Yes, NATO countries have hollowed out their military-industrial complexes. Everyone is aware now that was a mistake but it will take time to rebuild the industrial capacity necessary to fight wars of attrition. And of course it's cheaper to manufacture artillery shells in Russia since the country has lower wages and is now running a partially mobilized command economy. But once you normalize for quality of the shells, the difference isn't quite as bad as it first looks.
> The research on artillery rounds by Bain & Company, which drew on publicly available information, found that Russian factories were forecast to manufacture or refurbish about 4.5 million artillery shells this year compared with a combined production of about 1.3 million rounds across European nations and the US.
Rheinmetall intends to increase their annual production to 750k by 2025 and the US is aiming for 1 million annually by 2025. That's still much less than Russia and that's before considering they have access to the significant reserves and the factories in North Korea.
> Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3 million rounds of artillery shells or more than 500,000 rounds for multiple rocket launchers, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry.
NATO war doctrine doesn't use nearly as much artillery as Soviet (Russian)- preferring air superiority and bombs/missiles instead. While it isn't clear this is really better (and I hope we never find out), it does mean that having less production ability may not be an issue. Which is why the US Air force is the largest air force in the world, followed by US army, then US navy at 4, and US Marines at 7.
Where the problem is, is Ukraine is trained on the Soviet war doctrine but are getting backing from NATO - but without all the airplanes NATO would use (and it isn't clear if they could train pilots/crew fast enough if given, but they haven't been given much) they need something to fight with.
That's the point, no? Ukraine isn't NATO. Ukraine can't do NATO doctrine. So Ukraine also can't win against Russia if they're this behind on artillery supply. This is an issue for Ukraine. It's not for NATO. But we aren't talking about NATO, we're talking about Ukraine's ability to fight back.
[I get most of my information from Ukraine: The Latest] It seems to be that when Ukraine has even the below-necessary arms (be that artillery or air support or smarter, longer range weapons), Russia is unable to make significant gains.
Whether this is due to the impotence/utter incompetence of the Russian military or the inherent advantages of defensive fighting, I'm not sure Ukraine _can lose_ this war as long as NATO continues to the supply them with the tools.
You cannot seriously think that you need 1:1 parity missile-to-shell in that paradigm. The overall result from the conflict is that the soviet doctrine underperfomed, with especially abysmal results for the IADS part of it.
Ukraine is doing well using mostly the soviet doctrine so long as they are 1:5 ratio of artillery with Russia, when they are worse than they they start to lose ground, when more they gain ground.
> You cannot seriously think that you need 1:1 parity missile-to-shell in that paradigm.
this argument would work if we could produce missiles in 1:1 parity with shells. However, for any reasonable ratio (say 1 missile for 10 shells) the situations with missiles is even worse! British government has ordered more NLAWs, and they will take 2 years to deliver.
> soviet doctrine underperfomed
That's exactly the scary part - Russian military is a mess, and even in these conditions our military industrial complex is barely holding it together. Mind you we spend 10x what Russia spends. NLAW costs more than a Tesla, takes longer to produce than a Tesla, and uses 90's technology. There is huge graft in the military complex!
Now what will happen if there is a conflict with an opponent that is competent, and is able to outproduce Russia 5 to 1? It will end in massive humiliation.
You can turn the frontline to dust with artillery, but actually advancing when anything from a guy on a push bike to a modern tank is disabled by a quad-copter with an anti-tank explosive cable tied to it makes taking territory difficult.
Hence why Russia has advanced very little since the initial invasion, even with the number of men they are willing to send to their death.
Ukraine has a problem taking their territory back as well, but for different reasons. They don't want to/can't send so many to their death, and have to rely on a large coalition of allies giving them weapons -- who have their own things to worry about domestically, so half-arse or delay support.
Though my impression is that shell production is still a "meh, I guess we probably should do something..." priority in the great majority of NATO countries.
