As the US and its western allies continue to pump weapons to prop up the regime in Kiev, maintenance of the armaments is increasingly becoming a headache, US media reported.
Overused weapons utilized by Kiev’s forces are being either wiped out or damaged as Russia continues its special military operation in Ukraine.
No less than a third of the estimated 350 Western-made howitzers supplied to Kiev are out of action at a given moment, American defense officials are cited as saying.
‘Wear & Tear’
After Kiev authorities ran out of the howitzers dating back to the Soviet-era, which fire 152-millimeter ammunition, they were forced to rely on the NATO-standard guns supplied to them. The Pentagon has delivered 142 M777 howitzers to Ukraine – enough to outfit eight battalions, said the report. These cannons fire 155-millimeter shells, with a supply of compatible munitions also on offer from Kiev’s cohorts.
The Ukrainian army has reportedly been using these armaments for anything from launching attacks to laying antitank minefields.
However, dozens of the battle-scarred western howitzers are being towed off for repairs, such as replacing the gun barrels, at a facility in Poland, according to cited US and Ukrainian officials.
Most of the battered and damaged armaments cannot be maintenance-serviced in the field. Besides, Ukraine’s military is not up for the job. Accordingly, maintenance of the armaments has become a headache for the Pentagon’s European Command.
The reported overhaul of the damaged western weapons in Poland is said to have started in recent months.
“With every capability we give to Ukraine, and those our allies and partners provide, we work to ensure that they have the right maintenance sustainment packages to support those capabilities over time,” Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Day, a spokesman for the US European Command, was cited as saying in a media statement.
Ukraine has been constantly demanding more weapons and shells from the US and its allies, with Washington responding by shipping hundreds of thousands of rounds of 155-millimeter ammunition. The US is said to have pledged close to a million more of the shells from its own stockpiles, with other allies also on board on the matter.
However, the fact is that some of those shells and propellant charges tend to result in greater wear and tear for the Pentagon-supplied howitzer barrels, the insiders revealed. The report clarified that rocket launchers like the HIMARS vehicles supplied to Ukraine by the West fire ammunition from pods of pre-loaded tubes. What makes servicing the howitzers more complex is that they need to be reloaded with shells weighing approximately 90 pounds or over 40 kilograms each. Bearing in mind that these guns are then used to fire sometimes thousands of times, the inner parts of the guns can take only so much battering. Furthermore, the Ukrainian military often resorts to firing from very long distances, which calls for larger propellant charges. The latter, in turn, generate more heat and also add to the wear and tear, said the sources. Furthermore, the damaged shells often fail to cover the distance required, with accuracy also leaving much to be desired. Chiefly constructed out of titanium, the M777 howitzers were originally used by the US for their illegal forays into Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
Currently, maintenance crews are on standby in Poland to take over the battered howitzers and change out their barrels, besides doing other repair work. But as hauling back the guns to the battlefield takes time, Ukrainian officials are reportedly demanding from their western-backers that the maintenance sites be moved closer to the front lines.
The maintenance on the howitzers is supervised by US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, yet this is set to change once a new command takes over as part of the effort to streamline the training and assistance to Ukrainian troops.
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The allegedly increased wear and tear of the armaments being shipped to Kiev’s army comes as the Pentagon reportedly spent over $2.6 billion on replacing the weaponry it sent to fight its proxy war in Ukraine.
The United States has been forced to speed up its own weapon acquisition programs in order to compensate for the vast quantities being funneled into Ukraine in recent months, according to US media reports. Thus, the Pentagon spent over $2.6 billion between May and October on replenishing the stocks of weapons and equipment, claimed one recent report.
Despite NATO member states hollowing out their own armed forces in their rush to arm Kiev, and amid reports of US weaponry bound for Ukraine often ending up “vanishing,” only to surface on the black market, the White House has been undeterred in its determination to spend more money on the issue, albeit while spouting its “non-involvement” in the conflict rhetoric.
Moscow has consistently underscored that western military and other assistance to Kiev is only drawing out the conflict, and is fraught with further conflagration as NATO risks being fully drawn into the conflict. Russia has also warned that Western countries should bear in mind that their weapons and mercenaries fighting on Kiev's side become a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces.