https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-ammunition-ukraine/

    • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 months ago

      I'm sure the Pentagon will investigate those claims of price gouging any day now

      Not like generals love to retire from the military to work as high paid analysts for these firms

  • Barx [none/use name]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Neoliberal finalized parasitization of productive capital? In my MIC?

    It's more likely than you think.

    • meepster23@lemm.ee
      ·
      3 months ago

      Are we getting worse results though? How are you determining that? Russia has always gone for the volume strategy in basically everything. It's basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder until it clogs using cheap, mass produced crap.

      The US has gone for high tech and precision. Costs much more, much lower production, but generally better results.

      Also Russia is in a "hot" war with Ukraine and of course will be well into mass producing shells to use etc. Seeing as the US is barely passing measures to send aid to Ukraine, there isn't going to be an appetite to ramp up that production.

      Look to world war 2 for an example of how the US can go from no real military might to okay you touched our fucking boats, now we end you.

      • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        but generally better results

        Not only has the US not won a war since the 1950s, literally every nation that relies on high tech low production has fucking failed at warfare

        It's war. Things will break and get destroyed. There are no invincible Wunderwaffen. It is always better to have five tanks that are 80% effective but easily replaced and repaired over one single tank that's 100% effective but requires millions to build one single tank

        It's a lesson taught over and over again

        basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder

        This is literally Nazi WW2 propaganda that still gets repeated as fact. I'm sure you still believe that the Soviets only armed half their troops at Stalingrad

        • meepster23@lemm.ee
          ·
          3 months ago

          So why hasn't Russia taken over Ukraine?

          And why are you bringing Stalingrad into this? You are literally saying it's a good thing that Russia is producing more arms etc and then saying Russia doesn't tend to operate by trying to use overwhelming numbers? Huh?

          • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            3 months ago

            So why hasn't Russia taken over Ukraine?

            That isn't their military goal, I know that planning military is beyond most American minds, but sometimes war aims aren't "take everything"

            And why are you bringing Stalingrad into this?

            Because you're the one who began by spouting the "human waves" Nazi myth that began in Stalingrad

            I know that it's really difficult for you Lemmitors to have a thought going, but I've heard that if you rub two braincells together you'd be surprised at the results. Don't strain yourself though

              • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
                ·
                edit-2
                3 months ago

                I could lay it out in exacting detail but something tells me you would just continue to post Reddit tier gotchas like in the rest of the thread

                So instead I'm going to make it as simple as possible for your Reddit brain to understand:

                Annexing three Black Sea provinces =|= capturing the entirety of a country

          • heggs_bayer [none/use name]
            ·
            3 months ago

            So why hasn't Russia taken over Ukraine?

            Because that isn't their goal despite what the NATO disinformation mills would have you think.

            You are literally saying it's a good thing that Russia is producing more arms etc and then saying Russia doesn't tend to operate by trying to use overwhelming numbers? Huh?

            Bombs aren't people. You can pummel an enemy with a metric shitfuckton of shells without sending in human waves.

              • heggs_bayer [none/use name]
                ·
                3 months ago

                So what is their goal?

                Demilitarize Ukkkraine, which is being puppeteered by the world's largest rogue state and exporter of terrorism: the United SSnakes of AmeriKKKA.

                They have already annexed new chunks of Ukraine.

                idgaf

                They tried to push into Kyiv.

                To force Ukkkraine to negotiate for peace after the Banderite entity broke both minsk accords and the Great Satan broke the Budapest Memorandum. A process that was underway until Boris Johnson twisted their arm to make them keep sending people into the meat grinder

                Why should anyone believe anything they are saying when they've so consistently demonstrated that they can't be trusted?

                Because they have consistently shown they can be trusted, unlike the conniving Nazi Arming and Training Organization.

                Are you still pretending this is a "special military operation" that is for peace keeping lol

                yes-chad

                So why is Russia sending in hundreds of thousands of troops?

                Source or stfu.

          • RedDawn [he/him]
            ·
            3 months ago

            Russia’a goal is destroying Ukraines military which they’re doing extremely effectively. They’re not racing to grab land lol

          • Staines [they/them]
            ·
            3 months ago

            Where does this overwhelming numbers thing come from?

            Remember when the war started and all the newsmedia was making a big deal out of Russia invading with 150,000 soldiers? Meanwhile, Ukraine had triple that.

            You ever think your world view might be a little... curated?

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            ·
            3 months ago

            Because taking total control over Ukraine was never part of their war objectives?

      • Smeagolicious [they/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        Russia has always gone for the volume strategy in basically everything. It's basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder until it clogs using cheap, mass produced crap.

        soypoint-1 THEY SAID THE LINE! MUH ASIATIC HORDES! soypoint-2

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        3 months ago

        remind me, where has Ukraine been getting its weapons? why haven't they swept the nasty russians out of Donbass and Crimea with oh so superior NATO equipment?

