The 2S19 is the Russian army’s main self-propelled howitzer. Russia had around 850 of the 42-ton, tracked artillery pieces in its inventory when it widened its war on Ukraine in late February.
Nine months later, the Russians have lost 91 of their 2S19s that outside analysts can confirm. Worse, at least 34 of the 2S19s the Russians have lost are intact and in Ukrainian hands. That’s enough to equip a whole artillery brigade.
What’s weird is that the 2S19s should be hard to capture. Their 152-millimeter guns fire shells as far as 22 miles, depending on the shell type. That should put 2S19 batteries far enough behind the front line that it’s all but impossible for the enemy to overrun them outside of a rout.
That the Russians are losing so many working 2S19s is testimony to two things: the accelerating speed of Ukrainian advances, and the increasing sloppiness of Russian leadership.
There’s no shortage of video and photographic evidence of 2S19s meeting unhappy fates. The most recent, from Thursday, might also be the most symbolic. A 2S19 lies stranded in a roadside ditch somewhere in Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, a gleeful Ukrainian soldier celebrating on its turret as a Ukrainian army M-113 personnel carrier speeds past.
The 2S19 with its five-man crew clearly was heading in the same direction as the M-113 when it tipped into the ditch. That is, heading away from the front as Ukrainian forces advanced. But not nearly fast enough.
That particular howitzer isn’t the only one to meet such an embarrassing fate. After months of preparatory bombardment, the Ukrainian army in late August and early September launched twin counteroffensives in the east and south. The eastern counteroffensive quickly liberated a thousand square miles of Kharkiv Oblast before barreling into neighboring Luhansk Oblast.
Russian regiments broke and ran, leaving behind hundreds of tanks, fighting vehicles and howitzers—many of them in working condition. In six months of fighting ending September 1, the Russians lost 61 2S19s. Two months later, the howitzer write-offs had spiked by a third. It’s evident Russian batteries are giving away more and more of their big guns as they retreat.
For the Ukrainian army, it’s an artillery windfall. Before the wider war, the Ukrainians had just 35 2S19s, and instead equipped most of their batteries with older 2S1s and 2S3s. Recent losses include at least three 2S19s, but the 34 of the big guns the Ukrainians have captured from the Russians more than make up for those losses.
The fast-moving Ukrainian army so far has whittled down the Russian 2S19 force by a tenth, while nearly doubling its own inventory of the powerful howitzers. And this is far from an isolated phenomenon. The Ukrainian army also has evened out the Russian army’s pre-war advantage in tanks, by capturing many more tanks from the Russians than it’s lost to the Russians.
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November 18, 2022 at 09:00PM
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Fleeing Russian Troops Are Leaving Behind More And More Of Their Best Howitzers - Forbes
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