Battlefield pressures appear to be forcing Russian gunners to diverge from their traditional approach of massed fire.
Russia’s artillery crews are suffering from logistical deficiencies as they seek to defeat Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive in the southeast of the country and prevent a breakthrough that Kyiv hopes will bring down the Russian defense network.
A report published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) this week said that deteriorating battlefield conditions are forcing Russian gunners to break from long-established doctrine. This is muting the impact of Moscow’s “God of War,” as Russian artillery has been nicknamed.
Russia’s firepower traditionally relies on volume over precision. Though this remained true though the first part of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the RUSI report said this is now changing.
“First, the Russian forces lack the ammunition to sustain this volume of fire,” the report read.
