The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Part 4

[Aridas]

A number of YouTubers have commented on this recently, especially in light of the senior Russian commanders apparently leaving the area. Recapturing Kherson is doable in their opinion, but successfully crossing the Dnieper River will be a much greater challenge.

Personally, I'd say that recapturing Kherson is important. Crossing the Dnieper is probably not particularly important. A token force can likely defend against attempted Russian crossings, while the rest of the forces can focus elsewhere. Retaking Melitopol and breaking the land bridge, for example, followed by sweeping down towards Crimea. If that happens, restoring Dnieper crossings would be more useful.

 

[Oystein]

I talked with a refugee from Dnipropetrowsk oblast yesterday. She told me her home is about 40 km from the current front (in territory still held by Russia), and that her sister, who is still there, can hear the booms of artillery all the time. She was unable to pinpoint on Google Maps her home town - apparently a bit South of, but within the metropolitan area of, the city Dnipro (4th largest in Ukraine).

In that context (of constant artillery use): I read this morning that, according to a speaker of the UA Department of Defense, Russia is estimated to still shoot 60,000 rounds of artillery every day, mostly at UA army positions. So clearly Russia will run out of ammo any day now. As they have since May.

 

[The Don]

I talked with a refugee from Dnipropetrowsk oblast yesterday. She told me her home is about 40 km from the current front (in territory still held by Russia), and that her sister, who is still there, can hear the booms of artillery all the time. She was unable to pinpoint on Google Maps her home town - apparently a bit South of, but within the metropolitan area of, the city Dnipro (4th largest in Ukraine).

In that context (of constant artillery use): I read this morning that, according to a speaker of the UA Department of Defense, Russia is estimated to still shoot 60,000 rounds of artillery every day, mostly at UA army positions. So clearly Russia will run out of ammo any day now. As they have since May.

There does seem to be something of a disjoint between the news coming out of Ukraine and what seems to be happening on the ground.

We've been assured that Russian logistics are a shambles and that the HIMARS has made the situation even worse from a Russian point of view by destroying stores of ammunition and fuel and by forcing the Russians to distribute their stores in a greater number of smaller sites further away from the front lines.

And yet, Russia is still managing to get tens of thousands of shells to their artillery for them to use every day.

I don't doubt the truth of the strikes, but I think the effect of the strikes may have been overstated and/or Russian logistics aren't quite as bad as has been portrayed. For example, the bridges over the Dnieper are apparently impassable for heavy vehicles so the Russian forces west of the river cannot be effectively resupplied. They are still holding out against the Ukrainian counterattack in that area which means they either have sufficient stockpiles and/or they're able to be resupplied.

It's the same with the shortage of manpower and low morale among front line Russian units. There's little doubt that they're short of men, their tactics clearly show it and the desperate steps they seem to be taking to find new recruits only reinforces that view. They are still throwing men into the meatgrinder which means there must still be men who are either willing, or who have been coerced, to go there.

 

[a_unique_person]

I think you will find the amount of shelling has reduced significantly. Hence the slow advance in the West being reduced to a crawl.

 

[Oystein]

There does seem to be something of a disjoint between the news coming out of Ukraine and what seems to be happening on the ground.

We've been assured that Russian logistics are a shambles and that the HIMARS has made the situation even worse from a Russian point of view by destroying stores of ammunition and fuel and by forcing the Russians to distribute their stores in a greater number of smaller sites further away from the front lines.
...

Yep. Plus the asymmetry between what gets reported here and what doesn't. For example the latest attack on an air field. Nope was't Ukraine doing it in Crimea. Was Russian air-launched cruise missiles, out of Belarusian territory, hitting an air base in Western Ukraine.

The harrassment and attrition are mutual.

There was an interview though with a Russian military expert, a member of the Russian security establishment, with a Russian military analysis journal or somesuch. Expert worried that over time, the quality of Ukrainian equipment and troops is increasing, that of the Russians decreasing. Does this mean Russian experts say publicly they think Russia may lose this war? Unlikely. A member of der Führer's apparat are probably not entirely free to criticize, or even call this war "war". A possible interpretation is that they realize in Moscow they need to considerably increase their capabilities (quantity and quality) to regain momentum, and start to indroduce into the public sphere the idea of this being a full-blown war that requires full mobilization and war economy.

I don't think we have seen the worst yet. Shoigu the other day saying that there is no reason to use nukes sounds a bit like they are starting to consider nukes. You only deny things that are at least plausibly true.

