Russia loses an early WW2 artillery piece in Ukraine

5 comments

1. The tweet:

   >Incase someone missed this gem that appeared in todays update of Russian losses:

   >1x 122mm howitzer M1938 (M-30), 1x damaged

2. Russia apparently had 3750 of them in reserve.

   One wonders how many are now being fielded. It demonstrates rather clearly that they are getting rather short of artillery barrels.

3. Hardly a surprise given that claims of 60+ artillery pieces taken out daily went from a newsworthy record to average in the last couple of months.
   Even if only half of those are true it’s clear that Russia has been losing a lot of artillery pieces to put it lightly.

   And here’s the thing: the Russian military continues to employ Soviet doctrine which is very VERY artillery-centric. So what do you do when your army relies on artillery to perform any and all sorts of operations but your modern artillery pieces are getting blown up in huge quantities? Well you bust out the old ones of course since a shell is a shell.

   However older guns have shorter range and worse accuracy than their more modern equivalents which requires placing them closer to the enemy which makes them more vulnerable which results in higher losses producing a very nice vicious circle.

   Tl dr : the more stuff Ukraine blows up the older Russian equipment we’re likely to see in service and the older Russian equipment we see in service the more stuff Ukraine will blow up.

4. There goes a priceless antique piece

5. Muskets next winter at this rate