NATO allies scramble to ship sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, but shortages of humble howitzer rounds have become critical

(Originally published Feb. 15 in “What in the World“) As Ukraine fends of a fresh Russian offensive, defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting in Brussels now aim to train Ukrainian forces to coordinate their artillery barrages so they use fewer howitzer rounds.

That’s their initial plan to cope with an increasingly acute global shortage of 155mm artillery shells. While NATO members hope to boost artillery production to meet Ukraine’s demand, for now their best hope is to help Ukraine conserve ammo.

Currently, Ukrainian forces are lobbing as many as 7,000 rounds at Russian invaders every day. But factories face an order backlog of up to 28 months, meaning rounds ordered today wouldn’t be on the battlefield until mid-2025.

U.S. President Joe Biden only agreed last April to start supplying Ukraine with British-made M-777 howitzers. The big guns began arriving in May and Ukraine used them in June to launch the southern counteroffensive that ultimately liberated the city of Kherson.

The U.S. has since provided Ukraine with so many of General Dynamics’ 155mm howitzer shells that by August the Pentagon began worrying that U.S. forces were running low themselves. By November, the shortages had spread to NATO allies, and Canada’s defense chief paid a personal visit to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems to see what could be done to boost production.

U.S.-supplied Himars precision-guided mobile missile launchers, which Biden agreed to give Ukraine last summer, helped Ukraine liberate parts of Kherson and Kharkiv by knocking out Russian supply lines well behind enemy lines. But howitzers remain vital in the old-school trench warfare that has dominated the conflict in Ukraine. January’s $2.85 billion weapons package upgraded the ammo Washington sent Ukraine to include Paladin M-109 self-propelled howitzers. These are self-propelled in that they are a cannon on tracks, and thus look a lot like tanks. They key difference is that they lack the armor of battle tanks. They also gobble up 155mm shells.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency warns that Iran is using the performance of its drones in Ukraine as free marketing for their sale globally. Though Tehran still denies selling Moscow drones, the agency says Russia has been using its Shahed 131 and 136 single-use kamikaze drones as cheaper alternative to cruise missiles, as well as the Mohajer-6 multi-role drone.