The expert assessed a new batch of US weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine: make up for losses in equipment

Shell hunger will be “treated” with cluster munitions

President Biden approved a new military aid package for Ukraine. This was done defiantly on the eve of the NATO summit, which will be held in Vilnius on July 11-12, and against the background of the failed large offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Washington, as it were, is setting an example for its subordinates on how to respond to the heavy losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in equipment in the first days of the offensive. A set of American weapons was evaluated by military expert Ilya Kramnik.

During the offensive, which began on June 4, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost dozens of tanks and armored combat vehicles, which were blown up by mines or were knocked out. According to some estimates, for example, every sixth American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle delivered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces was destroyed. To compensate for these losses, the United States is providing additional armored vehicles from the Pentagon’s arsenals.

“I would like to note,” writes Ilya Kramnik in his channel, “an increase in the volume of transfers of armored vehicles – another 32 Bradleys and 32 Strykers.

Given the previous deliveries of combat vehicles, as well as the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have practically not used Western equipment in battles in recent weeks, new deliveries, Kramnik notes, will cover the losses of American vehicles, although they are not enough to cover the losses in armored combat vehicles in general, especially in tanks. .

In addition, the US is donating 31 155mm howitzers. This will partially close the losses of previously delivered howitzers of the M777 Three Axes type. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, several dozen M777s have already been destroyed, mainly by Lancet kamikaze drones.

The new package of military assistance also included engineering vehicles, sapper equipment, and tractors.

A fundamentally new step on the part of the United States was the transfer of cluster munitions to Kyiv. So far, the United States has refrained from this measure. The fact is that in a number of parameters cluster munitions are approaching weapons of mass destruction. They act indiscriminately and often turn large areas into minefields. What prompted the US to allow itself to circumvent its internal ban on the export of this type of weapon? Kramnik believes that the main reason is the depletion of stocks of conventional ammunition in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in the United States itself.

According to the expert, the question is which consignments of cluster death will be shipped. “In principle, there may be hundreds of thousands, although, of course, not all at once,” he believes.

According to the expert, in addition to conventional M107/M795 high-explosive fragmentation shells, which they have already supplied to Ukraine in quantities of more than a million, the US arsenals also contain a multi-million stock of M483/483A1/864 cluster shells.

Until now, the United States has had a legal ban on the export of cluster munitions, which have a probability of failure of submunitions exceeding 1%. The ban was introduced to avoid turning areas of application into minefields. As it happened, for example, in Laos, where thousands of hectares are still not freed from unexploded submunitions.

Kramnik cites such statistics as an example. The level of unexploded submunitions without a self-destruct mechanism is, according to various sources, from 3% to 14%. “Here, a battery fired in a day, for example, 600 M483A1 shells, which in total ejected 600×88 = 52,800 M42 / M46 submunitions,” Kramnik cites the mathematical layout. “Estimatedly, from 3% (1584 pieces) to 14% (7392 pieces) of them did not work immediately, setting up such a solid minefield that will be dangerous many decades later.”