 

[Oystein]

I think you will find the amount of shelling has reduced significantly. Hence the slow advance in the West being reduced to a crawl.

Why do you think so? ( You mean *East, right?

 

[The Don]

I think you will find the amount of shelling has reduced significantly. Hence the slow advance in the West being reduced to a crawl.

Oystein reported:

according to a speaker of the UA Department of Defense, Russia is estimated to still shoot 60,000 rounds of artillery every day, mostly at UA army positions

That's still an enormous amount of ordnance and not much less than the peak.

 

[ThatGuy11200]

Oystein reported:



That's still an enormous amount of ordnance and not much less than the peak.

What was the peak?

 

[Klimax]

Worthless post containing only Poisoning the well logical fallacy. ?

You would never do that, right?

Right??
Oh, wait:

... It means "Russian Claimed Control" AKA: WORTHLESS!
?..

You would

Bad attempt at fake equivalency. Sorry, no go.

Let's break it down: There is no photo nor video evidence by Russians of location, there is no photo nor video evidence of UA forces shooting at Russian units there or of Russian units shooting from there and UA command said noting about that crossroad (do note that they said according to DefMon3 nothing about it). All we have are Russian claims which have been lies and misinformation in 90% of cases. When you get caught so many times lying, why should anybody take your claim at seriously at all?

Can't you do any better? Where is evidence that Russians control it? Or did HIMARS destroy it?

Control what? I did not talk about Russia controlling, or claiming to control, any "it". I merely pointed out that your source is biased. Rather obviously so. That is NOT "poisoning the well". I do not say that source is "always lying" or anything of the sort. Just that it is biased. Just read it. It's totally obvious. Biased is not the same as wrong. We are supposedly skeptics here. Skeptics do not take biased, secondary sources on blind faith.

You think I just watch only one source? Currently I use 24 sources daily and often check linked reports from others too. I used to be critical of DefMon3, but he improved a lot and so fare there are no known contradictions to reality. His his matches the one of ISW and Jomini of the West.

(Heh, looking forward to how many different interpretations will be concocted by others.)

Reminder: So far no video or photo was assigned/geolocated to outskirt of Bakhmut.

I think you will find the amount of shelling has reduced significantly. Hence the slow advance in the West being reduced to a crawl.

Oystein reported:

according to a speaker of the UA Department of Defense, Russia is estimated to still shoot 60,000 rounds of artillery every day, mostly at UA army positions

That's still an enormous amount of ordnance and not much less than the peak.

Sorry, but there was no link to alleged statement. But it strongly resembled the one said in June before arrival of HIMARS. Since then I never saw such number in any official statement.

 

[The Don]

What was the peak?

Around 60,000 is the highest I can recall being mentioned.

 

[plague311]

Around 60,000 is the highest I can recall being mentioned.

All those artillery shells and they're barely, barely advancing. That must be embarrassing for them.

 

[SpitfireIX]

All those artillery shells and they're barely, barely advancing. That must be embarrassing for them.

Perun pointed this out in his artillery video. The fact that they are expending so much ordnance and achieving so little is a sign of how incompetent and incapable the Russian army is.

Additionally, for those who seem to discount the claims of most Western military experts that the Russians can't possibly sustain this level of fire indefinitely, let's do a little math. The cost of a Czech 152mm artillery shell, according to this web site that's raising money for the Ukrainian armed forces, is US$812, and the cost of a 122mm rocket is US$641. I'll assume Putin can buy one of each for about US$500, due to purchasing-power parity advantages and coercion. That's US$30 million per day, or about US$11 billion per year. Russia's entire defense budget is only about US$60 billion. And Russia's finances are only going to get worse as the sanctions bite and the global recession hits.

ETA: And that's without considering barrel wear.

 

[Ziggurat]

All those artillery shells and they're barely, barely advancing. That must be embarrassing for them.

Not just embarrassing, expensive too. I know they've got big stockpiles, but they've got to be burning through those at that rate. Plus, they're effectively running through, what, 20+ barrels per day at that rate, and those will need replacing too. All this together is a big strain on logistics and production.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Perun pointed this out in his artillery video. The fact that they are expending so much ordnance and achieving so little is a sign of how incompetent and incapable the Russian army is.

