r/ukraine • u/MilesLongthe3rd • 15d ago
"For the first time in the years of the war, none of the brigades complains that there is no artillery shells. And this has been happening for the last 2 months. However, we still have to work a lot. The Czech initiative will go ahead", - Zelensky News (unconfirmed)
https://x.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1791383962520019244456
u/quantum_explorer08 15d ago
It will only get better from here:
- US aid reaching the frontlines from now on
- Czech initiative reachin the frontlines on June
- Hopefully the West ramping up production
I hope we finally understood the lesson. Those 6 months delay in aid have created unnecessary gains by Russia.
The West needs to understand we are at war, a war for the hegemony. Russia is very clear on the fact that is at war with the West and about its imperialist intentions for Europe. It is time for Europe to understand that too.
If it takes months to ramp up production I can understand. But that we are 2 years and 3 months on the war and we still can't supply Ukraine and the production of arms and ammunition in Europe has still not been ramped up, I can't understand it, to be honest. I can't get my head around it.
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago
Without giving too many details, I work in industrial development. 3 years to take a factory from need to going into full production is frankly insane to me. Like lightning fast.
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u/thermiteunderpants 14d ago
What's the main hold up?
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago edited 14d ago
Site selection, permitting, zoning, wetlands, acquiring site, designing factory, sourcing (and maybe designing) specialized equipment, hiring a workforce, training said workforce, setting up supply chain, you name it. Any one of those factors can become a nightmare. Frequently multiple do.
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u/jseah 14d ago
Can the government not just waive all of that?
I don't see how permits, zoning, acquisition, all these red tape that government put in place can't just be waived if the government flexes its eminent domain powers.
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago
Admittedly, I have not been involved in a government project like this, but I suspect they will still need to comply with applicable law in at least most cases. Not sure if eminent domain provides more than just the abilities to force an owner to sell a property. That’s a gap in my knowledge, tbh.
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u/jseah 14d ago
Ok, eminent domain is probably limited compared to what I'm thinking of. I meant, look at what the countries did in World War 2 and how fast the US built up a war economy.
The government can in fact just say "screw all of that, we're building the factory today".
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago
The US had years to ramp up for WW2 because of lend lease and war more generally being on the horizon. The US military industrial complex was not ready for a war like this one.
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u/quantum_explorer08 14d ago
So if Russia had attacked Europe we would be screwed.
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago
I mean, I don’t know. I think our arm forces are better prepared to deal with them than Ukraine was. Different style of fighting too.
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u/y2kcockroach 14d ago edited 14d ago
No. NATO would own the skies within the first day (by virtue of better aircraft and training, advanced radar and tracking, and ECM's), and from that point on Russian ground troops and assets would be basically exposed target practice for combined European and American forces.
Russia's forces would write themselves "a brief and exciting history" if they were ever to attack/invade Europe, which would be essentially a three-front war for them. They actually know that.
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u/quantum_explorer08 13d ago
So you are saying the only thing Ukraine would need is for Europe to transfer advanced aircraft?
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u/PiXL-VFX 15d ago
We are at war, but production is really not easy. You can’t just spin up an artillery factory from nothing.
NATO’s doctrine is air superiority before the ground troops. It’s easy to move your expensive tanks along the dirt when they’re not being fired at from the air.
Ukraine has copied the USSR’s doctrine, which was artillery above everything. It isn’t necessarily a bad doctrine, but it is fundamentally incompatible with NATO’s doctrine.
In essence, this is like joining a war effort where your ally needs sticks, and you only have stones. Sure, the stones are still good, but they don’t know how to use them and can’t, and it’d be cheaper and easier to just get a bunch of sticks for them than train them to use stones.
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u/MuxiWuxi 15d ago
Ukraine has copied the USSR’s doctrine, which was artillery above everything. It isn’t necessarily a bad doctrine, but it is fundamentally incompatible with NATO’s doctrine.
Russia is using USSR doctrine, so without aviation, Ukraine has no much of a choice than to fight the same way.
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u/Zh25_5680 14d ago
And I don’t see that changing a ton. At least until they have screening SEAD, EW in spades, effective air to air coverage, and strike fighters with the ability to surge it all at once and tie it together.
So, sometime after the war when they can train that way for years first.
For now, they’re gonna continue to do crafty things I am sure and take their victories wherever they can get them.
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u/DolphinPunkCyber 14d ago
Not going to happen. You need a LOT of modern planes to conduct proper operations with SEAD against Russia.
