Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Grey Fox]

Because, has Biden put it back in 2022, we are not at war with Russia.

[grumbler]

During WW1, about 850 million artillery shells were used on the Western Front, more than half a million per day. So 110 years ago, our economies were able to produce sufficient shells. I don't get why it is not possible now.

Shells are very different these days.  They have much better (but more complex) fusing, the explosive is much more powerful (and thus more expensive), and the casing is made of much-longer-lasting material, because these shells aren't going to be fired, but placed in stockpile.

It is certainly possible to increase production.  The US has doubled its shell production since the invasion started, to roughly 30,00 shell per month.  Plans are to continue to increase until reaching a total of 60,000 shells per month in October 2024 and 100,000 by October 2025.

But Ukraine fires 2,000 shells per day, so more than 60,000 per month, and has a need about double that.  The US will never, by itself, produce all that Ukraine needs, let alone producing enough of a surplus to SU needs.  European production has increased from about 20,000 shells per month to around 33,000 per month now, with plans to go to a million rounds per year.  They have not increased enough to meet their shorter-term goals, in part because the price European governments pay for shell has risen from roughly 2,000 euros to more than 8,000 euros.  The US price has risen from the same 2,000 euros per shell to 3,000.

Languishites will probably find it ironic that the US success is due to US artillery production being "socialized" (government owned and operated) while the European production is privatized.  The private European companies are reluctant to invest in expanded production without long-term contracts, the the governments of the EU are reluctant to  issue long-term contracts at these inflated prices.

There are no paths to short-term vastly increased shell production.

(My numbers are mostly just "updated" (i.e. estimated) from Feb 2024 and  Nov 2023)

[Josquius]

I wonder whether production couldn't be sped up a little by cutting some corners?
Like we don't need the long lasting storage material as these are going to be shipped to Ukraine and fired ASAP.

But the I do keep hearing again that though Russia doesn't have the same shortage basically half of what it fires are duds-the north Koreans sending over their B grade which has zero consistency

[Threviel]

Interesting Grumbs, thanks. One would think there's a window here for an enterprising weapons manufacturer to have built a factory and corner the market, so to speak, by being able to offer lots of expensive shells without the long term contracts. I imagine that uncertainty about future orders is the reason no-one is doing that, the war might be over by November if the US goes full retard after all.

[Jacob]

In addition to what grumbler said about the differences in shell-complexity between now and then, I imagine that European production was higher because everybody had spent the years prior to war in an arms race.

[Zanza]

Thanks for the insights, grumbler.

I wonder if that's another case of war materials being over-engineered. Making three or five times the rounds, but having poorer shelf-life, less power or worse accuracy might be a trade-off that's worth it...

[DGuller]

I imagine during WWI a lot of countries were on war economy.  It's a lot easier to produce war material in mind-numbing quantities when your population can be convinced to forego all peacetime comforts, and you can convert a lot of your civilian production for wartime needs.

[Iormlund]

Thanks for the insights, grumbler.

I wonder if that's another case of war materials being over-engineered. Making three or five times the rounds, but having poorer shelf-life, less power or worse accuracy might be a trade-off that's worth it...

Less power or accuracy means you need more tubes. I don't think that's something we want to compromise on. And the rounds for NATO must be stockpiled, so we could only make shorter shelf-life for those that go the Ukraine, which might complicate things al the factory.

[Razgovory]

How much does a Russian shell cost?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I wonder whether production couldn't be sped up a little by cutting some corners?

To some degree yes--Russia has been cutting corners to ramp up its own military production. But it won't solve the problem. Russia's industrial base was also more advantageously structured for this sort of conflict back before the war started, and they have allies who also specialized in this kind of mass production.

There would need to be a major retooling of defense industry and expansion to fund such shell production in perpetuity, defense planning just wasn't predicated on this sort of thing the last 40 years or more, and a whole industry doesn't turn on a dime, particularly in Europe where it is split across various countries / companies etc.

