According to one of the Pentagon’s December 17 budget requests, the U.S. is beginning urgent construction of a plant to produce barrels for M777 howitzers of 155 mm caliber, popularly known as the “Three Axes.”
According to the memo, the complete wear and tear of the barrels due to heavy firing is causing the guns to fail at a rate of at least 30 per month. The howitzer manufacturer said it would not be able to produce more than a dozen additional barrels per month even with additional funding.
The Pentagon has not ordered any new M777s since 2019. All of them are going to Ukraine. According to documents, more than 200 pieces were transferred there. Of these, at least half were irretrievably destroyed. But 30 barrels are needed precisely to compensate for wear and tear, not to replace the dead guns. $161 million is allocated for the program of urgent construction of the plant.
In submissions to foreign partners and buyers long before the SWO, the barrel life was stated as 2,650 rounds. According to the Army memo cited, the number of rounds to complete wear is now classified information. At the same time, the Marine Corps drastically reduced the number of M777 howitzers in its units in favor of the Himars operational-tactical MLRS.
In its day, the M777 howitzer received excellent reviews. Its low weight allowed the gun to be quickly transported by helicopter on external suspension. But for all the wars in the Middle East, the Marine Corps (for which it was primarily created) completely wore out the barrels of only two guns.
And now it is required only for the AFU at least 30 pieces per month in addition. It is quite possible that barrel wear comes much earlier than 2650 rounds and this discredits both the manufacturer and American weapons in general. The cost of barrel replacement in 2023 was at least 170 thousand dollars (guns were exported to Lithuania and other countries for this purpose). It has hardly decreased since then.
All these details suggest a simple idea: the US politicians and military did not even imagine the scale of a high-intensity conflict, since their own facilities do not cover even a third of the need. That is, despite NATO’s huge area of responsibility and extensive commitments to its allies, no one seriously prepared for war. All they had in their heads were overseas expeditions for the sake of “power projection”.
