Its combined arms elements are charged with positioning themselves so that the artillery can deliver destructive effects against their opponents. Put simply, Russia uses artillery as its primary form of lethality in the deep and close battles. ‘Russian forces manoeuvre to fire, Western forces fire to manoeuvre’ is a neat encapsulation of Russian doctrine compared with the West. Because of this, the ability of the Russians to account for these technical limitations and achieve the commander’s desired effect provides a useful benchmark for Russian artillery efficacy in Ukraine. The willingness of users to understand the gunnery problem, as well as doctrine, dictates efficacy. It is important to understand the gunnery problem because it dictates what artillery forces must do to affect a target. Line refers to dispersion on either side of the target, as a result of which tube artillery produces a beaten zone that is approximately cigar shaped. The range refers to accuracy in front of or behind the target. Corrections are made using forward observers, laser targeting systems and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs).Īrtillery rounds will disperse along the range of fire as well as the line. The traditional approach without this is to fire rounds from a single battery and observe their deviation from the target. If this information can be paired with sufficiently accurate target coordinates, an artillery battery will be able to fire for effect from its first rounds and will require fewer adjustments. This involves measuring the temperature of the ammunition, the barrel wear, and the velocity of each shot if possible. An additional element of the gunnery problem is calibration of the gun and ammunition. These challenges include accurate acquisition and use of meteorological data, which will impact flight path and speed and survey data, which is critical to identifying where the firing gun is located and where it is pointing, as well as accurate location of the target. The gunnery problem is the same regardless of country, and describes the technical challenges involved in hitting a target with indirect fires. Russia’s artillery war is best analysed through two mechanisms: artillery doctrine – which provides the foundation for how artillery use has changed – and what artillery practitioners refer to as the gunnery problem. Artillery is central to the Russian way of war, so it is beholden upon Western forces to properly understand how it has been applied in Ukraine.
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