Milbloggers have posted images of Stalin-era towed howitzers being fed with non-standard 130mm ammunition in Ukraine the markings of which indicate they came from Pyongyang.
June 30, 2024
For months, after Ukraine destroyed much of its first-line weaponry, Russian forces turned to whatever they could drag out from the bowels of their storehouses to replace their losses. First came T54/55 tanks, then MT-LB tracked vehicles fitted with an assortment of strange weaponry, and now M-46 towed field guns that first came into service during Josef Stalin’s time.
The milblogger WarNoir, among others, has recently posted images on X/Twitter that showed Russian artillerymen loading and firing M-46 / M1954 field guns with high explosive fragmentation ammunition produced in North Korea (DPRK). On some of the ammunition the words “for Sevastopol” had been scrawled. This is a reference to the incident on Sunday, June 23 when fragments fell on to a beach near the Crimean port city that killed six and injured more than 150 holidaymakers.
Three North Korean 130mm HE Frag shells inscribed with “for Sevastopol.” Photo: X / WarNoir
The M-46 field gun is a relic of the Stalin era, having been produced in the USSR after World War II as a replacement for the M1931/37 122 mm towed gun. The weapon was created when the M-36 naval gun was mounted on a base and carriage, sporting two large road wheels and supported by legs that fan out to the rear and are angled to accept the violent recoil. An angular shield to either side of the barrel base provides limited protection from small arms fire. IT has a large, vented muzzle brake on the barrel end designed to reduce muzzle flash.
It was not an ideal design but was relatively easy to maneuver manually and the 130mm gun with its seven meter (23 feet) long barrel gave it a high muzzle velocity and a range of around 27 kilometers (17 miles) using standard ammunition and up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) with “assisted” ammunition.
Past experience has shown the quality of much of the ammunition supplied to Russian forces by Pyongyang is “questionable” but the need to deploy the M-46 guns suggests Moscow is getting near the bottom of the barrel (no pun intended). Nevertheless, the standard 3OF33 130mm fragmentation round can throw 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds) of TNT out to 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) while the North Korean version of China’s Extended Range Base Bleed (ERFB -NUBB) round reduces its payload to 3.2 kilograms (7 pounds) TNT, with a range of 38 kilometers (23.5 miles).
According to the 2023 issue of the International Institute for Strategic Studies publication “Military Balance,” Russia held up to 350 of the M46 guns in warehouses at the time of publication. The first sighting of an M-46 in Ukraine was in January 2024, as reported by the Ukrainian military issues publication Defense Express.
The article said while there may be limited stocks of the non-standard 130mm ammunition used by the guns still in Russian storage (they rarely throw anything away) it asked the question where would Russia acquire more? It suggested at the time, with some apparent prescience, that Moscow could turn to North Korea which it was known still held the Chinese Type 59 gun, a copy of the original M-46, as well as three types of self-propelled guns that employed 130 mm ammunition.
The need for Russia to bring these guns “out of mothballs” is another indicator of the serious level of force degradation that Ukrainian forces have inflicted on Moscow’s troops since the 2022 full-scale invasion.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/35075
“Past experience has shown the quality of much of the ammunition supplied to Russian forces by Pyongyang is “questionable” but the need to deploy the M-46 guns suggests Moscow is getting near the bottom of the barrel (no pun intended).”
And…
“The need for Russia to bring these guns “out of mothballs” is another indicator of the serious level of force degradation that Ukrainian forces have inflicted on Moscow’s troops since the 2022 full-scale invasion.”
Shows the poor state that the cockroach army’s artillery brigades are in. It was bound to happen when Ukraine destroys dozens of pieces of artillery every day. I’m sure that a number of roach artillery also self-destruct with the NK ammo, which is a welcome addition to its casualty score. And, the further back in time that mafia land is forced to go to get older, and older weapons out of storage, the better it is for Ukraine.
I hear what you’re saying Sir OFP. But the scum suckers keep on coming. It seems regardless how poor the NK ammo is, there is enough of it to keep killing our heroes. NK and the rest of the countries supplying ammo or anything to Moskali needs to stop. How? Sadly, the powerful West have no idea.
“How?”
If it could be destroyed in transit, that would be good.
Sir Cap, this type of self-immolation is not like blowing your brains out with a single shot. With each piece of artillery that the roaches have less, the more their problems will grow, but this takes time.
We simply don’t know how many roach artillery pieces self-destructs and/or kills/injures its crew due to the bad ammo. This is an unknown, but we do know it happens. Add to this the destruction Ukraine is causing to their tube and rocket artillery systems, and let’s not forget those pieces that simply break and are hard or impossible to repair.
So, once the roaches are down to a certain number of artillery pieces, which is not enough to support their attacks or even defense, it’s pretty much game over for mafia land. Remember that the very backbone of their forces is artillery. Everything else is there to support artillery in one way or another.