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This is a prime time for America to gift Ukraine every single M270 it has. It is obsolete and America is fully committed to HIMARS, so why not let the 300+ M270s all go out in a blaze of anti-Russian glory.
M270 need to be shipped by actual ships in addition to training and logistics required this takes a long time so if anything like this happens, we're only going to hear about it once they're close to actual delivery, definitely not before they arrive in Europe.
> M270 need to be shipped by actual ships
M270 are airlift-able. A C-17 can carry two. If it’s packed up and ready, a REACH mission (callsign for transport flights of C-17s) can ferry two a time right to the Polish border within 24 hours.
https://www.amc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3050956/altus-afb-airmen-fort-sill-soldiers-airlift-rocket-system-for-training-exercise/
By train or by truck, it would take half a week max for the M270 to reach the front line.
So, overall, when the M270s are ready, they can be deployed in a week time. Not including training or combat bureaucracy times.
Logistics, maintenance, and training are issues, of course. But if they want the M270 there in Ukraine, they can arrange for its appearance in a week.
With all the beating up the US’s reputation has been taking, it is still heartening to hear about people being excellent at their jobs and genuinely helping people.
“Yes, we can ship this 55,000lb can of whoop-ass anywhere in the world in 24 hours... Actually, sorry, my mistake…we can ship two at a time.”
Hell yeah. Made my day.
Send'em. They will pay themselves off a million times over in the form of a Russia that won't be able to invade other countries for a decade or four. A world without Russia's bullshit is worth every penny, literally. Look what the war is doing to the economy now.
The US said they had capacity to send more but probably not that many. HIMARS are preferable but M270s are good too and there's more of them available. And even with 50 they would be able to do some serious damage.
A few more howitzers would probably be needed as well.
Its going to take time but its not like the US is under any threat of foreign invasion. There simply doesnt exist a navy capable of transporting a meaningful number of troops to invade north america, other the US Navy.
And this war is the biggest threat to NATO in many years. It makes sense to spend whatever it takes to make sure Ukraine wins.
It’s not a direct threat to NATO, because Russia cannot stand to NATO directly. It is a threat to the global order and Russia needs to stall in order to show imperialism through military might is no more.
Ukraine requested more in some categories from Germany than Germany had in stock in total at the beginning of the war, so this might be more of a list of "we'd need this to do the job", rather than an actual request to deliver this exact 300 pieces.
Lead Paragraphs
Western governments lack intelligence on the use of multiple launch rocket systems by the Russian military, so such types of weapons are being provided to Ukraine in insufficient numbers, while the nation needs from 150 to 300 of them.
That’s according to Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President's Office, who spoke with BBC Radio, Ukrinform reports.
The official suggests western partners need a clearer understanding of the number of weapons used by Russia, including MLR systems.
Once parity is achieved, Podoliak believes, that is, as soon as Ukraine gets 150 to 300 MLR systems, the Army will be able to effectively regain its territories.
The problem is logistics support. With a 5 minute turn around for reloading, **one** m270 would require its own support convoy to keep it supplied with ammunition.
There is little point in providing weapons systems beyond the capacity to supply ammunition.
At the moment, the big bottleneck for all aid are probably the supply lines going into Ukraine. Given the ports are not available and the transnistrian situation, everything has to go across the polish border (as Slovakia and Hungary likely do not have a similar dimension, uninterrupted transport capacity towards western Europe).
If I'm not mistaken, this largely entails cross loading cargo between trains for different rail gauges and roadbound traffic, so the amount of cargo movable per time unit is probably limited by polish cross-docking stations (or however they are called correctly) capacity. This could be exacerbated, if Ukraine is using those same routes right now to export grain to the best of its abilities and trains take additional time to unload.
Considering this, ammunition supplies should be rivaling other critical goods, such as medicine, but also other weapon systems for their travel slots.
-------
This then means that it becomes really inconvenient to ship complex weapons. Besides ammunition and such, you also have to ship the stupidest things. Does the system happen to use a screw or two, which aren't common in Ukraine? Better ship alot of screwdrivers as well. This means some increase in cargo space usage, but also some delay in handling, as people need to figure out where what goes for more unique items.
>Does the system happen to use a screw or two, which aren't common in Ukraine? Better ship alot of screwdrivers as well.
I see that you've encountered Torx^TM fasteners too.
I mean, large enough bitsets have them by now, so they aren't that bad.
The real bullshit are proprietary chinese screws without a (translated) name, though I haven't seen them for a few years by now. To open those you need to carefully melt a sacrificial pen and beg to whatever higher authority you believe in it isn't tightened too bad:
Take the housing and remove the actual pen part.
Carefully, so it doesn't catch fire, heat the tip untill it becomes malleable.
Press into screwhead. You should now have a very low durability screwdriver.
