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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

#91

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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.

The Russians apparently have 600 tanks queued up right now for an advance. And while apparently they don't use the tanks as mobile guns for their infantry there is probably a good number in support of those tanks, and it seems unlikely one would fire missiles at infantry. Which is why we were dumping 50 year old stockpiles of dumb bombs in Afganistan. Which leads to the question of how one maintains air superiority for flying bombers in the face of more advanced MANPADS...

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think everyone should just allow Russia to take over any country it wants?

No — 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, rather than frantically send Boris Johnson to subvert it. Russia has consistently angled for Ukraine to be a neutral border between two blocs to facilitate trade — and that clearly would have been better for Ukraine than a senseless slaughter which destroyed a generation, by maimi…

BULLSHIT

No treaty with Putin has ever been honored. He is attempting to rebuild the Russian Empire and "peace" agreements are merely used to get the opponents to stand down while Russia prepares aggression.

Putin and his govt have said that they have rights to the Baltics, Poland, Germany and more. They have said that Ukraine should not, indeed DOES NOT exist. The very existence of the idea of a free, and especially prosperous Ukraine is seen by them as an existential threat. And they may be right, as it certainly makes Russians wonder how those awful Ukrainians can live so well, having toilets and all.

Read Winter Is Coming by Garry Kasparov. He's a former world chess champion, former candidate for President of Russia, and deeply involved in global democracy. He knows more than you or I ever will.

No one intends to destroy Russia as a nation. It is the autocracies of Russia, Iran, NK, China, etc. who see that international law and order threaten their criminal way of life, and are working hard to destroy democracy. If you are so big on Russia, go live there and report back after a year (if you aren't conscripted and killed in one of their 'meat assaults' on Ukraine.

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

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No — 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, rather than frantically send Boris Johnson to subvert it. Russia has consistently angled for Ukraine to be a neutral border between two blocs to facilitate trade — and that clearly would have been better for Ukraine than a senseless slaughter which destroyed a generation, by maimi…

Frankly, what Russia would prefer to happen in Ukraine is, to put it politely, their own fucking problem. I get why they might prefer that. But when they don't get their way, they are not allowed to invade a sovereign nation and slaughter thousands of civilians. Ukraine is allowed to pick who it wants to be associated with and Russia doesn't get a say. Also, at this point it is hilariously obvious that A) Russia will…

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 subs…

Towards the end of WW2 the US Navy got pretty good at anti-aircraft gunnery. The Japanese responded by sending their "guided missiles" (kamikazes) to attack in column formation. By the time the target ship shot down the attacking aircraft at the head of the column the others shielded behind it would be that much closer. Often the last one would get through to score a hit.

The weapons are faster and more lethal now, but similar tactics would probably still work to an extent. The Navy has run some computer simulations but they've never done an all-up fleet exercise of a realistic saturation attack that requires emptying the magazines. So, no one really knows for sure how well the defenses would hold up. There would probably be some nasty surprises.

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

#95
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No — 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, rather than frantically send Boris Johnson to subvert it. Russia has consistently angled for Ukraine to be a neutral border between two blocs to facilitate trade — and that clearly would have been better for Ukraine than a senseless slaughter which destroyed a generation, by maimi…

>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…

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting the war to end is reasonable. Not caring who wins is extremely naive or selfish

Exactly, that's why supporting Ukraine is extremely important. As long as the aggressor still thinks there's a chance to conquer more territory, the war won't end.

I would say that the US also belongs in the agressor camp.

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

#97

It should probably be restated that instead of the conflict in Ukraine catching our production capacity off guard, that rather it was our production posture along with denuclearization and disarmament of Ukraine that set the stage for the conflict. I’m not a “team America world police” advocate, much more the opposite. Even as stated in the article, most production is more interested in a deterrent. Hate ‘em or hate…

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fine pacifist attitude to have when someone else did the fighting and the dying and the building up a military industrial complex for you. Ukrainians, for example, don't have that option, which is why a ton of IT guys there are starting and joining all sorts of miltech startups, volunteer groups, etc. Their families and their future depend on using their talents to build yucky weapons they don't want to be on the o…

Yeah, these pacifist-style comments are really tone deaf and out of touch. Yes, we'd all prefer peace and leaving each other alone, but if some other nation comes to kill your countrymen and replace your democracy with a puppet, suddenly just relying on pacifist ideals doesn't work well anymore. Most of the time, these commenters don't want to engage with reality as it currently exists. If you ask them what exactly y…

Stupid politics and not enough diplomacy didn't work there.

https://www.mearsheimer.com/public_talks/why-is-ukraine-the-...

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, what Russia would prefer to happen in Ukraine is, to put it politely, their own fucking problem. I get why they might prefer that. But when they don't get their way, they are not allowed to invade a sovereign nation and slaughter thousands of civilians. Ukraine is allowed to pick who it wants to be associated with and Russia doesn't get a say. Also, at this point it is hilariously obvious that A) Russia will…

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> I only pointed out Russia’s behavior to highlight they’ve consistently worked towards an amicable settlement

In what world is annexing territory you don't even control on the basis of a referendum you canceled before rescheduling due to losses on the battlefield working towards an amicable settlement?

Since February 2022, I haven't seen much evidence that Russia has made any serious attempts to achieve an amicable settlement, much less consistently worked towards those goals.

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, these pacifist-style comments are really tone deaf and out of touch. Yes, we'd all prefer peace and leaving each other alone, but if some other nation comes to kill your countrymen and replace your democracy with a puppet, suddenly just relying on pacifist ideals doesn't work well anymore. Most of the time, these commenters don't want to engage with reality as it currently exists. If you ask them what exactly y…

This comment is peak 2004 neo-conservatives logic. Ukraine is fighting a bloody attrition land war in Russia. They are currently losing and will likely fair worse as time goes on. Mind you Ukraine could have prevented all of this if they had decided not to break the Minsk agreement which would have ended the conflict in Donbas. Instead the US and EU used it to buy for time so they could further arm Ukraine for war wi…

What part of the Minsk agreement did Ukraine break? It seems that LPR, DPR, and UKR all ignored some of the ceasefire agreements and couldn't resist saying that one area or another was an exception that they could seize through military force.
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