US to Start Giving Ukraine Artillery — The Premier Killer of the War

US to start replacing Ukraine's artillery losses — 155mm guns and 40,000 rounds with counter artillery radars on the way

The weapon that leveled Raqqa

Editor’s note: I warned that the US was set to escalate weapons transfers by including 155mm artillery. I was wrong about the timeline. It isn’t going to take it 60 days. It’s already starting. As I said artillery has been the biggest killer in this war. The Russians can take out Ukrainian artillery pieces but the Americans will just ship in more…

So far these are likely just towed guns which are less useful since they take more time to relocate and therefore can’t fire for as long. But the Americans can always escalate to self-propelled artillery later.

18 guns isn’t that much but this is just to get the camel’s nose under the tent. Once they have re-training figured out they can ramp it up.


 

The US government is expanding the types of weaponry it’s providing to Ukraine in the latest $800 million arms package to include howitzers, artillery, unmanned boats for coastal defense and other equipment not part of previous assistance packages.

“This new package of assistance will contain many of the highly effective weapons systems we have already provided and new capabilities tailored to the wider assault we expect Russia to launch in eastern Ukraine,” President Joe Biden said in a statement today following a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

For the first time, the US will provide 18 155mm Howitzers and 40,000 artillery rounds to fulfill Ukrainian requirements for fire support, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said during a briefing following the White House’s announcement. “That’s reflective of the kind of fighting that the Ukrainians are expecting to be faced with here in this little bit more confined geographic area,” he said.

Also new to the package are an undefined number of unmanned coastal defense vessels, which Kirby said would come from Navy stockpiles.

The latest package will provide: 10 AN/TPQ-36 counter artillery radars; two AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel air surveillance systems; 500 Javelin missiles and other anti-armor systems; 300 Switchblade drones; 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers; 100 Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles; and 11 Mi-17 helicopters that were previously earmarked to be sent to Afghanistan.

Other assistance includes body armor, optics and laser range finders, explosives, and equipment to protect troops against chemical, biological and nuclear attacks.

Certain equipment will require additional training for Ukrainian forces, such as the howitzers, Sentinel radars and counter-artillery radars.

While the details have not been completely worked out, Kirby said that it is most likely that a small number of Ukrainian troops will leave the country for a short period of time to learn from US military instructors, and then train other Ukrainian troops once they return to the fight, Kirby said.

“We believe that we can put together appropriate training for some of these systems very, very quickly. These are not highly complex systems,” he said. [As I said re-training to a new tube is no big deal.”]

Kirby told reporters that the US government aims to deliver this latest round of assistance “as soon as possible,” and that previously announced assistance should be available in Ukraine within the next few days, he said.

The White House’s announcement of new aid for Ukraine comes as Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks sat down with defense CEOs to discuss the industrial impact on ongoing weapons production for Ukraine. The discussion, held earlier today, included executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L3Harris, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a good honest, candid discussion with these CEOs about the systems that they’re producing, about the rate at which they’re being produced, about the possibility for accelerating some of those production lines and expanding them based on the heavy draw on our inventory to support Ukraine,” Kirby said. [US becoming Ukraine’s military-industrial complex.]

Lawmakers have raised concerns about the possibility of decreasing US stockpiles too much, and Hicks herself has previously commented on some of the difficulties posed by replenishing certain weapons, like Stinger missiles, which are difficult to create or contain obsolescent parts.

However, Kirby stressed that the Pentagon has not reached the point where the levels of weapon stocks threatens US readiness. But, he added, “we don’t want to get to that point before we started to have a conversation with industry about replenishment and the production line going forward.”

While the US government has stepped up the amount of security assistance provided to Ukraine over the past month, it has not always given Ukraine the advanced, big-ticket items its leaders have requested.

Earlier this morning, Zelenskyy tweeted a video message in English imploring international leaders to supply Ukraine with additional weaponry. Specifically he said the embattled country needed “heavy artillery, armored vehicles, air defense systems and combat aircraft” to “repel Russian forces and stop their war crimes.”

However, US assistance has, for the most part, been comprised of older, less-sophisticated weaponry that the Ukrainian military can use without specialized training.