There are weird features of the war in Ukraine that defied Western planners expectations of how wars between modernized peers or near peers would operate. For example air power was expected to be deployed far more decisively, with one side likely to obtain absolute air superiority early in the conflict, which would be expected to set the ground for the rest of the war. It was not IMO widely expected air power would be kept relatively restrained due to fear of losing planes which can't be easily replaced, because the West would certainly not be holding most of its air power away from the war if a war broke out with a near peer--it would be deployed heavily from day one since it would be seen as essential to operations.

[Sheilbh]

Thanks for the insights, grumbler.

I wonder if that's another case of war materials being over-engineered. Making three or five times the rounds, but having poorer shelf-life, less power or worse accuracy might be a trade-off that's worth it...

This feels possible.

Also US production having doubled to 30,000 shells a month is obviously good, but also feels surprisingly low - it makes you wonder about the US in a conflict with anyone other than countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

Get the points on the arms race and war economy for WW1, though it'd be interesting to see the comparison with 1990 when the West did think there was a risk of conflict with a peer army. Not sure on manufacturing but I definitely know that, for example, the entire British Army right now is smaller than the Army of the Rhine was in 1990 (and obviously that's a big part of companies not having long-term contracts).

I suppose it depends how serious you see the risk from Russia and China outside their own borders - but I feel like there is a gap with Europe and the US between capacity and rhetoric.

[Tonitrus]

One of things I had found interesting (found out it about it during the early press focus on shell production), was that a significant amount of US production comes from a government factory...the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant (wiki says the Army owns it, but is operated by General Dynamics...so not entirely sure how much of the operating/production costs is managed by contract...I assume a lot...and may be an achilles heel to this idea).

Such a facility, the maintains/keeps mothballed the ability to quickly ramp up production, instead of a private company that has no such incentive, seems an essential piece of a national defense strategy.

[Legbiter]

Telegram rumor that Strelkov has been found hanged in his cell.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Thanks for the insights, grumbler.

I wonder if that's another case of war materials being over-engineered. Making three or five times the rounds, but having poorer shelf-life, less power or worse accuracy might be a trade-off that's worth it...

This feels possible.

Also US production having doubled to 30,000 shells a month is obviously good, but also feels surprisingly low - it makes you wonder about the US in a conflict with anyone other than countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

Get the points on the arms race and war economy for WW1, though it'd be interesting to see the comparison with 1990 when the West did think there was a risk of conflict with a peer army. Not sure on manufacturing but I definitely know that, for example, the entire British Army right now is smaller than the Army of the Rhine was in 1990 (and obviously that's a big part of companies not having long-term contracts).

I suppose it depends how serious you see the risk from Russia and China outside their own borders - but I feel like there is a gap with Europe and the US between capacity and rhetoric.

I don't really think this scenario of long static fronts and grinding artillery war is a likely stage for direct conflict between Russia or China and the United States.

The US doesn't share an extensive land border with either country as Ukraine does. Conflict scenarios have traditionally been for China a defense of Taiwan, which would all but certainly be a very intense Naval / Air / missile war; or defending a NATO ally from Russian invasion. The latter is unlikely to look remotely like the war in Ukraine because many of Russia's tactics would risk the actual destruction of their military if they attempted to challenge NATO with large masses of Russian battalions in open field combat—it is hard to imagine how that would work with a large portion of the world's air power being used against those formations.

I have seen some speculative scenarios where Russia could try to invade a very small NATO country like one of the Baltics with forces akin to those involved in the seizure of Crimea, attempting to portray some deniability. Combined with a posture of limiting involvement and daring NATO to risk striking at Russia proper. But that would be a hell of a gamble, and if I was a Russian leader I wouldn't launch such an operation on the belief you might get an American President to blink.

[Jacob]

Telegram rumor that Strelkov has been found hanged in his cell.

Surely you mean died from a blot clot, like Navalny?