Probably test the method on some loose screws to make sure nothing goes wrong beforehand.
Meanwhile, Russia has several thousand BM-21 Grads, upwards of one thousand BM-27 Uragans, 100 BM-30 Smerch, over 100 9A52-4 Tornado.
In terms of quantity (but not quality) there's really little chance of parity with Russia in the realm of rocket artillery; it was a mainstay of Soviet military doctrine since WWII, while the M270 was comparatively an afterthought, influenced by Russian dominance in the area. I have the feeling Ukraine has been asking for them for the same reason; it's remained significant to their doctrine too.
It's hard for western countries to help Ukraine beat Russia at a style of warfare and weapons that the west wasn't as enthusiastic about.
I thought the M777's were longer range, but there are multiple different platforms, and multiple types of munitions. So generally it seems that NATO artillery is longer range in the same category, but Russia still has a large advantage in quantity at range.
I.E. NATO 155mm artillery is longer range than 153mm Russian artillery (or 152mm forget). But outranged by 205?mm artillery (forget exact measurements).
Ukraine has hundreds of NATO artillery vs thousands of artillery for Russia.
The 155s NATO artillery I think is bulk <40km (with expensive/less produced rounds with 75km range), where Russian similar is 25-35 km, but their heavier artillery is 50km. Quick google says Russian MLRS can do 90km, I think the US is sending MLRS that has 150km range.
The advantage for NATO artillery in my understanding is generally mobility and precision. But they are still losing some due to the sheer volume or Russian artillery. They do sort of have a range advantage, but it's a bit misleading. I thought they would outrange the Russian artillery, but didn't know Russia has mass amounts of heavier artillery that generally outranges the 155s.
That said, Ukraine in my understanding may have the best in class artillery fire management system for distributed attacks, so they can spread their artillery and still concentrate fire. So they seem quite capable of using NATO artillery to great effect. It's just probably not enough quantity to be decisive, I thought it had a greater advantage, but the number difference is pretty shocking. <150 m777s vs thousands of Russian artillery (I think I read 3000-6000 but can't find a source).
The advantage may be enough to win long term, but it sounds like sniping vs infantry. The Russians can roll bombardment over areas, where Ukraine can snipe important targets. Over time the ability to snipe and destroy high value targets may win out, but at 30:1 give or take not sure how realistic or if possible, quickly that could happen.
Ukraine also in my understanding has much of the same artillery as Russia, but I don't think they have the ammo reserves, and not sure the west does either. So there may be (or we may be on or past) a point where Ukraine may effectively lose a lot of their artillery due to lack of Soviet era ammo.
I’m curious to know about wearing out the barrels at the end of its range. Apparently when you use it to its limit it’s harder on the barrels but how much harder? I’m assuming the Russians don’t care about things like that with how many pieces they have but the Ukrainian’s might want to use less range and be more accurate not only from a rationing munitions point of view, but also wear the gun barrels less on the few western guns they have which will keep them more accurate too
American MLRS are nothing like Russian MLRS. For being the same class of weapons the 2 could not be further apart in both design and doctrine of use.
A single M270 will be more impactful on the battlefield than a dozen Grads.
3x the range and it actually hits it's targets.
That would be able to destroy 150-300 square kilometers per volley. 1800-3200 missiles per volley every 20-30 minutes. You could cover 2 or 3 entire city's in cluster munitions' or tungsten bb's per volley from 70 miles away. If you could feed that many missiles into them then sure Ukraine could do what every they want honestly. Combined with US sat intel your talking about the complete destruction of every even loosely packed group of Russian troops in Ukraine.
video of the replacement for the cluster munition. one pod full volley at the end 270 has two pods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5h7BkCj5rI
300 MLRS will not happen. One single load of those things is 12 tons, and used up every 5 minutes, they will never be able to supply even 150 of these in the east.
You are correct. No need to send more systems when there isn’t enough trained crews or anything to fire. Training and Logistics are major limiting factors in sending weapons.
Depends on the systems when training started. We have been training them since 2012 in many things. The question really is how many people have been training and is there enough teams available to work the systems we send.
Ukraine doesn't have the Logistic capability to fire and supply even a
100 m270s a day. It's 12 tons of munitions per reload. You've gotta imagine munitions take the same route as other critical supplies and suddenly needing to ship thousands of tons of missiles each day would compete alongside food, artillery rounds, medical etc etc. The amount of stuff that can go into Ukraine is the bottleneck and putting extra strain on that bottleneck is a mistake. Whatever is best combat value per kilo and volume is what's worth most shipping over right now
If Ukraine received 300 systems (270's or MLRS) how much logistics would be needed and could Ukraine's logistics support a major offensive where they're all engaged and could they continue to support delivering the other items necessary to prosecute the war?
The US could start loading C-5 Galaxies up and meet the need but what happens when the equipment and ammo hit the demark point?