        • meepster23@lemm.ee
          ·
          3 months ago

          Mostly old Soviet stock piles and some western weapons. You don't actually believe that the entire Ukrainian army is being supplied by NATO do you?

          • Dolores [love/loves]
            ·
            3 months ago

            you aren't getting off that easy. you said western equipment offers a distinct advantage by being higher quality than russian. Ukraine has NATO arms, they still count if Ukraine is using kalahnikovs, so direct me to the successes of the Ukrainian military that can be attributed to the sublime quality of yankee equipment

            • meepster23@lemm.ee
              ·
              3 months ago

              I mean the fact that they are still standing is a pretty solid endorsement. By your logic Kyiv should have fallen in the first week like Russia was claiming it would.

              Specific example off the top of my head is the cruise missile strikes against the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet using Storm Shadows I believe iirc

              • Dolores [love/loves]
                ·
                3 months ago

                "by my logic" i didn't say ukraine would have crumbled without NATO arms. i'm questioning how superior and helpful NATO arms are, remember?

                but if the only thing it's helped with has been striking Russia's fleet in a war being fought on land in the east, lmao that seems very consequential

                • meepster23@lemm.ee
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Okay let me ask you why you think Ukraine has held on this long then? What do you think is the reason? According to this article and statements being made they are out numbered, out produced in arms, why are they still here?

                  • PeeOnYou [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    because NATO, read the US and UK won't let them negotiate a peace deal, so they keep hauling men off the streets and throwing them to the front line meat grinder

                    eventually they will have to negotiate

                  • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    Because Russia isn't seeking to destroy Ukraine.

                    Those are US and NATO military objectives intended to prevent populations from industrializing so they remain dependent on your productive capacity and exchange their natural resources to obtain goods you produce.

                    Russia doesn't want that. Russia wants to neutralize a security threat on its border.

                    Blitzkrieg / shock and awe tactics don't work if you intend to govern its victims. Soviet military doctrine was more oriented towards drawn out siege warfare letting your factories wear down your enemies. Russia seems to be employing that doctrine here too.

                    This war was never going to be a short affair, even if the Atlantic printed stories saying so.

      • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        Are we getting worse results though?

        NATO is spending 15 times more money to produce fewer munitions than Russia, and those munitions are not fifteen times as effective. Ukraine has not been able to make any significant changes in their frontline because they can only fire a fraction of the shells that Russia can and the imbalance is tipping further into Russia's direction.

        Precision is important, but ultimately having cheap unreliable ammunition is better than having no ammunition.

        It's basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder until it clogs using cheap, mass produced crap.

        Every modern war between peers has been a test of one sides productive ability against the other's. The US won WWII, and forced a stalemate in Korea because it had enormously more industrial power, and could afford to spend equipment instead of lives.

        • meepster23@lemm.ee
          ·
          3 months ago

          those munitions are not fifteen times as effective

          By what metric are you basing this off of? What's your evidence? The f35 is an over priced money pit, but it will dry hump every other jet in existence into the ground before they even know they are there.

          https://lexingtoninstitute.org/the-f-35-is-the-safest-and-most-capable-fighter-the-u-s-military-has/#:~:text=In%20recent%20Red%20Flag%20aerial,improved%20their%20scores%20as%20well.

          Of course it's gonna be difficult or impossible to say how it would fair head to head against Russian fighters, but again, if Russia has these, why aren't they in use and how is Ukraine giving them such trouble?

          Precision is important, but ultimately having cheap unreliable ammunition is better than having no ammunition.

          I mean, duh? But that's not the argument, the argument is over is cheap unreliable ammo in bulk better than expensive reliable ammo in smaller quantities.

          Small arms advantage guess to bulk as failures aren't catastrophic and the whole accuracy by volume thing is real.

          Missiles, artillery etc? I'd say the advantage is probably soundly in the higher tech end because it makes it exponentially more effective.

          Ukraine has been holding off Russia for how long now with leftover scraps from Western countries?

          • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            3 months ago

            but it will dry hump every other jet in existence into the ground before they even know they are there.

            According to what, the fever dreams of some MIC thinktank writer? It's never seen combat against a peer force. Acting as if it's some god-like wunderwaffen when it's been nothing but a MIC grift for decades is the purest of copium, especially as we're seeing other Western wunderwaffen get absolutely spanked in Ukraine right now - even the so called invincible M1 Abrams and Challengers are getting wrecked at alarming rates

            Remember that the F-117 was considered the best stealth fighter around, a revolutionary new plane that would change warfare, invisible and unstoppable - and then it got shot down by an out of date export variant AA missile in Serbia who watched the thing on radar the whole time

          • blame [they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            But that's not the argument, the argument is over is cheap unreliable ammo in bulk better than expensive reliable ammo in smaller quantities.

