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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

#321

Post by samus »

another2another wrote: post #238
maxglute wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about PRC willingness to eat nukes for security interests independant of TW willingness to survive. Shoot down with what, preempt air campaign would have destroyed most of TW anti air. Fantasy is thinking TW has any chance to deny the air game. Planner for porcupine model US advocates doesn't assume TW has any chance to deny PRC air superiority, only hope they sink enough amphib to deny mass invasion, and bar…

Taiwan's better option would be to build submarines with Nukes, and position them all over the Pacific. Capturing the mainland won't help you at all in that case, and there's no way you would get them all. It would be a MAD situation, and that's all TW needs.

Now we're taking about three expensive assets in sufficient numbers and along with the required supply chain and maintenance facilities:

- state-of-the-art submarines. Anything else can't hope to evade the Chinese, and they probably have to be nuclear as well to ensure range and stealth

- submarine-launchable missiles (ballistic or cruise), with a lot of range since China can probably deny the sea immediately off the mainland.

- nukes compact and reliable enough for the missiles

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

#322

Post by samus »

hugryhoop wrote: post #150
samus wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the attempt to make them again might provoke China to react. Eventually with an invasion, after slagging the facilities with cruise missiles or air bombardment. They will be committed to overwhelm any air defense to accomplish that. What to do with them anyways? Taiwan would need plentiful supply of them and a reliable delivery mechanism. Japan surrendered because the US had total air superiority and bluffed abo…

If Taiwan sees China assembling an invasion force, why not build a nuke then, China already signaled that it's going to attack anyway. A nuke is easy to hide, we are not talking about global second strike capability here, just delivering a couple of them to close coastal cities, even by smuggling them in some civilian transport. Can China be 100% sure that not one slipped through? Taiwan could do a proof detonation o…

> a [single] nuke

is not a credible deterrence. Snuggling a nuke will work maybe once, and that is not nearly enough to hit all assets Taiwan should be worried about. If the nukes work, it will strengthen China's resolve to dismantle any threat it perceives Taiwan to be. Even at the price of shooting every ship leaving the island for the mainland.

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

#323

Post by samus »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #273
samus wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the attempt to make them again might provoke China to react. Eventually with an invasion, after slagging the facilities with cruise missiles or air bombardment. They will be committed to overwhelm any air defense to accomplish that. What to do with them anyways? Taiwan would need plentiful supply of them and a reliable delivery mechanism. Japan surrendered because the US had total air superiority and bluffed abo…

Tens of thousands of NK artillery pieces is a propaganda.

Whose propaganda?

Even very plausible low thousands of artillery pieces can put out enough dakka to slag anything looking even remotely like an air defense radar or missile launchers.

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

#324

Post by mrguyorama »

_xnmw wrote: post #276

None of this explains HOW is it that the Russians are able to produce artillery shells at 7 times the rate of the entire Western world, while being sanctioned? If they can do it, why can't we? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ammunition-manufactur...

Putin doesn't have to convince the manufacturers that this will be a long term profitable endeavor for their business. It doesn't matter to Putin if a company "overinvests" because the company is not a separate entity.

If the US wants that kind of control we have the Defense Production Act to force businesses to build up capacity.

It's like how during the pandemic, pretty much nobody invested in increased toilet paper or mask production in the US, because "if I invest and the pandemic goes away, I will have "wasted" my investment"

Basically its just another failure of capitalism as theorized. Turns out, it's very uncommon for someone to decide to build brand new capacity in an existing market without extreme incentives because it's too easy for them to be burned. If we want businesses to ramp up production, we need to either convince them it will be profitable, by signing expensive, long term contracts that can't be torpedoed by a future administration getting bitchy about the debt, or force them through law.

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

#325

Post by Tostino »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #285
83 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were allowed and available I bet a huge amount of Texans would be buying 155mm just for bragging rights.

one more reason to buy an oversized truck -- "gotta haul my ammunition!"

