[Discussion] Ukraine - Russian Invasion and Discussion

A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.

Prederick wrote:
“The most preferable way to achieve our interests is through peaceful, diplomatic means,” Peskov said.

Apparently an invasion is considered "peaceful, diplomatic means" now. Good to know.

Russia burning through ammunition at an extraordinary rate

Defense News article. I mean, yeah, but the numbers regarding the number of years worth of production of American munitions that the Ukrainians have burned through is interesting.

Nevin73 wrote:

Russia burning through ammunition at an extraordinary rate

Defense News article. I mean, yeah, but the numbers regarding the number of years worth of production of American munitions that the Ukrainians have burned through is interesting.

Yeah. The logistic unreadiness of nations to deal with full blown prolonged conflicts is not a new thing. The 1915 Shell Crisis, for instance, was a lesson that needed to be relearned in 1942 and practically every other major conflict since. A strong argument can be made that one of the many reasons GHWB didn't roll tanks into Baghdad 1991 is because the US had depleted its stocks of precision guided munitions to a point that further conflict would significantly endanger our global readiness.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that both sides use 152mm (and 122mm) Soviet shells as a standard so nations with aging stockpiles of them are reveling in the unexpected windfall. Since the US and NATO has deeper pockets, that generally means that those shells are disproportionately ending up fired from the west side of the Dniepro. There are even some anecdotal reports of Ukrainians receiving crates of new production 152mm shells with instructions written in Farsi.

I think though that it is optimistic to think that the overall supply of Soviet shells will significantly alter Russian plans. There are enough shells out there. It's just that yesterday's price ain't today's price. Ironically, the move on the part of Ukraine to the NATO standard 155mm will actually relieve much of that price pressure and make those shells more available to the Russians. The more significant logistic issue will be their continued difficulty in bringing men, materiel, and ordinance safely to areas of concentration where they can make a strategic difference. When Russia loses this war, there will still be massive stockpiles of unfired shells sitting in railyards in Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don.

Paleocon wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Russia burning through ammunition at an extraordinary rate

Defense News article. I mean, yeah, but the numbers regarding the number of years worth of production of American munitions that the Ukrainians have burned through is interesting.

Yeah. The logistic unreadiness of nations to deal with full blown prolonged conflicts is not a new thing. The 1915 Shell Crisis, for instance, was a lesson that needed to be relearned in 1942 and practically every other major conflict since. A strong argument can be made that one of the many reasons GHWB didn't roll tanks into Baghdad 1991 is because the US had depleted its stocks of precision guided munitions to a point that further conflict would significantly endanger our global readiness.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that both sides use 152mm (and 122mm) Soviet shells as a standard so nations with aging stockpiles of them are reveling in the unexpected windfall. Since the US and NATO has deeper pockets, that generally means that those shells are disproportionately ending up fired from the west side of the Dniepro. There are even some anecdotal reports of Ukrainians receiving crates of new production 152mm shells with instructions written in Farsi.

I think though that it is optimistic to think that the overall supply of Soviet shells will significantly alter Russian plans. There are enough shells out there. It's just that yesterday's price ain't today's price. Ironically, the move on the part of Ukraine to the NATO standard 155mm will actually relieve much of that price pressure and make those shells more available to the Russians. The more significant logistic issue will be their continued difficulty in bringing men, materiel, and ordinance safely to areas of concentration where they can make a strategic difference. When Russia loses this war, there will still be massive stockpiles of unfired shells sitting in railyards in Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don.

NATO/The West was unprepared for a major confrontation where their primary strength--air power--couldn't be deployed. Their doctrine doesn't call for mountains of artillery shells (or ATGMs or MANPADs) because their plan was to control the skies and any concentration of Russian artillery or armor would either be blown up in air strikes or would be hiding in fear of an air strike. That doctrine couldn't be used in Ukraine, obviously.

My understanding is that former Warsaw Pact nations emptied their warehouses of 'Eastern' caliber artillery munitions months ago and Western buyers have pretty much scoured the globe clean of any old stockpiles of Soviet-era shells. There's been evidence that NATO/The West has cut deals with Pakistan for newly produced 122mm shells and evidence that they're also buying 122mm shells from Iran via 3rd parties.

