Saw this yesterday, and it blew my mind. Is Russia’s artillery capacity completely in the dirt? I was under the impression that they had like unlimited 152mm ammo, but I guess I was hugely mistaken.
Anyone got an article or more info about this?
by NorthVilla
27 comments
Finally the constant artillery system destruction by Ukraine has its effect.
I’m skeptical, of course it would be great if Ukraine finally achieved artillery superiority, but something feels off, the effects of Ukrainian strikes on ruzzian logistics?
The strategy is to destroy Russian Logistics, that’s the reason why they fire HIMAR’s into their logistic routes.
To destroy the Russian Logistics is to starve the Russian Artillery from getting more ammunition.
If you’ve paid attention to confirmed losses and hits on Logistical bridges and ammo depots, pretty much. They’ll never be *out* of ammo, but they’ll have to ration it.
Why shouldn’t this be true? There’s no “unlimited” supply of weapons or amo. This is only another tale of the russian propaganda campaign.
The ukrainian strategy is clearly to cut of the supplys, destroy the defense systems behind the front line (e.g. AA defence) and, of course, destroy the artillery and counter artillery systems. With this tactic, the whole russian millitary doctrine will collapse by time.
Unfortunately I think there will be a lot of artillery pieces and shells arriving from NK. 1000 shipping containers sounds like bad news…
Russia have wasted huge amounts of ammo on residential buildings…
This is not caused by an ammo shortage in general. In the past months Ukraine tried to destroy a lot of artillery and ammo depots (even smaller ones) near the front. Maybe you saw yourself one of the dozen HIMARS videos where they destroyed howitzers with a M30A1 rocket…
At the moment Russia has still enough ammo and artillery pieces but they have a hard time replacing the destroyed ones at the front.
On one hand it’s the effort of ukraine to destroy systems, ammo stockpiles and logistics. On the other hand it’s the russians themself cause they dont have enough capacity to replace worn out barrels and stuff! This is what happens when a three day war last much longer then planed
I saw an ISW report, or some open source intel report that follows Russian milbloggers in Ukraine, and there was alot of chatter and complaining from RU solders saying their artillery guns are blown. Blown barrels or just worn out parts. This was around Adiviivka. I can imagine that if it’s an issue where Russians main offensive push currently is, means it’s at least similar across all RU lines.
That along with guns being taken out by Ukraine, along with supply lines feeling the wear themselves, it does seem like Russia is having major Artillery issues.
Makes sense to me. 20 months in with the same old shitty Soviet artillery systems pushed their their limit every day all day, surprised there wasn’t major issues earlier.
More likely their barrels have worn out; NK likely supplying replacement 152mm barrels from their own stocks
Artillery barrels.
They don’t have the capacity to replace them, which means their accuracy decreases. As a result, they are pushed closer to the frontlines to maintain accuracy, which increases their rates of loss.
It’s a feedback loop, and with Russians infantry doctrine entirely focused on artillery, it will be interesting to see how they hand their opposition having artillery superiority.
Slava Ukraini 🇬🇧🇺🇦
How can such numbers even be calculated?
Tons of weapons are coming from north Korea, one thousand of rail cars. Probably because of that.
I dont think that they are running out of tubes. I think they have issues with ammunition and the resupply
Response from an AFU officer: https://x.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1713400519887073355
> These numbers are wrong, Ukraine doesn’t have superiority except in localized cases, and it’s misleading because Ukraine received a one-time batch of ammo from Korea for the counter-offensive. We won’t get those anymore because there is no ammo in such numbers anymore
I would call this an overstatment.
But their capacity should be shrinking with time.
Russia is using a lot of artillery which means they used up a lot of guns.
They lost noumerous artillery pieces too.
You can go on shooting until the barrel widens enough for a shell to get stuck. But you are not going to hit your targets long before this happens.
Russian artillery is degrading.
Unless supplies and guns run out they will not stop shooting soon.
I read in another post yesterday that Russia still has enough arti rounds, but a serious lack of barrels for all the 152mm artillery systems. And the North Korean weapons shipment is supposedly of a low grade quality, impacting heavily on accuracy and reliability.
