SeinfeldRules

Some points I found relevant: It seemed the commander was doing his own observing and calls for fire. This is contrary to a lot of Western Doctrine, where artillery units are a delivery service to support a maneuver unit’s request for fire. Here there doesn’t seem to be any “land owner” that’s dictating fire. They talk about their observation platforms, and that they can only use it when wind and Russian EW allow it. Wind and it’s ability to limit UAV operation is often overlooked. They also said it started to become unstable the higher they got in altitude, and was harder to observe fire. There didn’t seem to be a sense of danger or urgency when it came to moving or shooting the howitzers - must be a relatively quiet part of the front with limited counter battery. One of the crew chiefs talks about firing 150 rounds in a day and I got the impression that was a busy day for him. Can give an idea of the volume of fires executed by specific units.

Those look to still be in western Europe, so there is still a chance that equipment will be removed before it crosses the border. Or it can be actual US military howitzers redeploying after an exercise. We often use civilian truckers to haul them around the states between training areas so it may be the same in Europe. I also see a generator on one of the flatbeds, which usually isn’t standard equipment for the howitzer, and may be from another unit that was training alongside the artillery unit. Edit: Also a HMMWV trailer. Have we seen Ukraine operating HMMWVs yet? Double Edit: The howitzers also seem to be named, due to the stencils on the front of the tubes. Very common for American artillery units to name their howitzers and I haven’t seen one in Ukraine that were named. Could still need to be repainted but a sign to me that these aren’t going straight to Ukraine. Hopefully we’ll see them in country with that equipment but until then I’m doubtful.

Our M777 needs a specific American system to be able to pass data for fire missions, but is still able to operate its self laying and self locating systems independently of any outside systems. I imagine there must be some classification issues with the inertial navigation system for those functions that resulted in us having to strip it out. There is certainly still a significant amount of benefit to having that self locating ability even if you can’t receive fire mission data.

The ultimate problem you are trying to solve when defending against drones is to avoid being seen, whether that’s through the use of good camouflage or by a strong air defense that denies the UAV the “high ground”. Camouflage can still be effective if the UAV is forced to operate at distances that hinder it’s ability to locate targets due to the quality of its sensors. You won’t necessarily be able to hide if it’s right over your head, but hopefully you have ADA to counter that threat. What I suggested about Russian artillery is not that they are too incompetent to utilize camo, but instead that they are not being incentivized to do so. Perhaps in that portion of the line there is very little counter battery or UAV threat. Perhaps they have determined that it’s easier to leave the howitzers in the open and have personnel occupy hardened positions in the tree line, where they are able to hide better without howitzers. Ukrainians seems to have adopted a similar tactic, leaving the gun in place but displacing the personnel. Interestingly enough US Army towed howitzers crew train with their vehicles and crews collocated with the guns for the sake of simplicity, so I’m curious to see if we change our training to match lessons learned in Ukraine. Vehicle + howitzer makes for a juicy target. I think the US idea of constant displacement to avoid counter battery is unsustainable on the human level, as fatigue quickly starts to set in. Anyways, I’ve seen Russian howitzers camouflaged so they know how to do it, I just don’t think they feel the need every time. In regards to complexity, such systems are usually feasible when you’re dealing with smaller armies that can have higher quality soldiers and mechanics, with relatively simple supply chains. Perfect for small scale, limited time span conflicts. When you start to get into large scale, attrition type conflicts, that complexity can quickly bite you in the butt. A note on smaller howitzers - I was an M119 battery commander at JRTC, which is heavily wooded with limited space for firing points and less then ideal roads. Compared to the larger M777 battery that we had in our battalion, I was able to occupy much more treacherous terrain and move around the battlefield much faster. The M777s were limited to only a few firing points and were ruthlessly targeted by OPFOR who knew their limitations exactly. There is absolutely something to be said for the lighter howitzers. Range isn’t the be-all end-all, because you will always be in range of something else.