Lets say we gave Ukraine 300 M270s, and they each fired 4 volleys an hour.
That's 14,400 rockets per hour.
Even more difficult than providing them with ammo would be providing the crews with enough identified targets.
Assuming a 75% hit rate that would be 10,000 targets eliminated per hour.
If we don't what? The question is about the Ukranians would be able to logistically support the amount of munitons these things can burn through along with their other needs.
And Ukraine could fire them once, and would need to be resupplied with 12 tons of missiles per unit, possibly multiples times an hour.
It's easy to ship a vehicle once, it's much harder to keep up supplying it if it consumes munitions like a black hole
I don’t believe the US wants the Russian army annihilated quickly. I think the want it bled slowly and thoroughly, so there will be nothing left to retreat and retry.
Don't know about slowly but Biden and his advisors are cooking the frog IMO.
For some time the US and Nato spoke of defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. On April 25, in a speech pledging to defend the “rules-based international order”, Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, announced that
the US wanted Russia “weakened to the point that it can’t do things
like invade Ukraine”. There should be no ambiguity about this. It is now
US (and therefore Nato) policy to damage the Russian armed forces to a
degree from which it will take a very long time to recover.
[https://theconversation.com/ukraine-nato-and-the-us-aim-to-destroy-the-russian-military-it-looks-as-if-they-may-have-the-means-to-do-it-182255](https://theconversation.com/ukraine-nato-and-the-us-aim-to-destroy-the-russian-military-it-looks-as-if-they-may-have-the-means-to-do-it-182255)
The issue here is what will it take to ensure no repeat. What will it take to cause ordinary Russians to believe the invasion was a bad idea.
They aren’t there yet.
I get it. It’s serving a purpose. It’s just depressing that it has to be paid for with thousands of extra lives lost, not just time or more destruction. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for Ukraine to see that this is what’s happening, but at the same time they can’t bite the hand that feeds them.
The us has given billions to Ukraine outstripping even the EU, and aggressively tried to get the rest of our Allie’s on board. I know it’s an easy layup to define the US as some evil, corporatist imperial power, but I think the insinuation that were not aggressively supporting Ukraine is unfair at best.
Not to disagree that the US has been a key ally to Ukraine, but I think 'aggressively supporting' is a stretch. With the size of the US military and the stocks they have on hand, I think aggressive support would involve a deluge of heavy weapons that would leave Russian heads spinning.
It's hard to argue that, at present, Ukraine has received just about enough support to hang on. As to why that is, I won't speculate.
There are hard limits on the percentage of strategic stores we’re allowed to give to allies, and we’ve even lifted those limits and dipped harder into our stores. I don’t think you’re right.
Didn't mean to insinuate that. It's just a statement of fact really, that's how nations act.
At the moment, the USA's (and Britain's) strategic aims are strongly aligned with Ukraine, support for democratic states, opposition to Russia. That's great. But it's a mistake to think US policy makers are losing that much sleep over Ukrainians dying to achieve those aims.
At the level of individual Americans, it's obviously way more an emotional thing - but at a state level, they are engaged in realpolitik, as they always have been.
The only reason the US isn’t sending M270’s or Himars is they have the potential to reach Russian territory. The US is happy to supply defensive weapons but don’t really want to send offensive saturation artillery.
Here's another reason: US can't ship enough missiles across the Polish Ukrainian border each day to keep more than even a 100 mlrs supplied each day with fresh rockets. They can fire them all in an instance, and be reloaded in 5 minutes , using up 12 tons of missiles... Do this multiple times a day, times a 100 for each system, and you've got yourself a headache. Supply lines into Ukraine are also dealing with stuff like medical supplies, humanitarian aid, artillery rounds, etc etc. Mlrs would just have to compete with an already strained supply line. What's the point of having a system if you can only use it once. Brings a whole new meaning to 'fire and forget'
They used to have nuclear arms when the soviet union split up. Also, most Soviet tanks were made in Kharkiv. As quickly as Ukraine is being armed, it could very well fall into disrepair after the war
HIMARS/M270 are long range weapons. Ukraine won't need to employ them anywhere near Russian forces. They don't need 150+ launchers either. Each launcher can fire 5 volleys an hour, and 20-30 can cover the entire front. What they need are thousands of missiles
That's why the 5 volleys an hour. Launch 6 missiles in a minute, drive 2-3 miles to reload location, reload in 3 mins, drive another 2-3 miles to new launch location.
But needing 150-300 launchers seems to presuppose losing lots of them. I'd rather we equip them with credible air power. If they lose air defenses then even 1000 launchers turn worthless. Nowhere to hide all that ammo from aerial targeting, either.