At the same time those former Warsaw Pact nations have been spinning up their production of everything, including NATO and 'Eastern' caliber arty rounds. Heck, there's even been some recent pics and videos of brand new 152mm shells now being produced in Ukraine.

As for Ukraine shifting to NATO standards for artillery, well, that ain't going to happen anytime soon. Ukraine has about 300 NATO provided artillery pieces and over a thousand Soviet-era artillery pieces.

There's no sign that NATO/The West is going to flood Ukraine with NATO-standard artillery in the coming months, most likely because it's struggling to feed the 300 tubes already in Ukraine. That's why the last couple of rounds of military aid included 105mm guns: NATO had significant stockpiles of 105mm shells that it could tap and it was better to give Ukraine something they could shoot (the Russians did the same a few months back, reintroducing older 122mm guns, especially for LPR/DNR forces, because they were experiencing problems with getting enough 152mm shells to the front line).

Russia is rumored to have a greater manufacturing capacity for artillery shells than the West--they're supposedly capable of pumping out a million plus shells a year while the US produces like 200,000--but if their invasion of Ukraine has taught us anything it's that any Russian number should be thoroughly questioned. Given time, though, NATO's/The West's deeper pockets and larger manufacturing base should be able to supply Ukraine.

In fact, in another article from Defense News today, the Army announced funds had been appropriated and contracts put in place to triple the production of 155mm shells and that there's a supplemental spending bill working its way through Congress that would double that increased production. Of course it will take up to three years to hit those production numbers.

And even if Ukraine is dealing with a shortage of artillery shells the intercepted calls of Russian troops almost universally show that Ukrainian artillery is ever-present and *way* more responsive, accurate, and effective than Russian artillery. Russian artillery is still deleting entire villages, but Ukrainian artillery is killing Russian forces and destroying equipment.

As for precision munitions, Conflict Armament Research put out an article today that analyzed fragments of Kh-101 missiles used to attack Ukraine on November 23rd. They found that the weapons were manufactured between July and September 2022 and between October and November 2022. It shows that, even with sanctions, Russia still has the ability to manufacture precision-guided weapons. But it also shows that their stockpile of those weapons is very low and they're basically having to save up months of production to launch those large attacks.

And in other interesting munitions news, there's been reports that the airbases Russia uses to launch the cruise missile attacks on Ukraine were both struck by an unknown UAV resulting in two Tu-95 bombers being damaged along with several deaths. Back in October Ukraine announced that it had developed a UAV with a 1,000km range that could carry a 75kg warhead.

Russia relies on the Tu-95 and Tu-160 to launch long range missile attacks against Ukraine. It has less than 60 Tu-95s and less than 20 Tu-160s in service.

Yup. When salty Russobots complain that Putin is fighting "all of NATO", I often reply that they are more accurately fighting the NATO garage sale. This is not how NATO would fight a war against a Russian force.

My understanding is that we aren't struggling to keep Ukrainian 155mm artillery fed because of a lack of stockpiles, but rather because of transport and internal logistics capacity as well as barrel life and in theater servicing. If nothing else, South Korea is sitting on an entire mountain RANGE of 155mm shells that are probably due for decommissioning (as well as shell producing capacity that rivals our own). And I suspect that a non-trivial amount of that stockpile is making its way to Poland as part of the Hyundai K9-PL mobile howitzer deal.

You do bring up a good point though (and one I have made before), that the Russian burn rate for shells, barrels, and replacement ordinance is several times higher than that of the Ukrainians for a number of reasons. Their recon and target acquisition abilities are ... subpar. Their decision chain is slow. And their crew quality is comparatively bad. By some estimations, their ammunition consumption rate is 6-10 times as high as that of the Ukrainians with less combat effectiveness to show for it. And as much as Russoboos like to shout about how the artillery "superiority" Russia enjoys means Ukraine is losing, as my shooting instructor once put it, "you can't shoot fast enough to make the misses count".

The aspect I find the most surprising about this war is how it is, in almost every way, the ground of Putin's choosing and yet he is still being outmatched everywhere. He has his fight on familiar ground, with short supply lines, against an enemy with no ability to achieve air superiority. He has numerical superiority on territory which demands tanks and artillery. All of this was supposed to play to comparative Russian strengths. And yet "NATO" is kicking his ass. It is like we travelled to Russia to beat them in a vodka drinking contest in their own stadium.

