Substack tells me this article is a "20 minute read". I like to keep my musings generally under 10 minutes, so I apologize for a very long text. Hope those interested in the subject will find it informative nonetheless.
There seems to be more information about the production capabilities of NATO, but not as much about Russia. Do you think you can address how well Russia is doing on that front?
Russia is as usual much less transparent in this regard. Often we have to judge the situation not by direct information, but by indirect data and sometimes simply by the fact of the absence of information or more precisely, absence of complaints about any particular issue.
The most prominent source of information on conditions of the Russian troops in this war are the "war correspondents" - these journalists and there is about 100 of the most active ones have picked up the role of soldiers' advocates and they are the first ones to bring into a public space when army is lacking something in a major way.
From what I hear today, here are some key elements affecting the SMO, better known as Russo-Ukrainian war:
- Russians seem to have been able to resolve the "artillery shells hunger" problem and increase shell production using existing capacity and bringing back to life some of the old factories shutdown relatively recently
- this war is 90% an artillery war. Artillery guns of various calibers see a lot of excessive use, so just like in Ukrainian artillery, Russians see a lot of gun barrel wear and tear, but besides barrels they experience problems with recoil struts because maximum distance shooting, that uses heavier charge, is majority of the shots they fire thus putting bigger pressure on recoil systems. This problem isn't solved completely yet, as they are trying to build repair shops near the front line and that is not easy given longer range capabilities of Ukrainian artillery that uses now precision systems such as American HIMARS.
- I don't hear much about Russians using a lot of counter battery fighting radars, this is why the city of Donetsk continues to be shelled in ever increasing volumes by Ukrainian artillery daily with impunity. Presumably they were supposed to have enough of the systems initially developed back in USSR, like "Zoopark-1M", but there are no signs of active use, as Ukrainian artillery is given a chance to "unload" their "Grad" rockets on Donetsk and leave the shooting position before Russian artillery had a chance to respond. Use of modern systems such as "Penecilin" wasn't reported either. This is where secrecy plays a big role, but as I said earlier we need to judge by the results and we don't see very effective counter battery actions from the Russian side.
- There are signs of tank shortage in combat on the Russian side. Many are in need of major repairs given rough conditions they operate in. According to one correspondent tank crew he was talking to went already through 6 tanks in a period of 9 months. Their tanks were not shot, but had to be sent for repairs after exhausting their resource. To solve the tank problems Russia is doing two things, modernizing old machines T-55 that they have plenty in storage and suspending contracts with foreign buyers of the modern T-90. There were talks of 200 T-90s being sent to the Ukrainian front vs. somewhere in Africa.
- Russia continues military exchanges with Iran. There are talks of them receiving new party of "moped" drones Shahed-136 modernized and released in Russia as Geran-2, as well as short range ballistic missiles in exchange for giving to Iran opportunity to buy Su-35 jet fighters.
Substack tells me this article is a "20 minute read". I like to keep my musings generally under 10 minutes, so I apologize for a very long text. Hope those interested in the subject will find it informative nonetheless.
Thank you for posting this. It provides valuable insight into the what's happening behind the scenes of the conflict.
There seems to be more information about the production capabilities of NATO, but not as much about Russia. Do you think you can address how well Russia is doing on that front?
Russia is as usual much less transparent in this regard. Often we have to judge the situation not by direct information, but by indirect data and sometimes simply by the fact of the absence of information or more precisely, absence of complaints about any particular issue.
The most prominent source of information on conditions of the Russian troops in this war are the "war correspondents" - these journalists and there is about 100 of the most active ones have picked up the role of soldiers' advocates and they are the first ones to bring into a public space when army is lacking something in a major way.
From what I hear today, here are some key elements affecting the SMO, better known as Russo-Ukrainian war:
- Russians seem to have been able to resolve the "artillery shells hunger" problem and increase shell production using existing capacity and bringing back to life some of the old factories shutdown relatively recently
- this war is 90% an artillery war. Artillery guns of various calibers see a lot of excessive use, so just like in Ukrainian artillery, Russians see a lot of gun barrel wear and tear, but besides barrels they experience problems with recoil struts because maximum distance shooting, that uses heavier charge, is majority of the shots they fire thus putting bigger pressure on recoil systems. This problem isn't solved completely yet, as they are trying to build repair shops near the front line and that is not easy given longer range capabilities of Ukrainian artillery that uses now precision systems such as American HIMARS.
- I don't hear much about Russians using a lot of counter battery fighting radars, this is why the city of Donetsk continues to be shelled in ever increasing volumes by Ukrainian artillery daily with impunity. Presumably they were supposed to have enough of the systems initially developed back in USSR, like "Zoopark-1M", but there are no signs of active use, as Ukrainian artillery is given a chance to "unload" their "Grad" rockets on Donetsk and leave the shooting position before Russian artillery had a chance to respond. Use of modern systems such as "Penecilin" wasn't reported either. This is where secrecy plays a big role, but as I said earlier we need to judge by the results and we don't see very effective counter battery actions from the Russian side.
- There are signs of tank shortage in combat on the Russian side. Many are in need of major repairs given rough conditions they operate in. According to one correspondent tank crew he was talking to went already through 6 tanks in a period of 9 months. Their tanks were not shot, but had to be sent for repairs after exhausting their resource. To solve the tank problems Russia is doing two things, modernizing old machines T-55 that they have plenty in storage and suspending contracts with foreign buyers of the modern T-90. There were talks of 200 T-90s being sent to the Ukrainian front vs. somewhere in Africa.
- Russia continues military exchanges with Iran. There are talks of them receiving new party of "moped" drones Shahed-136 modernized and released in Russia as Geran-2, as well as short range ballistic missiles in exchange for giving to Iran opportunity to buy Su-35 jet fighters.
Thank you for such a detailed reply.