Meteor has test flown on the F-35 ; also, procurement delays, stored munitions and logistical challenges

[Rick50]

Meteor has test flown on the F-35 for integration. This is  NOT operational at  this time,  and likely not for at least a year or more.  

However,  it's an interesting  development that could be seen for future users, such as the UK and Italians.

https://www.twz.com/air/f-35b-has-flown-with-meteor-long-range-air-to-air-missile

It occurs to me that maybe the Meteor might be worth considering to add to the NASAMS system, to help spread the production and availability?

 

Please note: I'm deliberately excluding specific names of nations, to try avoiding awkward political discussions.

One major problem that's not being discussed a lot these days, is just how much delay there is when purchasing missiles today, and taking delivery 5 years  from  now. I'm guessing that with several current and possible future conflicts, the number of orders being placed in 2025 may spike upwards, causing delivery delays to stretch to even a decade.

Couple that with the reality seen numerous times in the 1990's and since, that no nation  seems to have enough munitions in store for full scale combat for more than a few weeks, maybe focusing  all on giant expensive stealth programs could be a trap  of it's own. 

Examples include but are not limited to: not enough Sidewinders in the late 80's and early 90's for extended air war past a few weeks. Not enough LGB's after just 2 months air war over Iraq in 1991.  Reports that there were never truly enough 155mm artillery shells for extended conflict in the 80's and 90's, which leads into 155mm consumption vs storage vs production for Ukraine and munitions storage replacement. We simply don't  make enough shells,  even at "war of the Black Sea overtime" rates, to feed their artillery, or to replenish our stocks already sent there. The shortages are so pronounced, that even basic artillery shells, and new armoured vehicles are being procured from Asia, to supply Europe.

While intense, it's worth considering that this conflict on the Black Sea, is tiny in terms of area, and the number of military vehicles/weapons, compared to a large scale military operation... which makes me wonder just how quickly all sides of any near future conflict would run out of supplies. Not just the missiles, but all the supplies... they say an army runs on bullets, bread and diesel, but today I wonder about the absolutely gigantic amount of unique supplies parts, fuels, foods in various packaging, that modern militaries need.

I wonder if this is perhaps the biggest deterrent to nations invading nations today, is maybe the limitations of being able to supply those violent expeditions.  I'm  not saying  it's all impossible,  clearly America's logistical capabilities are legendary since 1941 until today. But the Black Sea war has given many logistical surprises, not only to both combatants, but also to all nations supporting the effort.

[Rick50]

 

Couple more observations: unlike the previous two years,  this year artillery is no longer being shot at every target received, but only in smaller numbers at key targets. And just a few shells, not big volleys. Not guided artillery, BASIC UNGUIDED 155mm shells !!! That's crazy considering all of NATO is supplying them. And that SOOOO many companies out there can make basic arty shells... 

Another issue.... why is it that most missiles are made by Raytheon ? Why do they have such a monopoly? Shouldn't another company want to get in on that business, take some market share? Maybe Anduril could start making long range AAM's to compete with Aim 260 on price and manufacturing speed so we can get inventories up quickly... make Raytheon feel the heat and give us more of them faster at a more reasonable  price.

[Aquorys]

Procurement/availability-wise, even some small arms ammunition from certain manufacturers has experienced shortages or delivery delays, apparently, because of lots of orders for the military of a number of countries.

[Dragon1-1]

Yeah, modern warfare is resource-heavy, and focusing on the next shiny, stealthy thing is indeed a trap. The emergence of drones, many of which are not so different from toys that can be bought in bulk from the Chinese (and some of which are Chinese toys with a camera or an RPG hanging below), is where modern warfare is heading. There's also the case to be made that, instead of scrapping or selling everything outdated, it should be stockpiled, and then upgraded using off the shelf electronics. A T-55 may be old, but it's still a tank, and if you can put in a tablet that will show a GPS map and datalink information, maybe replace the MG with an RCWS (of the sort that can be mounted on a truck) and give it an anti-drone cage, you'll end up with a pretty lethal vehicle. It won't be dueling Abramses, but it could bully infantry and APCs.

Ultimately, the side that wins in a protracted war is the one with bigger factories. As it happens, capitalism isn't really compatible with military preparedness. Consolidating suppliers offers economic benefits via economics of scale and reducing overproduction, but in case of a war, overproduction is exactly what you want. You want to be able to tell the companies: here's the money, hire another shift or two, we'll buy everything. In modern era, at least in the US, the MIC seems to be mostly concerned with stuffing its own pockets, not actually making the nation safer. While the extensive civilian gun industry ensures the US probably won't run out of 5.56mm ammo, at least, most rednecks don't have a 155mm howitzer in the backyard.

