A 2P22 in training. 47th Separate Artillery Brigade photo Hunting somewhere along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine, a Russian drone spotted—and damaged if not destroyed—something special: an early example of the 2P22 Bohdana-B, Ukraine’s first domestically produced 155-millimeter towed howitzer. A video posted online by a Russian officer captured what the quadcopter drone saw as it prowled the front: a camouflaged firing position partially concealing a towed howitzer.
The explosives-laden drone barreled in. Analyst Andrew Perpetua was the first to identify the struck gun. The drone strike isn’t unusual.
Tiny unmanned aerial vehicles are everywhere all the time over the front line in Ukraine, and account for a significant proportion of losses—including artillery losses—on both sides. Ukraine went to war in February 2022 with around 500 towed artillery pieces, and has lost around 200 of them to Russian action. Ukraine’s allies have donated some 400 towed guns, resulting in a 200-gun surplus compared to the pre-war inventory.
But the extra 200 guns were too few, given the massive expansion of the Ukrainian ground forces in the last three years. Ukraine undoubtedly had hundreds of older towed howitzers in storage that it could reactivate, but these were all Soviet-designed—and fired 122-millimeter and 152-millimeter shells, rather than the best 155-millimeter shells that are standard for Western-designed howitzers. Ukrainian leaders are eager to standardize their artillery on Western calibers in order to align Ukrainian artillery doctrine with Western doctrine and to ensure Ukraine can tap European supply chains for its ammunition needs.
A 2P22 in training. 47th Separate Artillery Brigade photo Cheaper gun Before the wider war, Ukrainian industry had developed a 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzer—a newly designed, 10-ton gun on a truck chassis. The Kramatorsk Heavy Duty Machine Tool Building Plant rushed the 2S22 Bohdana into production in 2023; around 150 of the $2.5-million guns have been built since then.
More than 20 have been lost in action. There’s a bottleneck in 2S22 production: the six-wheel-drive KrAZ-6322 truck chassis. To keep new guns flowing to the artillery batteries, the Kramatorsk factory designed a simpler, cheaper version of the Bohdana—a towed version borrowing the wheeled carriages from old Soviet-made 2A36 Giatsint-B whose barrels had worn out.
The first 2P22 Bohdana-B equipped the Ukrainian army’s 47th Separate Artillery Brigade early this year, marking the continuing evolution of the Ukrainian artillery corps into a Western-style force. “The gunners of the 47th Separate Artillery Brigade, having a high level of skills and abilities, are ready to destroy the enemy on all the hottest fronts!” the brigade’s press officer crowed. But even with skilled crews, new guns aren’t immune to the same perils that vex old guns.
It was only a matter of time before one of the new 2P22s fell victim to a drone. Fortunately for the Ukrainians, the Kramatorsk factory is now one of the biggest howitzer-makers in the world, churning out new artillery pieces at a rate of dozens per month. More 2P22s are on the way.