For anyone wondering, this is the result of a lot of different factors squeezing russia’s ability to fire:
Direct loss of equipment. Loss of equipment due to normal use (barrels have a finite lifetime). Loss of competent crews. A lack of ammo that can be transported to the front: they spend more than they make, their soviet stores are of highly variable quality, transport itself is being targeted directly and indirectly (at a local level, small ammo storages are hit with drones or HIMARS, and things like rail lines and bridges are hit). Fear of counter battery fire (which ZSU is great at): sometimes it’s better not to shoot. In a lot of places, meaningful targets are out of range. They know how to fire, but they aren’t in a position to perform these soviet style artillery strategies where you just saturate an area and then walk forward, so again, sometimes it’s better not to shoot: they lose, so they can’t do the thing they could normally do to win, so they lose more, etc, etc. And they suck at close support and quick lines of communication, so that’s not a role they can fill.
Additionally, they too now use a lot of FPV drones and the like.
Something like that.
Arty guy here
There are several factors to take into consideration. First one is the physical stock of loaded shells. Second one is the physical stock of working fuzes. Third one is the number of working tubes. Fourth one is the logistical capacity to bring the 3 into a given time and space. Disrupt any of these 4 and you have no artillery.
During the first months of the conflict Russia depleted the tubes and fuzes at an unsustainable rate if the war was to last more than a year. I do not know the detail of the stockpile of loaded shells but i’m pretty sure their biggest issue are tubes and fuzes production and the logistics to bring all together
So yes, it can be real and most likely is
Well there are multiple parts to the answer.
1. Yes over the past few months Russia.has lost lots of artillery pieces. But they have plenty more.
2. They are more likely low on shells given the train load they had to buy from North Korea.
3. But my personal belief is they have run out of skilled artillerymen.
My reason for #3 is due to the fact I was a US army artillerymen and artillery officer. Especially for officers this is a long (6 month school) just to be at the basic level. And a good smoke (gun line E7) takes years of experience.
So even if they have guns and have shells they probably don’t have well trained people to use them correctly because in the videos I have seen the crews are getting aced with the guns.
this can mean also that ukr army is reducing to ashes so no need to shell with 60k per day
From my understanding, RF forces are operating static defensive positions, refusing to give up any ground. This forces them into constant artillery use to hold the line. Obviously, this burns through ammo at a huge rate. And I’m sure the logistics situations in Russia and near the frontlines are a logicians worst nightmare.
The AFU has become extremely proficient in counter-battery fire. Mix their skill with western tech, training, & equipment, and you have a very potent force.
I would say average number of daily shots is not a great way of determining artillery superiority because as you see in the graph itself that number can jump back up.
There’s a number of factors at play here.
1. Limited ammo production – there is definitely significant production, but it’s not enough to cover the significant needs of the RU army.
2. Russian military doctrine calls for significant artillery prep and support which creates a hunger for shells.
3. Ammo dumps and GLOCs have been hit repeatedly. Forcing Russia to move its large supply dumps further away and heavily distribute the front line supplies.
4. Russia utilises a push model of supplies, HQ determines what you’ll need and sends it forward. You don’t request supplies, you get what they send.
5. Hitting the large ammo dumps takes out a lot of shells, hitting lots of the small forward dumps takes out even more.
6. Lack of accounting of how many shells fired means that many barrels are going way beyond the number of full charge equivalent rounds fired leading to significant loss of accuracy and hence a need to fire more shells for the same effect.
7. The constant attrition of Russian artillery pieces due to Ukrainian attacks and barrel failure means older pieces being refurbished and pushed into service. This means lower accuracy, shorter ranges, and lower rates of fire.
8. The constant attrition not only remove barrels, it removes experienced artillery crews. Further degrading accuracy, range, ROF etc.
9. Lack of palletised or standardised transport slows down resupply and reinforces the need for larger ammo dumps, creating better targets for Ukrainian strikes.
10. Quality control and corruption issues. Shells without explosive filler, charges with up to a 2.5kg variation in weight mean even further problems with artillery effectiveness
The actual usage is higher than the number fired due to shitty logistics, corruption, and Ukrainian attacks on supplies.
I’m waiting until what impact that North Korean shipment has when it’s eventually unpacked. Hopefully they sent duds.
Well not annialted. But they’ve reached parity which is remarkable, given that the russian doctrine is based primarily on artillery fire