Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 3

a reply to: Xtrozero

I am more worried about Artillery than rifle ammo.

IF we were to get into a land war in asia (que princess bride quote) artillery and air superiority will be vital.

Ukraine has been burning 10k 155 a day (if the reports are accurate and the fastest we can build them right now is 2000 a month. (will freely admit I havent dug further into this)

Then we have the administration saying we are sending cluster as a stop gap till we have more 155 to send, that implies problems.

a reply to: Irishhaf

The combined capacity within NATO is more than enough to satiate the demands from Ukraine. This does not include other countries who produce 155 artillery munitions, such as South Korea and Australia. In the US alone, capacity is c. 14K per month and being expanded.

To note that Western doctrine is towards accurate artillery, rather than mass artillery. The "why do it with 1,000 shells when one will suffice" attitude.

Defence News

The Army is spending $1.45 billion on capacity “to expand 155mm artillery production from 14,000 a month to over 24,000 later this year,” and 85,000 in five years, Camarillo said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Haf,

I would expect a war "in Asia" to be a war with China, and that will likely be an air and naval conflict.

Artillery won't be needed to defend Taiwan if the CCP fleet is sunk or burning.

Land wars in east Asia are a non-starter. Too big, too undeveloped, and too many people they are willing to expend.

Cheers

13 July Update

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 13 and made gains in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast), and Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area) directions.

Russian forces conducted a series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 13. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 20 Shahed-131/136 drones from Kursk Oblast and the Sea of Azov, two Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, and one Iskander-M missile from occupied Dzhankoi, Crimea.

Also, Russian general Popov (CG 58th Army) relieved on grounds of insubordination.

More at URL above.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
a reply to: Irishhaf

Haf,

I would expect a war "in Asia" to be a war with China, and that will likely be an air and naval conflict.

Artillery won't be needed to defend Taiwan if the CCP fleet is sunk or burning.

Land wars in east Asia are a non-starter. Too big, too undeveloped, and too many people they are willing to expend.

Cheers

I told the person the same thing regarding how a war with China over Taiwan would play out, and that person accused me of spouting word salad. There's also the fact that western doctrine relies on air power to fling ordinance rather than depending on artillery to do so.

a reply to: face23785. The US and Europe are upping their artillery shell production. In part for Ukraine, but also to reconstitute and increase their own stocks for possible future conflicts. The Ukrainian war has shown just how much artillery ammunition is required in a modern conflict with a near-peer opponent. The government isn't making the ammunition, companies are, and they can likely handle this production ramp-up in 12-18 months. The only issue is that the US government has to provide long-term contracts for it to make sense for companies to ramp up their production.

But on whom would the US or Europe most likely use artillery and hand-held missile systems? Russia. Well Russia is going to be in no shape to take on NATO any time soon. And every round we send to Ukraine decrease's Russia's war fighting capabilities. As for China, any war with it would involve primarily naval and air assets, which we are not giving Ukraine. Also US and NATO doctrine is to rely on air power for close air support rather than rely on artillery.

As to Ukraine and its artillery shell usage, it has been gaining on Russia through counter battery fire. This recent Russian general of the 58th Army who was canned had complained about the lack of Russian counter battery support for his forces. This is likely the case throughout the theatre. If you look at Russian equipment losses, they have lost at least 4450 artillery pieces (both mobile and towed), and they are losing 24/day on average. Ukrainian strategy is both to emphasize counter battery fire and to take out ammunition depots. They have been successful in doing so, and have whittled down the Russian artillery advantage.

Link

a reply to: MrInquisitive

That was a long-winded way of saying my post was correct. Thanks.

Voronezh in Russia is under attack!

The Voronezh 45 nuclear weapons storage site, which houses Soviet-era warheads, was accessed by Wagner units during their recent mutiny in Russia, according to the Freedom of Russia Legion.

Now, it appears an area close to the site may be under attack as challenges to the Kremlin's military rule seemingly rumble on.

Pro-Ukrainians and vocal Russia critics have shared several clips circulating on Twitter and Telegram suggesting Voronezh - a city located 300 km east of Ukraine's border with Belgorod - is "under attack".

Igor Sushko, a vocal commentator on the Ukraine war, shared multiple videos of the incident on Twitter, captioning one: "Voronezh in Russia is under attack! Doubtful this has anything to do with Ukraine. Appears to be internal Russian developments. The Voronezh-45 nuclear military facility captured by Wagner PMC during the coup is in the area."

Source

Internal Russian Struggle or Ukrainian attack?

Thoughts?

originally posted by: Irishhaf

Ukraine has been burning 10k 155 a day (if the reports are accurate and the fastest we can build them right now is 2000 a month. (will freely admit I havent dug further into this)

Then we have the administration saying we are sending cluster as a stop gap till we have more 155 to send, that implies problems.

The US has not really used artillery very much in a long time. So look it up it seems Ukraine is going through 4000 to 7000 per day and Russia is 20,000+. Russia also seems to be firing indiscriminately wasting a good amount, so I wonder how many they have on hand.

a reply to: Bishop2199

Need more information to come to any conclusion.

Could be internal dissent or a Ukrainian strike or some infrastructure that blew up because of poor maintenance.

Cheers

Professor Michael Clarke gives his assessment of the removal of Maj Gen Popov.