Well this is one thing we can probably agree on, I think manned fighters are good as dead in the not too far future. Or at the very least you can expect to have drone wingmen. The human in the loop is starting to become a hindrance. Would love to see some thoughts otherwise though.

But Trent specifically mentions that Grey Eagle in relation to the Orlan-10, and how the US Army won’t have enough to fight the next war, when the two aren’t comparable in capabilities or roles. The Army wouldn’t be using it in situations where it stands to lose so many. This is what he posted: “The US Army is too high on the price/capability curve versus modern air defenses & needs a drone 1/5 the cost, five times the numbers and about 70% the capability of a Grey Eagle” That UAV literally exists. It is called the RQ-7 Shadow. So I understand your point, but we have to be careful when discussing future capability and force structure for future wars. The manufacturing capability and operational structure to produce and utilize thousands of cheap drone isn’t here yet. If we start re-designing our force structure and doctrine under the assumption that we will have these thousands of cheap drones, we are going to be in quite the predicament if the technology doesn’t exist when war comes. Prove to me the capability to manufacture, distribute, transport, operate and resupply thousands of cheap drones across a theater of operations. It doesn’t exist now, and I’m not saying it won’t in the future, but until that capability materializes we can’t claim that’s the future of warfare. We may never actually reach the point where it’s feasible. There’s costs associated with all this beyond physically making more UAVs. You can treat them like ammunition but they can’t just be loaded in a gun and fired. They can’t be stuck in a magazine in someone’s chest rig. We will need more pilots, more mechanics, more transport trucks, more launchers, more fuel trucks, more everything. Who runs all this? Is there now a UAV branch and do we expand the military with more personnel? That’s often times not financially feasible, so which branch foots the personnel bill? Infantryman? Tankers? Artilleryman? Logistics units? What does a UAV replace on a supply truck going to the front? Artillery ammo? Tank rounds? Food? Fuel? Medicine? What does a Switchblade replace in an infantryman’s rucksack? How many infantryman are now trying to control dozens of switchblades instead of pulling security? What airfields are launching dozens of Grey Eagles and TB-2s? Do they have the capacity for all these new UAVs and are we now cutting spots for manned, high performance jets and their different capabilities? Do we now have to have construction units assigned that can build hasty UAV airfields? Where exactly can we afford to cut now that we have these drones? Those are decisions that can have profound effects on a militaries capabilities, so it’s hard to say that it’s the future of warfare when we haven’t even shown the capability to manufacture and support them in such large quantities. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but someone needs to show that it can be done before we start reorganizing our entire military and its doctrine to support them. Fielding drones in the thousands is asking for exactly that.

Trent conveniently leaves out the RQ-7 Shadow which is equivalent in capability of the Orlan-10, with 2-4 found in every active duty Brigade Combat Team in the US Army (and probably in the National Guard ones as well, I just can't say for sure), and there are even more in most Aviation units. It is used extensively for reconnaissance at the Brigade Level and is a cornerstone of intelligence collection and fires convergence... We literally have the platform he is saying we need. AND we also have the RQ-11 Raven down to the company level, again in almost every BCT in the Army (probably about ~40 airframes in a Brigade). Now the actual system is underwhelming and desperately needs to be replaced by a more user friendly quadcopter, but you can hardly say the US Army doesn't have disposable UAV capability. He simply has no idea what he is talking about.

All the city names he mentioned seemed to be south of Izyum.

Thank you for posting this. It paints a very dire picture for the force level of Russian infantry in Ukraine. It reads like some of the German WW2 memoirs where the situation was desperate and unit sizes were in name only. I also think it’s raises the question of how desperate manning levels must be on the Ukrainian side of things as well, at least in this part of the front. Surely they have a good picture of Russian force levels by now, that they would be able to launch successful attacks of their own (on this part of the front, I know there are local counterattacks elsewhere). The battles described seem to be small groups of units punching at each other in the dark over villages, hoping to achieve local success, rather then any set piece operation.

