“Don’t shoot.” Due to the technical condition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have problems with Western weapons | In the world | Policy

The technical condition of Ukraine’s weapons supplied from the West is increasingly deteriorating. This is a completely predictable result: “Metal fatigue” makes itself felt. Wear on gun barrels increases; foreign armored vehicles jam without professional repairs right on the battlefield. With the onset of cold weather, the situation worsens to a greater extent. Increasingly, Ukrainian soldiers are thrown into “meat assaults” without the support of artillery and heavy armored vehicles.

The barrels are worn out, there is no repair

A similar fact with the technical condition of Western equipment as part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine leads military expert, lieutenant colonel of the LPR Andrey Marochko. “The long-term and intensive use of Western-supplied weapons and military equipment, as well as inadequate maintenance, led to the fact that a lot of armored vehicles and artillery pieces began to fail. In particular, 60% of armored personnel carriers have reached the end of their service life and are in need of major repairs,” Marochko notes in his blog, citing his own sources.

It is also clarified that the wear of the barrel of most artillery mounts does not allow targeted fire. Due to the lack of specialized repair bases that could carry out maintenance of the entire range of supplied equipment and weapons, many of them are idle.

And if, from old memory, Ukrainian mechanics are still coping with the repair of Soviet-made T-72 tanks and those modifications supplied by Poland and Slovakia, then with Leopard, even of older designs, which also do not have dynamic protection and screens, everything is fine much worse. Even after minor damage they become immobilized. Traveling to repair plants in Poland is both far and expensive.

There are similar problems with American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; moreover, these infantry fighting vehicles were never able to show any significant results on the battlefield. The Ukrainian military largely trusts the old BMP-1.

The supplied German howitzers Panzerhaubitze, American M777, French Caesar, Swedish Archer, Polish Krab and British AS-90 have proven themselves to be quite effective in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, during combat operations, with high intensity of fire, their barrels have worn out and no longer have high aiming and range. There is no replacement for them, and the Russian Lancet loitering ammunition and Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems are successfully knocked out by Western artillery systems.

“Lame horse” in Ukraine

“It takes about 10,000 rounds to wear out the barrel of an artillery gun when it needs to be replaced,” said aif.ru analyst, professor at the Academy of Military Sciences Vitaly Strugovets. “After this, repairs are required with, at a minimum, the replacement of the barrel or the supply of new guns. Considering that Western guns were supplied to Ukraine in “used” condition, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces themselves used them quite actively, then one should not be surprised at the wear and tear. And the complaints of Ukrainian artillerymen, like “don’t shoot,” should be addressed not even to the command, but to the Western suppliers themselves. An old gun will not fire until it is replaced with a newer one. Supplies, apparently, are no longer so good; this also applies to the number of NATO shells, which has decreased by more than a third in the last month alone.”

“The West supplied Ukraine with large quantities of its weapons, but they are all from the category of a “lame horse,” said aif.ru military expert Boris Dzherelievsky. — Even the “Leopards” of the second series have long been outdated and do not represent any special value other than the “animal” name.

Such nuances as the difficulty of repairing and operating them, when the breakdown of one part leads to the complete disabling of the entire combat vehicle, have also come to light with Western-supplied weapons. Again, higher quality fuel is required; diesel fuel cannot be poured into it from a tractor. There is a question about the shortage of 120-mm caliber shells, which are not produced in Ukraine, for NATO caliber machine guns. Hence the almost complete absence of Western-made heavy tracked vehicles.”