Will American howitzers make a critical difference in a war that has mostly become an artillery battle?
Camouflaged in a heap of branches cut from nearby trees, the weapon that Ukraine hopes will make a critical difference in its war with Russia is all but invisible from more than a few feet away.
Soon, a single round shoots out with a boom and a howling, metallic shriek as it sails toward Russian positions.
It is the American-made M777 howitzer. It shoots farther, moves faster and is hidden more easily, and it’s what the Ukrainian military has been waiting for.
Three months into the war in Ukraine, the first M777s — the most lethal weapons the West has provided so far — are now deployed in combat in Ukraine’s east. Their arrival has buoyed Ukraine’s hopes of achieving artillery superiority at least in some frontline areas, a key step toward military victories in a war now fought mostly on flat, open steppe at long ranges.
The American howitzers are chunky machines of steel and titanium swathed in hydraulic hoses and perched on four braces that fold up and down. They have already fired hundreds of rounds since arriving around May 8, destroying armored vehicles and killing Russian soldiers, Ukrainian commanders say.
“This weapon brings us closer to victory,” Col. Roman Kachur, commander of the 55th Artillery Brigade, whose unit was the first unit to deploy the weapon, said in an interview. Mixing confidence with an implicit plea for more weapons, he added: “With every modern weapon, every precise weapon, we get closer to victory.”
How close remains unclear, Western military analysts say. The arrival of the new weapons is no guarantee of success, as the Russians continue to engage in fierce fighting in the eastern Donbas region. Much depends on numbers.
“Artillery is very much the business of quantity,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at C.N.A., a research institute in Arlington, Va., said in a telephone interview. “The Russians are one of the largest artillery armies you can face.” [Continue reading…]
The Ukrainian military is using stealthy electric bikes modified to carry next-generation light anti-tank weapons (NLAWS) to fight Russia.
Soldiers on electric bikes have been spotted across Ukraine since the early days of the war, mostly on ELEEK brand bikes. e-bikes are fast and, critically, much quieter than a gas powered bike. They allow soldiers to perform quick guard patrols or move swiftly into position. [Continue reading…]