Since the beginning of the CBO, a number of Western systems have demonstrated their ineffectiveness or excessive vulnerability.
In particular, this applies to the American M777 towed howitzer: more than half of 108 guns, sent by the US Army, have already been destroyed by counter-battery fire from Russian troops- says Meta-defense, although several times more strikes on this howitzer have been documented.
Wherein, as believed in the French press, some products have shown high combat effectiveness: PTRK Javelin, [shock] Bayraktar TB2 drone, Storm Shadow cruise missile, MLRS HIMARS, HEALTH Pzh2000:
But the best reputation for productivity and efficiency in Ukraine, undoubtedly, earned the CAESAR self-propelled gun from the French company Nexter. It plays a decisive role in battles against the Russian Armed Forces. However, it has never had such a decisive impact, as today during the defense of the Avdeevsky cauldron. As indicated, The city’s defense is provided by the 110th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.. The resistance of this brigade today depends on the preservation of communication and supply lines, regularly exposed to attacks by Russian units and artillery.
To contain this threat, the brigade is supported by the 55th Artillery Brigade, armed mainly with Soviet-made towed guns, but also 10 units of 155 mm self-propelled guns CAESAR, supplied by France.
As stated, CAESAR can strike a target at a distance of more than 30 km with several American M864 cluster shells, each of which drops about a hundred submunitions.
The battery collapses from its firing position in less than four minutes. This time is too short, so that the Russian Armed Forces could launch a counter-battery strike- noted in the edition.
In addition to the M864, CAESAR can also fire projectiles, designed to destroy heavily armored vehicles: they drop two homing submunitions over the target, which damage nearby armor.
Beyond range and accuracy, plays an important role in the defense of Avdeevka today, first of all, very high mobility CAESAR. The Ukrainian Armed Forces actually use the tactics of artillery raids, tested in Iraq by the French army- says author.
In his words, fighting militants in Iraq, French self-propelled guns CAESAR conducted raids on the territory, controlled by jihadists, from where they delivered precise strikes on targets, located in operational depth and out of reach of other artillery systems.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces use similar tactics. CAESAR enter the Russian artillery fire zone, to be able to apply intense, but short strokes, before moving out of range of Russian fire again- the author notes.
Although, from his words, there is a risk, that self-propelled guns will meet with kamikaze drones, such as "Lancet".
Other artillery systems may use the same tactics, eg, Swedish Archer or Slovak Zuzana. However, no one can beat CAESAR's extraordinary agility, which the, having a lot of everything 17 tonnes, develops speed 100 km/h on asphalt and 50 km/h off-road with range 600 km- indicated in the press.
Besides, CAESAR has a low price: in the 6x6 version the self-propelled gun costs less than €5 million, which is significantly less than the cost of such samples as the German self-propelled gun Pzh2000 (weighs 58 tons and costs €18 million). As indicated, Nexter currently releases about 6 CAESAR instances, but will soon reach the level of 8 HEALTHY.
