The war has officially turned into a typical WWI style artillery warfare. Both side are lacking munitions. Russia is turning to South Korea + China to replenish its stocks. And the US is turning to South Korea + Japan for more munition + it plans to triple its production capacities within the coming years. Germany is left with 20,000 shells (which would be enough for only a few days if they had to use them). A typical artillery shell costs about 800 $.
 
   One of the main issues are those cluster bombs which are banned in many countries. The problem with these is that some of the bomblets do not explode and hurt people years after they have been dropped. So the US using them is a sign that the US is starting to run low on munitions too.
 
   Also the amount of resources, metals etc. I see in this video are simply incredible. According the ChatGPT many advanced militaries have programs to recycle those empty shells. Still all that iron etc. being spent like this is simply incredible.

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(December 24, 2023 at 8:11 am)Leonardo17 Wrote:    The war has officially turned into a typical WWI style artillery warfare. Both side are lacking munitions. Russia is turning to South Korea + China to replenish its stocks. And the US is turning to South Korea + Japan for more munition + it plans to triple its production capacities within the coming years. Germany is left with 20,000 shells (which would be enough for only a few days if they had to use them). A typical artillery shell costs about 800 $.
 
   One of the main issues are those cluster bombs which are banned in many countries. The problem with these is that some of the bomblets do not explode and hurt people years after they have been dropped. So the US using them is a sign that the US is starting to run low on munitions too.
 
   Also the amount of resources, metals etc. I see in this video are simply incredible. According the ChatGPT many advanced militaries have programs to recycle those empty shells. Still all that iron etc. being spent like this is simply incredible.

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When did the US join this war between Russia and Ukraine?

And why would we go to ChatGPT as a news source?

Dual purpose rounds are plentiful, and the problem of unexploded ordinance in Ukrainian fields is barely scratched with the addition of our well made munitions. One of the main ways we made assistance work is by counting the cost of the shells as their depreciated value minus the cost of disposal. A lot of the time, the shells have a negative book value.


Idk if I’d call it ww1 style either. Bradley’s are ripping Russian armor to shreds. Western artillery under Ukrainian crews are still effecting what the Russians call an artillery genocide. SU’s keep falling out of the sky. The Russian surface fleet has been rendered useless having suffered the loss of ships large and small and even the odd sub. Cluster rounds are peppering concentrations of infantry and grounded aircraft. Bridges are hit with cruise missiles. What is clearly a vast campaign of sabotage and assassination in the occupied zones and hundreds of km into Russia is ongoing. Then there are the drones. Drones drones drones!

That the Russian military has been reduced to sending meat waves of convicts, immigrants, and the elderly doesn’t imply that it’s ww1, that’s an effect of a Russo-centric view of the war. It may be ww1 for them…and if so….good.

(December 24, 2023 at 8:11 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: The war has officially turned into a typical WWI style artillery warfare. Both side are lacking munitions. Russia is turning to South Korea + China to replenish its stocks. And the US is turning to South Korea + Japan for more munition + it plans to triple its production capacities within the coming years. Germany is left with 20,000 shells (which would be enough for only a few days if they had to use them). A typical artillery shell costs about 800 $.

The fact that forces are mired right now doesn't mean they will be so forever. Even the WWI comparison so often bandied about ignores the fact that the last eight months of the war were in fact mobile -- once the defenses had been broken. We also see this in the Allied breakout from Normandy, Montgomery's chewing his way through the defenses at El Alamein, and other situations, some longer, some shorter.

(December 24, 2023 at 8:11 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: One of the main issues are those cluster bombs which are banned in many countries. The problem with these is that some of the bomblets do not explode and hurt people years after they have been dropped. So the US using them is a sign that the US is starting to run low on munitions too.

These munitions were actually requested by Ukraine, so inferring that they signal a general ammunition shortage would need more support. It's true that our supplies of artillery shells has been deeply impacted, but at the same time the supporting powers are ramping up production.

