Alongside artillery ammo, air defense is also at the top of Ukraine's needs.

UPDATES

That's a really bad strategy to rely on one populace halfway around the world to save you from a neighbor who is 3 times your population. The surrounding neighbors need to get on a wartime production economy if that is the case.

🚨💥 BREAKING: Explosion at BAE's 155mm artillery shell filling facility, Glascoed, in Wales!

This comes 2 days after there was a small fire at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania, which makes 155mm shell bodies.

BAE tells the Sun that there was an explosion at… pic.twitter.com/bAwgA1uWBK

— Colby Badhwar 🇨🇦🇬🇧 (@ColbyBadhwar) April 17, 2024

Probably just a coincidence from ramping up production with new shifts working, but who knows. I assume their load lines are built like ours with every station pretty much isolated from others with blast and fire protection. So other than safety standdown/root cause and retraining if necessary, this shouldn't slow down production too much.

Yeah there was a small fire last week at the 155mm plant in, I believe, Scranton Pennsylvania too, but fires in plants that produce ammo are rarely significantly damaging, but also not rare, I suppose (molten steel/lead/explosives etc).

I doubt either fire has a big impact on production for the month, let alone year. The Russians have also had a number of fires/explosions at ammo plants over the past 2 years.

nortex97 said:

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Yeah there was a small fire last week at the 155mm plant in, I believe, Scranton Pennsylvania too, but fires in plants that produce ammo are rarely significantly damaging, but also not rare, I suppose (molten steel/lead/explosives etc).

I doubt either fire has a big impact on production for the month, let alone year. The Russians have also had a number of fires/explosions at ammo plants over the past 2 years.

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It was a forging plant. No ammo or explosives at the site.

74OA said:

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Ukraine aid will finally get a vote in the House.

PACKAGE

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Now that it appears to be done, what's the near term impacts? I'm assuming some items like shells and munitions are ready to deliver and just need funding to green light the logistics of moving them in theater?

Teslag said:

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74OA said:

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Ukraine aid will finally get a vote in the House.

PACKAGE

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Now that it appears to be done, what's the near term impacts? I'm assuming some items like shells and munitions are ready to deliver and just need funding to green light the logistics of moving them in theater?

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I'd imagine the initial tranches may well be already prepositioned in-theater.

MORE

MouthBQ98 said:

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That faraday/stealth cage plus latest jamming system will protect it from common FPV drones. As long as they keep it away from a conventional ATGM or a mine or drone spotted artillery, it may survive a while. It's better than what they were achieving before.

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White phosphorus dropped from a drone

74OA said:

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Teslag said:

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74OA said:

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Ukraine aid will finally get a vote in the House.

PACKAGE

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Now that it appears to be done, what's the near term impacts? I'm assuming some items like shells and munitions are ready to deliver and just need funding to green light the logistics of moving them in theater?

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I'd imagine the initial tranches may well be already prepositioned in-theater.

MORE

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From my experience, not quite, but things have moved quickly once approved in the past.

More on Ukrainian strikes against key Russian air defences, plus other notes from the front.

Today's SITREP.

ATACMS?.

On FIRMS can be seen that it is indeed the airport of Dzhankoy which is on fire. The Telegram channel “Crimean Wind” reports 6 large fires which could be ammunition scattered and burning across the entire area.

Dzhankoy is an important logistics hub for the Russian invasion. pic.twitter.com/yHHAWsk9Rp

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) April 17, 2024

/1. This night there was a missile attack on the Russian airbase in Dzhankoi, Crimea.
Russian media claims that 7-8 ballistic missiles were launched during the attack. pic.twitter.com/ztvWO109tp

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 17, 2024

Several S-400 launchers hit, ammo flaring off.

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Search and rescue operation is over at the site of Russian missile strikes in Chernihiv yesterday. 18 people killed, 78 wounded

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https://liveuamap.com/en/2024/18-april-search-and-rescue-operation-is-over-at-the-site

Wow. Looks like pigs really can occasionally fly.............

Can one of y'all who've been following this more closely than I have for the past several months answer the question I have when I hear about Russia being on a war footing going forward and drastically expanding its army?

Where are they going to get the bodies? Don't they have a declining demographic situation which has even exacerbated by all of the military age males they've lost in the conflict so far?

