Russia and Ukraine

[Thumpalumpacus]

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.

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.

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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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.