Thread by @noclador

A video of a Ukrainian M777 crew firing Excalibur rounds from the same spot for hours without any fear of russian counter battery fire.

That is very interesting as it tells us a lot about the artillery battle. A short thread 🧵:

1/n

First, if you fire M982A1 Excalibur rounds (range 40+ km) you're outside the range of all russian tube artillery, Grad, and Uragan. You can hit them, but they can't hit you.

Secondly, M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS have destroyed massive amounts of russian
2/n

artillery ammo. And thanks to the range and precision of GMLRS rockets Ukraine can hit and destroy all russian artillery it discovers.

russia has now less artillery systems and less ammo, and russian gunners have learned by now that if they fire a few rounds, then
3/n

Ukraine's counter battery radars, like i.e. the German COBRA or the American AN/TPQ-36 will pinpoint the russian gunner's location within seconds and then Ukrainian shells and rockets come flying.

russia has counter battery radars of its own... but if russian operators
4/n

switch their counter battery radars on, they are gonna attract a AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile, which the US and Ukraine integrated on Ukraine's Mig-29.

And getting hit by a HARM is deadly. So, all that russia can do now to spot Ukrainian artillery is use their drones.
5/n

But with thousands of Stingers all over the front, and now also heavier weapon systems like the British Stormer HVM and German Gepard, using drones becomes riskier and riskier for russia, which as we know is unable to replace the drones it lost so far (that is why putin had
6/n

to buy drones in Iran).

The Red Army and the russian army were both artillery-centric, and until HIMARS arrived the russians just smashed entire cities to rubble with their artillery to then conquer the ruins. That is over.

GMLRS, HARM, Stinger, Excalibur, etc. all
7/n

contributed to help Ukraine crush russia's artillery advantage... but advantage is not victory.
Ukraine needs more howitzers (especially self-propelled), more ammo (especially precision guided ammo), more air defense, and more radars to fully annihilate russia's artillery.
8/end