I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here, as a user of proprietary DOD hardware and software, there is absolutely something to be said for the simplicity and usability of using COTS systems. A lot of soldiers I’ve talked to would agree. It certainly seems to work for Ukrainians.

Egyptians in 1973 over the Suez Canal

It's definitely based off his Twitter thread but it seems like they at least reached out to the developers for comment. Nothing system wise in the article is outlandish or outside the realm of possibility. I only take issue with the characterization that such a system only takes seconds to deliver fires. Even by American doctrinal standards we have several minutes to process fire missions with fully digital observers and howitzers, and it's very rare to meet that standard due to a wide range of circumstances. Knowing the realities of how these systems operate I am hard pressed to believe the hype, especially in a military without a preponderance of fully digital howitzers. I would love to see actual proof that it's being done this fast on a regular basis. One of the very few things I've seen in OSINT describing the process of target identification to execution - the engineer's Twitter thread discussing the pontoon bridge fiasco - stated it took 20 minutes to deliver artillery fires, which is about on par with my own experience. Another line in the article I will bring up is the claim that this is contrary to what the Russians are capable of, despite them supposedly having very similar software. Whether it's functioning or wide spread across their formations is unknown to me, but we have seen very little in OSINT that can accurately characterize how Russians control fires on a technical or tactical level, for better or worse. Howitzers lined up close in a field or treeline has very little to do with their ability to send fire mission across a network, and everything to do with the lack of Digital Fire Control systems - a boat that Ukraine occupies equally. While it's certainly a excellent capability to have and its impressive that the Ukrainian military can utilize something like Starlink to leverage that, digital distribution of fires is nothing revolutionary or unique; articles like this just give the public the opposite impression.

The comment on how they use their drones is what I found interesting and confirms some other comments In this thread. Smaller drones are used to build the intelligence picture (the guy claimed he spent 10 days scouting out a particular village) and they use that data to cue the larger more capable UAVs that have a link with the artillery.

Yes and no. Digital Fire Control allows several things. One is the ability to self locate and self lay. This greatly simplifies operation or the howitzer and speeds up emplacement. This part of DFC simply tells you where the howitzer is located (grid) and the direction and elevation the tube is currently pointed at (firing data), and is unique for each howitzer and independent of any command network. You still need someone to tell you what data to fire. The second part of DFC is the ability to link into the digital network to receive firing data. The computer system calculating the data sends it over a digital network to the howitzer and it auto populates into the system, meaning all the crew has to do is lay the howitzer, instead of receiving it over the radio and the crew entering it into their gunner sights and then laying the howitzer. Theoretically this allows an observer to enter a target into the system and have it automatically route to a howitzer without any intervention. The American AFATDS system is designed to operate this way, as all our howitzers are fully digital. In reality we rarely operate this way, as combat is never as simple as putting some guidances and control measures into a computer system, you need some sort of human oversight at certain points. Which is why Trent’s thread the other day is almost certainly bunk: Ukraine seems to have very little howitzers with Digital Fire Control systems to enable such a system, and are operating in such a high tempo and target rich environment that some level of decision making has to go into the allocation of fires. I’m sure they have a similar system to AFATDS for passing a digital fire mission from node to node, but that’s not that ground breaking.

Correct, unless there is an export version of the Excalibur that has a different way of loading the data into the shell, which would be a possibility. Biggest implication of no digital systems for the M777 is that you lose the ability to self lay and self locate. In other words, you are operating at the same level as the rest of the majority of Russian/Ukrainian artillery. It's good to see someone on OSINT finally noticed this, perhaps now I will stop seeing some of the outrageous claims about the M777.

