Ukrainian Artillerists Work Hard To Maintain Old Howitzers From Estonia
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Ukrainian gunners have learned to be versatile in their adoption of artillery pieces sent from various nations offering support. Targeting Russian invaders effectively in at least one case means mastering older Estonian-donated howitzers. Finnish shells are favored by one Zaporizhzhya team.
Originally published at - www.rferl.org/...
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I'm from very small Estonian town. Absolutely every time I'm visiting local library, in the evenings there are ten or more woman and men who after workday are making those hiding? camouflage? covers (what is the word for them?), so months and months continuously. It's not comparable to high-tech weapons but I'm quite impressed by their quiet everyday persistence to somehow help Ukraine's soldiers.
Thank you so much Estonia for all your efforts.
And I serve in ukrainian army since 25th of February! In peaceful life I was a dentist! And we have a great respect to you small country with a big heart! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Together we will win!
It´s called camouflage netting. Absolutely essential, especially for an arty battery like this one.
👏
Those nets are time consuming to produce and a requirement for most missions so what they are doing is crucial support.
Thank you Estonia for the artillery.
Thank you Italy for the artillery.
And thank you Finland and of course the USA for the shells.
Everything helps!
Slava Ukraine. 🇺🇦🇬🇧
Good luck mate , Happy to pay for supporting You guys 🇮🇹❤️🇺🇦
As an Italian, I am happy to see that with our contribution, the brave Ukrainian people are inflicting on the Russian army a severe response to their brutal and cowardly invasion...!!! GLORY TO UKRAINE...!!!
Junk junk junk...
Baggers 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
@@florinradu3316 and you are a miserable human. or an ruzzian bot.
Way to go Estonia!! With love and thanks from the USA for the extremely valuable help!! Slava Ukriani! 🇺🇦🇪🇪🇺🇸
and thank you, USA. you are an absolute powerhouse and Ukraine's fight for freedom would be lost without you.
🗽🇺🇲💙🇺🇦
Estonia - Department of 🇺🇸
I hugely admire Ukrainian improvisational engineering skills, and quick attitude to be adaptable! Ukrainian soldiers rock!!💪🏼💙💛🇺🇦 From Florida, USA.
this is typical for former east block people, scarcity economy trained us how to be flexible and adapt to every condition.
Even though US sends high amounts in money value, many of these smaller countries send a much higher percentage of value!
Thank you Estonia and the rest for supporting freedom
Since the beginning of the war, Estonia and Latvia have given around one percent of their GDP to help Ukraine. It is far the two most implicated countries in the aid to Ukraine, followed by Poland and Latvia with around 0,5% of their GDP.
Tiny Luxembourg has sent 25% of its mili budget to brave Ukraine 🇺🇦🇪🇺💪
Also, the cooperation of Ukrainian neighbors makes logistics for American aid simple and painless.
@@DR-pj7sr Dont they rely on their neighbors for military matters? Obviously they still have it as a budget item, but I assume they cant have a standing army, just like Iceland.
@@GnosticAtheist the Luxembourg army is around 1,100 strong.
Radio Free Europe was our mental hope and support back in the days during communist dictatorship in Romania.
Thank you Radio Free Europe!
Multumesc Radio Europa Libera!
Estonians are a great people! Aitah Eesti
You from Ukraine?
You guys are doing good work, all the best wishes and an orc free country in 2023! Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦🇺🇦✊🏽
A Baltic Beast! Thanks to Estonia! 🇺🇸 🇪🇪 🇺🇦
🇸🇪👍🏻💛💙
Beast 2M people 🤣🤣🤣
@@blindmirorputinovbot2130 Serbian detected, opinion rejected
@@blindmirorputinovbot2130 kicked Russia's ass after. WW1 to gain our independence and freed ourselves from USSR when time was right. And went on to economically outperform Russia per personal level. Beasts we are.
Спасибо Эстонии и Вам, этих хороших ребят не останется ни одного через пару месяцев. За один январь - 100000 тысяч. Вы придёте на помощь??????