14 July Update

Russian President Vladimir Putin further indicated he intends to maintain the Wagner Group as a cohesive fighting force rather than breaking it up but seeks to separate Wagner Financier Yevgeny Prigozhin from Wagner leadership and forces.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the frontline on July 14 and reportedly made gains in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast), and Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area) directions.

Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes across Ukraine on July 14. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 17 Shahed-131/136 drones from Krasnodar Krai and an S-300 missile at targets in Ukraine and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 16 of the launched drones.

More at URL above.

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

Russian President Vladimir Putin further indicated he intends to maintain the Wagner Group as a cohesive fighting force rather than breaking it up but seeks to separate Wagner Financier Yevgeny Prigozhin from Wagner leadership and forces.

From what I've read Wagner forces are extremely loyal to Prigozhin so I doubt Putin can have his cake and eat it in this case , his loyalty to Shoigu will likely rob him of his most effective fighting force without Prigozhin at its head , especially in light of other commanders like Maj Gen Popov losing their positions , or lives due to criticism of the MOD.

Shoigu's attacks on Wagner as they left Bakhmut will not have gone unnoticed.

It's being reported that Wagner troops are now crossing the border from Russia into Belarus , I guess Putin has his answer.

Wagner troops have crossed the border into Belarus from Russia, according to the Ukrainian border guard.

"Separate groups of representatives from private military campaigns have begun to be observed in Belarus," said the State Border Guard Service on social media.

"Border guards continue to monitor the situation in order to understand the location, number and tasks of the militants."

Belarusian authorities said yesterday that Wagner mercenaries were training Belarusian fighters.
news.sky.com...

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: MrInquisitive

That was a long-winded way of saying my post was correct. Thanks.

Sure, US 155 mm shells stocks are dwindling as you wrote, but as I wrote in my "long-winded" initial reply to your post on the subject, it is not a critical matter, as one potential theater (Taiwan) won't require much of a ground foot print, and in the other, eastern Europe, our supplying 155 mm shells to Ukraine is reducing our own potential need for them there. Also by western doctrine, air power supplants the need for a large artillery component. And the US and Europe are, in the medium and long term, ramping up their artillery shell production both for Ukraine's war effort and for restocking our ordinance supplies.

15 July Update

Russian sources reported on July 15 that the Russian military command dismissed 106th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division Commander Major General Vladimir Seliverstov.

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on June 15 and reportedly made limited gains. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces made limited gains south of Bakhmut near Andriivka (10km south of Bakhmut) and crossed the Siverskyi Donetsk Canal in the area.

More at URL above.

Cheers

Here's a good analysis video on cluster munitions and the artillery war in Ukraine. The YT'er who made this video has a whole series on the war and related military matters, which tend to be very informing as well as entertaining. Well worth checking out.



A couple items of particular interest that he points out. If either side had enough artillery shells for their existing artillery, there would be several orders of magnitude more shells fired each day. In other words, both sides have significant ammunition supply problems.

Second, like tank barrels, artillery barrels sooner or later degrade, first to the point of being inaccurate and finally to the point of catastrophic failure. Tank barrels are usually good for about 1,000 rounds whereas artillery barrels are good for 5-7 thousand shots. Some high-end German artillery may be good for up to 20,000 rounds, but accuracy still declines with wear. Although Russia still has a lot of tanks and artillery in storage, a significant portion of this stock may have been cannibalized to replace parts in combat equipment at the front.

Much more in the video.

Ukraine appears to have attacked the Kerch Bridge again, resulting in the collapse of one section (two lanes) of the roadway. Russia said it was done by two Ukrainian sea drones.

Traffic on a key military supply bridge connecting Crimea to Russia’s mainland came to a standstill Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing two people and wounding their daughter. Russian officials blamed the attack on Ukraine, but Kyiv officials didn’t openly admit it.

The strike on the 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge was carried out by two Ukrainian sea drones, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.

Ukrainian officials didn’t claim responsibility for the attack, which is the second major strike on the bridge since October, when a truck bomb blew up two of its sections.

Russia blames Ukraine for attack on key Crimea military supply bridge that kills 2

A source within Ukraine's intelligence service, the SBU, told the BBC's Russian service that it had carried out the attack alongside the navy's special forces.

Ukrainian media similarly reported that sources within the agency had claimed responsibility for the attack in off-the-record briefings.

In a subsequent statement, Ukrainian security services did not openly admit that they were behind the incident.

Ukraine war: Two dead after 'attack' on Crimea bridge

16 July Update

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and reportedly made limited gains. Geolocated footage published on July 15 shows that Ukrainian forces made limited gains northwest of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts border area.

More at URL above, a lot of discussion regarding removals of Russian generals from positions of command.

Bridge across the Kerch Strait struck again and seriously damaged.

Cheers

The following should be taken with an enormous grain of salt...

Copied from a tweet:

French TV channel LCI claims that Poland and the Baltic states are preparing to send their troops into Ukraine! According to the TV channel, anonymous sources in the Polish government report that the Poles are now waiting for the final result of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Link

I know nothing about French television, the credibility of LCI, nor the quality of the anonymous Polish govt. sources...just tossing this out there because, honestly, it doesn't really seem too far fetched.