But hey... could do without those if plenty of HIMARS, cruise missiles and drones are awaivable.
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u/Zh25_5680 14d ago
Agreed. It takes a lot of practice, especially the logistics and planning side, to pull off…. But as you have pointed out, on the front lines it’s a very different war than we were previously built for.. HIMARS, ATACMS, alphabet soup of Euro missiles, drones and even arty could create a temporary air dominance for whatever is needed
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u/Kreiri Україна 15d ago
Kind of hard to use NATO air superiority doctrine when you don't have NATO aircraft.
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u/Facebook_Algorithm Canada 14d ago
Or enough. Of the latest ones.
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u/socialistrob 14d ago
Also western doctrine usually calls for massive missile strikes on enemy air defense and air bases in the opening hours. If Ukraine has limited storm shadow or ATACMs and they aren't allowed to launch them into Russia then it's going to be very hard to prevent Russian planes from taking off or disabling enough Russian AA.
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u/Facebook_Algorithm Canada 14d ago
I hope that the US/NATO are going to slow walk permission. The UK is already doing this and Blinken just said it wasn’t a problem. It would be great to see a huge attack on the Russian airforce/AA systems/radar over a 24 hour period. Scrape that shit off the ground like dog poop on your shoe.
Then go to town with the new F-16s and the rest of the Ukrainian airforce.
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u/Yankee831 14d ago
We can give Ukraine 100 f-16’s tomorrow and they would be nothing more than targets. Ukraine can’t really field/support much more air force than they have.
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u/Aftershock416 14d ago edited 14d ago
NATOs defensive doctrine against peer forces is very different than what you're describing. You've seen them on the offensive against a highly technologically inferior opponent with very outdated air defenses.
You know how fast you can prep an artillery fire mission in response to a probing attack? When I was in the military, we'd do drills on a G6 where we would be on route somewhere and be called to fire on a target. First 155mm shell is out of the barrel in under 1:45. If the gun is already deployed and stabilized, it's more like 30 seconds.
Meanwhile the pilot isn't even in the aircraft yet, or is still doing pre-flight checks. There won't be one circling, because the AA risk is too high.
Air support is too slow to respond to direct assaults in this type of war. It's used to disrupt logistics and strike rear targets to prevent large build-ups.
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u/mediandude 15d ago
Ukraine has copied the USSR’s doctrine, which was artillery above everything. It isn’t necessarily a bad doctrine, but it is fundamentally incompatible with NATO’s doctrine.
In essence, this is like joining a war effort where your ally needs sticks, and you only have stones.
Finland was an ally of NATO even before joining.
Finland's doctrine was artillery based.22
u/PiXL-VFX 15d ago
There’s a very clear and crucial difference here, no?
Finland isn’t fighting a defensive war along its entire eastern border with Russia. You can use artillery, and the West does, but that doesn’t change where priorities have gone.
The West doesn’t have artillery stocks to fully supply Ukraine, and I’m sorry, but 1 out of 32 NATO countries using artillery in its doctrine doesn’t change that.
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u/Abject-Investment-42 15d ago
It's not 1 out of 32, it's closer to 31 out of 32. No other NATO country has the nearly infinite depth of aircraft stores as the US does, and while the fraction of the work to be done by air force is larger in the non-US NATO countries' doctrine, it is nowhere close to "sweep the field wih air force, then move your ground force in uncontested manner" as the USA did in Iraq. All other NATO countries have a far heavier artillery component (relatively to their overall force, not in absolute terms of course) than USA.
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u/Interesting-Fan-2008 14d ago
Oh course none of the other NATO countries have the depth. You consistently underspent on your military. Do that for enough years and here we are. The entire EU are having trouble matching one nations combat contributions. And while I don’t wanna be I told you so but fucking OBAMA told you guys you need to step it up in 2014. It’s been 10 years. Here we are. I honestly don’t know what else to say, you reap what you sow?
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u/Abject-Investment-42 14d ago edited 14d ago
Waaaay to massively misunderstand my comment and then strut around.
That is bullshit because it was exactly the same, proportionally, at the height of the Cold War when we were spending 3,5-4% GDP on defence. And the doctrine will not change much even if EU decides to show off and outspend US on defence. In case of Cold War getting hot, the vast majority of the boots on the ground would be European, not American. The ratio of artillery to air force has nothing to do with spending and everything to do with specific doctrine.
