"True Detective: How the Russian army "hacked" secret US howitzers in Ukraine"
May 25, 2022
https://life.ru/p/1496855
Translated by Yandex
(I haven't copied-and-pasted over the images and charts.)
The first and most important problem with the use of American howitzers is the shortage of ammunition. Most of Ukraine's weapons depots in the eastern and central parts of the country have been destroyed, and Kalibr missiles and Russian aircraft regularly conduct raids to destroy "Western military aid" even as weapons are being brought to the intermediate point for distribution. But this problem is partially solved by sending 20 thousand shells. However, their transfer and distribution among several divisions of 89 howitzers is unlikely to help the Ukrainian gunners.
The first M777 howitzers were destroyed by Russian troops a week ago. Positions of the AFU artillery were spotted near the village of Podgornoye, and, according to some reports, at least three American-made 155-mm M777 howitzers were destroyed by the fire raid. First, the positions were hit by Kub drones, and then, when trying to move foreign weapons, by heavy Hyacinth-B self-propelled guns. The Ukrainian military is still trying to understand why the Russian army reached the M777 position so quickly — all the secrecy conditions seem to have been met, the transfer was carried out in compliance with all the rules of disguise ...
The first officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to accept M777 howitzers into the army were transferred to US training centers in Germany a few weeks before the first deliveries of artillery to Ukraine. The transfer of knowledge from American gunners to Ukrainian ones took eight days, and the accelerated training course included only theory and a few test firings. At the same time, the Naval Postgraduate School report shows that the basic training course is at least 5 weeks and 25 training days with practical shooting. However, this time is not enough for combat coordination and interaction development: According to Edwin Willey, a Marine Corps veteran and former deputy head of the weapons storage service at Camp Pendleton, it takes at least six months to train an artillery company.
"The skill of artillery shooting is trained for months and even years. Experienced Marines and any other operators of these weapons know that it is impossible to overcome artillery firing from a swoop, regular training is required. A week-long course will teach them how to properly unload such weapons; nothing useful can be learned from them in battle."
- Edwin Willey
- Veteran of the US Marine Corps, Deputy head of the Weapons Storage Service
As a result, the Ukrainian gunners, who were trained in Germany and received American weapons, not only failed to shoot at the specified coordinates, but also three TIMES worsened the basic indicators for the rate of fire: instead of one shot per minute, they did one in three to five minutes. At the same time, Willey noted that most of the sergeants and lieutenants, whom American instructors in Germany called "weeks", will not live to see the end of "Operation Z", but also have every chance of dying in the first battle due to the lack of intelligence, surveillance and camouflage equipment, since M777 howitzers are used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine "in an open field, without targeting, often even without reliable coordinates." ...
In the case of not the most outstanding mental abilities, American engineers have come up with DFCS-Digital Fire Control System, or digital fire control system. In simple terms, this is an electronic unit that works like a car navigator and tells the calculation what coordinates you need to enter to accurately hit the target. However, 80% of American howitzers arrived in Ukraine without this device, and when the gunners began to complain that "they could not understand how to shoot", an elegant solution was found. Instead of the original units produced by General Dynamics, Canadian GDMS were installed on the Ukrainian M777. Similar in characteristics, but without the American electronics inside.
The M777 howitzer brought to the position is detected in space using the onboard inertial navigation system, GPS and motion sensor, and coordinates for a combat mission can be "thrown" to the gun via a tactical communication channel. The Americans also equipped the Ukrainian army with communication systems in advance, about a year before the start of Operation Z.
But it was not possible to solve the problem with the accuracy of shooting. Suddenly, it turned out that the American gunners used howitzers with the DFCS system to shoot at the enemy armed only with small arms. The positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas were actively "processed" by the Russian Army, equipped, among other things, not only with air defense, but also with electronic warfare systems that suppress any electronic systems at a distance of tens of kilometers. After switching on the electronic warfare system, the Canadian GDMS units stopped working, and the positions of the M777 howitzers were suddenly hit by artillery fire 25-30 minutes after deployment and loading.
When the Ukrainian gunners and their American handlers realized how the Russian army was tracking down the M777 positions, the satellite navigation units were quickly dismantled. The effectiveness of American self-propelled guns returned to its previous, almost zero level, but for some reason there were no fewer counter artillery strikes. The answer to this phenomenon probably lies in the counter-battery radar "Zoo" of the Russian Army. The complex has been connected to a database since the operation to force Georgia to make peace, which stores not the sounds of the forest or music for sleeping, but key features of artillery pieces from different countries of the world, including the United States.
According to the sound-measuring officer, Lieutenant Colonel of the ground Forces in the reserve Ivan Soshkin, "three sevens", like any artillery of NATO countries, has its own acoustic portrait and its work is clearly "audible."
Constant values, according to Soshkin, are the barrel length, caliber, type of gunpowder used, and much more, which makes up the" basic set " of target parameters. M777 has long been known to Russian counterbatteries — it is a 155-mm howitzer with a barrel length of 39 calibers. In addition, with a characteristic low-frequency sound after each shot, special cylinders also hiss to level the recoil. With this set of features, the M777 fires with a dull, low sound. As soon as these fluctuations are detected by the "Zoo", a drone immediately takes off to the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If the UAV visually recognizes the parameters of the target (which, by the way, was done by Russian intelligence officers) and the commander of the artillery division gains several signs of the target's reliability, the enemy positions are hit.
The Russian military does not comment in any way on the strikes on the positions of the AFU gunners equipped with M777 howitzers, but the Ukrainian army loses these guns almost every time they leave their places of deployment.