1/ Russian self-propelled artillery has become increasingly rare on the front lines, due to its vulnerability to longer-ranged Western artillery systems and Ukrainian drone strikes. The gunners have reportedly been transferred to the infantry. ⬇️ https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/...
2/ Russian war correspondent Maxim Kalashnikov reports: "I met some guys from a neighboring company. Mobilised, they'd been at the front for over three years. They were in self-propelled artillery. They'd studied the vehicles thoroughly."
3/ "They started firing their obsolete and outdated guns more or less reliably. After all, each of these "pieces of iron" has its own peculiarities that must be taken into account for accurate shooting. So what? Now they're all in the infantry.
4/ "And where's the equipment? Where are the self-propelled guns (SPGs) now? Equipment that can't compete with the Western artillery in service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in either range or accuracy is rusting somewhere in open storage areas."
5/ "Oh well. Iron is iron. If it breaks, wears out—that's what the defence industry is for, it's supposed to produce new ones. And these new ones would be manned by knowledgeable people with extensive combat experience. You can't just pick up specialists on the street.
6/ "But for some reason, commanders send professional artillerymen to the infantry. That's how we fight." Kalashnikov reports that gunners being transferred to the infantry is "a fairly widespread phenomenon".
7/ He doesn't say why it is happening, but it's likely to be due to personnel shortages resulting from Russia's huge daily losses on the front lines. He rightly points out the counterproductive nature of this:
8/ "It's a criminal act, because this is how valuable specialists are lost. Considering that the war demonstrated how far we fell behind NATO in artillery (in the 1990s, it leaped ahead, surpassing the USSR's guns in range by one and a half times and in accuracy by…
9/ …an order of magnitude), this practice is doubly criminal. The Ministry of Defence's passivity in taking into account experienced personnel in artillery (as well as in drones) is triply criminal." Source: https://t.me/roy_tv_mk/17173
@ChrisO_wiki There will be nothing left of the Russian military except a bunch of guys in pretty uniforms with lots of medals and many stripes. They can all congratulate each other on the latest promotion to Majorly Minor General. Oh well 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
@ChrisO_wiki The very backbone of their army has been broken and they still stupidly trudge on. The death toll for Russian assault troops will become even more outrageous without artillery softening up positions, especially given they assault on bikes now with little armor.
@ChrisO_wiki Transferred to the infantry? Are they out of their fecking minds? I thought they were hoarding SPA and IFVs for rebuilding the army after the war. Good for us though. Kill your experts in meaningless assaults
@ChrisO_wiki @threadreaderapp unroll
@ChrisO_wiki I was aware that they were pulling the last of their mothballed Soviet-era SPGs out of storage months ago. Well, now the gunners can serve alongside the SAM crews and aircraft technicians as sunflower-fodder. This smacks of desperation.
@ChrisO_wiki Same for air defence operators - transferred to infantry 💀⚰️
@ChrisO_wiki Thank good that they're... 👌