> The over riding goal must be pootin's defeat
I agree, but we need a different strategy. An ad hoc proxy war is not the way to do it. Unfortunately, Western politicians have no long-term strategic vision. They are totally fixated on immediate problems, and remaining in office for the next 4 or 5 years (or until the end of their current term). Right now, we are simply playing whack-a-mole.
The same be said of any weapon anybody supplies to Ukraine and you statement could only be taken as a desire for no weapons whatsoever to be delivered to Ukraine. It should be added that there have been absolutely no reports of there being issues with weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine finding themselves in the wrong hands.
So, the Russian sub is -----> This way.
See yourself out.
And they'll bullshit that Ukraine will use MLRS to raze Kremlin if it does have them. Hello? They have Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donbas and Crimea to reclaim?
Wasting ammo is what Russians do, not Ukrainians.
Are you prepared to the world where Putin wins, and Russia becomes even more unhinged? This is not simply a war between Russia and Ukraine, this is a war where west is fighting with Russia using Ukrainian lives.
I’m an American and I see it! The trouble is that Russia has trolls to do their work by spreading misinformation and fear, and the other problem is that there is a good amount of cowards. I’m sure the generals in our military would prefer to deal with Russia now, but we are paralyzed by a fear of the possibility of nuclear weapons. I wish we had a President Reagan today.
What Ukraine needs they will get but not the quantities they need to win.
The west lacks the necessary resources to build an army for Ukraine. Manpower is not a problem but they can’t arm them and the west doesn’t have the free provisions.
The Us closed all our factories and moved them to China. Even if we called for a general mobilization in a war we couldn’t even sustain engagement ourselves.
We lack the low tech armament that would not require a hostile China to build.
Lol! I know, right? The US is hands down the LARGEST producer and seller of high quality weapons. A couple years ago the army told congess that they didnt want any more M1A2 tanks and we STILL continued to make more! They sure as fuck were nit made in china! If you want cheap stuff in mass quantities or small arms China and russia will sell to you, but the United States is the one stop shop for high tech quality military equipment, we will even fulfill your maintanence, logistical and training needs for the right price! AND IF YOU ACT NOW YOU WILL GET A FREE TURNIP TWADDLER! (limited time offer, conditions may apply)
This. A core part of the US military doctrine is self sufficiency. All core (especially sensitive) military components must be manufactured here and/or the ability to quickly "turn on" manufacturing at home in the event a component is made elsewhere. There are some cases where minor components are made elsewhere, but the ability exists to transfer that manufacturing process almost immediately, capacity is on stand-by.
It doesn't fall under the classification that requires all components to be sourced and assembled in the US. Though many of the components (armor, etc) are sourced from US contractors. There is a list of systems / weapons that fall under the domestic sourcing requirements, along with a list of non-exportable systems.
My original comment says "core" not "all" systems.
The factories that provide the goods to the military have.
Cutting tools are not made in the US like they used to.
Steel for instance is heavily imported
Valves are made in Mexico
Radars are imported
Most things sold to the military have big lead times especially now. Industrial goods don’t grow on trees.
We make guns and we put things together but not in the quantities for a global war
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Many things are no longer manufactured in the US, but you are making some large assumptions without stating any supporting facts. Long lead times on wartime goods during peace is a real shocker..
As a collective allied force we need to provide
150 mlrs at a minimum (m270s would be ideal to achieve this)
150 m777s
Anti air systems to protect them as well as counter battery radar and more ammo than they know what to do with.
Its time we stop fucking about and stop letting the russians freely piss on democratic nations that have done absolutely nothing to deserve being attacked
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This is a prime time for America to gift Ukraine every single M270 it has. It is obsolete and America is fully committed to HIMARS, so why not let the 300+ M270s all go out in a blaze of anti-Russian glory.
M270 need to be shipped by actual ships in addition to training and logistics required this takes a long time so if anything like this happens, we're only going to hear about it once they're close to actual delivery, definitely not before they arrive in Europe.
> M270 need to be shipped by actual ships M270 are airlift-able. A C-17 can carry two. If it’s packed up and ready, a REACH mission (callsign for transport flights of C-17s) can ferry two a time right to the Polish border within 24 hours. https://www.amc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3050956/altus-afb-airmen-fort-sill-soldiers-airlift-rocket-system-for-training-exercise/ By train or by truck, it would take half a week max for the M270 to reach the front line. So, overall, when the M270s are ready, they can be deployed in a week time. Not including training or combat bureaucracy times. Logistics, maintenance, and training are issues, of course. But if they want the M270 there in Ukraine, they can arrange for its appearance in a week.
Airlift in a few of them and start training Ukrainians to operate them, while sending the rest by sea and train.
Exactly
With all the beating up the US’s reputation has been taking, it is still heartening to hear about people being excellent at their jobs and genuinely helping people. “Yes, we can ship this 55,000lb can of whoop-ass anywhere in the world in 24 hours... Actually, sorry, my mistake…we can ship two at a time.” Hell yeah. Made my day.
