Prigozhin invited Girkin to command one of the units of the “Wagner”
New meaning given to Jerkin the Girkin…
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The donation of Westerm MBTs has the russians in a state of chaotic disarray with meltdowns, ignorance/denial/bravado and infighting across the Vatnik information frontlines.
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Yeap, that was the focus of the UA training mission in the last year or so before the war. However, old habits die hard; their younger commanders have adapted better but not everyone got to participate.
The key is coordination and a joint (uncluding air force and strategic assets) synchronization matrix that keeps everyone on the same page.
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Serbia has not opposed volunteer recruitment drives for the Russian army, but draws the line at Wagner recruitment.
Ukraine ran a very effective world wide campaign to get across what they needed and why they needed it immediately, not at the speed Western governments are operating.
Nope. It is the inept clowns in charge of force flow who have “overlooked and oversimplified valid logistics and manufacturing challenges” - as more politely described in that report.
Initially it was POLICY to only supply weapons suitable for guerilla resistance because any heavier crewed weapons would just end up in Russian hands as the Russians would defeat Ukraine rapidly.
Later it was still POLICY not to supply HIMARS and its GMLRS rockets at all because that would be “provocative”.
The 50,000th Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rocket rolled off the industry partner’s production line in Camden, Arkansas in mid-November 2020, …
…the Army has contracted with industry partners to procure more than 9,000 GMLRS Unitary and AW rockets during 2021.
As far as I know there are no other wars in which HIMARS are operating or GMLRS munitions are being expended but Ukraine is still rate limited by available supplies. I expect they will eventually be rate limited by target acquisition which will eventually need long range drones with advanced avionics but I don’t think that has happened yet.
It is STILL POLICY now not to supply ATACMS or F-16s but I think that policy too is in transition right now.
By April Ukraine had won the battle for Kyiv and a flow of forces, including Abrams tanks with the strongest armour to strengthen the US forces in Europe assigned to assisting NATO allies against Russian invasion. There was also a scramble getting ex-Soviet equipment to Ukraine since they already use it (and were the main production center for it) while it takes time to shift to NATO standards (especially as NATO was refusing to even treat Ukraine as on a path to membership).
It was obvious then Ukraine was able to fight the Russian “artillery army, with tanks” but would need massive amounts of munitions, transition to NATO 155mm shells, longer range artillery and tanks.
At every point the US and others have openly and publicly delayed sending weapons systems from existing stocks, including HIMARS, 155mm artillery, F-16 jets etc on the stated grounds that it would be “provocative” and they don’t want to risk WW3 - which grounds were also argued here.
But at the same time they did start backfilling countries with such equipment to replace them supplying Ukraine with the ex-Soviet equipment that Ukraine could use immediately.
They knew what was coming, but with a policy of not supplying new stuff they did not make the preparations to supply much more new stuff than they could sell under the Foreign Military Sales program since they are VERY well stocked up for a peaceful world.
I did not follow the links but I think it was you who drew attention to the fact that worries about Ukraine running out of 155mm ammunition were overblown because there is in fact plenty of manufacturers capable of ramping up throughout the world, including Australia. As far as I know that is true. But as you say, precision munitions and other high tech production lines take longer to scale up.
I don’t remember when I first commented here that industry needed to be placed on a war footing but it was based both on seeing lots of public commentary on that and on my own study of the US procurement system to understand what it would take to get CURRENT new technology into drones at the speed of relevance instead of the speed at which they operate. I still haven’t figured out how to do it because like them I am slow and disorganized. But it was certainly long ago that I was thoroughly aware that US procurement and force generation does not work at the speed of relevance and that “aspirations” to do so are a major focus of their milling around.
Wars are fought initially with available stocks and manufacturing is ramped up to replenish at the rate required. Biden announced the US would again be the “arsenal of democracy” at the same time as announcing a Ukrainian “Lend-lease”- quite a while back so the administration not only was aware of what was needed then but publicly committed to doing it.
The problem is they are inept and just haven’t done it. They haven’t even got rid of the people within the administration who are still pining for a Minsk 3 solution such as the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley.
So no, logistics and manufacturing challenges is generally NOT the reason for the US drip feeding supplies to Ukraine.
But as the POLICY transitions it WILL become a major factor as long as people make excuses for their failure to transition to war time munitions production and continue to act as Minister’s protecting military warehouses instead of Minister’s of Defence.
As Zelensky said, WE NEED TO SPEED UP.
We do not need to keep hearing that it is “complex”.
It is VERY simple. This war WILL take years and continue to cost VASTLY more in global economic disruption as well as specifically Ukraine, Russia and their neighbours looking after millions of refugees for years unless it is forcibly ended at MASSIVELY less cost by going on a war footing and paying the large, but relatively tiny costs of accelerating at much faster than the economically optional rates of acceleration in procurement and force generation that were relevant in peacetime.
There is a major war on NOW.
It is blindingly obvious that accelerating ramp of precision munitions etc for Ukraine NOW can ONLY be helpful for avoiding the constraints being used in calculations about Taiwan soon.
There is no “tradeoff”. The people responsible for maintaining the constraints should be sacked.