OG_slinger wrote:

And in other interesting munitions news, there's been reports that the airbases Russia uses to launch the cruise missile attacks on Ukraine were both struck by an unknown UAV resulting in two Tu-95 bombers being damaged along with several deaths. Back in October Ukraine announced that it had developed a UAV with a 1,000km range that could carry a 75kg warhead.

Russia relies on the Tu-95 and Tu-160 to launch long range missile attacks against Ukraine. It has less than 60 Tu-95s and less than 20 Tu-160s in service.

For context, these airbases are farther away from Ukraine than Moscow.

Quite the air-defense network you got there, Vlad.

Nevin73 wrote:

Russia burning through ammunition at an extraordinary rate

Defense News article. I mean, yeah, but the numbers regarding the number of years worth of production of American munitions that the Ukrainians have burned through is interesting.

I keep hearing that the rate is unsustainable and that the evidence is that DPRK and IRN are selling shells, but I'd like to see some kind of actual number, somewhere.

RUS produces X/mo (ballpark)
RUS can increase X by Y (with z steps)
RUS expends A/mo yesterday
RUS expending B/mo Oct-Nov

Instead I feel like we're getting a lot of this:

I'm NOT saying they aren't running out, just looking for harder numbers (which I assume some analyst somewhere is compiling).

Paleocon wrote:

My understanding is that we aren't struggling to keep Ukrainian 155mm artillery fed because of a lack of stockpiles, but rather because of transport and internal logistics capacity as well as barrel life and in theater servicing. If nothing else, South Korea is sitting on an entire mountain RANGE of 155mm shells that are probably due for decommissioning (as well as shell producing capacity that rivals our own). And I suspect that a non-trivial amount of that stockpile is making its way to Poland as part of the Hyundai K9-PL mobile howitzer deal.

You can look at the aid tranches we're giving Ukraine and see the strain on the 155mm shell supply.

We've given Ukraine about a million rounds of 155mm since the start of the conflict and the number we provide in various tranches has slowly gotten smaller and smaller. The last round of aid we provided in early November only contained 21,000 155mm rounds, which isn't going to last the Ukrainians that long at their current rate of expenditure (and not long at all if Ukraine's looking at a winter offensive). And that amount is still rumored to be about 6,000 rounds more than our current monthly production of 155mm rounds.

We just don't have large stockpiles of arty rounds because our fighting doctrine doesn't call for them. US defense officials have repeatedly stated that they're uncomfortable with the level of shells the US currently has which most definitely signals we've already handed out a lot of what we had.

Even the number of precision-guided shells we're providing in each tranche has decreased. A few months ago we were providing several thousand at a time and now we're just releasing several hundred. And our stockpile of those rounds wasn't that big to begin with.

The South Korean deal (which hasn't been finalized) is only for 100,000 155mm rounds which, again, isn't gong to last that long. There might be future purchases, but it's clear that South Korea isn't going to dip too far into its reserves considering North Korea is launching ballistic missiles and periodically shelling the DMZ. (And the deal has to be air tight that the South Korean shells aren't going to Ukraine, rather that they'll go to US stockpiles and we'll release American-made shells to Ukraine.)

It's unclear how many 155mm rounds South Korea is providing Poland as part of it's K9 deal, but Korea's manufacturing less than 50 of them through 2026 and the remaining 550+ will be made in Poland in a new factory they're building. It's reasonable to assume Poland's going to be ramping up its own production of 155mm shells rather than buying large stocks of South Korean shells (which would have to first manufactured).

In the short- to mid-term we're going to be piecing together deals to supply Ukraine with enough arty ammo in both NATO and former-Soviet calibers and it will be the better part of a year before production is really ramped up.

I don't disagree that the supply of shells is an interesting and important logistical puzzle to solve, but I don't think the supply or shortage of such is going to play a huge factor in the outcome. The Russian military has a dozen different logistical pathologies that are approaching critical. Shells, for them, are basically like a 70 year old with prostate cancer. He's going to die with it, not of it.

