Howitzer M777

2023: Russian Armed Forces disable more than 90 guns in Ukraine

In June 2023, the authors of the LostArmour resource published statistics on objectively confirmed losses of American M777 howitzers delivered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At this time, the RF Armed Forces had already disabled 90 guns of this type, and another was captured as a trophy.

It is characteristic that over half (60%) of artillery installations were hit by barraging ammunition. " Lancet Another 33% became targets of receiver artillery, including the Krasnopol adjustable ammunition. At the same time, the number of destroyed M777 is clearly higher: the list includes only equipment, the defeat of which fell on photos and videos.

2022: US hands over GPS-free howitzers to Ukraine to avoid them reaching Russia

The West supplied Ukraine with M777 howitzers without a GPS system to avoid them reaching Russian troops. This was reported on June 23, 2022 by RIA Novosti with reference to the Ukrainian edition of the LIGA.net, which, in turn, refers to a source in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

According to this source, the GPS system was removed from the M777 howitzers, which Ukraine received from Western partners, because governments and manufacturers have reservations about storing technology, since there is an understanding that during the war certain types of weapons can be captured by Russia.

Howitzers M-777 use GPS to adjust strikes using appropriate ammunition. Also, the global positioning system allows you to combine howitzers into a single circuit with drones and radar stations for counter-battery warfare. Russian detection tools can detect the location of howitzers with active GPS modules.

The United States handed over howitzers without GPS to Ukraine in order to avoid them getting to Russia

On June 4, 2022, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs Colin Kahl said that the US authorities had handed over M777 howitzers to Ukraine along with ammunition for them. At the same time, he noted that the Ukrainian military is experiencing problems due to a shortage of ammunition for artillery, especially 152 mm caliber. He also recognized the superiority of Russian artillery over Ukrainian artillery and expressed "a feeling of concern for the Ukrainian side" from Washington.

The delivery of American-made M777 howitzers and ammunition to Ukraine became known on May 15, 2022 from the US Embassy in the country. It was reported that America sent 90 howitzers to Kyiv, another 10 came from Australia and Canada. In addition, on May 24, 2022, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said that Ottawa will provide Kyiv with 20 thousand ammunition for M777 howitzers.

On June 21, 2022, the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Konashenkov said that Russian servicemen destroyed 15 M777 howitzers, which were transferred to Ukraine by the United States and European countries. Western weapons were destroyed in the area of ​ ​ the Druzhkovka railway station. According to Konashenkov, the howitzers did not have time to fire a single shot.^[1]

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