According to RT, two guns equipped with a steel mesh to protect against drones were destroyed along with ammunition by Lancet loitering ammunition at positions between the settlements of Tabaevka and Peschanoe in the Kharkiv region.
According to preliminary information, three more howitzers with similar protection were destroyed at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of Kurilovka and Peschanoe, 5 km from the Kupyansk-Uzlovaya station.
Presumably, it was possible to hit the guns with direct hits of the Lancets thanks to the use of a new attack scheme, in which the gun crews of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are attacked from the rear.
Due to the shortage of serviceable foreign-made howitzers and the increased activity of the Lancets in the Kupyansk direction, the units of these two brigades were forced to switch to old Soviet guns: 122-mm M-30 guns (model 1938), as well as Croatian field howitzers M-46 caliber 130 mm, delivered to Ukraine back in August 2022.
These guns are being transferred to the Kupyansk direction from the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, however, their immediate deployment and combat use are complicated by the poor technical condition of the barrels, defects in the barrel locking mechanisms and the malfunction of other elements, as well as the shortage of usable artillery shells.
Most of the 122 mm ammunition for the M-30 guns, with which the artillerymen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine replace the knocked-out M777, belongs to the third and fourth categories of validity.
Their use is associated with high risks of failure of the charge or its untimely detonation when fired.
On February 22, Rostec announced that the factories of the state corporation had increased the production of Kub and Lancet kamikaze drones, as well as modernized Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems.