Ukraine Has Perfected Targeting Russian Artillery. 177 Destroyed Since June

Ukraine's ability to target and then destroy Russian artillery - the backbone of their army and the most powerful weapon on every Ukrainian battlefield in this war - has continued to improve to the point where Ukraine now has a decided advantage. 

The application of technology, communication, coordination and result achievement using drones, 'smart' ammunition, skilled troops and leadership has become overwhelming. JL 

Matthew Luxmoore reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Ukraine has destroyed 177 Russian guns including multiple-launch rocket systems since June. At a Ukrainian control room, notifications ping onto a screen as a U.S.-supplied radar locates Russian artillery guns firing on Ukrainian positions. U.S.-made radar uses radio frequency to scan a radius of 20 miles to detect the point of origin and likely trajectory of Russian projectiles. A Ukrainian team plots the coordinates on a tablet, sharing them online with drone units confirming targets and gunners tasked with destroying them. Ukraine has an advantage in the accuracy of its artillery, aided by Western equipment and Ukrainian ingenuity.

At a Ukrainian control room, notifications ping onto a screen as a U.S.-supplied radar locates Russian artillery guns firing on Ukrainian positions.

A Ukrainian team plots the coordinates on a tablet map, sharing them online with drone units tasked with confirming targets and gunners tasked with destroying them.

The operation is an example of how Ukraine has honed its system of identifying and destroying Russian artillery, giving its armed forces an important advantage as they try to push forward and retake occupied land.

The work of the small group from Ukraine’s 45th Artillery Brigade is part of a largely unseen battle taking place far from the trenches. With front lines hardening after nearly 20 months of war, progress for either side depends on being able to silence, or at least quiet, the enemy’s guns so that infantry and vehicles can advance.

With some 70% of Ukrainian combat casualties resulting from artillery strikes, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, taking Russian guns out of the fight saves Ukrainian lives.

In this contest, Ukraine has an advantage in the accuracy of its artillery, aided by Western equipment and Ukrainian ingenuity. That has helped Kyiv’s forces to gain near-parity in a field where Russia previously had an edge, according to soldiers on the front line. Russia is also improving, Ukrainian soldiers say, by using drones to guide its big guns.

“This is one of the key tactical contests,” said Michael Kofman, a defense analyst and expert on Russian and Ukrainian militaries at the Carnegie Endowment. “And since the war is heavily driven by effective employment of artillery, it is one of the principal battles that play out.”

How the Ukrainian military detects and targets Russian guns

STEP 1

AN/TPQ-36 Counter

artillery radar Firefinder

Weapon Locating System

Ukrainian radar locates Russian military equipment using high-frequency radio waves.

Russian military

equipment

STEP 2

Ukrainian drones are sent to an area near where the Russian military equipment is located, so they can view it from above at a distance. Using cameras, the allegiance and location of the equipment is confirmed.

Matrice 300 drone

Russian military

equipment

M777 artillery piece

STEP 3

Coordinates from the radar and the drone teams are analyzed by a command post that then selects an artillery or MLRS unit near the target to destroy it.

Russian military

equipment

Note: Not to scale
Source: Military Today, B&H Photo and Video, Department of Defense
Adrienne Tong/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

With the war dragging on, Ukraine and its partners are struggling to boost the production of artillery shells, leading to rationing and increasing the importance of accuracy. Russia is also suffering from shortages, and relentless Ukrainian strikes have forced it to relocate ammunition stocks further from the front lines.

“It’s not just your ability to successfully engage a target,” Kofman said. “It also matters how many artillery shells it takes you to be able to conduct these missions.”

WarSpotting, an independent group tracking losses in the war, says Ukraine has destroyed 177 Russian guns including multiple-launch rocket systems since its counteroffensive began in June. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the focus of the counteroffensive, its analysts say Russia has had 92 guns destroyed while Ukraine has lost 19.

 

Ukrainian efforts to take out Russian artillery start in control rooms like the one manned by a first lieutenant whose call sign is Hammer. The 36-year-old was a security guard and amateur boxer in Kyiv when he enlisted for military service after Russia invaded in February 2022. That summer, he was put in charge of a radar team in the 45th Brigade.