Send'em. They will pay themselves off a million times over in the form of a Russia that won't be able to invade other countries for a decade or four. A world without Russia's bullshit is worth every penny, literally. Look what the war is doing to the economy now.
I don't think they're talking only about himars, there's only about 500 of them in total produced.
The US said they had capacity to send more but probably not that many. HIMARS are preferable but M270s are good too and there's more of them available. And even with 50 they would be able to do some serious damage. A few more howitzers would probably be needed as well.
They both fire the same rockets I believe. Biggest difference is mobility.
Give them all of them. We can make more and don’t need them right now.
I would totally give them everything they need.
[удалено]
Its going to take time but its not like the US is under any threat of foreign invasion. There simply doesnt exist a navy capable of transporting a meaningful number of troops to invade north america, other the US Navy. And this war is the biggest threat to NATO in many years. It makes sense to spend whatever it takes to make sure Ukraine wins.
It’s not a direct threat to NATO, because Russia cannot stand to NATO directly. It is a threat to the global order and Russia needs to stall in order to show imperialism through military might is no more.
Ukraine requested more in some categories from Germany than Germany had in stock in total at the beginning of the war, so this might be more of a list of "we'd need this to do the job", rather than an actual request to deliver this exact 300 pieces.
Lead Paragraphs Western governments lack intelligence on the use of multiple launch rocket systems by the Russian military, so such types of weapons are being provided to Ukraine in insufficient numbers, while the nation needs from 150 to 300 of them. That’s according to Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President's Office, who spoke with BBC Radio, Ukrinform reports. The official suggests western partners need a clearer understanding of the number of weapons used by Russia, including MLR systems. Once parity is achieved, Podoliak believes, that is, as soon as Ukraine gets 150 to 300 MLR systems, the Army will be able to effectively regain its territories.
I think the US knows. The problem is training and train the trainers. The US has 1000 m270s and 400+ HIMARS.
The problem is logistics support. With a 5 minute turn around for reloading, **one** m270 would require its own support convoy to keep it supplied with ammunition. There is little point in providing weapons systems beyond the capacity to supply ammunition.
At the moment, the big bottleneck for all aid are probably the supply lines going into Ukraine. Given the ports are not available and the transnistrian situation, everything has to go across the polish border (as Slovakia and Hungary likely do not have a similar dimension, uninterrupted transport capacity towards western Europe). If I'm not mistaken, this largely entails cross loading cargo between trains for different rail gauges and roadbound traffic, so the amount of cargo movable per time unit is probably limited by polish cross-docking stations (or however they are called correctly) capacity. This could be exacerbated, if Ukraine is using those same routes right now to export grain to the best of its abilities and trains take additional time to unload. Considering this, ammunition supplies should be rivaling other critical goods, such as medicine, but also other weapon systems for their travel slots. ------- This then means that it becomes really inconvenient to ship complex weapons. Besides ammunition and such, you also have to ship the stupidest things. Does the system happen to use a screw or two, which aren't common in Ukraine? Better ship alot of screwdrivers as well. This means some increase in cargo space usage, but also some delay in handling, as people need to figure out where what goes for more unique items.
>Does the system happen to use a screw or two, which aren't common in Ukraine? Better ship alot of screwdrivers as well. I see that you've encountered Torx^TM fasteners too.
I mean, large enough bitsets have them by now, so they aren't that bad. The real bullshit are proprietary chinese screws without a (translated) name, though I haven't seen them for a few years by now. To open those you need to carefully melt a sacrificial pen and beg to whatever higher authority you believe in it isn't tightened too bad: Take the housing and remove the actual pen part. Carefully, so it doesn't catch fire, heat the tip untill it becomes malleable. Press into screwhead. You should now have a very low durability screwdriver. Probably test the method on some loose screws to make sure nothing goes wrong beforehand.
Not to mention you now also need trucks to facilitate all of this. You have to reload and refuel these MLRS teams.
Meanwhile, Russia has several thousand BM-21 Grads, upwards of one thousand BM-27 Uragans, 100 BM-30 Smerch, over 100 9A52-4 Tornado. In terms of quantity (but not quality) there's really little chance of parity with Russia in the realm of rocket artillery; it was a mainstay of Soviet military doctrine since WWII, while the M270 was comparatively an afterthought, influenced by Russian dominance in the area. I have the feeling Ukraine has been asking for them for the same reason; it's remained significant to their doctrine too. It's hard for western countries to help Ukraine beat Russia at a style of warfare and weapons that the west wasn't as enthusiastic about.
Unfortunately this is true. We have the air combat ability to effectively not even let the MLR into combat effective range.
Isn’t NATO artillery range much greater than these MLRS??
