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As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

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Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#71

Post by MilStdJunkie »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #68
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #57

I really really enjoyed the piece[0], but boy, you think this is bad, wait until we're exchanging missiles with a peer military. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of missiles[1] in the air at the same time, in a kaleidoscopic dazzle of altitudes, velocities, sensor profiles. Every combat simulation seems to turn into what you might call a "magazine fight" - i.e., who runs out of bullets first. We'll probably burn throu…

Same as for : > My solace is that in a real conflict, all of that red tape would be put to the side and people can get about building things. That's just not going to happen. A real conflict would involve nukes, and the war would be quickly over. I doubt that something close to Vietnam can happen again either. (And even for a 2nd Vietnam, I doubt that any significant artillery would be used when, as you point out, mi…

I might be a hopeless optimist, but I don't think a USN/USAF/USMC vs PLAAF in SCS/Taiwan situation would escalate to nukes. At least, I don't think it's likely. Definitely a nonzero chance, maybe a coin toss, but Taiwan isn't core territory for either Power.

Invasion, now . . well, there's the magic power that comes with having 'em. No one invades you, ever.

Also,outside factors could change the math here, like a megavolcano under the west antarctic ice sheet or something that raises ocean levels by meters. That redefines "back against the wall". If your country loses all access to fresh water, well, you might as well be under occupation or destroyed, so you might use your nukes aggressively. Just don't accidentally drop them in the water you're trying to get.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#72

Post by coeneedell »

MilStdJunkie wrote: post #57

I really really enjoyed the piece[0], but boy, you think this is bad, wait until we're exchanging missiles with a peer military. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of missiles[1] in the air at the same time, in a kaleidoscopic dazzle of altitudes, velocities, sensor profiles. Every combat simulation seems to turn into what you might call a "magazine fight" - i.e., who runs out of bullets first. We'll probably burn throu…

YouTuber yes, Teenager no. Drake has been working with lasers for more than a decade and pursued a PhD on the subject.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#73

Post by StillBored »

jltsiren wrote: post #59
balderdash wrote: post #50

In the commodities business there’s an old saw that long-term contracts solve supply problems, and spot prices solve inventory problems And this seems like a perfect example of the first part of that. The thing I didn’t see was how much it would cost to build a facility that produces x/k rounds a month. I find it hard to imagine these facilities are that expensive (in the context of US defense spending) so it makes m…

Artillery had become a niche branch in the Western doctrine, and people didn't see a point in investing in large-scale shell production. Air forces and guided missiles had replaced artillery in many of its traditional roles. In the Soviet doctrine, artillery had a much larger role. Both Russia and Ukraine inherited that doctrine, and they went on to fight the war they were prepared for.

Oh, right lets replace cheap simple and dumb artillery we can't produce with super complex guided missiles with 1/10000th the production capability.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#74

Post by MilStdJunkie »

15457345234 wrote: post #70
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #57

I really really enjoyed the piece[0], but boy, you think this is bad, wait until we're exchanging missiles with a peer military. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of missiles[1] in the air at the same time, in a kaleidoscopic dazzle of altitudes, velocities, sensor profiles. Every combat simulation seems to turn into what you might call a "magazine fight" - i.e., who runs out of bullets first. We'll probably burn throu…

I don't see how anti-missile technology isn't basically perfect by now - if a CIWS radar can track literally the (relatively) tiny bullets it's firing then it's trivial to track a missile (and you can always fall back to optical/IR); if it's trivial to track a missile then just scale the system up and build a megawatt chirped-pulse 'blaster' (outputting through a phased array so you can track and retarget instantaneo…

I'm relatively sure the search/track radar doesn't go with individual bullets, but yeah, you have a high PK (percentage of kill) when defending against one, two missiles. But that's not how they'll be employed - your problem is attack mass and engagement time. You'll have maybe a swarm of cheap drones, a few dozen Mig-21s revamped for drone control, a few incoming guided ballistic missiles at mach 7, fifty or so subsonic sea skimmers, maybe a dozen supersonic sea skimmers, plus maybe some airplanes somewhere out there waiting for a hole to shoot your AWACS or tankers.

If your defenses are just amazing, and you take out one every three seconds, you're still going to run out of time. You're on the right track with "firm kill" DEWS though. Gotta be a little careful with those, because the engagement range for DEWS is always going to be short, due to attenuation, mist/fog/spray, dust, and good old line of sight. Also, it's quite surprising how little it takes to shield electronics from even nuke-class EMP. But the short engagement range means you have even less time.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#75

Post by MilStdJunkie »

coeneedell wrote: post #72
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #57

I really really enjoyed the piece[0], but boy, you think this is bad, wait until we're exchanging missiles with a peer military. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of missiles[1] in the air at the same time, in a kaleidoscopic dazzle of altitudes, velocities, sensor profiles. Every combat simulation seems to turn into what you might call a "magazine fight" - i.e., who runs out of bullets first. We'll probably burn throu…

YouTuber yes, Teenager no. Drake has been working with lasers for more than a decade and pursued a PhD on the subject.

Dang, you're right. How the years go by. I remember watching old videos of his and thinking, "the kids are alright"

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#76

Post by Spooky23 »

StillBored wrote: post #73
jltsiren wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artillery had become a niche branch in the Western doctrine, and people didn't see a point in investing in large-scale shell production. Air forces and guided missiles had replaced artillery in many of its traditional roles. In the Soviet doctrine, artillery had a much larger role. Both Russia and Ukraine inherited that doctrine, and they went on to fight the war they were prepared for.

Oh, right lets replace cheap simple and dumb artillery we can't produce with super complex guided missiles with 1/10000th the production capability.

The rationale is that the ordnance on target ratio is way higher with missiles. 10,000 shells can be displaced by 100 missiles.

A conflict like Russia/Ukraine isn’t happening with the US. A US / Russia conflict would have resulted in US air supremacy or a nuclear exchange.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#79

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

xanthor wrote: post #46
hash872 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but perhaps we could have negotiated a peace during a conference at Minsk a decade ago or in Feb 2022 at the outbreak of hostilities Ukraine negotiated nonstop with Russia from 2014 (when Russia first seized some of their territory) until literally 1 week before the invasion in 2022. It was 8 years of nonstop negotiations, brokered by France & Germany. I'm always amazed more people don't know about this. How did neg…

What do you think about the conclusions of this piece published by a former UN official, a former NATO military official, and an academic? https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-...

[flagged]

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#80

Post by epistasis »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #45
epistasis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a huge problem when an army with a larger amount wants to take your land, abduct your children, kill anyone who speaks and writes in your language, and tortures all your leaders to death. All told, better to have fewer shells in general, but in particular, one must have at least as many shells as the murderous invaders that want to kill you. And towards that end, the more that Ukraine destroys Russia's military,…

I don't think enough people understand quite what Russia has in store for Ukrainians in case they win. For example, some think Bucha or the mass graves in Izyum are one offs. But those who speak Ukrainian or Russian can find dozens of interviews with Ukrainian POWs who have come back in exchanges, and after watching them it becomes quite clear the Russians have tortured and/or brutally murdered many thousands of capt…

Last month I had the pleasure of hosting a woman who was originally from Georgia, who moved to Ukraine after Russia's invasion of Georgia, married a Ukrainian who fought at Avostol, and who is still a PoW, as evidenced by more recently swapped prisoners that saw him alive still. There's no need to belabor the torture that these folks saw, I have only read accounts and still have nightmares.

Pacifism is a luxury of the extremely privileged. A very nice luxury, but a luxury nonetheless.

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