06-07-2022, 08:24 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/potent-weapon...18516.html discusses some of the training problems Ukraine is facing. The lack of imperial units wrenches is also a classic NATO screw-up. NATO tries to use MKS as much as possible, but the weapons systems often are built with IPS components.
I would imagine the Ukraine can put together a phone app that can convert NATO coordinates to the maps they are using and visa versa. No reason to do it by hand. However, the "right people" need to know about this problem and get some volunteers to do the work. Still, you can enter a number incorrectly. These are just the "normal" fit-for-purpose problems that new equipment in any military creates. However, Ukraine doesn't have a year to work them out and they are absorbing vast quantities of new "stuff", not just one item. Amazing how well they have done with so little training, but it is a problem. It will get worse as the equipment is deployed longer and needs maintenance.
As probably most of you already know, the M777 howitzers the US provided did not have the computer based gun laying capability included. The Ukrainians have to do it "by hand". Nobody in the West is saying why that is the case. It could be that we are worried about "compromising" that technology to Russia, but I can't imagine there is anything real high tech in the system. IMHO it is more probable that the military decided the Ukrainians are already trained in manual gun laying and understand it. It is also pretty simple. Learning to use the computer based system is a training problem and in the short time available it was decided it was too much to learn and too many things could break that the Ukrainians could not fix. It is also true that you need to know how to lay the gun manually anyway in case the computer breaks, so emphasis may have been given to that skill set. These types of issues are a big deal, and affect what happens in ways we don't always know about.
I would imagine the Ukraine can put together a phone app that can convert NATO coordinates to the maps they are using and visa versa. No reason to do it by hand. However, the "right people" need to know about this problem and get some volunteers to do the work. Still, you can enter a number incorrectly. These are just the "normal" fit-for-purpose problems that new equipment in any military creates. However, Ukraine doesn't have a year to work them out and they are absorbing vast quantities of new "stuff", not just one item. Amazing how well they have done with so little training, but it is a problem. It will get worse as the equipment is deployed longer and needs maintenance.
As probably most of you already know, the M777 howitzers the US provided did not have the computer based gun laying capability included. The Ukrainians have to do it "by hand". Nobody in the West is saying why that is the case. It could be that we are worried about "compromising" that technology to Russia, but I can't imagine there is anything real high tech in the system. IMHO it is more probable that the military decided the Ukrainians are already trained in manual gun laying and understand it. It is also pretty simple. Learning to use the computer based system is a training problem and in the short time available it was decided it was too much to learn and too many things could break that the Ukrainians could not fix. It is also true that you need to know how to lay the gun manually anyway in case the computer breaks, so emphasis may have been given to that skill set. These types of issues are a big deal, and affect what happens in ways we don't always know about.