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Spawning a war military memorabilia movement
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I assume that thing at the end is a BMP but jeez, looks like a cardboard cutout
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As to Allied responses, Ukraine might be in the daily headlines and have priority, but it’s not the sole strategic defence issue, let alone humanitarian.
Governments are stretched in juggling the international and regional strategic balls and in the domestic context of budget deficits, consequences of Covid , disruption of supply lines, inflation, cost of living, not least energy, natural disasters etc.
Strikes in France over the retirement age, matched only by the bread bakers costs of production.
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Brilliant post I 100% agree
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US has spent billions of dollars in upgrading their manufacturing capacity since the Ukraine war began. Artillery production is going to quintuple, but it will take 2 years for that to happen. All of their munitions plants are getting hundreds of millions of investment. Artillery ammunition stockpiles are currently tight, but global production is able to keep up with the Ukrainian demand. If however we sent 500 artillery pieces as Ukraine wants, on top of the 400ish already donated, the ammunition stocks would be obliterated in 6-12 months. Guns should only be sent if there’s a sustainable way to supply them over the longer term.
GIMLRS ammo is a key example of where logistics and manufacturing capacity are capping donations. Ukraine is firing the annual rocket production each month. Even doubling ammo production has a minor impact on that stockpile burn rate. No more HIMARS can be sent until Lockheed Martin are able to scale up their production line manyfold.
But what I was really pointing out is building the capability within Ukraine. Building the skillset and systems to operate and maintain modern tank fleets isn’t easy. Australia operated Leopard 1s and took a substantial amount of time to step up to the Abrams.
If you look at any novel equipment that Ukraine has been given, they’ve been drip fed over a period of months. That isn’t due to lack of political willpower. That is designed to avoid overwhelming Ukraine with a mass of gear that they aren’t ready for. Give them 4 HIMARS and let them learn and make mistakes. Solve those training gaps before the full fleet is on deck. Work out the logistics problems early before you have 1000 crates of critical spares and ammo flowing down the rail network.
Ukraine wants 300 tanks. Ukraine can’t take 300 tanks in one day, they’d choke on the generosity. But they can absorb 300 tanks over a 6-12 month period. The first tanks are going to be a struggle, it will go wrong in many ways. And they’ll learn and improve. Once they’ve worked out how to use the first 100, everything else from there will be easier.
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Yep. But as “early as possible” is not NOW as he said in the omitted tweets worth reading but when Ukraine first asked for the equipment.
The battalion of 31 Abrams with weakened armour sent in advance of really significant supplies would enable churning out trained operators also familiar with the specialized recovery vehicles for rapidly replacing entire major components in the field. The reduced armor protection simply would not matter much in that role so one could even theoretically justify it as potentially delaying the time when Russia and China get a sample of the armour to reverse engineer (though tanks in an advance battalion for training are unlikely to be captured anyway).
But by having a POLICY not to send them they ALSO failed to even prepare a batch to send. So NOW the people who need to be sacked (and perhaps prosecuted for wilful neglect of duties) are spreading it around that the MONTHS of delays for even the first training battalion to be delivered are due to how “complex” their jobs are rather than their failure to do them.
Again, it is the same inept clowns that “managed” the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and worked “professionally” with Russian forces propping up the Syrian fascist regime and drew a “red line” against use of chemical weapons by that regime so artistically).
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As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.
The west has been caught with their pants down.
But understand, there’s a lot that happens in the background that never gets reported; so there are things happening NOW to ensure UA has the ammo they need and that the west doesn’t get surprised in other fronts in asia, africa, etc.
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There’s a very good reason to delay sending Abrams. Ukraine will struggle to absorb Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 fleets concurrently. The French MBTs and Abrams tanks need to be delayed to avoid a catastrophic collapse of Ukrainian logistics. The French tanks are likely too much trouble to send.
I expect Ukraine to end up with a fleet of hundreds of Abrams in the long term. They will all have the export package armour, that’s reality. The first 31 tanks will have a very fragile support infrastructure. Engine packages will need to be shipped to Poland by rail for repairs. Over time that capability will be progressively built inside Ukraine, but it will not be an overnight process. Trying to set that up for hundreds of Abrams while also setting up for Leopard 2s is a nightmare scenario.
This is the reality of pushing the highest end technology into a soviet era military during an active war. It’s messy and complicated and not ideal. Things happen slower than we want, but if you rush it you end up with dozens of tanks breaking down at the front and getting destroyed.
The upside here is the currently announced Leopards will not be the last. The announced 31 Abrams will not be the last. These are just the first wave, the hardest wave to receive.
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The other question is the viability of production and repair infrastructure when the energy grid is being constantly targeted
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What a let down! Russia tricks enemies with inflatable army of tanks and planes | Daily Mail
Also , in supplier and repair countries, where higher cost consumer energy use is restricted in winter, while the same governments are subsidising private sector defence energy use.
There have also been environmental backlashes, with a reversion to coal as part of the energy mix ( Poland in particular).
The Russkies must have seen the post I made way back in the first thread of the US Army team that did this back in WW2.
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Ukrainian works of literature and history banned as ‘extremist’ in Russian occupied Luhansk oblast
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