(December 24, 2023 at 8:11 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: Also the amount of resources, metals etc. I see in this video are simply incredible. According the ChatGPT many advanced militaries have programs to recycle those empty shells. Still all that iron etc. being spent like this is simply incredible.

]

Be careful with ChatGPT.

Here is a deHavilland Mosquito bomber from WWII, in model form:



Here's ChatGPT's picture of it:



I've seen too many errors from so-called AI software; I don't trust them. It is correct that militaries often recycle brass, but yeah, ChatGPT etc is like any other software: GIGO.

It should be noted that when an attacking force is able to break out from a mire in front of prepared defensive positions,  that attacking force almost always enjoyed heavy superiority in numbers, in supporting artillery or air power over the defending force, and in addition always possess considerably more mobile strategic reserves further behind the front than the defending forces can call upon.     Technical solution’s ability to make up for shortcomings in those areas are not nearly as great as those influenced by military fan fiction that glorify individual pieces of weaponry might think. 

Ukraine with any conceivable western support short of indirect all out NATO Attack not only do not enjoy those advantages,   it is quite on the wrong side of where these advantages lay throughout this conflict, even at the times when Russian effort seemed unremediably incompetent,    The net balance of factors driving the final outcome was always heavily in Russia’s favor, whatever the west think the righteous outcome should be and however the west pretend the war is approaching that righteous outcome.       The entire counterattack Ukraine conducted this year was a gross strategic blunder that could only have been justified if it could have dragged NATO directly into the war.     If it failed in that, as it evidently had,  its net result would inevitably be to put Ukraine much further into the red in both of these two strategic aspects.

Militarily, in terms of relative frontline strength able to take action in near term, and in terms of relative availability if strategic reserves, both trained and recruitable, Ukraine is now undoubtedly much worse off now than in June, when the current offensive began,  or indeed any time since the initial Russian attack last year.

Ukraine gave Russia too much time to prepare the defensive lines in the south.

When the dam was blown a north-south feint became the main axis. Ukraine had done this same thing, successfully, twice before.

2/3 ain’t bad….and, really, anywhere they keep Russia sending equipment is better than yet another leveled town.

When the Ukrainian senior commander got into trouble for admitting having run into an stalemate and that a “beautiful break through” can no longer happen,   One wonders what could have caused Ukraine to think a meaningful breakthrough was ever possible?

To make a meaningful break through:

First, you have to break in without killing yourself in the process..    What does Ukraine have that would allow it to make penetrations into prepared defenses without heavy casualties?      Air cover?  No.   Overwhelming artillery preparation?   No.   Invincible tanks?    No.  

Then you have to grind through.    Does Ukraine have stream of men, or tanks, or artillery, combat engineers, to feed into the grinder?    No.   Are Ukrainian troops demonstrably much more effective in set piece battles?  No.

Finally you have to break out.    What does ukraine have to break out if it does penetrate all of Russia’s prepared defenses?    Does it have more mobile reserves than Russia has, so it can defeat Russian reserves sent to contain it?    No.    Does it have comprehensive air superiority so it can effectively interdict or hamper deployment of more numerous Russia  mobile reserves that is coming to stop it?  No.    Even if Ukraine made the breakthrough, which it is totally unequipped to do, so what?   Ukraine is also not equipped to win the mobile maneuver warfare that will result. 

The Ukrainian strategy vision seems to have been the same as Germany’s during the failed Kaiserschalcht offensive in 1918,  when Ludendorff didn’t have any clear idea of what a war winning objective might be,  but simply relied on launching attack after attack in the hope that through attacks some war winning opportunity will reveal itself.      The difference is Ukraine did not enjoy anything like Germany’s numerical superiority in early 1918,  not anything like Germany’s tactical and technical superiority in early 1918.

Yet in the end the German army which was in much better relative position and led by much better commanders using effective tactics,  squandered its numerical superiority and lost.

The vision was to cross the dnipro behind the defensive lines. The best plan they had considering all of those factors you listed, and more. It’s likely still the vision and will remain so for the duration of the war. With crimea either cut off and Russia cutting its losses…or Ukraine unable to cut it off.

They still going at it, huh?