The Ukrainians have always shouted to the world that Moscow was running out of bullets, asking for the sending of weapons and ammunition useful to defeat an enemy on the verge of a hysterical crisis, the same ones after 17 months, 10 years after the Euro Maidan, yes are faced with a major shortage of tank shells. This has led the central government to have to review battle plans, on the other hand Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky has changed some military leaders and is demanding results.
On November 22, the Ukrainian armed forces lost yet another howitzer battery covering the bridgehead at Krynky, towards Kherson. This is not the first artillery loss of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the start of the landing operation on the left bank of the Dnieper.
On November 18 and 19, several videos appeared showing the destruction of artillery pieces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the village. Tyaginka village, Kherson region. Apparently, during the counter-battery fire, at least four 155 mm guns were hit, presumably within a few hours of each other, two of which were self-propelled howitzers.
The place where the howitzers were deployed is located less than 12 km from the bridgehead of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in the area of the village of Krynky, on the left bank of the Dnieper. All guns, including the American M777 howitzers, were deployed in a relatively small area.
The density of artillery placement, its composition and activity in this area in recent weeks suggests that the guns were used specifically to support troops on the beachhead and not for counter-battery combat or to hit targets in depth in the defense of the Russian Armed Forces.
The relevant fact is that the area in the Tyaginka area is mostly open. There are no wooded areas or folds of terrain where artillery and support units can be hidden. The road network in this area is poorly developed and consists of several country roads that converge on the E-58 highway, which connects Tyaginka with Berislav and Kherson. In theory, this allows you to establish a normal supply of artillery with shells and everything necessary, but all the howitzers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were hit next to each other. One of the reasons for the massive destruction of targets may be the specificity of the task. The artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces probably had to provide constant support to the Ukrainian landing forces and could not leave the firing positions for a long time. Furthermore, maintaining a beachhead often requires concentrated fire, what in NATO terminology is called sustained fire. Concentrated fire, in turn, requires a continuous supply of ammunition, which the Ukrainian armed forces obviously have a problem with.
Most likely, in the terrain conditions on the right bank, the artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was dispersed somewhere at an equal distance from the field ammunition depot to facilitate centralized supply. Unusual activity in this area coincided with a rotation of personnel to the left bank or an attempt to increase the group and expand the bridgehead in the Krynok area. The movements of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were discovered by UAVs or other reconnaissance means, after which the coordinates were hit by the Lancets.
One of the most likely reasons for the movement of the guns of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to a distance of 10 km from the front line, presumably, was the shortage of long-range projectiles of 155 mm caliber. After the problems in the Zaporozhzhie direction, the shortage of shells for foreign weapons, as expected, is forcing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to change tactics in other directions, including Kherson.
After the loss of the artillery battery, infantry cover on the left bank will be complicated for some time, and the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this area will have to solve the problem of fire cover for the forces on the left bank of the Dnieper.
The number of published episodes of destruction of American 155 mm howitzers M777 in the Northern Military District area has reached 150!
According to statistics published by the Russian social sphere, updated as of November 19, 2023, 150 episodes of work on American M777 howitzers have been published in the area of the Northern Military District. In total, the Ukrainian Armed Forces received 220 weapons of this type.
Published footage of the objective check confirms the destruction of 71 such howitzers and the damage of 45 others. Another M777 was captured as a trophy. It wasn’t possible to precisely determine the results of the other 23 episodes of destruction of the M777 howitzers.
If previously just over half of the episodes of destruction of the M777 were attributable to kamikaze drones, now their share has grown to almost 2/3 of the total: 94 episodes out of 150 (of which 92 attributable to the Lancet drones and 2 to the Kub -UAV). By a large margin, barrel artillery is in second place: 38 episodes out of 150 (in most cases, adjustable 152 mm Krasnopol shells are used).
Graziella Giangiulio