Горячие молодые Эстонцы, где вы????!
Где вы 23 человека?????
Через неделю будут выдавать помощников из под Артёмовска. Готовьте, ройте землю.
I'm glad they liked the Finnish shells. I guess the Finnish army knows a thing or two about artillery since we have such a large artillery force.
Finnish weapons in general are better than your average bear.
With Finland and Sweden in NATO, we will be the strongest alliance ever, there are however some traitors in our alliance, Turkey, who plays both sides and Hungary, who doesn't help Ukraine at all and blocks NATO military convoys to Ukraine, I would like to see these 2 countries OUT of NATO, we are alliance for a reason, to be stronger together against Russian threat, not to sabotage it, I'm talking to you Erdogan and Orbán, from Czech 🇨🇿, Sláva Ukrajině 🇺🇦✌️
@@karlvonbahnhof6594 the real traitor is NATO who applies arms embargo against Turkiye. Turkiye helped Ukraine by sending Bayraktar drones and Kirpi armored vehicles, making grain exports available for Ukraine and closing the Turkish straits to Russian navy more than any NATO country.
@@karlvonbahnhof6594 Indeed,they are like rats that chew the cables at night.The alliance will be so much more stronger without them.
I hope that our ammunitionfactories have skifted to bigger gear to meet ukrainian needs. I hope our quality meet your needs! There are lots of goodhearted russians but not those who donˋt respect boarders. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦🇫🇮🤗!
Good for you Estonians! Greeting from your brothers at north. Ukraine will prevail!
Kurat ja Perkele! Ei se Kannaksen-Peipsi järven takainen paskiaisuus ennen lope, kuin on pudonnut kappaleiksi. Mene vähintään pari sukupolvea, kun saa enemmistöstä kansasta pois taottu se mõ-mõ-mõ-ryssäläinen übermencsh-kuume...koska -venäläinen-se ei ole kansalaisuus-se on ominaisuussana-kenelle kuuluuva-valtiolle kuuluuva-ei enemmän kun orjat...ja jos heillä virallisesti on olnut käytössä semmoinen lausunto:"He ovat meille viholliset IKUISESTI!" - so kaikki heidän ümpäri-(Moskovan YOpiston prof Fursov), sitten ei ole enää mitään selitettävää ja viisaasti ododettavaa- paitsi TULI PÄÄLLE-HAKKA PÄÄLLE! Slava Gerojam!
@@raparhitektid2342 Mitä ihmeen sopotusta? Nyt lääkkeitä ja äkkiä.
Are these the same howitzers Germany tried to stop us from sending?
Highest inflation in the EU, no western salaries etc, yet we still send the most aid per capita (Maybe Latvia / Lithuania send more nowadays) and you don't see anyone protesting, we know what's at stake for Ukrainians.
Just today there was another batch of aid worth 50 000€ sent to Izium from my small local community, donated by regular people and small businesses.
Very proud of how my country has acted this year🇪🇪🇺🇦
No, I think those were some old 122mm Soviet-era howitzers that Finland had bought from East German stocks, then later sold to Estonia and then when Estonia wanted to give them to Ukraine, the needed permission from both Germany and Finland to do so.
Note that Estonia wanted to send these already in late December 2021, when the threat of a full-blown invasion by Russia was growing. Germany and Finland only approved the transfers after the invasion started in February.
what @chefren77 is correct, but to clarify the howitzers that they wanted to send were the D-30's. An Soviet time howitzer, but even American soldiers loved it in Afghanistan. If kept well, it's an very accurate and lethal weapon, and with upgrades that Estonia put on them, they are also extremely efficient tank killers. (main thing they were planned to be used for in Estonia in case of an war should brake out. So most artillery men were trained on them to use it as an AT)
It's an excellent weapon, but has an short barrel life. It's generally lightweight, and quick to put up and take down. They would have had an quite strong effect if they would have been delivered before the invasion of the 24th of February. And most of all if all of the Ukrainian stock of them would have been upgraded/repaired, and new better training given to soldiers.
