Artillery: SADARM Success In Ukraine
November 5, 2022: SADARM (Search And Destroy Armor Munitions)-equipped 155mm artillery shells proved so successful in Ukraine against armored vehicles that over 20,000 of these shells were provided to the Ukrainian forces in the last five months. Unlike the United States, Germany produced these shells mainly for use against local threats, like Russia. The Ukraine war saw the Russians using thousands of tanks and losing most of them to Ukrainian troops armed with Western anti-tank weapons featuring top-attack capability.
SADARM tech was developed during the 1980s, perfected in the 1990s and when it was sent to Ukraine, it turned towed and self-propelled artillery into very effective anti-vehicle weapons. SADARM was able to destroy all sorts of vehicles and, because of flaws in tank design and protection, especially Russian tanks. Ukraine asked for all the SADARM shells NATO nations could provide and most European NATO members sent nearly all SADARM shells they had.
Germany, Britain, Italy and Sweden manufacture 155mm artillery shells carrying two each Sense and Destroy Armor Munitions. Originally called SADARM munitions by its American developer (Textron), it had completed development when the Cold War suddenly ended in 1991. SADARM was not as effective as expected and the 155mm version was canceled in 2001. The U.S. Air Force has more success with the SADARM submunitions used in the CBU-105 cluster bomb (40 submunitions per half-ton cluster bomb) because a bomb undergoes much less stress when used than an artillery shell. The air force and six export customers purchased hundreds of these bombs but sales were not high enough to keep CBU-105 in production after 2017.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20221105.aspx