This is an incredibly common trend you see in training. UAVs can have very much a soda straw effect when it comes to processing and analyzing the feed. Even when you find something it can be hard to place it in context as you often don’t get the full picture of what formation that unit represents. From what I’ve seen, often one of the best ways to use a UAV is to have another intelligence asset cue them on and have the UAV complete the kill chain with accurate targeting data. Another under appreciated aspect of UAVs is the support required to operate, analyze and integrate their collection into a a coherent intelligence picture for units - command posts are already bloated with personnel and have survivability issues, I can only imagine the number of people you would need to view, assess and analyze dozens of UAV feeds. AI can help but that’s probably farther off then a drone rich environment. Plus the air space control plan you would need, the possibility of target duplication and overestimation (multiple UAVs collecting on the same target, turning what is only 3 vehicles into an entire company). Where are all these UAVs going to take off? All of the more capable UAVs need room and personnel to operate. UAV integration is a non trivial problem set.

Thanks! I very seen several videos now where the crew immediately takes cover after firing, it seems to have become a standard procedure for artillery crew instead of moving the howitzer.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1524826166107987970?s=20&t=QrZXb3nVRSckbuOXwMItpw Video from the attempted river crossing, apparently taken before they had the second bridge in the water.

You have to remember that the reports state they had at least a company with armored vehicles on the far bank of the river. I'm sure the subsequent bridging attempts were an attempt to either reinforce them or get them back across the river. I'm sure not all Russian commanders are heartless bastards who would leave a whole company to die. And don't forget it took almost 3 days to finish the fight. Not like they tried doing this all under constant artillery fire and were wiped out in a couple of hours. Maybe they had been conducting effective counter battery and felt there was still an opportunity to complete the bridges, amateur attempts aside. The engineer mentions aviation having to come in to destroy the second bridge. Not everything is an example of incompetence, sometimes we have to do dangerous things to gain a tactical advantage (ie, the 82nd crossing the Waal river in canvas boats in broad daylight to capture the Nijmegen Bridge).

There's a lot of interesting "behind the scenes" stuff that's described too, that isn't captured in a photo or video on Twitter. It's really easy to assume a drone caught them in the open and rained down fire on them, but in reality it was a combination of IPB, ground reconnaissance, and good direction to allow units to cue in on what they needed to. The difficulty they had in actually seeing them was also interesting to me, it seems the Russians made a concerted effort to actually conceal the operation, with their burning of the forest and utilization of smoke. An obvious tactic, but again, not captured in a series of photos on Twitter. They might have actually gotten really close to securing a foothold, if they had troops across and 7/8ths of the bridge complete. Could have been a near run thing. One other thing I found interesting, notice the dates he lists - it seems the majority of combat took over a day to play out, starting with the artillery barrage the morning of the 8th and the Russians culminating the morning of the 9th, with the final destruction of the bridge on the 10th. Hard to understand that timeline without his little vignette. I definitely got the impression all that stuff was wiped out in one massive barrage. Fascinating stuff!

Still see a lack of the digital fire control systems found on the typical M777A2. Interesting but not a surprise that we wouldn’t risk that tech falling into Russian hands. Removes some of the benefits of the system, and puts it on parr with the other systems they have - but does allows us to provide them our conventional ammo. They also seem to be using the older propellants, probably out of our European war stock. What an amazing insight into this particular combat operation. Nothing said strikes me as out of the realm of possibility so I completely believe it.