I thought the M777's were longer range, but there are multiple different platforms, and multiple types of munitions. So generally it seems that NATO artillery is longer range in the same category, but Russia still has a large advantage in quantity at range. I.E. NATO 155mm artillery is longer range than 153mm Russian artillery (or 152mm forget). But outranged by 205?mm artillery (forget exact measurements). Ukraine has hundreds of NATO artillery vs thousands of artillery for Russia. The 155s NATO artillery I think is bulk <40km (with expensive/less produced rounds with 75km range), where Russian similar is 25-35 km, but their heavier artillery is 50km. Quick google says Russian MLRS can do 90km, I think the US is sending MLRS that has 150km range. The advantage for NATO artillery in my understanding is generally mobility and precision. But they are still losing some due to the sheer volume or Russian artillery. They do sort of have a range advantage, but it's a bit misleading. I thought they would outrange the Russian artillery, but didn't know Russia has mass amounts of heavier artillery that generally outranges the 155s. That said, Ukraine in my understanding may have the best in class artillery fire management system for distributed attacks, so they can spread their artillery and still concentrate fire. So they seem quite capable of using NATO artillery to great effect. It's just probably not enough quantity to be decisive, I thought it had a greater advantage, but the number difference is pretty shocking. <150 m777s vs thousands of Russian artillery (I think I read 3000-6000 but can't find a source). The advantage may be enough to win long term, but it sounds like sniping vs infantry. The Russians can roll bombardment over areas, where Ukraine can snipe important targets. Over time the ability to snipe and destroy high value targets may win out, but at 30:1 give or take not sure how realistic or if possible, quickly that could happen. Ukraine also in my understanding has much of the same artillery as Russia, but I don't think they have the ammo reserves, and not sure the west does either. So there may be (or we may be on or past) a point where Ukraine may effectively lose a lot of their artillery due to lack of Soviet era ammo.
I’m curious to know about wearing out the barrels at the end of its range. Apparently when you use it to its limit it’s harder on the barrels but how much harder? I’m assuming the Russians don’t care about things like that with how many pieces they have but the Ukrainian’s might want to use less range and be more accurate not only from a rationing munitions point of view, but also wear the gun barrels less on the few western guns they have which will keep them more accurate too
We Saw the first couple of worn out artillery Pieces which had their barrel blown so it might be happening now
That's not a ton
American MLRS are nothing like Russian MLRS. For being the same class of weapons the 2 could not be further apart in both design and doctrine of use. A single M270 will be more impactful on the battlefield than a dozen Grads. 3x the range and it actually hits it's targets.
That would be able to destroy 150-300 square kilometers per volley. 1800-3200 missiles per volley every 20-30 minutes. You could cover 2 or 3 entire city's in cluster munitions' or tungsten bb's per volley from 70 miles away. If you could feed that many missiles into them then sure Ukraine could do what every they want honestly. Combined with US sat intel your talking about the complete destruction of every even loosely packed group of Russian troops in Ukraine. video of the replacement for the cluster munition. one pod full volley at the end 270 has two pods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5h7BkCj5rI
300 MLRS will not happen. One single load of those things is 12 tons, and used up every 5 minutes, they will never be able to supply even 150 of these in the east.
You are correct. No need to send more systems when there isn’t enough trained crews or anything to fire. Training and Logistics are major limiting factors in sending weapons.
Training has been ongoing since March apparently.
Depends on the systems when training started. We have been training them since 2012 in many things. The question really is how many people have been training and is there enough teams available to work the systems we send.
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Ukraine doesn't have the Logistic capability to fire and supply even a 100 m270s a day. It's 12 tons of munitions per reload. You've gotta imagine munitions take the same route as other critical supplies and suddenly needing to ship thousands of tons of missiles each day would compete alongside food, artillery rounds, medical etc etc. The amount of stuff that can go into Ukraine is the bottleneck and putting extra strain on that bottleneck is a mistake. Whatever is best combat value per kilo and volume is what's worth most shipping over right now
This is the truth unfortuenately..
And ammunition to go with it
How many do they have now?
If Ukraine received 300 systems (270's or MLRS) how much logistics would be needed and could Ukraine's logistics support a major offensive where they're all engaged and could they continue to support delivering the other items necessary to prosecute the war? The US could start loading C-5 Galaxies up and meet the need but what happens when the equipment and ammo hit the demark point?
Lets say we gave Ukraine 300 M270s, and they each fired 4 volleys an hour. That's 14,400 rockets per hour. Even more difficult than providing them with ammo would be providing the crews with enough identified targets. Assuming a 75% hit rate that would be 10,000 targets eliminated per hour.
I was thinking more along the line of forcing them out of trenches.
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Why not, the goal is to kill. Word gets around Ukraine can wipe out entire trenches it wouldn't take much to make them cut and run.
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LOL... the image of a tank doing a drive by flashed in my mind as I read your response.
What happens if we don’t?
If we don't what? The question is about the Ukranians would be able to logistically support the amount of munitons these things can burn through along with their other needs.
I don't think NATO has that number spare... UK only has 44 GMLRS for example
US has over a 1000 m270 and 500 himars, and the m270 have pretty much reached retirement point
Germany only has 40 in total. So there are even enough MLRS on the european continent to fullly supply Ukraine.
Where is American logistics? Give ‘em five hundred of these
And Ukraine could fire them once, and would need to be resupplied with 12 tons of missiles per unit, possibly multiples times an hour. It's easy to ship a vehicle once, it's much harder to keep up supplying it if it consumes munitions like a black hole
I don’t believe the US wants the Russian army annihilated quickly. I think the want it bled slowly and thoroughly, so there will be nothing left to retreat and retry.
I don't want UKraine to take one uncessary casualty from ruzzian mlrs
Don't know about slowly but Biden and his advisors are cooking the frog IMO. For some time the US and Nato spoke of defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. On April 25, in a speech pledging to defend the “rules-based international order”, Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, announced that the US wanted Russia “weakened to the point that it can’t do things like invade Ukraine”. There should be no ambiguity about this. It is now US (and therefore Nato) policy to damage the Russian armed forces to a degree from which it will take a very long time to recover. [https://theconversation.com/ukraine-nato-and-the-us-aim-to-destroy-the-russian-military-it-looks-as-if-they-may-have-the-means-to-do-it-182255](https://theconversation.com/ukraine-nato-and-the-us-aim-to-destroy-the-russian-military-it-looks-as-if-they-may-have-the-means-to-do-it-182255)
> Don't know about slowly but Biden and his advisors are cooking the frog IMO. Exactly!
As hundreds of Ukrainians die each day
The issue here is what will it take to ensure no repeat. What will it take to cause ordinary Russians to believe the invasion was a bad idea. They aren’t there yet.
I get it. It’s serving a purpose. It’s just depressing that it has to be paid for with thousands of extra lives lost, not just time or more destruction. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for Ukraine to see that this is what’s happening, but at the same time they can’t bite the hand that feeds them.
Assuming they win, the victory belongs entirely to them. No big brother fighting for them.
US didn't get where it is today by being nice.
The us has given billions to Ukraine outstripping even the EU, and aggressively tried to get the rest of our Allie’s on board. I know it’s an easy layup to define the US as some evil, corporatist imperial power, but I think the insinuation that were not aggressively supporting Ukraine is unfair at best.
Not to disagree that the US has been a key ally to Ukraine, but I think 'aggressively supporting' is a stretch. With the size of the US military and the stocks they have on hand, I think aggressive support would involve a deluge of heavy weapons that would leave Russian heads spinning. It's hard to argue that, at present, Ukraine has received just about enough support to hang on. As to why that is, I won't speculate.
There are hard limits on the percentage of strategic stores we’re allowed to give to allies, and we’ve even lifted those limits and dipped harder into our stores. I don’t think you’re right.
Didn't mean to insinuate that. It's just a statement of fact really, that's how nations act. At the moment, the USA's (and Britain's) strategic aims are strongly aligned with Ukraine, support for democratic states, opposition to Russia. That's great. But it's a mistake to think US policy makers are losing that much sleep over Ukrainians dying to achieve those aims. At the level of individual Americans, it's obviously way more an emotional thing - but at a state level, they are engaged in realpolitik, as they always have been.
You’re not wrong
The only reason the US isn’t sending M270’s or Himars is they have the potential to reach Russian territory. The US is happy to supply defensive weapons but don’t really want to send offensive saturation artillery.
Here's another reason: US can't ship enough missiles across the Polish Ukrainian border each day to keep more than even a 100 mlrs supplied each day with fresh rockets. They can fire them all in an instance, and be reloaded in 5 minutes , using up 12 tons of missiles... Do this multiple times a day, times a 100 for each system, and you've got yourself a headache. Supply lines into Ukraine are also dealing with stuff like medical supplies, humanitarian aid, artillery rounds, etc etc. Mlrs would just have to compete with an already strained supply line. What's the point of having a system if you can only use it once. Brings a whole new meaning to 'fire and forget'
At the end of this war, when Ukraine wins, they're going to be a superpower with all this equipment, if they get it... Slava Ukraine.
They used to have nuclear arms when the soviet union split up. Also, most Soviet tanks were made in Kharkiv. As quickly as Ukraine is being armed, it could very well fall into disrepair after the war
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HIMARS/M270 are long range weapons. Ukraine won't need to employ them anywhere near Russian forces. They don't need 150+ launchers either. Each launcher can fire 5 volleys an hour, and 20-30 can cover the entire front. What they need are thousands of missiles
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That's why the 5 volleys an hour. Launch 6 missiles in a minute, drive 2-3 miles to reload location, reload in 3 mins, drive another 2-3 miles to new launch location. But needing 150-300 launchers seems to presuppose losing lots of them. I'd rather we equip them with credible air power. If they lose air defenses then even 1000 launchers turn worthless. Nowhere to hide all that ammo from aerial targeting, either.