            Is the NATO stuff more reliable or just more expensive and rare? I think the reliability argument is just cope. There are articles kicking around about ukrainians complaining that the abrams tanks are not reliable because they need frequent maintenance. There's this article talking about vehicles Canada donated being bad at offroading. I would like to see evidence that the assertion that NATO stuff is more reliable is actually true.

          • miz [any, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            it will dry hump every other jet in existence into the ground before they even know they are there

            teenager who still reads Air Force ROTC Quarterly back issues his older brother left when he went to college

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            ·
            3 months ago

            The f35 is an over priced money pit, but it will dry hump every other jet in existence into the ground before they even know they are there.

            Which capability has never been needed in teh forty years since the design of the plane began.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            The f35 is an over priced money pit, but it will dry hump every other jet in existence into the ground before they even know they are there.

            Barring any wild and outlandish contingencies such as rain

      • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
        ·
        3 months ago

        The US has gone for high tech and precision. Costs much more, much lower production, but generally better results.

        Yea, German engineering works wonders.

      • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]
        ·
        3 months ago

        Are we getting worse results though?

        if you spend 100x on ammo and that ammo is jammed, kind of.

        the f35 might have some "neat" features but IDK if it's really worth it's cost vs "just build more eagles/raptors/drones with minor updates".

        Russia has always gone for the volume strategy in basically everything.

        Sometimes you really do just gotta build more simple tanks instead of building tanks that use double gas just so they can do combat cartwheels or w/e.

        It's basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder until it clogs using cheap, mass produced crap.

        that's pretty racist (against me, specifically)

        Look to world war 2 for an example of how the US can go from no real military might to okay you touched our fucking boats, now we end you.

        as much as I still believe a new ramp up is plausible, I'm mostly curious if the supply chain, political will, and political competency is going to be there.

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Cope

        Look to world war 2 for an example of how the US can go from no real military might to okay you touched our fucking boats, now we end you.

        You don’t need to look that far back. Osama touched our towers and the US plunged several countries into abject destitution, slavery, and perpetual terrorism. mission-accomplished-1mission-accomplished-2

      • BeamBrain [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Russia has always gone for the volume strategy in basically everything. It's basically the zap brannigan special of throwing meat into the grinder until it clogs using cheap, mass produced crap.

        You are literally repeating OG Nazi propaganda

        Costs much more, much lower production, but generally better results.

        Google Lanchester's laws

  • vertexarray [any]
    ·
    3 months ago

    However, the most disturbing aspect of just how poorly the U.S. Army and Congress maintained our artillery shell supply chain was revealed by an internal U.S. Army document from 2021 detailing “foreign dependencies” on at least a dozen chemicals critical to manufacturing artillery shells that sourced from China and India

    I wonder if some folks in China pondered whether they should be selling artillery materials to the americans and made th call that they'd never get within range of Chinese units.

    You'd've thought that a Military-Industrial Complex would at least be good at doing the things that are in its name. Fancy that!

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      Preventing your enemy from developing their own supply chains by letting them use yours could actually be a workable strategy.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Making it irresistible to use yours, even. Reminds me of those mycelium that allow trees to share resources, but can also cut them off: the fungi giveth the nutrients of life, but the fungi can taketh away.

      • featured [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        3 months ago

        This is what the US and UN do with food aid. To paraphrase Sankara, real food aid isn’t grain and millet, it’s tractors and fertilizer. Just in China’s case they’re sabotaging empire, and in the former it’s in service of it

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          3 months ago

          A good chunk of famines happen because of the us dumping corn on local markets until local food ag collapses, then losing interest when the price of corn changes.

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      "Hm, could selling artillery components to america present a danger further down the line?"

      Looks over at comically large pile of DF-21 hypersonic missiles

      "Haha, nevermind. Forgot."

  • SoyViking [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Pff! Tankie Putinist propaganda!

    Private enterprise and the profit motive ensures the optimal distribution of resources. It's basic economic science!

    When the war comes, those executive yachts and private jets are going to crush Russia.

  • lil_tank [any, he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    an existential war

    Noooo Putin is le crazy dictator who just loves war!!

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Love it when planet-despoiling, nazi-loving baby incinerators try and tell me who my existential enemy is

  • Flyberius [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 months ago

    I reached this conclusion ages ago from first principles. Libs are incredibly stupid people

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    3 months ago

    This is next level chutzpah.

    Going into 2022 there was little doubt that the U.S. Army no longer believed artillery to be as central to the battlefield as it once was. [...] The $100,000 M982 Excalibur 155 mm precision guided rounds that the U.S. had been providing to Ukraine [have] largely been rendered ineffective by Russian jamming.

    Tech really is a four letter word.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    ·
    3 months ago

    It’s interesting how in the US, a bunch of useless fratboys can parlay their measly capital into providing contracts to the government only to scam them, while in Russia a useless chef can parlay his capital into becoming Russia’s premier mercenary force.