Aren't we also forgetting to include the ammo stockpiles that the UKR has pilfered from the retreating invaders?

I did a little reading up on the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs that Boeing is proposing for use in Ukraine. Turns out the launch vehicles are basically rockets that were purpose built for MLRS delivery of now outlawed cluster bomblet munitions (not that the Russians have refrained from dropping industrial quantities on Kharkiv alone). So we have a crapton of those rockets lying around with literally no other use for them. The small diameter bomb glide vehicle is also in stockpiled abundance. In essence, this is an opportunity to empty storage of crap we have been maintaining without a battlefield future use case in a NATO context. It is as if we have somehow found free munitions capacity somewhere in the back of the NATO rental storage unit.

This goes back to my statement that Russia is fighting the NATO garage sale. It is as if we said "I see your Iranian moped drones and raise you.".

Paleocon wrote:

I did a little reading up on the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs that Boeing is proposing for use in Ukraine. Turns out the launch vehicles are basically rockets that were purpose built for MLRS delivery of now outlawed cluster bomblet munitions (not that the Russians have refrained from dropping industrial quantities on Kharkiv alone). So we have a crapton of those rockets lying around with literally no other use for them. The small diameter bomb glide vehicle is also in stockpiled abundance. In essence, this is an opportunity to empty storage of crap we have been maintaining without a battlefield future use case in a NATO context. It is as if we have somehow found free munitions capacity somewhere in the back of the NATO rental storage unit.

This goes back to my statement that Russia is fighting the NATO garage sale. It is as if we said "I see your Iranian moped drones and raise you.".

Not to rain on your parade, but the GLSDB doesn't actually exist. It was a proof-of-concept project Boeing and Saab threw together back in 2014-15--primarily for a UK version of HIMARS that never got off the ground--that they never found a government buyer for.

We have some of the M26 rockets lying around--we stopped production in 2001 and withdrew them from service in 2009--and have been actively destroying them ever since then. The other issue is that the rocket motor has a shelf life of 25 years and we're pretty much coming up on that (on top of them being stored in who knows what kind of condition for the past decade plus).

It's not like we have a stockpile of these weapons that are ready to go. It would be the Pentagon getting Congress to allocate money to build them and then Boeing and Saab spinning up production.

I don't know if I'd quite call the GLSDB part of a NATO garage sale. I'd say it has more to do with Russia's corrupt and decrepit military industrial base going up against the West's military industrial base that's always looking for the next way to make a buck and is so profitable that they can dust off years-old plans for weapon systems that never quite took off.

Anyhoo, one of the OSINT folks posted a pic of a dragon's teeth barrier Russia's been building all over the occupied territories. Turns out they're not solid, but rather just a thin coating of concrete over a hollow sheet metal core. Can't help but wonder which general and oligarch got paid bank to crap out essentially worthless defensives structures.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Rup9FUW.png)

Old crap like Hawk antiaircraft missiles, the Gepard antiaircraft gun, and M119 armored personnel carriers are definitely NATO garage sale items.

Oh, totally. In the case of the M119 it's actually cheaper for us to give them away than to pay to store them.

The Gepard SPAAG I might classify as a former garage sale item that has become retro chic given the new danger poised by the large numbers of low and slow UAVs and cruise missiles Russia is throwing at Ukraine. It might be a little long in the tooth, but it seems to be very effective against those threats (and cheaper to use because it doesn't rely on SAMs).

Speaking of those low and slow UAVs, the Ukrainian military reported that they haven't been used since November 17th even though Russia still has hundreds of them. Rumor has it that they weren't really designed to handle cold weather...

OG_slinger wrote:

Oh, totally. In the case of the M119 it's actually cheaper for us to give them away than to pay to store them.

The Gepard SPAAG I might classify as a former garage sale item that has become retro chic given the new danger poised by the large numbers of low and slow UAVs and cruise missiles Russia is throwing at Ukraine. It might be a little long in the tooth, but it seems to be very effective against those threats (and cheaper to use because it doesn't rely on SAMs).

Speaking of those low and slow UAVs, the Ukrainian military reported that they haven't been used since November 17th even though Russia still has hundreds of them. Rumor has it that they weren't really designed to handle cold weather...

