War in Ukraine
Samuel Cranny-Evans, a military researcher at Rusi, said that it was important that Ukrainian artillery continued to outperform Russian gunners. “Artillery has been critical to both sides throughout the war,” he said. “It hasn’t had much attention because snazzy anti-tank weapons like Nlaw and Javelin have been put at the front. But artillery is actually what the Ukrainians have been using to destroy a lot of Russian formations.” He said that the range of M777s would give the Ukrainians a new advantage and that the howitzer’s automated targeting would enable quicker and more effective fire than the Soviet-era equipment they had been using. “It provides a form of GPS positioning and it has a digital firing positioning. That should make it more accurate than a couple of guys turning a hand crank until they think it’s at the right elevation,” he said.