But yeah, they finally got delivered this year, after the summer I think.
“Orc Free in 23 “Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦🏴 all the best from Wales
The mere actions of loading the Howitzer with artillery is incredible physical. The maintain their physical health, mental and emotional health all countries that support them is vital! When the "smaller" countries give, it has a very large impact on the soldiers using their weapons. Thank you Estonia! God Bless you and yours!
Slava Ukrayini! Slava Heroyam!
Yes and he's been doing it since 2014. Meaning he was showing the dumbass region the whole time. He's killed a lot of people a lot of ukrainians
Thank you very much for all the support you have done for Ukraine.
FH 70 was developed in the 70ies by Germany,UK and Italy. In Germany and UK these are already decomissioned but still in service in Italy.After estonian independence Germany sold some of its FH70 to Estonia. The FH70 in ukraine were delivered from estonian and italian stocks. Fh70 has a small VW or Audi-Engine so it can move over short distances without a truck. Japan has built the FH70 under license in large numbers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FH70
Yes Italy sent that , but We do not know much more about the official list . It's all covered as military secret by Our gov . We Just know to have sent panzerfaust, Milan , mines , Browning , Mg3 , artilleries shells and stop all Is hidden now ...
VW air-cooled
Teeny tiny Estonia is helping out.....? That's what's up. They understand what Ukraine is fighting for!
Can you imagine not ever giving "Beard" the best work you are capable off.
He looks a bit forbidding, but I think it's more he knows what you and the machine are capable of and you don't want to disappoint him.
All the information NATO and The EDA are gathering on how the "standard" shells have slight variations and how to compensate.
They get valuable insight for the audvthey give.
we continue to support Ukraine 🇺🇦🇪🇪
That’s the thing about NATO weapon systems. Accurate. Lethal. Effective. BUT many require a higher level of maintenance compared to others. Many supporters of Ukraine don’t understand this but constantly demand weapon systems that require massive logistical support to maintenance. Sadly, Ukraine doesn’t have that support infrastructure built up at the moment.
FH-70 are very good. But they've been around in service since 1980. UK retired theirs 23 years ago. The Estonian ones were secondhand from the Germans in the early 2000's.
@@dogsnads5634 I’d still prefer those over Soviet/Russia 152mm pieces. 😆
@@dogsnads5634 Machine guns in service since 1933 are used by most modern NATO militaries. Just because the weapon is old doesn't mean it is bad or obsolete.
@@zcrib3 1933 ???
@@jantschierschky3461 he might mean the MG3 and it's precursor the MG42. And get the design year wrong by an decade. The MG42 was designed in 1942 and nearly an half a million built, with even more MG3's built (designed in 1960's thought). Both are still weapons you can find in NATO armies, because of how simple they are but still with that extremely high fire rate, and cheap cost. They are very popular.
Diakuyu for encouraging news, I marvel everyday at the success of Ukraine. All the best regards to you 🙏 Slava Ukrayini 🇺🇦👍 peremoha/y!
Ukraine army is becoming into a ver multifuncional force, capable of using old soviet era weapons and NATO's simultaneously.
They should fit into NATO's military structure very well when the time comes.
Только остаётся её все меньше и меньше, ждёт вас... помощников со всего света...
Как в 1941 - 1945гг..........из было много,,, Итальянцы, Французы, Румыны, Чехи, Финны,........
Все были..... И в этот раз обосретесь.
When Freemen fight, it's hard too loose. That's the secret sauce.
I’m Estonian and we have such a small country,yet we lend our hands to our friends,cause having been under the Russian invasion,we hate this shit with passion
Thank you for every country,who has helped Ukraine with us!
Мы люблю вас ❤
Proud of our Baltic brothers. Greetings from Lithuania🫶
Tere Eestist
Thanks Estonia and Italy! Slava Ukraini!💙💛🇺🇦🇪🇪🇮🇹🇺🇸
This are good guys. Slava Ukraini!