You also need it so you can move your towed artillery piece to shoot the rounds.

It just makes sense.

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

#326

Post by Tostino »

mikewarot wrote: post #270
maxglute wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO when seriously consider the math, the firepower:acquisition cost ratio doesn't make much sense, especially against PRC. SSGN with ~150 tomahawks, subsonic, easier to intercept, will likely never be reloadable at sea, and may not be able to operate permissively around PRC in due time. PRC ASW is improving rapidly, and they're deploying subsea ASW infra within 1st island chain. Not much info on projected upgrade of…

Which is why, if we decide we need to take out China, we'll sail over to the coast off Yemen, and stop any oil headed their way. They'll collapse within 6 months. (Or so sayeth Peter Zeihan)

When I see statements like this, I try to think "what would they do in response that would change the calculus?"

E.g. cutting off oil...not like that has ever led to unexpected outcomes (perl harbor).

Countries generally react to mitigate your actions. What are some of the potential reactions you could see if the PRC perceived that as an existential threat?

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

#327

Post by fragmede »

83 wrote: post #253
oblio wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If it were allowed and available I bet a huge amount of Texans would be buying 155mm just for bragging rights.

Alright, I'll bite, because I bet there's somebody out there that knows: why isn't it allowed? What rule by the ATF says that 150mm isn't an arm allowed by the second amendment?

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

#328

Post by Tostino »

JohnBooty wrote: post #287
actionfromafar wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the general threat, but an aircraft carrier can still project force at a distance, so a foe must strike from a great distance. It's doable but expensive. So not sure about how quickly carriers will be obsolete or ever really. Only a really advanced and large foe can threaten them.

but an aircraft carrier can still project force at a distance In terms of the levels of force being exchanged in a full-scale war, it's not that much force and it's not that much distance, relative to what a peer adversary like China can bring to a fight in their own backyard. It's ~130 ship-launched guided missiles and ~75 fighter jets. They will not be operating at a stand-off distance relative to the reach of crui…

Even in Taiwan defense simulations, from what I remember reading, the US always loses at least 1 CSG.

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

#329

Post by KptMarchewa »

samus wrote: post #323
KptMarchewa wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tens of thousands of NK artillery pieces is a propaganda.

Whose propaganda? Even very plausible low thousands of artillery pieces can put out enough dakka to slag anything looking even remotely like an air defense radar or missile launchers.

Air defense radars, missile launchers and even Seoul besides northern outskirts aren't generally in a range of tube artillery, which for the 152mm soviet types utilized by NK is around 20km.

And you're not putting your guns literally at the frontline - you need them more back so they don't get counterbatteried (or just bombed, which would be more likely in case of US involvement) instantly.

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

#330

Post by KptMarchewa »

bbsz wrote: post #320
KptMarchewa wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which assessment of NATO mobile warfare we can talk about when there's literally no NATO's biggest asset - aviation and no biggest enabler or mobile warfare - battlefield isolation?

Touche. But I'd say that this makes it even the more valuable lesson. Battlefield characteristics is still very close and Russians (now) are acting like they would act against the NATO-trained forces. And, of course, it's liberal on my part to put Ukrainian Army in the basket of NATO forces as that is only true for maybe a year (after the first rotations ended). That being said. I think that there's unprecedented amo…

>Battlefield characteristics is still very close and Russians (now) are acting like they would act against the NATO-trained forces.

I don't think they are even close to that - their meat assaults Avdiivka type is not something that would ever happen in conflict with NATO involvement, because the frontline would never stabilize in a way that would enable russia to employ those tactics.

NATO-trained is very wide statement, some African armies and Afghanistan ones were NATO trained and it went nowhere.

>That being said. I think that there's unprecedented amount of military intel US is getting out of this conflict for pennies on the dollar.

Sure. There's no EW piece that russia had in 2022 and wasn't captured intact in the first few months :)

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