Using the American M777 howitzer

According to Bulgarian Military, the US M777 towed howitzer killed several Ukrainian soldiers in the line of duty. “After a fierce barrage, the barrel of the M777 exploded. As a result, several Ukrainian soldiers were killed and wounded,” the Russian news agency Tass reported, citing Ruslan Olefirenko. Olifirenko is a Ukrainian soldier who is currently a prisoner of war in Russia.

“We saw many times that the M777 exploded after a round of fire. So there were many cases of soldiers dying. Many soldiers became afraid and refused to work with that gun,” Olifyrenko said.

Olifyrenko fought in the 53rd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was not captured but voluntarily surrendered to the Russian army in the Avdeevka area.

The Ukrainian soldier also said he was trained in how to operate an M777 howitzer in Germany. Olifyrenko’s training lasted only five days. Four of those five days were purely theoretical, and the last day was practical use of the howitzer. He was then sent directly to the front lines as a member of an M777 towed howitzer battery.

Olifirenko also said that the M777’s broken gun was not the only problem. During combat, he noted cases where the gun stopped reloading or overheated. In addition, Olifirenko added, “some other features of the gun also frequently malfunctioned and stopped working.”

Using the American M777 Howitzer - The Painful Experience of Ukrainian Soldiers - 1 — A Ukrainian M777 artillery battery.

Cause of the problem

In fact, many failures of artillery systems have been reported by analysts of the Bulgarian Military magazine before. They believe that the main reason for the barrel breakage is that Ukrainian soldiers are overloading these guns. The M777 in particular and other types of artillery in general have limits on the number of rounds that can be fired in a certain period of time. In combat, there are many cases where soldiers try to fire hundreds of rounds per day from a single howitzer, which leads to frequent failures.

Experts say some Western howitzers are only designed to fire 100 rounds a day, which gives us an idea of the stress the M777s are under when firing hundreds of rounds a day.

In early November 2022, the Bulgarian Military website also reported an interesting case in the conflict in Ukraine. A Ukrainian M777 artillery battery had to replace its barrel four times because they were firing continuously and the barrel overheated, leading to poor shooting accuracy. According to the source, this M777 has fired 6,000 rounds since its arrival in Ukraine.

Using the American M777 Howitzer - The Painful Experience of Ukrainian Soldiers - 2 — A Ukrainian soldier stands in front of a US-supplied M777 howitzer in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on June 18, 2022.

According to statistics, at least 6 models of Western howitzers supplied to Ukraine have problems, including towed and self-propelled guns. Some Ukrainian soldiers also noticed that when firing with the M777, the barrel sometimes does not recoil, and this happens after firing 30 rounds continuously.

Another American howitzer, the M109, also suffered from burned-out loading rings. There were also problems with the Italian FH70 howitzer and the German PzH 2000.

The Italian FH70 often suffered from nitrogen pressure drop in the barrel balance mechanism. While the German PzH 2000 had problems with some electronics, such as overheating the controller display.

The last two weapon systems on the list are the Polish Krab and French Caesar howitzers. They also had frequent problems with their computing and gun support equipment when firing continuously.

M777 on the battlefield in Ukraine

Immediately after the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, the US provided 108, Canada 4 and Australia 6 M777 guns and ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces, Canada pledged to provide 10 gun barrels to replace any worn out gun barrels during firing. Normally, a modern artillery system like the M777, must replace the barrel after firing up to 2,500 rounds.

Although the M777 has to be towed and has a lower rate of fire than the German PzH 2000 and the French Caesar, it is more accurate and easier to use. BAE Systems has announced that it is in discussions with the US about restarting production of the weapon, after seeing how well the M777 performed in Ukraine and its lower operating costs have prompted other countries to inquire about purchasing the weapon.

Using the American M777 Howitzer - The Painful Experience of Ukrainian Soldiers - 3 — A destroyed Ukrainian M777 howitzer outside Lysychansk.

By November 2022, according to US and Ukrainian officials, a third of the approximately 350 Western howitzers (including 142 US-donated M777s) donated to Ukraine were inoperable.

Those weapons are either worn out after months of heavy use, or damaged or destroyed in combat. As of early April 2023, between 49 and 81 M777s were reported destroyed or damaged.

Although more effective in combat than other types of howitzers, the use of M777s by Ukrainian soldiers is making them counterproductive due to problems caused by overloading, which needs to be fixed otherwise such weapons will only make the situation on the Ukrainian side more difficult.

Le Hung (Source: Bulgarian Military)

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