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Rare American M712 Copperhead Shell Destroys Russian Bunker in Ukraine, Video
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Ukrainian forces struck a reinforced Russian bunker in the occupied Kherson region using a US-supplied M712 Copperhead guided artillery shell, according to footage published by Ukrainian serviceman Stanislav Bunyatov on January 29.
The WarArchive project identified the target as a Russian fortification in Hola Prystan, a town in the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region.
Video evidence suggests the bunker was completely destroyed by the strike.
The M712 Copperhead is a laser-guided 155mm artillery shell developed by the United States in the 1970s for precision strikes against fortified targets and armored vehicles. It carries either a high-explosive fragmentation or a shaped-charge warhead and can be fired from standard 155mm howitzers, with an effective range of 3 to 16 kilometers.
Each shell weighs approximately 62.4 kilograms, marking it as a significant but now seldom-seen piece of artillery. Production ceased decades ago, with around 20,000 units estimated to remain in US military reserves as of 1995. In 2017, a few hundred Copperhead shells were provided to Lebanon to assist in combating ISIS forces.
The Copperhead was first deployed by the US military during the 1991 Gulf War but is no longer in production.
First image of an unboxed US-supplied M712 Copperhead 155mm laser-guided artillery shell in Ukrainian service, Kursk Oblast.
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) November 11, 2024
M712 Copperheads have the ability to put a 15-pound shaped charge warhead on a moving target 10 miles away from the artillery system. pic.twitter.com/7sbDSydeCB
Earlier, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used the M712 Copperhead during recent operations in Russia’s Kursk region.