The first deliveries of the Ukrainian Army serial Bohdana wheeled self-propelled gun are expected in the coming months. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, announced that Ukrainian Bohdana is very important to us. He have already concluded the first contracts and manufacturers have already promised to make the first deliveries in the coming months. Ukraine financed the industrial production of the domestic 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzer. According to him, this happened in the spring of 2022. Oleksii Reznikov also published a photo of a new chassis for the serial Ukrainian-produced 155-mm self-propelled howitzers. The Head of the Ministry of Defense emphasized that the Bohdana successfully passed the battlefield tests.
The 2S22 Bohdana is a 155 mm artillery caliber, wheeled self-propelled howitzer developed in Ukraine. The howitzer is the first self-propelled gun with the so-called NATO caliber of 155 mm. It is mounted on the chassis of the Ukrainian six-wheel-drive KrAZ-6322 truck with an armored cabin. It has an armoured double cabin and storage for around 20 shells. The howitzer has a minimum range of 780 meters, and a maximum range of 40 km with HE/AP ammunition or 50 km with a rocket-assisted projectile. It has an average rate of fire of six shells per minute. It was planned that a full-fledged digital fire control system and a loading machine would be installed on the Bohdana.
The howitzer underwent live-fire tests in 2018. Its first public display was in the Kyiv Independence Day Parade on 24 August 2018. Test firings were conducted at the Shirokiy Lan training ground in May 2021. Further test firings were carried out at a range in Odesa Oblast in December 2021 and January 2022, where 450 shots were fired at a range of 42 km, greater than the manufacturer’s specification of 40 km. On 25 February, at the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Bohdana’s manufacturers were ordered to destroy the sole prototype, to prevent the Russians from capturing it. However, it was able to be moved away from the Russians and handed to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At the end of January 2022, it was reported that Bohdana successfully passed preliminary fire tests: the wheeled self-propelled howitzer fired 450 shots and reached a range of 42 kilometers. In the future, the gun will be used to defeat the positions of the Russian invaders in Ukraine. On 7 May 2022 Forbes reported that the prototype had been deployed at the front and was firing at Russian targets. In June 2022 Ukrainian forces on the mainland of Ukraine reportedly used the 2S22 Bohdana to shell Russian forces on Snake Island, which is 35 km from the mainland. This along with strikes from other artillery systems as well as drones led to the withdrawal of Russian forces from the island on 30 June.