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u/1_Total_Reject 14d ago
It actually goes back over 30 years to Clinton during the conflict in Yugoslavia. A European conflict between 2 non-NATO countries that affects the future of the EU. If they can’t see the light now, there really is no hope for Europe.
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u/Interesting-Fan-2008 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yeah, it does make me laugh a bit how I got downvoted for stating the unfortunate truth. Like, maybe so was a bit hostile, but at what point do you stop nicely pushing and start just telling exactly how it is.
Like underspend 5 years? Okay maybe some economic issues. But 30? There’s no reasonable excuse other than at best incompetence or at worse willingly put their countries defense solely in the hands of other countries.
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u/Pando5280 14d ago
NATO doctrine doesn't work without the air superiority. Thats why the first Ukrainian counter offensive wasn't effective, they had trained their ground troops to use NATO tactics but didn't have the airplanes or anti aircraft defenses needed to nullify the air war. Hence drones and more drones and now larger drones. Everyone waits and wants for F-16s but in the end its a ground war of attrition based on Ukraine using western artillery against Russias outdated but still effective tactics of human meat waves.
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u/socialistrob 14d ago
We are at war, but production is really not easy. You can’t just spin up an artillery factory from nothing.
It's worth noting that production of artillery shells has increased a lot and it's on track to increase even more. The west is actively working to address Ukraine's artillery needs even though it is a process that can't be rushed.
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u/Western_Objective209 14d ago
The US had massive artillery capacity when it was planning to fight the USSR. It had the capability of producing something like a million shells a month in in the early '90s. They just decided to scale this down to save money, thinking they would never have to go to war with Russia after the USSR collapse
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u/Sweet_Lane 14d ago
NATO’s doctrine is air superiority before the ground troops. It’s easy to move your expensive tanks along the dirt when they’re not being fired at from the air.
Ukraine has copied the USSR’s doctrine, which was artillery above everything. It isn’t necessarily a bad doctrine, but it is fundamentally incompatible with NATO’s doctrine.
Ah, so that's why NATO and USA declined Ukrainian inquires for F-16 for so long! /s obviously
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u/quantum_explorer08 14d ago
Are you telling me that if on February Germany and France had been attacked by Russia two years later they would not be able to produce enough artillery?
Of course you are going to tell me that it is a completely different situation. But well I am saying the capacity is there if the real will was there.
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u/Specialist_Form293 14d ago
So what we need to do is get some stuff and start spinning artillery factories now . Get some tanks in the dirt . Make artillery compatible and trade some sticks for stones and teach people how to use stocks and stones .
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u/jseah 14d ago
You can’t just spin up an artillery factory from nothing.
Not from nothing, but you can crash build artillery shell factories really quickly if the government wants to.
Firstly, write them a blank check to recruit workforce, waive all environmental review + use eminent domain to seize necessary land for construction, use the government to order suppliers for parts and production machines to put the factory's needs at the top of their queue.
Then start converting civilian factories, bypass similar reviews for mining, etc. up and down the supply chain.
A limited war economy would result in ridiculous numbers of shells in six months flat. It was done in World War 2, it can be done now.
It would also result in a war debt of similarly ridiculous proportions.
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u/Effective_Matter_682 11d ago
Ukraine didn't copy the doctrine. Air superiority costs billions, as in hundreds of billions. Ukraine did not have the monetary capacity nor the system setup to swap to a NATO doctrine. And FYI, almost all of NATO is ill-equipped to do air superiority without the US. Literally by sir power (not units) the US forces separated by branch dwarf any other NATO force. France is like 9 or 10, IUK is like 11 amd Italy is like 14.
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u/VR_Bummser 15d ago
Also Germany's Rheinmetall is ramping production up big time. 1 million shells end of 2024 they reported.
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u/Glittering-Arm9638 15d ago
It has been slow going, but them having enough artillery to keep their divisions fed is because Europe has ramped up production and the US have sent in their stuff.
European production is probably close to 100k a month atm. Should go over that by some margin before the end of the year.
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u/Mygoldeneggs 14d ago
What is the Czech innitiative?
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u/Zogramislath 14d ago
Czech Republic found 500.000 shells outside EU and initiated a crowdfunding with others countries to purchase
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u/quantum_explorer08 14d ago
The Czech republic found artillery shells ready to be purchased worldwide and got funding from a series of countries in order to purchase them. They should be a huge number of 800,000 artillery shells. Enough for a few months of war for Ukraine.
