Western technology tilts artillery warfare in Ukraine's favor

According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, by 27 February, the Russians had lost over 10,000 pieces of various artillery systems. These are significant losses that the Kremlin is trying to replenish with older systems drawn from warehouses. However, the quality gap continues to widen. The Russians, however, manage with a much larger number of systems.

Good preparation of artillery brigades became key for the armies on both sides after the front stabilized. This was evident during the most significant battles of the last year – in Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Zaporizhzhia, and near Avdiivka, where artillery accounted for over 60% of casualties on both sides of the front.

Until recently, both sides predominantly used equipment from the times of the Soviet Union. Hence, the characteristic calibres of 122 mm and 152 mm for armies of the former Warsaw Pact. Even the organization of artillery groups in brigades is the same. Over time, however, former systems in the Ukrainian army began to be replaced by Western equipment, which changed the appearance of the battlefield.

Until modern systems appeared, Russians did not have to worry too much about counter-battery fire. Ukrainian towed barrel artillery had a shorter range and constituted the majority of the equipment of brigade artillery groups and independent artillery brigades. In addition, Ukrainians lacked appropriate artillery radar, communication systems, and battlefield management systems.

The Ukrainians received, among others, the GIS Art system, which is compared by the media to a taxi ordering app. It is a system operating in an integrated communications system, which allows for updating the situation on the battlefield in real time. Similarly, the Polish Integrated Battlefield Management System operates, whose heart is a command vehicle built on a light tracked chassis, produced by Huta Stalowa Wola.

Both systems allow for precisely directing fire from different directions and positions, several miles apart, at the same time. The system allows for coordinating the firing so that the shells, despite different trajectories and flight times, hit the target simultaneously. Moreover, it enables the minimisation of the time needed to fire a volley, significantly shortening the window in which Russians can locate a howitzer or missile launcher.

In artillery warfare, key is recognising where the shells are coming from. Radars, which detect shells and calculate the position from which they were fired based on the observed flight path, serve this purpose. The Russian 1L219 Zoopark system can detect tactical missiles from a distance of 40 kilometres, artillery projectiles from 10-12 kilometres.

Russians still have too few of them. Such a small number of radars exposed another problem. Russian prisoners complain about the lack of proper communication between the artillerymen and the infantry, who urgently need support. Soldiers most often use civilian walkie-talkies. By the time the coordinates of the target reach the battery, it has already managed to change its position. For example, Polish self-propelled mortars Rak need just 30 seconds to be ready to change position after firing a volley.

To improve their capabilities, Russians need to supply new artillery sets and change the entire battlefield management system. And this is not happening. In August 2023, with nearly a year's delay, the Russians completed testing of the new self-propelled howitzer 2S43 Malva. They hoped the first sets would appear on the front at the beginning of this year. So far, they haven't even appeared on the training grounds.

Therefore, the Russians can only oppose the Ukrainians with a significant amount of old equipment, which has been modernized to a small extent. This was mentioned by Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov. When his assessment reached the public, he was removed from his position. The Kremlin is trying to hide the scale of the army's problems from the public by all means possible.