navigation system or some other kind of electronics, is one of the wires shorting, is everything well screwed. They do not carry out such banal elements of technical control,” says Kovalenko.

And because of this, according to the observer, first of all, the accuracy rate of even the high-precision Kh-101, Kh-555 and Kalibr missiles has deteriorated. And also the reliability of missiles. “For example, in 2022, when they mainly used X-101, X-555 to attack our energy infrastructure, a certain part of the missiles fell on the territory of the Russian Federation. Because their power plant and engine stopped working. And they fell in Russian villages. How much fell into lakes and forests is another question. And those who saw, in principle, a rather serious percentage of problems and defects, which, it would seem, are unacceptable under technical control, but they are there, and they are obvious. Therefore, the quality of their missile weapons is deteriorating,” he said.

At the same time, the observer stressed, there are now missiles in Russia’s stockpile that require deep repair intervention. “It sometimes takes even more man-hours to repair a rocket than to make a new one. There are missiles in stock, they are repairing and restoring them. But first of all, it is easier for them to use the “fresh” missiles produced in an emergency mode. Made – launched a certain batch, made – launched. They launch approximately… the last launches of Kh-101, Kh-555 even took place taking into account their average production capacity of one and a half to two missiles per day. But we should not forget about the repair bases, where they restore a certain potential of missiles that are in a depressing state,” Oleksandr Kovalenko summarized.

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