Thank you to all you Ukrainian warriors. I know our 'lot' doesn't have a great record when it comes to supporting your 'type' of people, fighting, your type of causes, then, after you have died, AND WON !!!, becoming turncoats on upon you and cut'n'running, but I know, I will do EVERYTHING I can to ensure we don't do the same to you. No matter how this War ends, Ukraine WILL be a member of NATO, and well on its way to being a part of the EU, if it so wishes (The EU not perfect!, none of us are)......... Slava ukraini!
All gunners I see here! In a way I'm kind of jealous of these guys. With so much practice and so many different guns to work with, they must have become the best gunners in the world! I so hope they soon feel the taste of victory and have stories to tell their grandchildren! Slava Ukraini! 🔵🟡
Such incredibly brave and talented soldiers, stay well.
That's good soldering, knowing your weapon, its limitations and looking after it. Slava Ukraine.
Amazing determination! Slava Ukraine!
British designed. Biggest users are Japan who manufactured about 500 under licence. Some of those provided by NATO countries are 40+ years old. Japan made their last ones 14 years ago, so if they were 'up' for it they could provide a Regiment or two of relatively new guns.
Nice to see the system still serving it´s aim. The Estonian FH-70 were once part of the German Army. Good Job Estonia to bring them here into action and good luck for the ukrainian Artillerists.
Another excellent video RFERL. The Ukrainian resistance is a model of courage. It’s a reminder of why bravery, duty and a willingness to defend your nation are utterly indispensable. Too many of us in the West have grown cynical about these virtues. We in the West have given up on courage. Our safety-first approach to life equates bravery with recklessness. The Ukrainian resistance reminds us why courage matters - and why we all need to rediscover this virtue. 😉
The FH70 is probably one of the best artillery pieces ever produced.
The funny thing is I saw way too many people say the FH70 were just scrape that Estonia was trying to dump off to Ukraine. When it was announced that Estonia was giving Ukraine those pieces. That’s how I knew those people didn’t know shit about what they were talking about.
@@TheBongReyes Those FH70's were in reserv storage or smth, due approaching EOL. They were still better than D-20's we gave away as well. But still rather well-worn already.
Paradoxically, pro-Russian opposition party tried to claim that we unduly weakened our national defense by giving up all thaf artillery and Javelins (formers which were to be reserve anyway and latter which had to be soon used due approaching date of expiration).
From my POV, we should have also sent most of our K9 Thunder brand new self-propelled artillery to Ukraine. It would have served us better there than they do staying here.
@@unitrx5535 I can’t speak for nations’ policy on what they send to Ukraine. As an American taxpayer, I’m fine with what my government as send & continue to send. US military inventory isn’t an Amazon wishlist for Ukraine. Certain weapon systems & platforms should be kept for ourselves. As only the US military has the infrastructure to maintain those weapons for effective lethality.
This was the first Gun I worked on back in early 80's ; FH 70 . Brings back a lot of memories .
Old or new, Ukrainians MAKE THEM WORK. Well done. Good reporting. Go Ukraine.
You are amazing. We are grateful. God bless you.
If it’s from Estonia, then it’s old German one. Isn’t it?😊
Yes 😊
FH70 is an excellent gun system!
Legends keep up the amazing work guys Infantry depends on you guys
These videos say a lot. The guns are out on the open, not dug in pits, not covered by camo nets. The officer casually chats with a reporter. There is little or no RU response. It is overcast, which blocks satellite. But, the battery could be seen by drone or radar. Either RU can't see it, or recon can't get the coordinates to arty/air in a timely manner. Or, RU does not have weapons to hit back.
RU missiles fly over UKR trenches to hit bombed out apartment buildings that were abandoned months ago.
Thought the same. With the drones and satellites and counter-battery radar, it would be hairy (to me anyway) to fire more than a few rounds before moving. Necessarily having the ammo truck so close to the crew cringes me too. Guess you’d get used to it or ask for a transfer.