The team works from a command post 150 yards from the radar, which is camouflaged under branches to avoid detection by Russian drones that routinely circle overhead. The U.S.-made AN/TPQ-36 uses radio frequency to scan its surroundings within a radius of nearly 20 miles and detect the point of origin and likely trajectory of Russian projectiles, producing rough coordinates for the guns that fired them.

“The radar’s role is incredibly important,” said Hammer, adding that the team sometimes identifies 50 targets in a single day. “The lion’s share of coordinates comes from our work.”

Drones have also played a key role in this strike campaign. The drone units of the 45th Brigade travel daily to positions within 1½ miles of Russian lines to confirm the exact location of military hardware spotted by Hammer’s radar unit. The work is done largely by commercial drones such as the Chinese-made Mavic 3 or Matrice 300.

The Mavic 3s, which retail at around $3,000, fly close to Russian lines to pinpoint a target. The more expensive Matrice 300 is slow and loud, and therefore easy prey for the Russians, but with its superior camera it can track a target from a range of 10 miles. The coordinates are sent to a centralized command point where officers select an artillery unit tasked with taking it out. The Ukrainians then use the Matrice drones to monitor the target from a distance and correct the artillery team’s fire to ensure it is destroyed.

“Our job is to find, confirm and correct,” said the commander of the drone unit. “We serve as the eyes of those who are firing.”

Kyiv has received high-precision artillery rounds from the U.S., including Excalibur shells capable of hitting within several feet of a target. But Russian electronic-warfare systems are particularly effective at jamming the Excaliburs’ GPS signal, soldiers say, and most of the shells used by Ukraine’s artillery units are less accurate.

U.S. officials have praised Ukraine’s ability to adapt by honing its air-land integration and using drones far more effectively than it did in the war’s first months. Even in the 45th Brigade, which is almost entirely composed of civilians mobilized into service, improvement has been rapid.

“Counter-battery fire is an indispensable part of our work,” said Nail, the 40-year-old commander of an artillery unit in the 45th operating a U.S.-supplied M777 gun, who sports a long black beard and spends his off-duty time speeding around on his bright green motorbike. “We step into action as soon as we get coordinates for the target.”

When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, the military equipped groups of spotters with a compass and sent them into fields adjacent to enemy positions, to monitor the trajectory of artillery strikes and report back on whether an enemy target had been struck. Soviet doctrine holds that as many as 250 shells should be used to destroy a single enemy battery.

Drones have revolutionized Ukraine’s way of war, and precision strikes have allowed it to ration shells.

But Russian forces are also adapting. Capt. Vasyl Semkanych, press officer of the 45th, said that early in the invasion Russia wasted thousands of artillery shells, on one occasion firing 900 into an empty field far from his brigade’s positions. During its failed winter offensive and until Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in the summer, Russia deployed towed artillery close to its forward line of troops and kept it in place so long that Ukraine had ample time to strike it.

Now, Semkanych said Russia is combining blanket artillery strikes according to Soviet doctrine with precision strikes guided by drones. It is also targeting each element of Ukraine’s counter-battery strategy: radars, drones and artillery pieces. Its electronic-warfare systems down several Ukrainian drones each day. Nail’s unit has to move its guns constantly to avoid Russian fire.

Ukraine has fewer than a dozen counter-battery radars and they are a particularly high-value target. Soldiers limit their use to avoid exposure, but when switched on they emit radio waves that are easy to detect by Russia’s anti-radiation missiles. Hammer’s radar has been targeted twice by Russian forces.

If the radar is spotted, operators can see on the computer that its signal has been detected. They then decide whether to move location or go dark, deactivating the signal and temporarily leaving the base, Hammer said. It is only at night that they travel out to radar positions or rotate personnel there.

“When we destroy enemy infantry, we know that sooner or later, more will come,” he said. “If we destroy an artillery piece, we ensure relative peace on a section of the front line for quite a long time.”