Intelligence estimates made public about three months ago stated there were 200-250k Russian casualties.

Those are mind boggling losses for modern Americans, but nothing that is going to pose a short-term recruiting impediment for a country with a manpower pool of about 24 million males age 17-44.

And at the beginning of the war there were a few stories of Russia bringing back close to 900k blue collar Ukes back, likely for blue collar jobs since they were taken from an industrial area. Add in prisoners and undesirables and Putin probably feels like he got an upgrade. The world won't be able to tell for 20-40 years on what actually happened

DTP02 said:

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Can one of y'all who've been following this more closely than I have for the past several months answer the question I have when I hear about Russia being on a war footing going forward and drastically expanding its army?

Where are they going to get the bodies? Don't they have a declining demographic situation which has even exacerbated by all of the military age males they've lost in the conflict so far?

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Russia has 140 million people in it currently, way more than Ukraine. 140 million people, demographics aside, is still a lot of people to draw from for military service.

The demographic problems you hear in regards to Russia, China, Japan, etc. take decades to manifest itself. Russia probably won't feel the economic sting of its demographics a very very long time. Also, the casualties in this war aren't crippling for either side, especially Russia. Russia may have lost more people than Ukraine, but again their population is so much bigger than Ukraine's that it doesn't matter strategically.

DTP02 said:

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Can one of y'all who've been following this more closely than I have for the past several months answer the question I have when I hear about Russia being on a war footing going forward and drastically expanding its army?

Where are they going to get the bodies? Don't they have a declining demographic situation which has even exacerbated by all of the military age males they've lost in the conflict so far?

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Zeihan said on his channel the other day that they've got like 8 million men of fighting age. That's still a lot of dudes. Not a good thing for them long term but they're not going to run out of bodies tomorrow.

Ukraine's total fertility rate is much lower than Russia's (or any nato country), with an outsize demographic problem (exacerbated by refugees fleeing the war-torn country) by any measure at all.

Quote:

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Countries with TFRs now near or below 1.3 are concentrated in East Asia and southern and eastern Europe. They include:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Spain and Thailand (TFRs of about 1.3);
• Ukraine, China, Malta, and Macau (1.2 to 1.1); and
• Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea (1.0 to 0.7).

Many other counties including the Western Hemisphere's Canada and Chile and Europe's Albania, Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia and Switzerland now have TFRs of around 1.4 or 1.5.

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This is a long term strategic challenge, indeed. Attritional warfare is gruesome and without doubt a terrible thing. I think the focus on maneuver warfare/tactics is 'normal' but sometimes short-sighted;

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The conduct of attritional wars is vastly different from wars of manoeuvre. They last longer and end up testing a country's industrial capacity. Victory is assured by careful planning, industrial base development and development of mobilisation infrastructure in times of peace, and even more careful management of resources in wartime.

Victory is attainable by carefully analysing one's own and the enemy's political objectives. The key is recognising the strengths and weaknesses of competing economic models and identifying the economic strategies that are most likely to generate maximum resources. These resources can then be utilised to build a massive army using the high/low force and weapons mixture. The military conduct of war is driven by overall political strategic objectives, military realities and economic limitations. Combat operations are shallow and focus on destroying enemy resources, not on gaining terrain. Propaganda is used to support military operations, not the other way around. With patience and careful planning, a war can be won.

Unfortunately, many in the West have a very cavalier attitude that future conflicts will be short and decisive. This is not true for the very reasons outlined above. Even middling global powers have both the geography and the population and industrial resources needed to conduct an attritional war. The thought that any major power would back down in the case of an initial military defeat is wishful thinking at its best. Any conflict between great powers would be viewed by adversary elites as existential and pursued with the full resources available to the state. The resulting war will become attritional and will favour the state which has the economy, doctrine and military structure that is better suited towards this form of conflict.

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Mordor is a real place with a real tower that can see over the horizon.

From the tweets (we'll see how accurate this is):

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The factory where the "Container" was produced is already practically closed, and the long-range radar development institute has ceased to exist. This radar was developed over a period of ~ 5 years, and it took ~ 10-15 years to put it into service. -- ZSU War News

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rgag12 said:

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DTP02 said:

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Can one of y'all who've been following this more closely than I have for the past several months answer the question I have when I hear about Russia being on a war footing going forward and drastically expanding its army?

Where are they going to get the bodies? Don't they have a declining demographic situation which has even exacerbated by all of the military age males they've lost in the conflict so far?

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Russia has 140 million people in it currently, way more than Ukraine. 140 million people, demographics aside, is still a lot of people to draw from for military service.

The demographic problems you hear in regards to Russia, China, Japan, etc. take decades to manifest itself. Russia probably won't feel the economic sting of its demographics a very very long time. Also, the casualties in this war aren't crippling for either side, especially Russia. Russia may have lost more people than Ukraine, but again their population is so much bigger than Ukraine's that it doesn't matter strategically.

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Russia's demographics are not going to limit their ability to throw bodies at bullets in Ukraine. But they already had a bad demographic crisis starting to affect their economy, and losing hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men to the war and causing a million or more to flee the country to avoid being conscripted is just going to speed that up. Add to that they have a terrible life expectancy, a very unhealthy population with inadequate health care to deal with it, and that they are pulling conscripts for the war from areas that are heavy into agriculture or industrial production and you are playing jenga with the base of their economy.

Nobody is saying it will affect them enough to change the trajectory of the war in the next year or three, but the damage they are doing to their demographics is absolutely going to accelerate the hard times coming for their economy. They are pulling resources away from production in ways that are just starting to be felt now, but that will heavily impact their economy and every day life in the near future.

That war time footing for their economy may result in short term growth that is being touted by Putin as a basis to claim the sanctions aren't hurting them, but it is an economic mirage that will absolutely exact a long term price if they try to maintain it long term.

GAC06 said:

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People make way too much out of "running out" of bodies. It certainly doesn't help their demographic problems or economy (especially with the brain drain), but they didn't run out of bodies in WWII. They're not even scratching the surface of that scale of casualties.

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Wasn't there an analyst that said Russia would have to lose 1 Million+ men before they altered course or something to that effect? He cited examples from history showing their losses in conflicts and their willingness to accept what we would consider catastrophic casualties.

bonfarr said:

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GAC06 said:

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People make way too much out of "running out" of bodies. It certainly doesn't help their demographic problems or economy (especially with the brain drain), but they didn't run out of bodies in WWII. They're not even scratching the surface of that scale of casualties.

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Wasn't there an analyst that said Russia would have to lose 1 Million+ men before they altered course or something to that effect? He cited examples from history showing their losses in conflicts and their willingness to accept what we would consider catastrophic casualties.

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A lot can depend on who is lost. Russia tends to throw their "expendables" into the grinder first.

The problem is that Russia lost their experienced military personnel. You can zerg thousands of untrained bodies, but that will never make up for better trained soldiers.

Ongoing large Russian missile attack right now. Reports coming in on LiveUAMap.

Waffledynamics said:

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Ongoing large Russian missile attack right now. Reports coming in on LiveUAMap.

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One of the TU-22Ms looks to have gone down. These are critical to Russia's more advanced missiles such as the Khinzal family. If the Ukes downed it, it would be the first one they would have downed in combat (a couple have been destroyed in ground/precision attack actions)

During tonight’s Missile Attack against Ukraine, a Tu-22M3 “Backfire” Strategic Bomber with the Russian Aerospace Forces reportedly Crashed in the Stavropol Krai Region of Southwestern Russia following a Technical Malfunction; Russian Sources are claiming that both of the Pilots… pic.twitter.com/vCkz6GoDmY

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 19, 2024

ETA: Was thinking Stavropol Krai was much closer to Ukraine. If it went down there, it was not due to any known Uke AA. Way too far so technical issues makes sense. Especially for 50 year old airframes with Russian style maintenance and upkeep.

Kyiv Post report:

"On Friday, April 19, the Ukrainian Forces shot down a Russian long-range strategic bomber, the TU-22M3 (NATO: Backfire), for the first time. Kyiv Post sources confirm that it was an operation planned and executed by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR).

The source said that an S-200 air defense system had been used to shoot down the Russian plane at about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine.

According to the HUR, it used the same type of missile to bring down the Tu-22M3 aircraft, as they had to previously bring down a Russian A-50 long-range radar and control aircraft. Despite the damage received, the bomber attempted to return to its base before crashing in the Stavropol area.

"It should be noted that this is the first successful destruction of a strategic bomber in the air during a combat mission during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine", the HUR said."

185 miles into Russia