God bless Ukrainian soldiers! God bless USA, UK, Estonia, Italy, EU member States and all other countries that support Ukraine!
I was a conscript in the fire control center of a (west) german FH70 battery back in 1982, and they indeed were highly accurate.
Well, all weapon systems require maintenance to operate effectively, if you have a rough crew then it’s up to you to train them to standards.
RFE/RL makes excellent videos
Slava Brothers stai strong stai save ent kick ther ruski ass respect to you al slava ukrnia from Holland
We love you ukraine .......
Сумно, що це потрібно, але мужності та сили Україні та її людям! 🇺🇦
Great Reportage
Really brave people. I wonder if i will ever see russian-ukrainian reconciliation during my living.
Keep up the great work, don't let the orcs escape blow the barstewards to hell
Slava Gierojom on the front line. Greetings from Poland.
Thank you Estonia whoo hoo
Great piece of kit the fh70
FH70 is a very complex system, that's why it has been replaced by many armies. Is also a pretty old system by now, think around 40 years
Those ones will be well worn before they'll end up in smelters...
stay strong ukrainian warriors
Lets hope they get more shells from Finland.
Officially Finland has sent no artillery shells to Ukraine and more of the same is to be shipped almost monthly.
This is an old german gun developed in the late 70th.
In total 930 guns were build, some ended up in italy, two dozen in estonia.
Germany has still 200 of them. Maybe we should send them to ukraine too ?
Italy, Germany and UK were the designers. The manufacturers were Oto Melara for Italy, Rheinmetall for Germany and VSEL for UK. Japan acquired the production licence, and build the most of them.
Gloria a Ucrania desde Uruguay !! 💪💪🇺🇾🇺🇾🇺🇦🇺🇦✌✌🥂🥂
Sad that it's necessary, but courage and strength to Ukraine and it's people! 🇺🇦
Work with the tools you know and like best, be outdated or even not as good as new items, the one that works best is the one to use, just like a great musicians who with play a batter old instrument that may not look as good as when it was new yet gives the sweetest sounds Just like the most brilliant Rocking Blues singer guitar player Rory Gallagher, take a look at some of his recording on youtube you will be blown away by the brilliant of Rory and his bartered old guitar, Rory is now resting in eternal peace in heaven
Been there done that! Love it. Hope you can get your hands on the pzh2000
It would be interesting to know what these artillery men were doing before the invasion.
@john doe
John Doe, notorious Russian shill, doesn't miss a chance to protect UN certified war criminals.
😂
@john doe Russians.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
"Mostly American shells" we will pay the bill if you keep cleaning the barrel.
@@user-hc5sr5we9t
What do you mean?
Do you want see how well you fare against the Russians yourself?
@@Shatterfury1871 John Doe is a notorious Russian shill.
May god end this war soon 🙏🙏😭😭
Hardcore! Glory to Ukrain and her gunners.
and "neutral" Swizerland is not delivering more ammunition for the Gepard tank.
#TanksForUkraine
Probably staying neutral. That is weird considering their applications for NATO. Maybe all talk but no bite?!
Can't we pressure Switz to support brave Ukrainians ? 🇺🇦🇪🇺💪
In Radio Free Europe/ liberty we trust
Glory to all the Ukrainian heroes! The world is watching and we are waiting to celebrate your victory. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Слава нашим незламним воїнам! Слава нації! ПЗДЦ раіськой педерації!💙💛💪
I'm reading an article saying that when American artillery pieces are broken down, the Ukrainians are calling American army guys to do remote tech support, sometimes while the artillery is under fire. That's badass.
There should be shells in stock here in FIN to share since a large part of our military doctrine is based on artillery. We always knew the russians would come like this, with stalin organs and a "meatwall" if they would have a go at us. So artillery battling is anticipated.
Who he was shooting in 2014? Didn't get this part.
Russia will suffer cultural Irrelevance.