I think most of the questions you had for me have already been broadly covered, and I don't have too much to add. JonS answered the quadcopters question with exactly what I had in mind - currently, they don't have the technical capabilities to produce effective and targetable data. Now granted, I have some bias myself, as I have spent the last two years observing training in a desert, and it's much harder to terrain associate you quadcopter footage with Google Maps in a barren wasteland, as opposed to Ukraine with it's clearly defined fields and villages. But adjustments become a problem as you don't have a firm grip on your observer direction, and then there is the vulnerability to small arms as you have to get much closer to produce more accurate data. You could certainly kit up a quadcopter to achieve those effects, but then you run into weight issues, and power issues, and size issues; is your quadcopter now something that you can hand off to an infantryman and have him stuff in a truck? I think it will be a useful tool for observation and mortar fire on enemy battle positions, but not something you can routinely use to target maneuvering formations. I wouldn't describe a lot of opinions on drones as "pushback", but more along the lines of hesitancy. Militaries are quick to tout the capabilities of their new systems, but when the soldiers get a hold of them, reality rears its ugly head and the ground truth of their real capabilities becomes apparent. The US Army is full of such examples, some that you probably wouldn't even realize. Yes, at some point in the future we may be able to solve some or even most of these problems, but you also can't write doctrine based on a future capability that isn't even fully realized. Look at something like Nett Warrior, which has gone through many iterations and different equipment sets but has yet to be realized in the extent originally envisioned. The Army could probably dump a lot of time and effort on developing doctrine for an infantry platoon that has the capability to seamlessly network with every rifleman, but why would we, when we don't even have a system of record that can achieve that. You don't want to fight the previous war but you also can't pretend the next war is going to be fought with systems that haven't even been proven yet. Not saying the UAV isn't proven - clearly they are effective systems in the current operational environments - but more along the lines of things like micro UAVs or UGVs. I'm not foolish enough to believe that war never changes and things will always be the same, but I'm also not going to buy off on having to completely change up our doctrine to counter threats that haven't even been fully realized. Drones are dangerous and units will have to adapt their procedures to survive, but at the end of the day countering UAVs is about reducing the enemy's ability to observe you, and HEY, maybe you should figure out how to make the thing flying around and looking at you go away first, before completely changing up how we do things. Right now there is certainly an equipment gap when it comes to dealing with UAVs that is making things difficult, but a slow, poorly armored aircraft, with limited sensors and payloads, and a critical requirement to maintain comms to do its mission, and that has no effective means of cover or concealment and relies solely on a small signature and distance for survivability, certainly strikes me as system with vulnerabilities. Drones may be cheaper then manned aircraft but there is a limit on how many can be shot down before UAV operators have to start changing their tactics. But I'm a pessimist I guess, and have burned by plenty of equipment that didn't hold up to what was promised. If you're gonna tout the next new thing that's going to change war, you need to prove to me that it's actually achievable first. I guess I won't be applying to Army Futures Command any time soon. In regards to a question I can't find anymore, about what I think potential solutions to the UAV problem may be: I think there are a couple options out there. We can already target mid-size drones (think TB-2 or RQ-7 equivalents) fairly easily with current equipment, the main issue is probably range. So maybe we need a UAV specific missile that sacrifices speed and payload for range, as they aren't chasing down high performance jets at altitude anymore. Where are the anti-UAV drones? We need a new Fokker Scourge, with drones swooping out of the sun to shoot buckshot at loitering quadcopters. I mean it sounds cool, right?? If we can track a small mortar round traveling hundreds of feet per second through the air with counterfire radars, how come we can't utilize similar technology to locate small UAVs? I am not a radar expert by any means, but it sounds feasible? Tie in a decentralized UAV finding radar with Avenger style systems operating down to the company level, and anytime a UAV comes within your bubble, rollout of cover and shoot it down with missiles or - even cheaper - proximity fuzed 20mm cannon rounds. Provide some sort of optical assistance and you can maybe even forgo the radar except for early warning. Maybe some sort of weapon system that takes advantage of the noise a drone creates? Quadcopters have quite the unique sound profile, maybe there is some sort of way we can take advantage of that. I don't know, I'm just a dumb artilleryman. Thank you for these insights! Good to see the mortar still has their traditional place on the battlefield. I imagine the infantry fight is much harder to turn into sexy Twitter videos and we won't see a lot of this on OSINT channels. So honestly some of the hits do look like ATGM hits. The "B Roll" footage interspersed shows a much closer view of the convoy that seems to be well within ATGM range, you can clearly see the lead vehicles engaging something with their main gun, and (gonna channel my inner Trent here) some of the hits on the vehicles have a very distinctive "plume" of rising smoke I see with a lot of ATGM hits. And near the end, one of them definitely hits a mine. I think what we may be seeing is a perfect doctrinal example of an Engagement Area - artillery and mortars to disrupt movement and keep infantry in cover or in their vehicles; dismounted ATGM teams engaging lead vehicles of the convoy to stop forward movement; all in concert with an obstacle plan. This is an excellent observation, and one I hadn't really internalized! I agree that this is probably due to survivability requirements. Digital Fire Control Systems are not so much about precision but rather speed. Digital systems greatly speed up the ability to lay and shoot howitzers. The howitzer is firing the same data that it would be if it were using optical systems, the difference is that the crew can just lay the howitzer faster and easier. If anything, I would argue that the digital FCS's greatest advantage is in fact the ability to mass even more. A wide range of howitzers unit could mass quickly on a single mission, displace and have the ability to conduct a quick "hip shoot" at any point during their survivability move - theoretically at least. Reality is, as always, more complicated. But still, digital fire control systems have probably been the largest gain in capability for executing indirect fires in the last 100 years, I think even more so then the introduction of computing software to calculate firing data. I'm sorry, but I don't buy the logistical issues. Army's have been firing unfathomably large amounts of howitzer rounds since World War I, with much worse logistical transportation equipment. I'm sure the invention of the machine gun and automatic rifle greatly increased small arms expenditures beyond what militaries were used to but I don't think the answer was reduce our ability to output small arms fire. You couldn't have replaced German machineguns at the Somme with snipers and achieved the same effects. Large volumes of artillery fires brings a certain suppressive effect that can't be matched with other systems. And mass isn't about blasting every treeline - it's about bringing all your available assets to bear at the same time to achieve a desired effect- sometimes that's a rear area command post, sometimes that's a platoon in a trench in a treeline. And a lot of times it's not even about killing the platoon in the trench - it's about keeping their heads down until my infantry can maneuver in and shoot them in the face. In regards to GOs and obsession with precision, in 2014 the Field Artillery Commandant laid out a standard that 80% of targets acquired should have a Target Location Error within 10m to 5m 8 years later we didn't even come close to achieving this as an Army and the goal is long forgotten. Why? Because the ability to achieve that Category 1 and 2 TLE required cumbersome additional steps that are completely unfeasible for forward observers to accomplish in LSCO environment. You'd be hard pressed to make these requirements go away as well due to the physical and geographical nature of the target mensuration steps required to achieve CAT 1. Is it worth generating that CAT 1 grid for a command post? Absolutely, you wanna make that round count. But the infantry commander on the ground? He doesn't have time to wait on his FSO to mess around with his target mensuration software, squinting at a blurry satellite image and making sure that he is picking the right tree in the forest that's hiding the machine gun position. He needs suppressive fires now, and needs it for the next 30 minutes so he can organize his troops and maneuver on the enemy. Precision munitions are not as simple as point laser, shoot PGM - when you're dodging incoming small arms fire, you don't have time to make sure you have the right grid for the machine gun position, instead of the bush that's 50 meters in front of it that your laser clipped. For a precision round, that's enough distance to greatly limit your effectiveness, no matter how cheap they are.

