new sophisticated weapons are delivered<\/a> to the Ukrainians, and new chatrooms set up to handle them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cA lot of the times we\u2019ll get calls from right there on the firing line, so there\u2019ll be outgoing or incoming fire at the same time you\u2019re trying to help the forward maintainers troubleshoot the best they can,\u201d said a U.S. soldier who is part of the maintenance team. Sometimes, he said, the chat has to wait a bit until troops can get to a safer location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A key problem, said one officer, is that Ukrainian troops are pushing the weapons to their limits \u2014 firing them at unprecedented rates and using them long after a U.S. service member would turn them in to be repaired or retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holding up his tablet, the U.S. soldier showed photos of the barrel of a howitzer, its interior ridges nearly worn completely away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re using these systems in ways that we didn\u2019t necessarily anticipate,\u201d said the officer, pointing to the tablet. \u201cWe\u2019re actually learning from them by seeing how much abuse these weapon systems can take, and where’s the breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ukrainian troops are often reluctant to send the weapons back out of the country for repairs. They’d rather do it themselves, and in nearly all cases \u2014 U.S. officials estimated 99% of the time \u2014 the Ukrainians do the repair and continue on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of the chats are regularly scheduled with depot workers in Ukraine \u2014 like the one they call \u201cCoffee Cup Guy,” because his chat has a coffee cup emoji. Other times they involve troops on the battlefield whose gun just blew apart, or whose vehicle stalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes video chats aren’t possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of times if they\u2019re on the front line, they won\u2019t do a video because sometimes (cell service) is a little spotty,\u201d said a U.S. maintainer. \u201cThey\u2019ll take pictures and send it to us through the chats and we sit there and diagnose it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were times, he said, when they’ll get a picture of a broken howitzer, and the Ukrainian will say, \u201cThis Triple 7 just blew up \u2014 what do we do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, in what he said was a remarkable new skill, the Ukrainians can now put the split weapon back together. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t do titanium welding before, they can do it now,\u201d said the U.S. soldier, adding that \u201csomething that was two days ago blown up is now back in play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doling out advice over the chats means the U.S. experts have to diagnose the problem when something goes wrong, figure out how to fix it, then translate the steps into Ukrainian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they look to the future, they are planning to get some commercial, off-the-shelf translation goggles. That way, when they talk to each other they can skip the interpreters and just see the translation as they speak, making conversations easier and faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also are hoping to build their diagnostic capabilities as the weapons systems get more complex, and expand the types and amount of spare parts they keep on hand. For example, they said the Patriot missile system the U.S. is sending to Ukraine will be a challenge, requiring more expertise in diagnosing and repairing problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The expanse of weapons and equipment they\u2019re handling and questions they\u2019re fielding were even too complicated for a digital spreadsheet \u2014 forcing the team to go low-tech. One wall in their maintenance office is lined with an array of old-fashioned, color-coded Post-it notes, to help them track the weapons and maintenance needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team in Poland is part of an ever expanding logistical network that stretches across Europe. As more nations send their own versions of weapon systems, they are setting up teams to provide repair support in a variety of locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nations and the manufacturing companies quickly put together manuals and technical data that can be translated and sent to the Ukrainians. They then set up stocks of spare parts and get them to locations near Ukraine’s borders, where they can be sent to the battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just days before Milley visited the base, Ukrainians traveled to the Poland facility for parts. The visit gave U.S. soldiers a chance to meet someone from their chatrooms face-to-face and swap military patches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the next video chat we had he was wearing our patches in his video,\u201d the U.S. soldier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hub for the growing logistical effort is at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, the U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There, in cubicles filling an expansive room, the international coalition coordinates the campaign to locate and identify far-flung equipment, weapons and spare parts in other countries that are needed in Ukraine. They then plan out deliveries \u2014 by sea, air and ground routes \u2014 to border locations where everything is loaded onto trucks or trains and moved to the war zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 17 nations have representatives in what’s called the International Donor Coordination Center. And as the amount and types of equipment grow, the center is working to better meld the donations from the U.S. and other nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs we send more additional advanced equipment, like Strykers, like Bradleys, like tanks, of course that sustainment activity will have to increase,” said Douglas Bush, assistant Army secretary for acquisition. \u201cI think the challenge is recognized. I think the Army knows how to do it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poland (AP) \u2014 A rapidly expanding group of U.S. and allied troops and contractors is using phones and tablets to communicate in encrypted chatrooms to provide real-time maintenance advice to Ukrainian troops on the battlefield. As the U.S. and other allies provide more and increasingly complex and high-tech weapons, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":268960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worldnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=268959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268964,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268959\/revisions\/268964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/268960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=268959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=268959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=268959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}