Its already begun here, our food suppliers cannot shift Russian products so they given away free.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦👊🇫🇮🌹
Germany wars the main Operator of these FH70s (Fh155-1 in german) in Europe. Until the early 2000s Germany had 211 of these Howitzers. All 24 Estonian Fh70s are from German Stocks. Estonia send all their FH70s to Ukraine. Italy has the second highest Stock of FH70s in europe with about 160 of these. Main Operator is Japan with about 450-500 license build FH70s
Whatevever we give the Ukranians, it feels very good to know that they really use everything intelligently. And in my opinion, they should receive a lot more. And in Sweden's case, all the equipment has always been designed and intended for fighting Russia. So if we send it to Ukraine, it's beeing used for what the taxpayer's payed for - improving Swedens sequrity. And we can buy new replacement stuff.
@Dbbn Pos Even ww2 guns are effective
God Bless Estonia
Slava Ukraine
Glory to Ukraine
How do you design an artillery system with the same effectiveness, but with greater simplicity in operation and maintenance?
SLAVA UKRAINE ❤️🩹🙏😇😎 FROM WILMINGTON DELAWARE USA 🪖🧬❤️💪
Its an old german-italian-british construction: "Feldhaubitze 70 FH70", because they were built in the 70s. Old, but effective and still more modern than the russian junk. The idea is to shoot 3 rounds in 13 seconds, leave your position to the next one, shoot 3 rounds etc. The ukrainians use them in a different way, because the NATO ammunition has a longer range than the russian ones. they can stay in their launch position.
new Italian weapons sent to Ukraine: Among the new Italian weapons sent to Ukraine, there are two powerful and modern systems. These are MLRS and Pzh2000. The number of weapons is not specified. The MLRS rocket launcher is a heavy and complex system that allows for rapid, continuous and long-range launch of various types of missiles, including chemical, biological and anti-tank warheads. The system is the European analogue of HIMARS. While the Pzh2000 is a self-propelled howitzer produced for the first time for the German army. At the moment, it is one of the most modern means of its category and allows you to shoot at a high frequency. I am proud that I am Italian and my country is helping the Ukrainian people in the war against the Russians!
Look after your kit it will look after you
Slava Ukraini!
Radio free Europe...so free that they only tell one side...
2:15 I dont think its the shell munition quality that is affecting its accuracy. Its likely the barrel is getting worn out and need to be replaced. Especially if Ukranians are using the artillary for repeated rapid firing will wear out the barrel faster.
Shell munition quality absolutely does affect accuracy.
Slava ukraini💪
Well don lads glory to Ukraine .
Slava Ukraini. 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 🇺🇦
Finnish Made allways best!
@2:45 Finnish shells, yup. Look up some Finnish Defence Forces vids here on youtube about artillery exercises... rip that reindeer herd.. (not a joke)
Interesting when the soldier said the Russians had stopped sending “hardware” (tanks) because of the Javelins. I think tanks are dinosaurs.
I would ask them: since it's towed artillery, are they worried about counter battery fire?
They are operating far too leisurely to have any real worries about that. But I have wondered about this, in the several videos that I have seen of Ukranians firing artillery pieces (guns and mortars) there has been the same unhurried pace, like they intend to stay in a location for hours at an end, firing occasional single shots at the enemy lines.
I was a signalman in the artillery in the FDF and I'm used to seeing more action, here is an example of a three round "burst" from a Finnish 155mm artillery piece.
It's quite understandable why the Ukrainians might have some difficulty keeping the guns in good shape. It's an war, it's rough, and the Ukrainians don't have access to the same good (in terms of time and cost) training and equipment/facilities, that the Estonian soldiers had, or in fact any other NATO country that operates (operated) the FH70. It's an good weapons for it's cost, but Estonians found it to be too rough by design, and decided to switch to other platforms like most of FH70 users did, the weapon has seen better days, and is probably outdated slightly by modern standards.
Вспомним как русская сила солдатская немцев на запад гнала 1941-1945 🇷🇺💤🤝
🇪🇪 🇺🇦 ✊