Is Russia losing the artillery fight?

MG Ivan Popov was very specific in his complaints after he was dismissed. He complained about “the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass death and injury of our brothers from enemy artillery.” See: First Prigozhin, now Popov | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

One could conclude from his comments that they are losing the artillery war and suffering higher casualties as a result.

I don’t think he would be getting wound up over these issues if they were winning the artillery war. If Ukraine was winning the artillery fight, then Ukraine would not be in a hurry to continue their spring offensive with their remaining 11 1/2 brigades set aside for the offensive (see:  The nine new brigades for the spring offensive – organization | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)). It does appear that something positive for Ukraine is developing on the battlefield that is not being clearly broadcast. Is Ukraine successfully prepping the battlefield so as to begin offensive operations again in August?

Hate to start speculating, but these Russian mutinies and public complaints would not be happening if everything was going well.

Share this:
Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

7 Comments

  1. It’s no more unusual for both sides to assume they’re getting the worst of it than it is for both sides to assume they’re kicking butt.

    • Could be, but we are not getting a lot indications of discontent and unhappiness on the Ukrainian side. There were in September 2022, during the “failed” Kherson offensive. We are not seeing that now.

    • Saw it. Don’t foresee going back into that data any time soon. It is work we did over 30 years ago, and I had left the project before it was finalized. So… would have to roll up my sleeves and go back into the files (which I still have most of). Probably not going to drop my current work at the moment to go back and address that.

        • There were real problems with the German records, and we ended up relying heavily on the post-war interviews for the German infantry division losses. There was an detailed paper prepared by CMH looking at German losses, which tended to not be completely accounted for in their rather disrupted record keeping.

          So, I am not surprised that we disagree. I would have to address the issues division by division to properly account for everything. I don’t think too many people have done this.

          • Sadly, very little new Ardennes information has come to light since the ACSDB came to light. Some bits and pieces here and there but nothing major.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *