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This article is from before the war and seems to have taken the russian war theorists claims at face value. Now we know reality is different. For example NATO a

This article is from before the war and seems to have taken the russian war theorists claims at face value. Now we know reality is different. For example NATO artillery has self proppelled gps guided shells that far outrange the bigger russian calibers. So you don’t need as many artillery piece when your first shot is a hit and the enemy is not even in range to shoot back anyway Ukraine also developped a very interesting custom software to target their artillery, here’s a twitter thread about it: https://mobile.twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1523791050313433088 https://mobile.twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1523791050313...

the_af 4y ago
I think the article has some interesting points, like that artillery is the true all-weather weapon, and it's obvious the Russians heavily rely on this. That said, it understates the C&C problems of the Russian army, and also some claims have really not aged well given what we know of the current war, such as when it guesses that in a NATO-Russia confrontation, NATO's airforce may become grounded due to weather (ok), SAMs (ok), "and the actions of the Russian Air Force" (yeah... I seriously doubt this).
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Russia had the brute force power to destroy Ukraines air force. But somehow, Russia did not. There are lots of rumors floating around, the biggest of which is that Russian long range cruise missiles have far less accuracy than was once assumed. So if Russia launches 300 missiles at the start of the war (and they did do something close to that), only 180 would find their target. That's 120 radar systems or airplanes that should have been disabled by the Russian plans, but somehow we're not (either Ukrainian anti missile defense, or maybe incompetence from the Russians) Of the 180 targets that were hit, how many were out of date information and just empty space? It is clear that the Russian battle maps are extremely old, and that they are targeting locations of old Ukrainian bases that have long been abandoned. Etc. Etc . Suddenly, that 300 missile salvo doesn't look very good or useful. Far fewer targets were destroyed than expected, and the Ukrainian air force continued to fly and counterattack.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Yes. I think we are actually agreeing? Still, even with those observations, it's still true that artillery (true artillery, not just rockets/missiles, but actual dumb shells raining over your enemy) is a devastating all-weather weapon, the only true all-weather weapon. I guess it's also comparatively cheap. If the Russians don't care about casualties (either civilians or their own troops), and they are in no rush to gain air superiority, they can continue raining semi-accurate shells on their enemies, inaccurate intel be damned. Eventually they'll hit something. I think it's unrealistic to think this strategy will win in a war against NATO though, even without nukes being involved.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      > Yes. I think we are actually agreeing? Yeah. It wasn't my intent to disagree with you. Just chiming in with my own $0.02. > they can continue raining semi-accurate shells on their enemies, inaccurate intel be damned. Eventually they'll hit something. I dunno. Every "bang" can be triangulated using microphones and a bit of math, especially because artillery is just so loud when it goes off. I'm sure the Russians are doing shoot-and-scoot when possible, but its not like you can rain down artillery for more than 1 or 2 minutes at a time on the modern battlefield. As soon as your shell hits, you have a limited window before the enemy returns fire. You want to be running away from your location at that point. ------- USA's "counter-artillery radar", which can detect 1500mph shells flying through the air, can triangulate where shells came from before they even strike the ground. So the "timer" may start even before the enemy gets hit by your first shell.
PaulHoule 4y ago
I've seen Figure 2 in that document in other places -- and I think it's deceptive. If you look closely, the range of the US M109A6 is longer than the competing Russian pieces. It is greatly outranged by Russian MLRS, but NATO has MLRS too, just they aren't on that slide. That said, Russian artillery seems to have been effective in the 2022 actions of the Russia-Ukraine war, at least against civilian targets.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  You're comparing the range of the M109A6 using RAP projectiles to the range of the 2S19 using normal projectiles. If both are using RAP, the 2S19 outranges the M109A6, and the same goes if they both use standard rounds (though it's very close). The M109A6 however has many more advantages besides simply range.
  - fvdessen 4y ago
    What should be compared is the equipment capabilities in their standard configurations, and NATO has the ressources to have these advanced features in wide usage, while russia keeps them for parades
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      No country in the world can afford to use a 80k shell merely to extend range. To put that into perspective, the USA is supplying 150k rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, and a few hundred Excalibur. If they were all smart shells, they would cost 12 billion dollars. To put that into perspective, that's almost the entire Canadian military budget. The US itself doesn't even have 10,000 Excalibur rounds. This isn't equipment capability in standard configuration, you're comparing exceptional configurations that have to be used with parsimony to Russian standard configuration. In standard configuration, the Russian artillery outranges. It's not by much, and it doesn't mean it's better, but that's a simple fact. The actual advantages of NATO artillery is that it's easier to supply and generally has better fire control. If you want to compare exceptional to exceptional, you should compare Excalibur shells to 9m54x rocket artillery, the second of which is superior in every single domain, and has actually been used in Ukraine.
sudosysgen 4y ago
The Russians also have self-propelled GPS guided rockets for their MLRS that outranges anything else in artillery (9M54x series). Guided MLRS is also likely to be much cheaper, because it's a lot easier for electronics to survive being propelled out of a tube by rockets than being fired out of a cannon, but that's just speculation. Nobody that's honest includes it in the artillery range because these munitions fundamentally are different in use since they cost around ~100x more than normal shells. Munitions that cost ~100k each can't be compared in good faith to 500$ dumb shells. If you do, then you need to include guided rocket artillery, which has around 3x the range of something like Excalibur.
- fvdessen 4y ago
  What should be compared is what comes out of the canons and NATO can afford to widely use those 100x more expensive ammo.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    No, they simply cannot. No country can afford to replace dumb shells with smart shells completely, they are simply prohibitively expensive for anything except very high value point targets. They are completely useless for area fire, for example. GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Laser guided artillery shells are another story, but they don't have any more range.
    - fvdessen 4y ago
      The USA has 7500 excalibur shells in stock. So it’s clearly not an anecdotic piece of equipment. They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        7500 shells is a very small amount. To give you an idea, the US has millions of artillery shells. They represent a fraction of a percent of the US arsenal. They aren't anecdotal, but they are exceptional.