So this is a common thought, especially in the American artillery community about a decade ago. The issue is that valuing precision over mass briefs well, but only in certain situations. Against point targets or specific stationary systems (ADA, command posts), yes - precision is crucial! Much better to hit it once and be done. Guided rockets, laser and GPS guided shells, and other precision munitions are great tools. But that’s only the portion of the fight. The Excalibur or GMLRS capabilities sound good on paper, but the realities of its employment preclude individual targeting of maneuvering vehicles in almost all cases. Even laser guided munitions can be difficult to utilize - the US Army had a laser guided round (Copperhead) but got rid of it due to usability issues. The artillery answer to maneuvering units is MASS - throw as many dumb rounds as possible and saturate the area. It is far cheaper and faster to throw dumb rounds at the enemy then try to conduct laser designation on individual vehicles. Imagine a vehicle in heavy tree cover, designated by a UAV sitting at a significant slant angle to avoid enemy ADA - how can you be sure the laser is actually designating the right place? The reality is more complicated then you think. How can you refine a grid accurately enough to achieve effects with a GPS guided munition? A lot of effort goes into developing targetable data for guided munitions - otherwise you miss your target very precisely. You also have to appreciate the morale and suppressive effect massed artillery represents - even harassing fires can pin a unit in place, limiting movement and observation. It isn’t always about see target, kill target - your UAV may never see the ATGM team in the forest, but if you mass a battalions worth of artillery on that tree line for 30 minutes I guarantee whoever is there will NOT be looking for your tanks. Expensive and limited precision munitions can not replicate that effect. This is where you can’t look at this and assume guided munitions, just because they achieved a direct hit on a vehicle. Howitzers can achieve this effect given enough rounds and proper adjustment… it’s just unlikely, but not impossible. I have some thoughts on this video in particular that I will address tonight. There are several other comments in this thread that I’d like to discuss as well (including most of your post BFC, I’ll get there I promise!) but I need to wait till after work to give it the proper attention.

