Meanwhile there’s a travelling road show in Russia featuring Russian captured badges and equipment of Ukraine fighters, plus those captured from the OSCE ( of which Russia is a member country, albeit suspended). Some of the captured equipment is identified as manufactured in NATO countries.
Source: Barents Observer.
I think US production is over 24k per month, off a base of about 8k. They are targeting an 80-85k monthly production, probably in early-mid 2025. I’m expecting the US to produce about 700k shells next year and 1M+ in 2025.
Europe is where it’s at. They’re aiming to produce 1M shells by spring 2024. They may fall short, but it’s a solid order.
Between all sources, NATO and external suppliers, I’m thinking 2M shells will be produced in 2024. That will provide 5k shells per day on a consistent basis. That may come out at 3.5-6.5k per day depending on how much error I’ve made, but it’s the ballpark.
I don’t expect stockpiles to refill until the war is over.
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How do replacement platforms/parts compare I wonder. i.e. we keep talking about Russia’s issues with replacing barrels, how does western manufactured kit compare?
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I’ll get the anecdote wrong, but the vibe right. The PzH2000 artillery has a barrel life specification of 2000 rounds. Units deployed to Afghanistan probably fired a few hundred rounds in that campaign. Ukrainian examples have reportedly fired over 20,000 rounds out of these German barrels without replacement and are still going strong.
Germany has taken about a dozen guns out of service to be stripped for spares. I think the barrel is the main item being borrowed. Titanium barrels are slow to make and there probably isn’t a high output production line for these. The UK no longer has a domestic artillery barrel manufacturing capability. Don’t know what the rest of NATO has, but I’d expect every plant is quietly running at capacity.
Russia has nowhere near the barrel production needed to keep up. Much of their artillery in storage has had heavy use and the barrels have a far shorter lifespan than western equivalents. We are seeing bulk artillery being pulled from storage and cannibalised for barrels. That’s keeping them going, but i between destruction and wearing out, some types of guns are going to become extinct as the reserve stocks are exhausted.
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Not sure that’s an anecdote
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Thanks @Benny40, was aware of all the issues Russia was facing, was just curious about Ukraine given we never hear about it (and similarly I don’t recall seeing much about expanded production) :).
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Ukraine is cannibalising their own stocks of mechanically busted Cold War gear for fresh barrels. They ended up with one of the largest land armies in the world when the USSR collapsed and most of it went into storage.
Biggest headache for Ukraine is the variety of Western vehicle types. They’ve got a Noah’s arc of military vehicles, so getting the parts for everything is a struggle. They’ve been asking NATO to step up and provide parts for the gear that has already been sent, which is an indication of the problem.
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Casualties, Battlefield Medicine, & Lessons from Ukraine - Threats, Logistics & Innovations
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Just joined Bluesky, hopefully people can view these posts (this one is more of a test really)
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Unless you are on bluesky, you can’t see those.
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Russian losses per 03/10/23 reported by the Ukrainian general staff.
+360 men
+15 tanks
+8 APVs
+40(!) artillery pieces
+20 UAVs
Last night, Russia attacked Ukraine with a combination of missiles and shahed drones. Out of 31 drones, 29 were shot down. Additionally one Iskander-M was launched from Crimea and was also shot down.
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Damn, was hoping it was open for viewing without needing to have a login 
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Artillery coping a flogging, 40 pieces gone yesterday.
Terrific work.
Keep going for mine.
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Do you need an invite code?
BMP
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Bluesky requires an invite code, I managed to get one so have just created an account.
Apparently they are generated each week so might be able to start dishing them out eventually.
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