Artillery usage could show the future course of the Ukraine war

In the war in Ukraine, artillery has emerged as perhaps the signature weapon of war, and that reality is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. By watching trends in its use in the coming weeks, we may be able to deduce a good deal about the likely future course of the conflict — even as debates intensify over whether to provide Ukraine fighter jets and more tanks, among other key technologies.

The intensity of artillery usage in the Ukraine war harkens back to the days of World War I, when artillery dominated the battlefield. In that tragic conflict, during which at least 10 million perished, hundreds of thousands of rounds were often employed by the belligerents daily. In this war, there are important differences, to be sure. Rates of fire are measured in the thousands or, at most, the low tens-of-thousands of rounds a day. Industry, ironically, seems less able to keep up with demand today than a century ago. Much artillery on the Ukrainian side is now precise and longer-ranged in capability and character. And, while Ukraine, like the belligerents of WWI, has largely directed its fire against enemy fighting positions, Russia has followed the classic Vladimir Putin model — dating back to the Chechnya and Syria wars — of simply leveling civilian buildings and neighborhoods to drive out the opponent’s forces, regardless of the ensuing losses of innocent life. 

The big-picture story on artillery usage over the past 14 months goes something like this. Russia has used far more artillery than Ukraine, but both sides have used a lot. The most intensive period was last spring and summer, when Russia sought to expand control of the four provinces of eastern and southern Ukraine that, along with Crimea (back in 2014), it has “annexed.” A significant breakthrough occurred in late summer when Ukraine gained access to a couple dozen high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) and their precision-guided munitions able to range some 70 kilometers. Since early fall, however, the fighting has slowed overall, breakthroughs have been scant, and both sides have faced artillery supply shortages.

Ukraine’s use of artillery peaked from May through August 2022, reaching an average of 6,000 rounds per day. Daily estimates declined to about 5,000 rounds a day in the fall of 2022, and further dropped to levels of about 3,000 rounds a day in November 2022. Russia’s artillery consumption has followed a similar trend, reaching its highest daily averages of 25,000 to 30,000 from April through August 2022. Notwithstanding the parallel month-to-month trend lines, Russia has fired about four times more rounds than Ukraine, on average, since the start of the invasion. 

Where are things headed next? According to a letter by Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov obtained by the Financial Times, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are firing only 20 percent of the rounds they potentially could because of insufficient stock. He appealed to his European Union counterparts and requested at least 250,000 artillery rounds a month — about 8,000 artillery rounds per day — to ease the deficit. He argued that, according to their estimates, the AFU needs a minimum of 356,400 shells per month — an average of about 12,000 rounds a day — to meet their battlefield goals. In other words, Ukraine believes it must fire at least double the artillery it was firing during its peak months, and at least four times as much as it has been firing for the past half-year. These figures provide rough benchmarks against which to measure future Ukrainian fires.

In addition to illustrating Ukraine’s shortage of artillery, the relatively low daily averages of artillery usage since November 2022 show that Kyiv is being conscientious and strategic about its use of finite resources. As the muddy ground hardens and temperatures rise, Ukraine hopes for a breakthrough spring offensive. “We are accumulating our resources,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky. The spring offensive is “a question of months — one-and-a-half, two, two-and-a-half months away,” he told the Wall Street Journal in mid-March.

Of course, artillery is not everything in this fight. Indeed, softening up enemy positions with massive firepower is a time-tested method — for achieving generally mediocre results. For example, over nearly three years on the western front in World War I, the region’s 500-mile-long system of trench lines generally moved only a few miles in either direction. Capabilities to develop and exploit weaknesses in enemy positions with combined-arms maneuver warfare are essential as well. Armored vehicles and more tactical combat airpower (whether fighters, helicopters or drones) likely will be needed by Ukraine in greater amounts — and even then, the prospects for Ukraine taking back much of the 17 percent of its territory that Russia still holds are uncertain at best.

But as we watch and evaluate the upcoming spring offensive, tracking artillery use can tell us a lot about how things are going — and how they are likely to go in the future.

Alejandra Rocha is a research assistant at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution. Prior to joining Brookings, she worked as an editorial assistant at Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter @malejandrarocha.

Michael O’Hanlon is the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and the author of several books, including “Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars Since 1861,” “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint,” and “Defense 101: Understanding the Military of Today and Tomorrow.” Follow him on Twitter @MichaelEOHanlon.