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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

#211

Post by Paradigma11 »

somenameforme wrote: post #198
jltsiren wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root issue is the culture of fear among Russian leadership. They are constantly afraid that someone is trying to stab them in the back. (And they are often right, but the backstabber is usually another Russian leader.) Because they live in fear, they cannot afford being trustworthy. And because they are not trustworthy, Russia's neighbors seek protection from other powers. Which in turn fuels the fears of Russian…

Imagine Russia completely disarmed itself, destroyed all nuclear weapons, deposed its entire military, and all military weapons and production capability. Exactly how long do you think it would be before the US invaded? We might debate the timeline, but I don't think you can argue in good faith that they wouldn't be invaded. But if you accept this then it becomes clear that trust is impossible. You have a power that…

The US can not even be bothered to pay 5% of its defense budget for Ukraine aid and you really think that they would invade Russia?

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

#212

Post by [deleted] »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #111
rdevsrex wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you mean globally in general? They're obviously not the aggressor in Ukraine. My Ukrainian friends didn't have their their family home annihilated US shells directly or indirectly.

[deleted]

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

#213

Post by Paradigma11 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #203
jcranmer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Russia was negotiating even after hostilities escalated — up until April 2022, when Boris Johnson scuttled the peace settlement. Since then, Russia has repeatedly offered to negotiate a settlement, but Ukraine refuses to negotiate. You can believe that’s a good idea, but indisputably it’s Ukraine who won’t negotiate.

Russia will always "be open" to negotiations if only to create cracks in the western support for Ukraine. But what are they offering?

Last I head Putin was only prepared to negotiate based on the understanding that all occupied territories would stay under Russian control.

Ukraine should have handled this better and also signaling being open for negotiations. On the condition of returning all territories that are within their internationally recognized borders.

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

#214

Post by Paradigma11 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #201
shiroiuma wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ust ask Angela Merkel about their sincerity: > In an interview published in Germany's Zeit magazine on Wednesday, former German chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to "give Ukraine time" to build up its defences. What's wrong with that? Obviously, you don't think anyone has a right to defend themselves against aggression from Russia.

That’s obviously Ukraine and Western allies not implementing Minsk in good faith, as the post I was responding to claimed.

The main Russian negotiator for the Minsk agreements also said he did not expect them to hold. So it was all a Russian tactic to prepare their invasion?

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

#215

Post by KineticLensman »

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…

>> > 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.

Check out Urgent Operational Requirements [0] in Op HERRICK (UK name for ops in Afghanistan). These led to multiple entirely new platforms, systems and capabilities being developed and deployed in weeks and months, e.g. physical and electronic countermeasures for the rapidly evolving IED threat. The downside is increased logistics / supply-chain burden because you have additional ad-hoc support contracts and staff, in and out of theatre.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urgent_Operational_Requirement

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

#216

Post by rjsw »

sherr wrote: post #124

Noah Smith (Noahpinion) had a decent post up a few weeks ago about this aspect of war - war production. He titled it "People are realizing that the Arsenal of Democracy is gone" [1]. It was quite a sobering read. The thought that we might ever need this level of commitment in the future is frightening. War is always full of nasty surprises. [1] https://archive.is/Ih3pm

There was a RUSI [1] paper near the start of the war in Ukraine that pointed out that there wasn't nearly enough ordnance production in NATO countries. The one area that was in good shape was 5.56mm production, helped by the civilian "assault rifle" culture in the US using it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_United_Services_Institut...

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

#217

Post by rmu09 »

cameron_b wrote: post #62

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…

Even if ukraine had kept their nuclear weapons and processed them into something useable, would that really have deterred russia? And who knows, I wouldn't be surprised if they have nukes again, or are working on a bomb. They certainly have the know-how and access to fissile material. Not that that would help much...

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

#218

Post by nwellnhof »

clarionbell wrote: post #159
somenameforme wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That piece is not well thought out in my opinion. The "magical shield" that's been protecting people in developed nations is simple - nukes. Countries with nukes don't get invaded. Countries without nukes, do. It doesn't matter if you're a democracy (which Iran was until they dared question our control over their oil, and so naturally had to be have... monarchy... brought to them), or a little dictatorship with an af…

Problem is that everybody know that nuclear war is a no win option. So they try to avoid it. You can game that. Simply give your enemy a way out. Don't press them too hard, just take something, not so much that they would feel threatened. Instead of invading them directly, take over their trading partners. Set up rebellions, insurrections. It's still your bullets in their bodies and their country taking damage. But y…

> Set up rebellions, insurrections.

You fail to mention that the US are the best example for this strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

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

#219

Post by Tuna-Fish »

dmoy wrote: post #64
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…

> because they can't UNREP top off their VLSs Wait, for real? That seems crazy to me. Lot of those ships minus the vls are pretty useless. I guess they rely on bases all over

One of the less intuitive results found in RAND wargaming is that no ship needs more than 4 anti-ship missiles when fighting against a foe that's roughly matched in quality. Either you have sufficient advantage that by the time you've spent 4 everything on the other side is sunk, or the enemy has sufficient advantage that you don't get to spend 4 before being sunk. The Navy took a look at these results, and doubled it to set the allocation of missiles per ship to 8.

Similarly, ships carry more defensive missiles than they can expect to be able to fire. No defensive system anyone uses has a 100% effectiveness; Burkes have sufficient stock of ESSM and Standard that you can expect there to be leakage and the ship to be taken out before they run out.

But all this assumes a fairly mirrored matchup, with both sides using weapons of similar quality. If one side uses a lot of cheap, attritable munitions, it might not work out the same.

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

#220

Post by oblio »

jalapenos wrote: post #208
Animats wrote: post #83

The US government-owned facilities are not the only US source of 155mm rounds. NAMMO [1] is a major manufacturer, and they have a facility in Mesa, AZ. Here's their marketing video for 155mm rounds.[2] Nammo's management complains that they are being offered 3-4 year contracts, and they need 10-15 year contracts to build new factories. Peacetime demand for large-caliber ammo is very low, so when there's not a war on,…

> Peacetime demand for large-caliber ammo is very low Even in the US?

I doubt Texan gun ranges need a lot of 155mm.
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