Frankly any army will constantly complain about being short on their best weapons to drive up production. AFAIK the fpv drones are the only thing they have really going for them.
The FPV drones are nothing more than the latest wunderwaffe narrative in the west. The reality is that artillery is still by far the biggest source of casualties, and Russia outguns Ukraine by a huge amount. However, even when it comes to drones, Russia is producing them on an industrial scale now, while Ukraine is making them artisanally in small workshops.
You’re completely missing my point. The FPV drones are Ukraine’s best weapon. And they need more of it because the west won’t provide them with the artillery they need. So these drones are their best bet.
Also the FPV drones Ukraine is actually making aren’t wunderwaffes. They’re made as cheaply as possible in people’s kitchens as volunteer efforts. Just look at the pictures from the article you can can see they aren’t gold plated bullshit like the predator.
Drones are not a replacement for artillery, and they aren’t going to be the decisive factor in who wins the war. If they were, then Russia would still win, because Russia is producing them industrially.
They’re made as cheaply as possible in people’s kitchens as volunteer efforts.
This is precisely what I was referring to when I was talking about the artisanal mode of production in Ukraine.
Drones are not a replacement for artillery, and they aren’t going to be the decisive factor in who wins the war
@ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net is entirely correct though.
Ukraine’s logistics pipeline for artillery has collapsed because Biden decided to play trade war. US was the only real supplier, and now US itself cannot rearm because of China’s dual use controls that happened in response to CHIPS. Europe can’t rearm them either because they did not have capacity and now China has stepped up rare earths export controls so they’re hitting foreign car markets.
This has been a complete US failure because the US decided to spread itself too thin on multiple fronts trying to reassert unipolarity. The artillery situation is effectively starving the Ukrainian army. So like @ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net said drones are their best bet. Of course drones can’t replace artillery because even if Ukraine could have industrial production of drones, or if the Democrats spawned a loot crate for them, they’re more expensive unit for unit, it’s a losing logistical strategy to begin with. Beyond that procuring artillery in NATO countries or for NATO aligned countries is a fever dream dream right now. No artillery essentially exists for them to have. It’s not an option.
The reason Russia has artillery is because it transitioned to a war economy and it’s a net antimony exporter now.
The trade war isn’t the key reason the US can’t keep up with Russia, the real problem is that the west lacks the industrial base to produce weapons and ammunition at the rate they’re consumed. There’s absolutely nothing special about drones here. Russia now has the advantage in drones for the exact same reason it has advantage in artillery and all other weapons. It can produce them at industrial scale.
Meanwhile, it’s pure nonsense to claim that Russia has transitioned to any sort of a war economy. Military spending in Russia is around 8% of GDP right now. If you want to see what an actual war economy looks like that would be the US during WW2 with around 40% of the GDP being directed towards the war.
Russia tripled it’s artillery production from 2022 to 2025 to about 250,000 shells/mo, it’s doubled it’s tank production and it makes more missiles than it has ever made. Yeah it’s 8% of the GDP, and 20% of all manufacturing jobs. Prior to 2022 it spent between 3 and 5% with an average around 4%. Russia is a significant weapons exporter to begin with too. So it’s literally doubled it’s output. We’re not getting into the cash going into the consent factories either. That is a war economy.
The US prior to the war produced 14,000 shells / month. Russia already had a huge lead on production to begin with. They are going to likely miss their target of 100,000 shells/mo that they set for end of 2025, it currently is hovering around 60,000 shells/mo AFAIK. However SCAAP isn’t even running at full capacity, because they need to pass a bill to unlock emergency capacity. In practice the US has quadrupled its shell production prior to the Ukraine war. The last time the US was running at around 8% of GDP was Vietnam at 9.3%. Korea was at 14% and they dropped more bombs than all bombs in WW2. In the modern era 40% GDP spend on defense means the world is fucking over. Not only is production more efficient but so is the killing. US needed 40% GDP to build enough boats to get 16 million soldiers over the Atlantic. We’re talking a limited mail order conflict here in comparison.
A significant impediment is that the Red team is in power and wants US tax money to be funneled to American oligarchs and warlords and not Ukrainian ones.
The other one is lack of supplies, there’s a TNT, nitrocellulose and an antimony shortage, all related to dual use export controls.
Nobody is saying Russia hasn’t expanded its military production, but it’s clearly not a war economy because majority of the economic activity is occurring in the civilian sector. Russian overall economy is very clearly not oriented around military production. For comparison, the US isn’t officially at war and around 10% of manufacturing demand is dependent on defense spending, with overall military budget absolutely dwarfing Russia. Meanwhile, the US obviously was not a war economy when it was invading Vietnam either.
The lack of ability to produce explosives in large volumes is just part of the bigger problem of the deindustrialization in the west. Western economies became financialized, and most industry moved out to cheaper labour markets. The west now finds itself facing a peer adversary, it’s run through its existing stocks of weapons, and it is unable to marshal production to keep up. Russia has won the war of attrition against NATO. The US is stating to realize this, but Europe is still utterly delusional.
Why are you assuming that I’m arguing Ukraine can win the war? I’m just saying that this is really just propaganda to mobilize more production of FPV drones. Is me questioning you on that enough for you to make such assumptions?
This is precisely what I was referring to when I was talking about the artisanal mode of production in Ukraine.
And that by definition makes it not a wunderwaffe. You cannot make wunderwaffes in your kitchen.
I’m not assuming that. I’m just noting that it doesn’t even matter how effective the drones are. My overall point is that there’s nothing special about drones. Russian advantage in the war stems from having a stronger industrial base than the west.
It does matter how effective the drones are if the drones are the most effective thing the Ukrainians have. And your still trying to have a completely different discussion about whether its enough to win the war.
If we agree that drones aren’t changing the direction of the war, then they’re by definition not effective at accomplishing anything other than dragging things out.