“Artillery supremacy” isn’t a doctrinal term in this case like air supremacy vs superiority. I use it highlight the picture that Trent is trying to paint, that the Ukrainians have a system that vastly outpaces the Russians or even Western nations. My argument is that the data he uses to reach that conclusion isn’t well sourced or understood by him. The data I see, is Ukrainians artillery primarily operating in traditional formations, utilizing optical fire control equipment, shooting standard ammunition and achieving normal distribution and sheaf patterns. I can certainly believe that Ukrainians are operating with “roving guns” - it’s a great tactic for executing harassment fires - but it doesn’t seem to be typical and they are certainly not fully utilizing digital linkages as depicted in Trent’s post. Russians getting dumber - there is certainly nothing wrong with more mass, and is in-fact one of the main issues we see US units struggle with when it comes to employing artillery in training - 20 years of COIN has made units hesitant to mass their battalions. It’s a teaching point every exercise. Mass is a critical principle of Fire Support and incredibly effective, wouldn’t say the Russians are dumber for massing. Ukrainians being better, faster and more precise - again, I don’t see the data to back that up. Artillery utilizing standard optical fire control equipment can easily achieve effects within 25m of a target using adjustments. It is very rare to find artillery footage this isn’t edited with quick cuts between volleys. Can be quite easy to paint the picture of laser accurate artillery, when the reality could be that it took multiple rounds of adjustments to achieve that effect. I’m not saying that it’s not happening - I’m saying what we are seeing isn’t proof of it either.

I'm going to take a minute before work to address this Twitter thread by Trent. I only caught the first part of his thread in my responses yesterday, and I think the rest of what he posted is a perfect example of him taking isolated situations and extrapolating them to create sexy scenarios for public consumption with little additional evidence. In this thread he takes examples of shell burst patterns to build this idea of Ukraine using a vast network of distributed, digital howitzers to shoot and scoot across the battlefield. The tactic is certainly feasible on paper - it's been around in doctrine since WW1, the US Army calls it a "roving gun" - but hardly unique to Ukraine. The AFATDS system and digital howitzers that we use are literally designed to facilitate this function. And while Ukraine may be using a digital system to route and process fire missions, but from what I've seen the vast majority of their howitzers (and definitely not the 122mm D-30s he references) lack the digital systems to make it truly effective to the extent he describes. Trent uses a lot of questionable assumption to build this idea of Ukrainian artillery supremacy that is honestly not backed by the data I'm seeing. If he has more sources to back his claims I would love to see them, because none of his thread passes the sniff test for this artillery officer. Please don't take this as a slight on you Grey Fox or anyone who found Trent's thread interesting, this is just professionally frustrating to see someone the public "trusts" peddling such poorly sourced information in such a confident manner. Now I get to see his thread linked in every Reddit and Twitter thread featuring artillery, talking about something that is almost certainly not happening, at least not to the extent that Trent describes.