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Comment by Idiot_in_Vain | Hacker News Reader

I hope Ukraine can beat Russia and liberate it's territory in 2014 borders, but it's far from a done deal. Currently Russia produces more ammo than all NATO countries combined. Ukraine allies need to open new assembly lines for ammo production, as a successful attack on the pretty well prepared Russian defences will take a ton of artillery shells.

Looks like Russia mobilized over half a million soldiers so far (while officially stating 300K). Their military factories are working on 3 shifts 24/7. When they produce enough equipment and weapons no doubt they'll do a new wave of mobilization. Long term Russia can mobilize more soldiers than Ukraine, so NATO has to compensate by supplying Ukraine with big amount of artillery, tanks, fuel, equipment and most importantly ammo.

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The production question is a little more subtle than that. Russia has been running down it's huge stocks of Soviet era artillery ammo and it's not producing enough to replace it. Plus it's not all in great condition as some of it is very old. So far Ukraine has been able to be far far more efficient than Russia, which has just been using a bombardment philosophy. Note that it's not just ammo but also barrels as they also get used up and need replacing. Russia can no longer maintain the kind of bombardment it was doing last summer. And they have nearly no capacity to replace the sophisticated guided missiles they've used up, whereas those are available to NATO, and we've seen those be a lot more effective than the dumb artillery.

NATO has large stocks of 155mm shells. But they can also buy them because it's become a standard outside of the non Russian influence world. South Korea has a huge production and stock that is under negotiation.

Numbers around mobilization are really iffy. I watched an opposition Russian politician yesterday saying no more than 200,000 had been drafted, so your number is the opposite direction to his. I bet even the Kremlin doesn't know the true number due to the way the regions were instructed to draft.

RF also has virtually no modern logistics for ammo storage or transport. They have no forklifts and few cranes. Most ordnance is moved via rail and then by hand (!). They can't seem to pour a flat enough concrete pad for forklifts to run atop.

Even if they had all that, they are outranged by NATO missiles, so all ammo dumps have to be very far away from the front (90+ km). Munitions and supplies must be moved in small and uneven batches on poor roads and with overworked crews and equipment over multiple days.

UA forces share some of these issues, but not as badly.

> RF also has virtually no modern logistics for ammo storage or transport. They have no forklifts and few cranes. Most ordnance is moved via rail and then by hand (!). They can't seem to pour a flat enough concrete pad for forklifts to run atop.

Do you have a source for that. The last part (especially) is pretty unbelievable. I would assume that the techniques for pouring flat concrete isn't new, and even if they didn't have it, they could just make forklifts with bigger wheels or something. For instance, here's a US military forklift driving on gravel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forklift#Counterbalanced_forkl....

I do understand the Russians are much more focused on rail for military transport compared to the US, which then let them make design choices that have made it hard to switch to truck transport.

I'm unsure of what source would be appropriate here. I can't point you to a lack of a thing, by definition.

> I'm unsure of what source would be appropriate here. I can't point you to a lack of a thing, by definition.

1. You can point to a source with some authority talking about the lack of a thing. Which shouldn't be too hard, since, unless you're ex-Russian Army logistics, you must have learned those claims from somewhere.

2. You can point to a source talking talking about Russian Army logistics, that shows them "moving things by hand" when forklifts would be more appropriate.

3. You can point to a source talking about how all forklifts require really flat concrete, and not all countries can make it because [reasons]. However, you probably can't do that because that would contradict the example I gave of a forklift operating on gravel.

Woah. Ok dude, I'll try to help you out here, but be advised that I am not a super duper expert on these things. Just a rando on HN.

Most of my evidence here is fueled by what I've been seeing and hearing via the internet, so take it with a grain of salt. I'm, thankfully, not in theater. That said, these sources do seem to be 'experts' of some sort or another behind their own fog of war:

War on the Rocks, podcast and online

Foreign Policy Magazine, online edition

Washington Post, print and online

New York Times, print and online

Philips P O'Brien, publications and twitter

Trent Telenko, interviews and podcasts and twitter

ChrisO_wiki, twitter

Go ahead and look in the older work if you're curious to find more out about the logistical mountain that RF is facing. The concrete thing, though a bit curious, does seem to bear out in photos of their ammo dumps and RF's inability to cure a pad before rebar is stolen (WaPo, NYT, and ChrisO_wiki are good on this issue). Gravel isn't going to work for such repeated use in wet conditions. To move those loads you'd need very large tires to distribute the weight, something like a JCB. Something that RF also seems to be without. Like, they really do seem to be that corrupt and incompetent.

A half dozen general references to things like the New York Times don't count as a source for the claim, since it's totally impractical for someone to track down where you got your information and read more.

> The concrete thing, though a bit curious, does seem to bear out in photos of their ammo dumps and RF's inability to cure a pad before rebar is stolen (WaPo, NYT, and ChrisO_wiki are good on this issue).

However, the reasoning you give here makes the claim more credible, since it makes clear the problem is corruption not technology.

> And they have nearly no capacity to replace the sophisticated guided missiles they've used up...

That's not true: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/us/politics/cruise-missil...:

"Weapons investigators in Kyiv found that at least one Russian Kh-101 cruise missile used in widespread attacks there on Nov. 23 had been made no earlier than October."

> ...whereas those are available to NATO, and we've seen those be a lot more effective than the dumb artillery.

They are, but I'm under the impression that NATO/the US would also quickly use up their cruise missile stockpiles in the event of a hot war.

> NATO has large stocks of 155mm shells. But they can also buy them because it's become a standard outside of the non Russian influence world. South Korea has a huge production and stock that is under negotiation.

South Korea isn't allowing any of their equipment or ammunition to be exported to Ukraine. The best that enables is for Western countries to play musical chairs and give Ukraine a greater share of their stockpiles/production from other sources.

I've seen a figure of then being able to manufacturer up to 60 guided missiles per year. Could be wrong, we're all just citing what we've read.

Musical chairs indeed but pretty direct ones:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/11/politics/us-artillery-sou...

I mean that's pretty much just throwing the chair at someone.

Russia will most likely mobilize and throw about 500k of soldiers at the war. This has been done before by Russia in previous wars. We will probably see the fruits of support and resources by the end of this summer. I’m hoping.. praying that the Ukrainians are able to fight off this zombie invasion

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