Thomas C. Theiner Profile picture
Oct 8 8 tweets 4 min read
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 ImageImage
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 ImageImage
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 Image
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 ImageImageImage
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 Image

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More from @noclador

Oct 7
Ukrainian artillery gunners released a video with around two dozens M777 fire missions.

Ten of these were M982 Excalibur. One of them gave away how the Ukrainians program their Excaliburs.

The video of that one Excalibur mission is here below.
1/7
In this screenshot we can see three of the components the Ukrainians use:

1) a tablet to receive fire missions and GPS coordinates over mobile internet
2) an M1155 Enhanced Portable Inductive Artillery Fuze Setter (EPIAFS) to enter GPS coordinates into Excalibur fuzes.
2/7
US troops can plug their EPIAFS into their M777A2 or M109A6 Paladins, which receive GPS coordinates from the Army's Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) through their SINCGARS radios.

As the US removed SINCGARS components from the M777 sent to Ukraine
3/7
Read 7 tweets
Oct 4
As things are moving fast on the Kherson front I drew up a few maps to explain the situation.

A short thread🧵:

In Kherson the russians hold a sizeable bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnipro river (shaded red), which could only be supplied by two bridges, one
1/n Image
just a bit North of Kherson and the other over the dam at Nova Kakhovka (purple pentagons).
Since the arrival of M142 HIMARS both crossing have been pounded heavily by Ukrainian forces.
Since August the Antonovsky bridge near Kherson is impassable for vehicles (photo), while
2/n Image
the dam at Nova Kakhovka is still passable for trucks, but not heavy vehicles (photo).

Over the last month Ukraine has been wearing the russian forces in Kherson down: through artillery fire, constant probing attacks, drone attacks, and by destroying their ammo and supplies.
3/n Image
Read 17 tweets
Sep 27
Pentagon budget realignment files are a magnificent source of info about what the US military is up to, what classified programs US Special Operations Command runs in Ukraine, and what equipment has been sent to Ukraine.

Let's dive in - a thread 🧵:
1/n
These Pentagon papers include all items the Pentagon ordered to replace equipment sent to Ukraine up to 12 August 2022.

I.e the Pentagon ordered:
• $1,381,308,000 of Javelins and $73,123,000 of Javelin Command Launch Units (CLU) to replace the Javs sent to Ukraine.
2/n
• $808,811,000 of Stingers. Interestingly $505,054,000 worth of the Stingers are for the Marine Corps, which hasn't ordered Stingers since 2005.
• $31,136,000 M777 howitzer spare parts have been ordered to replace the spares sent by the Marines to Ukraine
3/n
Read 21 tweets
Sep 25
A military needs to have the right mix between equipment (capability), numbers (capacity), and readiness (i.e. training) to achieve battlefield success.

Ukraine's military has the numbers and readiness - but it still lacks equipment. It is extremely defeatist and dangerous
1/4
that Western nations won't deliver all the requested kit to Ukraine: air defense, fighter jets, main battle tanks, self-propelled artillery, infantry fighting vehicles, Patriot, etc.

The longer the West dithers, the more putin is encouraged to prolong this war by throwing
2/4
the maximum numbers of bodies at Ukraine, even though his forces have neither the kit nor training to win against the Ukrainian troops.

Sending Ukraine every piece of kit they asked for, even if that means a reduction in capability and readiness of Western militaries is the
3/4
Read 4 tweets
Sep 21
Why are russian propagandists and the Kremlin so afraid of ATACMS missiles... is it a fear of striking deep into russia? is it a fear of striking symbolic targets?

No, it's all about logistics. A thread 🧵:

1/n
russian military logistics are a disaster: no forklifts, no pallets, too few trucks, bad maintenance, corruption, incompetence, no movement control units - without access to a railroad russia can't supply its troops.

For more about this topic - see:


2/n
The only way for russia to somehow keep its logistics alive are railroads. For russia no access to a railroad equals failure of an operation:

attack towards Kyiv from the East - no railroad = no supplies, troops starving, tanks without fuel, no ammo - disaster, then retreat.
3/n
Read 25 tweets
Sep 18
Now that Ukraine has received 4x self-propelled howitzers, let's do a quick comparison of:

• M109A3GN (photo), M109A4BE, M109A5Ö
• Zuzana 2
• AHS Krab
• PzH 2000

1/n ImageImageImageImage
The three M109 variants:
• M109A3GN modernized & donated by Norway
• M109A4BE modernized by Belgium & donated by the UK
• M109A5Ö modernized by Austria & donated by Latvia (photo)

have a 39 caliber barrel and thus an 18 liter charge chamber, which can hold max.
2/n Image
five M232A1 charges. This results in a maximum range of 24 km with boat tail projectiles and 30 km with base bleed projectiles.

Being the oldest design the M109 require manual projectile loading, manual projectile ramming, manual charge loading, manual primer loading.

3/n
Read 14 tweets

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