Yeah. I would bet that those Iranian, two-stroke leafblower engines aren't really designed for Ukrainian winters.

The best I can figure it, the Russian "strategy" appears to be an aggressive defense by offense one which basically boils down to trying to occupy Ukrainian forces in the area directly outside Donetsk in order to prevent them from organizing for offensive action elsewhere. It stands little to no chance of achieving a decisive breakthrough and they are aware of that. Such a breakthrough is not really the aim. Instead, it appears the hope is that bleeding off Ukrainian combat readiness through a zerg rush will prevent the Ukrainians from organizing for the much anticipated Zaporizhia counteroffensive.

Integral to this is also the terror campaign against the population and civilian infrastructure. Folks misinterpret this as an attempt to destroy Ukrainian morale. It is not. It is more an attempt to weaponize the suffering of the civilian population and force the Ukrainians to devote resources to alleviate their suffering. Again, this is all an attempt to prevent, obstruct, or delay Ukrainian attempts to organize for offensive action.

They appear to get that they are incapable to winning the logistics necessary to win militarily much beyond the western edge of Mariopol. And the further west they go, the more dire the logistics get. If there are any measures they can take to keep the conflict from reaching the eastern bend of the Dniepro, they will exhaust them. Even if this means 1000 casualties per day.

The naughty word filter is f*cking with your link...

LOL, it is. You'll have to replace the asterisk with an i.

One nation gets a universally recognized war criminal who has profited off the rape and genocide of a nontrivial portion of Africa and the Near East.

The other gets an amazing athlete that has inspired millions of girls around the world.

Our civilizations are not peers.

I love that. Well put.

The sad thing is that playing overseas is where WNBA players make all their money. Russia was apparently a big market for them. I hope there are other European leagues that can step up since sadly the US doesn't have enough of a taste for it.

Paleocon wrote:

One nation gets a universally recognized war criminal who has profited off the rape and genocide of a nontrivial portion of Africa and the Near East.

The other gets an amazing athlete that has inspired millions of girls around the world.

Our civilizations are not peers.

While true, and I'm all for Griner getting out, I wonder if that's really the trade the US wants to be known for. How much damage is Viktor But going to do to the world - to hundreds if not tens of thousands of lives now that he's out and able to resume operations again.
Does this damage relations between the US and "a nontrivial portion of Africa and the Near East?"

EDIT: I admit that I feel pretty disgusted at finding myself agreeing with the words of Kevin McCarthy.

I can see us covertly designating him an enemy combatant at this point given he is likely offering his services to a nation hostile to American interests. Should he step out to do business, I think I could afford the damage my conscience would suffer should he block a hellfire from a predator with his face.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the mediators, and Russia is already plundering a few countries for their minerals, and now has promised Iran full military support, and Wagner is also operating in several areas in Africa, so… I don’t think this will leave a mark.

I've been reading this thread for 10 months and couldn't wait to read Paleo's take on weapons dealer-for-a-fake "criminal" trade and what would happen if Bout decides to resume activities.

It delivered!

Maybe the microchipped him while in custody and now he’s an unwitting mole.

He's been in an American prison for the last 10 years, and in custody for longer than that. Why do people think he's just going to pick up right where he left off as soon as he gets back to Russia?

Boudreaux wrote:

He's been in an American prison for the last 10 years, and in custody for longer than that. Why do people think he's just going to pick up right where he left off as soon as he gets back to Russia?

The arms dealing business didn't stop while he was in jail. The people that took his place aren't going to just give it back.

He sold weapons that he "obtained" after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I imagine it's a lot harder to "obtain" Russian weapons nowadays unless you're in eastern Ukraine.

There's no way the Russian government doesn't think he's compromised. Nobody in the Russian government is going to have anything to do with him unless it's to help him fall out of a window.

On top of all of that, he was due to get out in 6 years anyway. At which point, we would have had to send him back to Russia anyway with nothing in return.

His contacts are probably already dead.

Paleocon wrote:

I can see us covertly designating him an enemy combatant at this point given he is likely offering his services to a nation hostile to American interests. Should he step out to do business, I think I could afford the damage my conscience would suffer should he block a hellfire from a predator with his face.

Gin-SU!
Gin-SU!
Gin-SU!