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Kos underestimates Ukraine's ability to maintain their equipment. [1]

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Date: 2022-12-12

Primarily in this story but later reiterated recently here, Kos is of the opinion that “Ukraine can’t even manage its own maintenance of the mechanically simple M777 howitzer, so how could it ever be expected to maintain F16s or M1 Abrams tanks or other highly computerized gear? ” (Btw, Kos is great at this stuff. I’m not criticizing him in general, just picking a bone on this singular topic)

His basis for this claim is based in part on a New York Times article stating:

A third of the roughly 350 Western-made howitzers donated to Kyiv are out of action at any given time, according to U.S. defense officials and others familiar with Ukraine’s defense needs.

He also cites how Ukraine ships these artillery pieces outside the country and (in my opinion) mischaracterizes this as further proof of inability to maintain these relatively simple pieces.

So assuming the New York Times is correct, and that is possibly a bad assumption, let’s go into why this might be. Kos could be correct that it is a lack of Ukrainian experience with this. However, he hasn’t ruled out several other possible explanations.

The first alternative explanation is that Western artillery is not designed for the intense usage Ukraine has put the guns through. We’ve seen that Ukraine easily runs through shells at about ten times the rate of US forces in recent conflicts. The US has the advantage of a superior Air Force and many of the tasks the US would use planes for, Ukraine needs to use artillery for. The M777 was designed to be light and part of the design choices were to use thinner metal in places. While this reduces weight, it also makes the guns more susceptible to breakage from heavy usage. It’s not at all clear that the US would not suffer an equal amount of maintenance problems should it ever use these guns in a similar manner. One of the limiting factors of firing artillery (and any gun) is the heat build up in the barrel can cause minor warpage of the barrel. Ukraine is far more likely than the US to be in situations where they need to overheat the barrels due to tactical emergencies.

The second alternative explanation is barrel availability. I have not seen any numbers on how many replacement barrels for the M777 have been provided to Ukraine. Again, the US doctrine is different than Ukrainian doctrine. The US may have provided Ukraine with what they would consider a “6 month supply” of replacement barrels based on typical US usage, not Ukrainian usage. Furthermore, the barrels may be under the same limitations the ammunition is where the US military doesn’t wish to spend down stocks below a certain point. If there are no replacement barrels (or not enough coming in to keep up with demand) then the gun can’t be fixed no matter how good you are. I’m using barrels as an example, it could be other parts failing and limiting repairs as well.

The third alternative explanation is simply timing. I purposely don’t support the NYT so perhaps they gave more info in the article and this point might be moot. Assuming the US gave Ukraine guns in relatively similar states of wear (say all new barrels) then its quite possible the 1/3 of guns being out at once happened because 1/3 of the barrels wore out at roughly the same time. Over time this phenomenon will disappear as guns get used at different rates making a grouping all needing barrel replacements at once less likely.

The fourth alternative explanation is why not take the help of soldiers experienced with the equipment. If a gun needs enough servicing that it can’t be fixed on site and needs to be transported, then there isn’t much difference between sending it to Kyiv or to Poland. The extra few hours on the train isn’t going make much difference. In exchange, the equipment gets repaired in maintenance facilities that are not being targeted by Russian missile attacks. Highly skilled NATO soldiers who are not allowed to enter Ukraine get to work on the guns, freeing up Ukrainian technicians for other work. Ukraine still has some stock of 152mm artillery being fed by captured Russian ammo and those need to be worked on. Plus these crews can potentially be tasked to entirely different weapons systems as needed (limited by how quickly they can retrain).

And then there is the fact that Ukraine is not a neophyte to warfare. Ukraine has been fighting since 2014. While they have plenty of growing edges and plenty of new soldiers needing to be trained, they also have a large reserve of soldiers who have been trained in a variety of military tasks. Those soldiers who rotated through combat in the field artillery will have experience with the maintenance and logistics of 152mm guns. While every weapon system has aspects that are unique, there is plenty of overlap in skills as well.

The US has not fought a potentially better opponent in a long time. Our recent wars were decidedly one-sided affairs. Ukraine has stood up to an opponent most pundits assumed would just demolish the Ukrainian army. In order to be where they are today, they clearly do plenty of complicated military tasks correctly. Sure they make mistakes as any army does. But they’re hitting above their weight class and doing well.

With the artillery in particular, the study release by RUSI (The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies) on November 30th credits not the javelin, but the Ukrainian artillery with the successful defense of Kyiv (Javelin still played a role, just not the outsized one we all thought). According to RUSI (who has insider knowledge), Ukraine only had a maneuver brigade and two artillery brigades defending Kyiv at the start of hostilities. Russia had a 12:1 advantage around Kyiv as Ukraine expected the primary attack to come from the Donbas region. RUSI credits those two artillery brigades as being the difference maker in defending Kyiv. Other forces definitely played big roles as well, but the artillery was supposedly key.

So Ukraine is competent enough to handle military logistics and maintenance enough to come this far. Yes they are getting NATO help, but they’re also being flooded with many new systems. I agree with Kos that adding new systems should be done carefully and intelligently. But Ukraine should be taking lead in determining what they can handle and when. I’m excited to see news regarding Ukraine potentially getting Leopard 2s. My enthusiasm is only tempered by knowing there are fewer Leopard 2s than there are M1s, and the US could afford to give far more M1s than the rest of NATO can give Leopard 2s. Hopefully Poland is donating their Leopard 2s as Poland seems to be on the aggressive end of donating things quickly.

In a war of words between me and Kos, go with Kos. But in this case I think he’s going a little strong on underestimating Ukraine’s capacity for logistics and maintenance.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/12/2141582/-Kos-underestimates-Ukraine-s-ability-to-maintain-their-equipment

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