CNN —
When Ukraine retook large parts of the territory in a series of counterattacks last fall, it crushed Russian forces with American artillery and missiles. Some of this artillery was guided by a home-made targeting system developed by Ukraine on the battlefield.
Ukrainian-made software has turned readily available tablet computers and smartphones into sophisticated targeting tools that are now widely used throughout the Ukrainian military.
The result is a mobile app that feeds satellite and other intelligence imagery into a real-time targeting algorithm that helps units near the frontline fire on specific targets. And since it’s an app and not a piece of hardware, it’s quick to upgrade and update, and available to a wide range of employees.
US officials familiar with the tool say it was very effective in directing Ukrainian artillery fire at Russian targets.
The targeting app is among dozens of examples of battlefield innovations that Ukraine has developed in nearly a year of war, often finding cheap solutions to expensive problems.
Small plastic drones, humming softly overhead, drop grenades and other weapons at Russian troops. 3D printers now produce spare parts so soldiers can repair heavy equipment in the field. Engineers converted ordinary pickup trucks into mobile missile launchers. Engineers have figured out how to strap sophisticated US missiles to older Soviet fighter jets like the MiG-29 to keep Ukraine’s air force flying after nine months of war.
Ukraine has even developed its own anti-ship weapon, the Neptun, based on Soviet missile designs that can target the Russian fleet from almost 200 miles away.
This kind of Ukrainian ingenuity has impressed US officials, who have praised Kiev’s ability to find “MacGyver” solutions to its battlefield needs that fill in key tactical gaps left by the larger, more sophisticated Western weapons.
While US and other Western officials don’t always know exactly how Ukraine’s bespoke systems work — in large part because they’re not on the ground — both officials and open-source analysts say Ukraine is becoming a veritable combat laboratory for has become cheap but effective solutions.
“Their innovation is just incredibly impressive,” said Seth Jones, director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has also afforded the United States and its allies a rare opportunity to study how their own weapons systems perform under intense engagements – and what ammunition both sides are using to win this hotly contested modern war. US operations officers and other military officials have also followed Russia’s successful use of cheap, Iran-supplied, consumable drones that explode on impact to decimate Ukraine’s power grid.
Ukraine is “absolutely a weapons laboratory in every sense because none of this equipment has ever actually been used in a war between two industrially advanced nations,” said a source familiar with Western intelligence. “This is a real combat test.”
For the US military, the war in Ukraine was an incredible source of data on the usefulness of its own systems.
Some high-profile systems made available to the Ukrainians — such as the Switchblade 300 drone and a missile designed to target enemy radar systems — have proved less effective than expected on the battlefield, according to a US military operations officer with knowledge the battlefield and a recent British think tank study.
But the lightweight American-made M142 Multiple Rocket Launcher, or HIMARS, was critical to Ukraine’s success — even as officials learned valuable lessons about the rate of maintenance repairs these systems required under such heavy use.
How Ukraine has used its limited stockpile of HIMARS missiles to ravage Russian command and control and attack command posts, headquarters and supply depots has been eye-opening, a defense official said, adding that military leaders would be investigating for years.
Another key finding concerned the M777 howitzer, the powerful artillery that was a crucial part of Ukraine’s battlefield power. But howitzer barrels lose their rifling when too many shells are fired in a short period of time, another defense official said, making the artillery less accurate and less effective.
The Ukrainians have also made tactical innovations that have impressed Western officials. In the early weeks of the war, Ukrainian commanders adjusted their operations to use small teams of dismounted infantry during the Russian advance on Kyiv. Armed with shoulder-mounted Stinger and Javelin missiles, Ukrainian troops could sneak up on Russian tanks without infantry on their flanks.
The US has also scrutinized the conflict to draw broader lessons on how a war between two modern nations might be waged in the 21st century.
The operations officer said one lesson the US could learn from this conflict is that towed artillery – like the M777 howitzer system – could be a thing of the past. These systems are harder to move quickly to avoid return fire — and in a world of ubiquitous drones and overhead surveillance, “it’s very hard to hide these days,” said this person.
When it comes to the lessons learned, “a book needs to be written about it,” said Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
US defense contractors have also taken note of the novel opportunity to study – and commercialize – their systems.
BAE Systems has previously announced that Russia’s success with its kamikaze drones has influenced the development of a new armored fighting vehicle for the army that will add more armor to protect soldiers from attacks from above.
And various parts of US government and industry have tried to test novel systems and solutions in a fight that Ukraine needed all the help it could get.
In the early days of the conflict, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency sent five lightweight, high-resolution surveillance drones to the US Special Operations Command in Europe just in case they could be useful in Ukraine. The drones, which were manufactured by a company called Hexagon, were not part of a so-called Department of Defense recording program, indicating the experimental nature of the conflict.
Navy Vice Adm. Robert Sharp, then head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, even publicly boasted that the US had trained a “military partner” in Europe on the system.
“This allows you to go out from under the cloud cover and collect your own [geointelligence] Data,” Sharp told CNN on the sidelines of a satellite conference in Denver last spring.
Despite intense efforts by a small group of US officials and outside industry, it remains unclear if these drones ever made it into combat.
Meanwhile, several intelligence and military officials told CNN they hoped making what the US military calls “attritable” drones — cheap, single-use weapons — has become a top priority for defense contractors.
“I wish we could make a $10,000 disposable attack drone,” one of those officials said wistfully.