The reason for my literary prelude is that many people are making a big deal about supplying Ukraine with high-performance aircraft and modern tanks. Of course, those would all be nice and will, I’m sure, happen in time. But, for the battle Ukraine is fighting right now, the right weapons are being supplied: modern artillery and lots of ammunition.

Ukraine started the war with about 1,800 Soviet-era artillery pieces. Many were in disrepair, and most did not have a trained gun crew assigned; they were missing meteorological equipment, gun chronographs, counterbattery radar, reliable ammunition, and a host of other things that makes the artillery the King of Battle and the God of War.

Nearly 200 modern artillery tubes have been pledged, and about half delivered. A third of those are self-propelled guns; the remainder is towed. Most are the excellent M-777 howitzer. Over 40 top-shelf multiple launchers are pledged, and about half are in Ukraine. Over thirty modern counterbattery radar units have been committed; about half have arrived. About 180,000 rounds of modern 155mm ammunition have been provided. //

A study of the early days of Putin’s War by the Royal United Services Institute has a very enlightening quote from an in-the-field interview. This quote is from page 3 of the study:

As a senior adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, noted, ‘anti-tank missiles slowed the Russians down, but what killed them was our artillery. That was what broke their units’. //

I’m an infantryman, but despite the inter-branch rivalry, I’ve never met an infantry leader who had any desire to go into combat without his artillery forward observer within arm’s reach. From its earliest days, artillery has been THE killer. As much as we infantrymen have a romance with the bayonet, artillery accounted for 70% of casualties in the European Theater in World War II (both sides, both fronts) and 60% of American casualties during the Korean War. Putin’s War in Ukraine gives us data points that nothing has changed. //

The artillery support Ukraine’s partners are assisting with is much more than delivering guns. Instead, Ukraine is getting top-quality guns plus the training, ammunition, and ISR support needed to turn it into a ferocious weapon to drive the Russians out of where they don’t belong and back to where they do.