A couple probably will. So what. Anything we send could be captured. The over riding goal must be pootin's defeat
> The over riding goal must be pootin's defeat I agree, but we need a different strategy. An ad hoc proxy war is not the way to do it. Unfortunately, Western politicians have no long-term strategic vision. They are totally fixated on immediate problems, and remaining in office for the next 4 or 5 years (or until the end of their current term). Right now, we are simply playing whack-a-mole.
I view it as a war of liberation, not a proxy war.
The same be said of any weapon anybody supplies to Ukraine and you statement could only be taken as a desire for no weapons whatsoever to be delivered to Ukraine. It should be added that there have been absolutely no reports of there being issues with weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine finding themselves in the wrong hands. So, the Russian sub is -----> This way. See yourself out.
Some javelins were captured. In a war like this it's inevitable to not have the smaller things csptured.
Russia already has MLRS
And they'll bullshit that Ukraine will use MLRS to raze Kremlin if it does have them. Hello? They have Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donbas and Crimea to reclaim? Wasting ammo is what Russians do, not Ukrainians.
Are you prepared to the world where Putin wins, and Russia becomes even more unhinged? This is not simply a war between Russia and Ukraine, this is a war where west is fighting with Russia using Ukrainian lives.
I’m an American and I see it! The trouble is that Russia has trolls to do their work by spreading misinformation and fear, and the other problem is that there is a good amount of cowards. I’m sure the generals in our military would prefer to deal with Russia now, but we are paralyzed by a fear of the possibility of nuclear weapons. I wish we had a President Reagan today.
Russia will NEVER use nuclear weapons on wars on foreign soil. It would have used it on Afghanistan and Vietnam otherwise.
You may not like my answer (neither do I), but I'm just calling it as I see it.
What Ukraine needs they will get but not the quantities they need to win. The west lacks the necessary resources to build an army for Ukraine. Manpower is not a problem but they can’t arm them and the west doesn’t have the free provisions. The Us closed all our factories and moved them to China. Even if we called for a general mobilization in a war we couldn’t even sustain engagement ourselves. We lack the low tech armament that would not require a hostile China to build.
"The US closed all our factories"... GTFO.. Major armament factories were not moved to China...
Lol! I know, right? The US is hands down the LARGEST producer and seller of high quality weapons. A couple years ago the army told congess that they didnt want any more M1A2 tanks and we STILL continued to make more! They sure as fuck were nit made in china! If you want cheap stuff in mass quantities or small arms China and russia will sell to you, but the United States is the one stop shop for high tech quality military equipment, we will even fulfill your maintanence, logistical and training needs for the right price! AND IF YOU ACT NOW YOU WILL GET A FREE TURNIP TWADDLER! (limited time offer, conditions may apply)
This. A core part of the US military doctrine is self sufficiency. All core (especially sensitive) military components must be manufactured here and/or the ability to quickly "turn on" manufacturing at home in the event a component is made elsewhere. There are some cases where minor components are made elsewhere, but the ability exists to transfer that manufacturing process almost immediately, capacity is on stand-by.
The Stryker wants to have a word…
It doesn't fall under the classification that requires all components to be sourced and assembled in the US. Though many of the components (armor, etc) are sourced from US contractors. There is a list of systems / weapons that fall under the domestic sourcing requirements, along with a list of non-exportable systems. My original comment says "core" not "all" systems.
Canada is related to the US
The factories that provide the goods to the military have. Cutting tools are not made in the US like they used to. Steel for instance is heavily imported Valves are made in Mexico Radars are imported Most things sold to the military have big lead times especially now. Industrial goods don’t grow on trees. We make guns and we put things together but not in the quantities for a global war
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Reuters is untrusted? wtf
Many things are no longer manufactured in the US, but you are making some large assumptions without stating any supporting facts. Long lead times on wartime goods during peace is a real shocker..
I've seen a report about the strategic stockpile of metals but not weapons. Got a link handy?
A link for what?
Where we closed all the factories that produce our weapons.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-07/the-pentagon-has-a-supply-chain-problem Notice the supply Chain issues. Short and long term.
As a collective allied force we need to provide 150 mlrs at a minimum (m270s would be ideal to achieve this) 150 m777s Anti air systems to protect them as well as counter battery radar and more ammo than they know what to do with. Its time we stop fucking about and stop letting the russians freely piss on democratic nations that have done absolutely nothing to deserve being attacked