The Economics of Artillery Shells in the Russo-Ukrainian War
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Unguided artillery shells are arguably one of the most important weapons on the battlefield. But how many artillery shells Ukraine needs, how many shells are produced around the world, and why the equation is not just about the number of shells that each side has, is #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT
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As History Unfolds - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
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History repeats itself: there was the "Shell Crisis of 1915", now there appears to be a "Shell Crisis of 2023"
The fact that this man got sponsored by a war game, while talking about an ongoing war is just nuts
I worked for 10 years of green field infrastructure construction in mainland Europe. I have never been on a site where we didn't find at least one unexploded shell from WWII. Just so you understand how common is this.
As a former artillery man... this was fascinating. Knew very little of the maintenance and logistics information.
Another thing with the Excalibur: The first shell fired is the most important one. When the first shell lands on the enemy they tend to run away and hide. Therefore you want to score a direct hit with the first shell but that is highly unlikely with an unguided shell. You need to fire several shell to tune the gun to hit the intended target but then the target has already taken cover. With an Excalibur the enemy does not have time to run away
The fact that even with all the advanced tech deployed in the Ukraine front it all boils down to trench warfare and artillery shelling, just like the 1910's is pretty interesting.
Very good information, except one thing, you can replace a M777A2 barrel on the battlefield. I did one at FOB Kushmond in Afghanistan with a wrecker crane. Tube weight is only 3500 or so lbs. About the weight of a mid size car. The tube was deliver via Chinook (cargo bay). And we did the whole swap out in the field within a few hours. It is also much easier logistically to move a tube than a whole howitzer. Can have it delivered in one day, whole howitzer takes 3 days to move from base to base on average out to combat bases. I was a 91F, weapons/artillery mechanic in the Army. Deployed to Afghanistan in 2010-2011. Loving the channel btw!
All guess work about the Russian shell production.
It takes much longer to build something than it takes to destroy it.
The NATO country's plans all seem to revolve around gaining air superiority (or near superiority) allowing the use of precision, air launched missiles and bombs. They have all gotten away from planning and stockpiling for the possibility of heavily contested air space not allowing this, requiring the use of high amounts of artillery fire instead. Like the Spanish Civil War I think the Russo-Ukraine War is giving us a peak into what near-peer fighting will be like this century. If we can learn the right lessons.
This was very well explained and the research staff did well to track down and take the regular person through the entire subject and storyline. Bravo.
Improving the barrel life can be achieved by installing zirconia spiral groove liners, spraying teflon lubricants onto the shells as they are loaded or spraying it into the barrel as its being loaded, graphite can work in a similar way, water cooling the barrel to keep the metal cooler during sustained operating can also help. TEL or tetraethylelead once added to leaded gasoline can also be used as a barrel lubricant as the deposited soft lead acts as a sacrificial bore liner to reduce scrubbing losses as the shells are shoved down the barrel. A barrel liner made of chromium cobalt nickel copper alloy can also be used to refurb the old barrels.
To be fair WWII artillery was a lot less accurate than modern ones so they needed considerably more shells to fire for the same effect, so it’s not surprising that there are far less in stockpiles and being produced today. And from what I’ve seen which may not be accurate another thing that seems to be using up a lot of unguided shells is that both sides seem to be just hammering the trench lines on both sides like it’s WW 1 all over again. That continual harassment fire has to use up a lot of ordnance.
Finland can and have been producing 155mm artillery cells since the beginning of the Ukraine war and before. There are many factories like legendary Lapua ammunition factory. Currently it's been owned by Norwegian Nammo, but it's as Finnish factory as it can be.
The stat of how much artilairy is being produced and used sounds like it was business creating demand so they can increase pricing...
A forging line for making 155mm shell costs around 12million Euro and takes around 18~24 months for building and installation. This cost does not including the ancillary parts of the line including turning, hot stepping, billet cutting or furnace heating. This is just for the shell body. Not including filling, fuses etc. This time frame is an accelerated time frame and does not assume you are dealing with a typical government department or with German machine tool companies which can EASILY add 2 plus years to the time frame and still not get anywhere.
20k shots fired with one Barrel. Thats what I call german engineering.
To be straight: It is absolutely possible to produce 500.000 shells per month within a time frame of 6 months. The problem is ONLY the political will to do so. There is sufficient floor space available in every country. The utilities can be updated. The manufacturers know exactly how many presses, furnaces, robots, lathes and other equipment they would need for this. All this can be bought, delivered and installed within 6 months. If wanted.
Barrel wear is also critically affected by rate of fire which translates to heat within the barrel, particularly on bearing surfaces (the lands of the rifling) and, most critically, in the chamber. Heat reduces the durability of the metal. Got it too hot and you reduce the temper and wear out whatever lining might have been added, if any. Reduction in the rate of fire, thus allowing the barrel to remain cooler, greatly extends the life of a barrel. That's why there were water jackets on WWI machine guns, to keep the barrel cool during extended fire. If you always fire from a cold barrel, you get get multiples of the expected life (maybe 10x), but in combat that is useless since it puts you at like six rounds per hour. Also, IIRC, "shoot and scoot" is 3-5 rounds rapid at the same target, not just one round.