the_af 4y ago

I think the article has some interesting points, like that artillery is the true all-weather weapon, and it's obvious the Russians heavily rely on this. That said, it understates the C&C problems of the Russian army, and also some claims have really not aged well given what we know of the current war, such as when it guesses that in a NATO-Russia confrontation, NATO's airforce may become grounded due to weather (ok), SAMs (ok), "and the actions of the Russian Air Force" (yeah... I seriously doubt this).

dragontamer 4y ago
Russia had the brute force power to destroy Ukraines air force. But somehow, Russia did not. There are lots of rumors floating around, the biggest of which is that Russian long range cruise missiles have far less accuracy than was once assumed. So if Russia launches 300 missiles at the start of the war (and they did do something close to that), only 180 would find their target. That's 120 radar systems or airplanes that should have been disabled by the Russian plans, but somehow we're not (either Ukrainian anti missile defense, or maybe incompetence from the Russians) Of the 180 targets that were hit, how many were out of date information and just empty space? It is clear that the Russian battle maps are extremely old, and that they are targeting locations of old Ukrainian bases that have long been abandoned. Etc. Etc . Suddenly, that 300 missile salvo doesn't look very good or useful. Far fewer targets were destroyed than expected, and the Ukrainian air force continued to fly and counterattack.
- the_af 4y ago
  Yes. I think we are actually agreeing? Still, even with those observations, it's still true that artillery (true artillery, not just rockets/missiles, but actual dumb shells raining over your enemy) is a devastating all-weather weapon, the only true all-weather weapon. I guess it's also comparatively cheap. If the Russians don't care about casualties (either civilians or their own troops), and they are in no rush to gain air superiority, they can continue raining semi-accurate shells on their enemies, inaccurate intel be damned. Eventually they'll hit something. I think it's unrealistic to think this strategy will win in a war against NATO though, even without nukes being involved.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > Yes. I think we are actually agreeing? Yeah. It wasn't my intent to disagree with you. Just chiming in with my own $0.02. > they can continue raining semi-accurate shells on their enemies, inaccurate intel be damned. Eventually they'll hit something. I dunno. Every "bang" can be triangulated using microphones and a bit of math, especially because artillery is just so loud when it goes off. I'm sure the Russians are doing shoot-and-scoot when possible, but its not like you can rain down artillery for more than 1 or 2 minutes at a time on the modern battlefield. As soon as your shell hits, you have a limited window before the enemy returns fire. You want to be running away from your location at that point. ------- USA's "counter-artillery radar", which can detect 1500mph shells flying through the air, can triangulate where shells came from before they even strike the ground. So the "timer" may start even before the enemy gets hit by your first shell.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I've seen Figure 2 in that document in other places -- and I think it's deceptive. If you look closely, the range of the US M109A6 is longer than the competing Russian pieces. It is greatly outranged by Russian MLRS, but NATO has MLRS too, just they aren't on that slide. That said, Russian artillery seems to have been effective in the 2022 actions of the Russia-Ukraine war, at least against civilian targets.

