How Ukraine's army dealing with howitzers on battlefields

In Ukraine, America’s humble M-109 howitzer isn’t getting much attention. Overshadowed by more modern self-propelled guns, the M-109 is apparently slugging it out, fighting the Russians in relative obscurity.

The M-109 should be getting more attention. Though the precise numbers are unavailable, analysts believe Western democracies have provided Ukraine somewhere around 50 M-109s—probably more than any other 155mm NATO-standard self-propelled gun provided to Ukraine to date. And yet, while the M-109s are on the field in numbers, the West has heard little about how the relatively “old-school” self-propelled gun is performing on the battlefield, per Forbes.

While Ukraine is generally closed-lipped about battlefield details, the lack of general news on the platform is a surprise. Coverage may rest in the public perception that the M-109 gun platform is boring, old and less exciting than Europe’s newer howitzers.

Admittedly, the M-109 is a relatively boring middle-weight platform, filling a niche already occupied by Ukraine’s existing supply of Soviet-era M-109 “knock-offs”—the 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm gun, the 2S3 Akatsiya 152mm gun and the 2S19 Msta 152mm self-propelled howitzer.

But, as Ukraine publicly struggles to keep the PzH 2000 in the field, and as Ukrainian soldiers wear out the few available CEASARs, the M-109 has been operating in a news vacuum. Presumably, the platform is “quietly” getting the job done, and enjoying the fruits of a simple, mature system and a robust supply of gun barrels and other spare parts.

What little we do know is that survivability has served as something of a tradeoff. While both the PzH 2000 and the CEASAR have been bloodied in combat, the speed and long reach of both platforms have kept battle losses to a minimum.

The shorter-range gun aboard the plodding M-109 has forced the platform into the conventional battlefield.

Attrition on the conventional battlefield takes a toll. As a NATO surrogate for existing Soviet-era self-propelled guns, Russians have a better grasp on how Ukraine employs the M-109 and have been using that knowledge to hit it. According to oryxpioenkop.com, the open-source recorder of Ukrainian battlefield losses, Russia has hit five M-109s, destroying at least two.

The M-109 is not alone. Polish-provided AHS Krab 155mm self-propelled guns, filling a similar role as the M-109s, have also faced substantial losses, with 6 of 18 destroyed and 2 damaged.

Even though Ukraine’s donated set of middle-weight 155mm self-propelled guns are facing tough losses on the battlefield, they’re not making headlines for being broken. The big German PzH 2000s, subjected to heavy use, are struggling to stay operational, as are the French Caesars. Similar stories have yet to emerge from the more “older-school” M-109s, though their use rates must be equivalent to the more modern howitzers.

There’s a potentially interesting story here. While there is no denying that military theorists are correct to develop lower-vulnerability platforms, there may well have been some unexpected utility tradeoffs for the less vulnerable longer-range and lighter-weight/higher-speed guns.

Some of the problems with the more modern platforms are merely teething pains and will disappear as Ukraine figures out what “operational practices” do or don’t work. But those changes—needed to keep the modern artillery units in the field—may also require a substantial and costly shift in operational expectations, maintenance assumptions and spare parts inventories.

Those tradeoffs may make Ukraine think about their emerging mix of future capability—lots of Pzh 2000s and lightweight wheeled howitzers—because, sometimes, the boring-but-reliable platform might not be exactly what you want, but something you actually need.