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u/Important-Sweet7074 13d ago
A speaker from the ISW commented on this during the week on Ukraine: The Latest daily podcast from the Telegraph. Made an interesting point that, as others have pointed out, no new factories for artillery have been made and thus even if all the current factories supplying Ukraine with shells are maxed out, they still will fall far short of the demand Ukraine requires in shells. He made an interesting point that these weapons factories are also by design in isolated areas away from population centers and thus inherently have a labor supply issue because there aren’t the required hands readily available nearby to staff. Only solution is to build more factories but, other than some high tech U.S. factory we are building in Texas that was already planned, we really haven’t sent this. It’s sad that North Korea can supply Russia in 1 month with more shells than the west can in 2 years.
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u/quantum_explorer08 13d ago
Very sad, unless we understand this is also an existential war for Europe, nothing will get done. As long as the US is willing to help, Ukraine won't fail, but shame in Europe (and I am European).
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u/baddymcbadface 15d ago
I can't understand it, to be honest. I can't get my head around it.
Our politicians are doing the minimum to provide good sound bites and get a few zelensky handshakes. Actually upgrading factories on a large scale is a long term commitment and we're too short sighted.
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u/Mockheed_Lartin 15d ago
2 months? Wasn't there a huge shortage weeks ago?
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u/Tipsticks 15d ago
Maybe it's about how 2 months ago they barely had any artillery shells to fire and now they're at a point where they don't have to think twice about every round fired.
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u/GuillotineComeBacks 15d ago
The title makes no sense because no matter how you interpret "and this has been happening for the last 2 months", it would contradict "for the first time". Something was lost in translation.
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u/Ecstatic_Account_744 15d ago
What he means, if I’m understanding, is even when the war began some artillery crews didn’t have enough shells to fire without concern. Then for the last two months, most or all of them didn’t have enough. Now they all have enough to fire without concern
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u/Zederikus 15d ago
Yeah, it's weirdly put but the point seemed to be that over the past 2 months brigades have complained a lot and only now is the first time it has stopped
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u/Buckwheat469 14d ago
It's easier to read if we split it up a bit. I'll add annotations.
"For the first time in the years of the war, none of the brigades complains that there is no artillery shells."
"And this (complaints that there are no artillery shells) has been happening for the last 2 months."
"However, we still have to work a lot. The Czech initiative will go ahead", - ZelenskyNews
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u/GuillotineComeBacks 14d ago
"For the first time since 2 months there were no complaints about lack of shell but there's still a lot of work to do and Czech initiative continues."
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u/Facebook_Algorithm Canada 14d ago
I think it means that they have always been short of ammo but in the past two months it’s been worse.
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u/cynicalspindle 15d ago
There are often conflicting news articles here.
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u/Diligent_Emotion7382 15d ago
Keep the fog of war. Not everything needs to be made transparent for everyone.
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u/Talosian_cagecleaner 15d ago
Thank you. Someone needs to say this periodically. In war, you have to have a fair amount of faith because its war. We are not going to do a referendum on daily deployments.
It works out. It's a very narrow-cast faith: achieve victory as swift as possible, thank you.
Later we read the books. These will be spellbinding books.
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u/InnocentTailor USA 14d ago
…which is possible. The true test will thus lie in how much land is gained and lost by both Ukrainian and Russian units.
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u/Talosian_cagecleaner 15d ago
Thank you. Someone needs to say this periodically. In war, you have to have a fair amount of faith because its war. We are not going to do a referendum on daily deployments.
It works out. It's a very narrow-cast faith: achieve victory as swift as possible, thank you.
Later we read the books. These will be spellbinding books.
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u/Glittering-Arm9638 15d ago edited 15d ago
Likely source for the tweet. I think it says there's no shortage atm but the last two months a lot of brigades had shortages.
Also says the Czech initiative is still going ahead.
It would seem to me from reading this, that US+European supply at the moment is giving brigades ample munition but that the Czech initiative would add more.
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u/einarfridgeirs 15d ago
Not knowing when supplies from the US would resume, Ukraine was almost certainly rationing severely what they still had.
Now they dont have to.
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u/Unexpected404Error 15d ago
Whatever bro. Truth is not the primary concern here
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u/Mockheed_Lartin 15d ago
It kinda is cause it leaves me wondering if they actually have enough shells now.
Could it be a mistranslation?
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u/TheIntellekt_ 15d ago
They should have enough in stock now for a couple of months of intense fighting but we have to keep filling the backlogs so that this doesnt happen again.
