URZUF, UKRAINE — Ukraine’s National Guards special force regiment Azov held artillery drills on Aug. 3 simulating a counter-attack against an amphibious assault on the Sea of Azov coastline some 50 kilometers southwest of Mariupol.
According to the training scenario, a hostile seaborne infantry force, supported by an armored company and an artillery battery, is landed near the city of Berdyansk with the mission of advancing into Ukraine’s and then link up with other forces coming from north and east to cut the Mariupol coastline off from Ukraine’s main forces.
The presented sequence of events is one of the most probable ways Russia might expand along the Sea of Azov coastline, the regiment command believes.
As soon as the artillery reconnaissance teams had detected all targets installed on firing ranges in the area, a battery of four D-30 122-millimeter howitzers was given the order to deliver suppressing fire on the simulated enemy armored columns, and then perform counter-battery fire.
After two hours of gunnery, the battery successfully hit the simulated enemy commanding post with a single direct hit from the main gun, and fulfilled the rest of its tasks with real-time fire adjustment, the battery’s executive officer Sergeant Gennadiy Kharchenko told the Kyiv Post.
The latest gunnery exercise was the eighth round of drills for the Azov’s artillery crews since early spring.