Additionally, for those who seem to discount the claims of most Western military experts that the Russians can't possibly sustain this level of fire indefinitely, let's do a little math. The cost of a Czech 152mm artillery shell, according to this web site that's raising money for the Ukrainian armed forces, is US$812, and the cost of a 122mm rocket is US$641. I'll assume Putin can buy one of each for about US$500, due to purchasing-power parity advantages and coercion. That's US$30 million per day, or about US$11 billion per year. Russia's entire defense budget is only about US$60 billion. And Russia's finances are only going to get worse as the sanctions bite and the global recession hits.

ETA: And that's without considering barrel wear.

This fails to account for the insane stockpiles of artillery ammo that russia inherited from the USSR.

 

[Doubt]

Not just embarrassing, expensive too. I know they've got big stockpiles, but they've got to be burning through those at that rate. Plus, they're effectively running through, what, 20+ barrels per day at that rate, and those will need replacing too. All this together is a big strain on logistics and production.

IIRC, barrels are long lead time items. Even if you have the money it takes time to make them and there are only so many machines available to make them.

ETA:

Found something maybe a little too deep of a dive for this discussion. 1972 US army paper on Russian artillery production during WW 2. It is about 300+ pages long. Going to have to dig into that tonight.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0740789.pdf

 

[Ziggurat]

This fails to account for the insane stockpiles of artillery ammo that russia inherited from the USSR.

Not totally. The thing is, Russia can't just drain their stockpiles to zero. They NEED to keep a large stockpile, because they have other borders they need to be able to defend, just in case. And they likely don't have all the ammo from the USSR anyways. A lot of it was probably sold off, some of it has probably gone bad from inadequate storage conditions, and some of it has likely been used up in previous conflicts (Chechnya, Ukraine 2014, Georgia, Syria). The need to keep stockpiles for other defense contingencies means that running out of ammo that they can use in Ukraine likely is a serious concern, if the conflict keeps going.

 

[plague311]

How big of a stockpile could Russia have? If you're burning through a million shells every 8-9 days (and the barrels, as some have mentioned) then I can't imagine that's sustainable. Even with the USSR stock, etc.

Do they have billions of shells? Trillions? How many barrels would they stockpile and how long are they good for? So many questions.

 

[Ziggurat]

IIRC, barrels are long lead time items. Even if you have the money it takes time to make them and there are only so many machines available to make them.

Fun fact: one of the reasons they were able to develop and deploy the GBU-28 in an amazingly short time period (around 3 weeks!) is that they actually used existing M110 howitzer barrels for the casing of the initial batch of bombs. That saved them a lot of time trying to manufacture that from scratch. The casings are now made specifically for the bombs, but as you say, even with unlimited money to throw at the problem, it takes a lot of time to produce that sort of item, and production capacity is limited.

 

[Doubt]

Fun fact: one of the reasons they were able to develop and deploy the GBU-28 in an amazingly short time period (around 3 weeks!) is that they actually used existing M110 howitzer barrels for the casing of the initial batch of bombs. That saved them a lot of time trying to manufacture that from scratch. The casings are now made specifically for the bombs, but as you say, even with unlimited money to throw at the problem, it takes a lot of time to produce that sort of item, and production capacity is limited.

I was aware of that as it was reported on the news at the time. I was a national guard infantry officer during the Gulf War. But like most national guard combat arms units, we were not going anywhere during that war.

Further back in the 80s, the MLRS first deployed to replacing those 8" guns that eventually went on to become bombs. I was nearing the end of my enlistment in Germany at that time. Missed seeing those guns since they were of comfort knowing that those of us involved in covering force operations for what would have been WW 3 would have been a high priority for their support. The MLRS was of unknown quality at the time and their units were very small compared to what they replaced.

When the 5000 pound bunker busters came out and the news of how they made them was reported I ended up with a warm, fuzzy feeling about them. It was like an old friend found a new job.

 

[Ziggurat]

How big of a stockpile could Russia have? If you're burning through a million shells every 8-9 days (and the barrels, as some have mentioned) then I can't imagine that's sustainable. Even with the USSR stock, etc.

Do they have billions of shells? Trillions? How many barrels would they stockpile and how long are they good for? So many questions.

Here's one attempt to figure that out:


He argues that the 60k/day rate is likely overstated, and thinks it's probably closer to 10k per day. He also estimates 5-15 million shell stockpile, so they can still last a long time. But not forever, and even with an unlimited stockpile, the logistics burden of delivering them from the front is a serious problem.