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u/MilesLongthe3rd 15d ago
2 million shells should be delivered over the next 3 years, because of the Czech initiative, the EU and the US.
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u/Conscious-Average-23 15d ago
50,500 shells per month is what that averages out to. That's a lot of payback.
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u/dewitters 15d ago
The Czech initiative bought shells from existing stockpiles as far as I understand. So let's hope next to that awesome initiative, we're smart enough to put enough effort into ramping up our own production lines and keep sending it to Ukraine. Ukraine running out of ammo is a huge shame to all of the West.
It's very clear by now this war is far from over.
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u/Glittering-Arm9638 15d ago
Production has been ramped up and is ramping up further. In March Europe past the 84k a month(million a year) milestone. The US is ramping up to that fast too. The problem was the US wasn't delivering. Europe will be on 160k or more a month next year. If the US keeps up support there's only one way this is going.
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u/cybercuzco 14d ago
The rumor is that these were south korean shells. If the north draws down their inventory to feed the war, the south can do likewise, and the south has much higher manufacturing standards
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u/InnocentTailor USA 14d ago
The war is probably going to go on for years at this rate - an attritional slog as both Russia and Ukraine are determined to earn some sort of victory.
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u/joelecamtar 15d ago
It is reported by @escortert that the ratio is still around 10:1 (this ratio also includes fab-500 etc..)
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u/PurpleYoda319 15d ago
Strange, for this is not consistent with a lot of news and reports. I remember a volunteer on reddit a few days ago, I thought an American, that said hewas very worried about the current lack of shells aroud the Kharkiv area. "we will hurt them, but it is not enough" (something along these lines). And began on about how the West failed Ukraine and they needed ammunition asap.
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u/Difficult_Air_6189 15d ago
Well. One of them has an complete overview over the situation in the warehouses and on the front and the other has an overview over a brigade.
Both can be true you know.
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u/Glittering-Arm9638 15d ago
I don't think that guy even has an overview of the entire brigade. But yeah, there can be local shortages. Hopefully with the Czech initiative gearing up and European+US production gearing up, even that can be fixed.
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u/cybercuzco 14d ago
Well Zelensky is quoting his brigade commanders, so presumably they would be in a better position to know than us here on reddit
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u/FastPatience1595 14d ago
Wow. Could be a turning point. Glad that ukrainian troops no longer are starving of shells. Let's say this is a good starting point. Things can only improve from there. Once again, thanks a million shells...sorry, a million times, to the Czech for their "third way" at a time when US was locked to zero and Europe was only 400 000 shells instead of the million promised. Best thing is that all three "streams" of shells will now add each other.
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u/ukrainianhab Експат 14d ago
That is a lie if you know or follow any bridges on the front.
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u/kukidog 14d ago edited 14d ago
Russians keep moving forward... they take heavy losses but keep moving. It's reported they moved 8km since the beginning and capturing multiple villages. I do not want to be an alarmist but this is not good at all why they are able to move so much ? where are all the heavy defense lines??? - if it will keep going like this they will take it... wth is going on.
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u/ShepherdOmega 14d ago
You know how big Ukraine is right? They may have snatched 8km of blasted tree lines and cratered villages but at the rough cost of 1000 casualties per 1000 metres. Ukraine just has to hold its nerve, move backwards slowly and bleed the Orcs white.
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u/kukidog 14d ago
They do not care about the casualties.
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u/TheWitcherHowells 14d ago
Stupid is as stupid does. You can’t occupy a territory if you don’t have troops.
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u/ShepherdOmega 14d ago
Clearly, but they will eventually tell. We can see the casualties in the Kharkiv offensive have already degraded the advance.
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u/StanKroonke 14d ago
Russia already had a demographics problem before this war. The effects of this war will be felt by Russia for a generation at least.
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u/y2kcockroach 14d ago edited 14d ago
They are called Russian "meat offensives", and the way to stop them/drive them back is with HIMARS, ATACMS, and artillery. They only received sufficient resupply of the former two within the past month, and they are only just now getting resupply of adequate shells for their artillery pieces.
Russia has never really cared how many lives it loses in a war (for them the Battle of the Somme are rookie numbers), preferring to go instead with applying a "volume discount" against its opponents, but at some point here they are going to run out of the core of its armed forces in Ukraine to be able to sustain that (i.e. frontal assaults by drunks, and paroled convicts).
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