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This is more of a doctrine issue. Ukraine was given mountains of artillery by western nations, so naturally they were going to use it. But artillery has lower R

This is more of a doctrine issue. Ukraine was given mountains of artillery by western nations, so naturally they were going to use it. But artillery has lower RoI than drones, drones are cheaper, more accurate, more versatile, and have longer range. It makes the most sense to heavily invest in the better technology drones, not artillery. If we look at what Ukraine spends its military budget on, >50% of its military spending goes towards drones. Only 15% is going towards artillery & ammunition. We can also look at present wars to view where the trend is going. I'd estimate that during the latest conflict between Israel/Iran/US + gulf states, approximately zero artillery shells were fired*. During a hypothetical US/China/Taiwan + Korean/Japan conflict, I'd expect this number to be similar. *excluding rocket artillery such as HIMARS

Havoc 6mo ago
> I'd estimate that during the latest conflict between Israel/Iran/US + gulf states, approximately zero artillery shells were fired*. That has nothing to do with the merits of artillery and everything with the type of war. Air campaigns with no front line obviously don’t use artillery… Once you’re in a positional static fight artillery is still the cheapest way to deliver heavy ordinance. US isn’t likely to end up in a fight like that but that doesn’t invalidate artillery in general. Rheinmetal from the article is arming countries that are worried about a land invasion by Russia > HIMARS Very much hoping the US learned the lesson on relying on expensive tools like that. The shock and awe strategy didn’t work against Iran and it sure as hell won’t work against an adversary like China that has a much higher ability to backfill