sudosysgen 4y ago
You're comparing the range of the M109A6 using RAP projectiles to the range of the 2S19 using normal projectiles. If both are using RAP, the 2S19 outranges the M109A6, and the same goes if they both use standard rounds (though it's very close). The M109A6 however has many more advantages besides simply range.
- fvdessen 4y ago
  What should be compared is the equipment capabilities in their standard configurations, and NATO has the ressources to have these advanced features in wide usage, while russia keeps them for parades
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    No country in the world can afford to use a 80k shell merely to extend range. To put that into perspective, the USA is supplying 150k rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, and a few hundred Excalibur. If they were all smart shells, they would cost 12 billion dollars. To put that into perspective, that's almost the entire Canadian military budget. The US itself doesn't even have 10,000 Excalibur rounds. This isn't equipment capability in standard configuration, you're comparing exceptional configurations that have to be used with parsimony to Russian standard configuration. In standard configuration, the Russian artillery outranges. It's not by much, and it doesn't mean it's better, but that's a simple fact. The actual advantages of NATO artillery is that it's easier to supply and generally has better fire control. If you want to compare exceptional to exceptional, you should compare Excalibur shells to 9m54x rocket artillery, the second of which is superior in every single domain, and has actually been used in Ukraine.

sudosysgen 4y ago

The Russians also have self-propelled GPS guided rockets for their MLRS that outranges anything else in artillery (9M54x series). Guided MLRS is also likely to be much cheaper, because it's a lot easier for electronics to survive being propelled out of a tube by rockets than being fired out of a cannon, but that's just speculation. Nobody that's honest includes it in the artillery range because these munitions fundamentally are different in use since they cost around ~100x more than normal shells. Munitions that cost ~100k each can't be compared in good faith to 500$ dumb shells. If you do, then you need to include guided rocket artillery, which has around 3x the range of something like Excalibur.

fvdessen 4y ago
What should be compared is what comes out of the canons and NATO can afford to widely use those 100x more expensive ammo.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  No, they simply cannot. No country can afford to replace dumb shells with smart shells completely, they are simply prohibitively expensive for anything except very high value point targets. They are completely useless for area fire, for example. GPS artillery shells are also completely inferior to guided MLRS for every use case. Laser guided artillery shells are another story, but they don't have any more range.
  - fvdessen 4y ago
    The USA has 7500 excalibur shells in stock. So it’s clearly not an anecdotic piece of equipment. They cost much less than a tank or an artillery piece, so it would make sense to use them most times you shoot at those.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      7500 shells is a very small amount. To give you an idea, the US has millions of artillery shells. They represent a fraction of a percent of the US arsenal. They aren't anecdotal, but they are exceptional.