On March 18, the Biden administration approved $800 million in Stinger anti-aircraft systems, shoulder-mounted Javelin anti-tank weapons, rockets, small arms, ammunition and — for the first time —  Switchblade drones, which essentially function as loitering munitions.

Earlier this month, the US promised another $300 million in arms, including additional Switchblade and RQ-20 Puma drones, laser guided rockets, counter-drone systems, armored vehicles, commercial satellite imagery systems and other weapons.

On April 8, Slovakia agreed to transfer one of its S300 air defense systems to Ukraine, and the Biden administration announced that the US military would position a Patriot system in Slovakia in response. Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Hege has also expressed interest in transferring some of its old MiG-29s to Ukraine and is currently discussing the prospect with allies, according to Politico. On Tuesday, a senior defense official stated that the US would not be opposed to the transfer.


Anti-Empire:

Meanwhile, information has been placed that Ukrainians are running out of 152mm artillery ammo that in Europe only the Serbs are still manufacturing. How I read that is that the public is being prepared for eventual transfers of big-item hardware of Western make to Ukraine, starting with 155mm artillery for which ammo exists in Western storage aplenty.

Let’s say 60 days from now, if the war is still going on and the Ukrainians are still giving a good account of themselves I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them start getting Western artillery pieces.

7 Comments
  1. Oscar Peterson says

    So how will this artillery get to the end users? Train? Towed in a military convoy? Hidden in tractor trailers? On western or Ukrainian air transport?

    I think the Russians are about to escalate their interdiction of weapons and ammo shipments. They certainly better be about to escalate! The idea that their limited forces can afford to face unlimited NATO resupply of GoU forces is crazy. The question is what the Russian interdiction capability is. Seems as though they should be able to fly UAVs out of SW Belarus or northern Transnistria. What is the GoU air defense capability in western Ukraine?

    1. SteveK9 says

      Would be interesting to get an answer from an expert.

  2. Oscar Peterson says

    Here’s from today’s AP story that examines why Russia is not interdicting weapons and arms shipments:

    “It’s not as easy to stop this assistance flow as it might seem,” said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. “Things like ammunition and shoulder-fired missiles can be transported in trucks that look just like any other commercial truck. And the trucks carrying the munitions the Russians want to interdict are just a small part of a much larger flow of goods and commerce moving around in Poland and Ukraine and across the border.

    “So the Russians have to find the needle in this very big haystack to destroy the weapons and ammo they’re after and not waste scarce munitions on trucks full of printer paper or baby diapers or who knows what.”

    “…thus far the Russians appear not to have put a high priority on arms interdiction, perhaps because their air force is leery of flying into Ukraine’s air defenses to search out and attack supply convoys on the move. They have struck fixed sites like arms depots and fuel storage locations, but to limited effect.

    The last bit about the Russians being leery of using aircraft for real-time targeting may be a big factor.

    They better figure out a way around this issue.

    1. SteveK9 says

      Small arms are not artillery. Has Russia suppressed most anti-aircraft defense or not?

  3. Oscar Peterson says

    From a month ago:

    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-will-win-unless-the-west-sends-ukraine-offensive-weapons/

    “Although the war is now in its second month, there still seems to be a lingering lack of recognition in many Western capitals that Ukraine needs to receive far greater quantities of weapons without further delay. It is also time to rethink the types of weapons being delivered to Ukraine. Up until this point, the focus has been on defensive arms and the kind of hand-held weapons necessary to wage an insurgency. However, Ukraine now needs to win a conventional war and requires large-scale deliveries of offensive weapons. First and foremost, this means tanks, artillery, and multiple launch rocket systems.”

    1. SteveK9 says

      At one time Russia made statements along the lines that participants in the Ukraine could expect attacks on ‘command and control centers’ if I remember correctly. Of course, that may be a bluff, or will we see an attack on staging areas in Poland or something of the sort?

      1. jimbogoofball says

        I remember Putin saying that. Now he REFUSES to even try it. COWARD. Too scared to do as he promised. Oh well now he will get crusshed because of his deriliction of duty. Not to mention the lie he told the planet how he would attack the leadership and places the commands come from. WHAT A LYING POS. Chicken coward. Bawk…Bawk….Bawk thanks fur nuthin vladmir. LIAR.

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