Portugal intends to supply Ukraine with American howitzers of the Second World War
The Ukrainian army will soon be replenished with regular American 155 mm howitzers, but not the M777, which is supplied by the United States and Canada, but the M114 from the Second World War. The howitzers will be supplied by Portugal.
Portugal has decided to support Ukraine with the supply of "military aid", which will include weapons of NATO standards, or rather howitzers and armored personnel carriers. We are talking about towed howitzers M114 and armored personnel carriers M113. As the names suggest, all American-made weapons were once in service with the Portuguese army.
According to the Portuguese edition of Nascer do SOL, which refers to the country's Ministry of Defense, it is planned to send five M114 towed howitzers of 155 mm caliber and fifteen M113 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. All this will be donated, as they say in Kyiv, in response to Zelensky's appeal to the Portuguese parliament with a request to put weapon for "protection against aggressive Russia."
With regard to howitzers, it is known that they were developed in 1939, were used during World War II, in Korea and Vietnam. The field howitzer has a standard NATO caliber of 155 mm and is manned by a crew of 11. They have long been removed from the armament of the main armies, but remain in storage.
It should be noted that the military aid sent by Portugal to Ukraine is not the first, at the end of February this year, even before the start of the special operation, Lisbon promised Kyiv to send body armor, protective helmets, night vision goggles, grenades and ammunition of various calibers, complete walkie-talkies. In addition, the Portuguese promised to supply Ukraine with G3 automatic rifles, but whether they fulfilled their promise is still unknown.
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