[Rick50]

 

The T-55 example is very relevant. It's still a steel pillbox, with a big gun with range, that is mobile. And 95% of the time isn't engaging other vehicles, much less enemy tanks, but doing infantry support, breaching operations, overwatch, sentry ops. Meaning, still useful. And there's nothing but budgetary concerns stopping anyone from upgrading it, ceramic armor plates, cages and slats, thermal imagers and radars, all the items you mention. If you consider the current development of the M10 Booker tank, an upgraded T-55 takes on even more relevance.

One problem I see whether it's munitions production or car parts, is a trend towards just in time manufacturing, no surge production capacity, no warehouses filled with spares. Instead, they want customers to ignore the older system that works just fine, and in a crisis suddenly demand a new product be developed for them to buy. 

A coworker related a story about his buddy buying a beautiful 10 year old luxury car (sporty? can't recall) for a modest price, knowing it needed a new windshield. Problem: no windshields available to buy, seemingly anywhere. Not many spares were ever made. Can't commission a glass maker, because the windshield has several car-specific sensors mounted to it, that they don't know how to manufacture. Car sits idle waiting for someone else's accident that spares the windshield to cannibalise from. 

Back when the Cold War was on, a common saying in the military was "we have quality technology, but Russia has numbers, and numbers have a quality of their own", or a variation of that. And in some respects, both points of view are correct at times... sometimes numbers, especially munitions production, have a quality all their own. Does that 7th Gen, Mach 4 super fighter really matter, if it's no longer got a supply of missiles, and is reduced to "using harsh language"? Does the pilot resort to WW1 methods and shoot a pistol through the canopy?!! No, of course not, but you see my point.

 

I would have thought there would have been contractual incentives to keep surge production viable for defense manufacturers: keep more line workers current, rotate through, extra factory capacity, while keeping low numbers for peacetime, but do special "war exercises" to get them used to high production, maybe for one full day, morning afternoon and graveyard shifts. Also, store extra capacity.

[Aapje]

I do think that in a full on war between the US and one of the potential adversaries, the US would benefit a lot from being able to take a lot of high quality planes, ships, etc out of the running. Even back in WW 2, it did take quite a long time to produce ships. Of the 19 Essex-class carriers ordered after the US declaration of war, only 2 saw active service.

Having too few missiles for the planes you have, and aircraft-carriers that can't do a lot of sorties due to ammo shortages, is still a lot better than not having those planes and carriers at all. It's still a lot easier to produce ammunition than weapon systems.

But I agree that the obsession with low cost and efficiency is not a good idea. Ideally, you have munitions factories that are too large for what they produce, and have too many machines (and spares for those machines), and those are constantly running at a level that keeps a solid workforce at work, who can then be used to train up people for the excess capacity relatively quickly if need be.

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Back when the Cold War was on, a common saying in the military was "we have quality technology, but Russia has numbers, and numbers have a quality of their own", or a variation of that.

Yeah, but the Soviet war machine has mostly stagnated since the cold war ended. They just kept the big old stocks, but don't seem to have been adding meaningfully to that anymore (especially if you factor in them selling stuff off to other nations), and develop relatively little new technology.

Technology still matters, and the bigger the technology gap, the bigger the numbers have to be to make up for it. And satellite photo analysis suggests that they've been depleting a lot of their old Soviet stock of vehicles. The only way for them to have a big superiority in numbers is for them to keep production relatively high for quite a while, and to start stocking up a lot. But after the current conflict is over, is that likely to happen? I think not.

PS. Don't forget about corruption either.

[Rick50]

 

Corruption in so very many organisations and nations, no doubt. Seems that way with the rotting tires situation at the beginning of the war.

I saw a story a little while ago, about a museum that had a T-34 giving it back to the Russian army... not sure if that was real or some weird urban legend... 

Russia has indeed developed a lot of new tech in the last three decades. But it seems to me that very few examples have been fielded, few upgrades actually fitted to their jets. 

It's also true that even making "simple" tanks ships and jets takes time and money  too, even without super tech stealth... those numbers just don't happen overnight. Even in wartime. Production of new Russian tanks, or even refurbished/upgraded hulls, is just not keeping up with losses from quad copter drones.

I guess even just having financial capacity is so stretched that might lead to peace before anything else. Maybe it's a good thing that wars are so costly in lives and money,  ends them earlier and may sometimes prevent them in the first place.

 

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Rick50 said:

Corruption in so very many organisations and nations, no doubt. Seems that way with the rotting tires situation at the beginning of the war.

And the active armor sold and replaced by bricks. Even if they would put new T-90's in storage, I wonder how many parts would be stripped and sold, and how much maintenance left undone.

1 hour ago, Rick50 said:

Russia has indeed developed a lot of new tech in the last three decades. But it seems to me that very few examples have been fielded, few upgrades actually fitted to their jets. 

They claim to develop cutting edge tech, but a lot of it seems to be very exaggerated or straight up lies. And like you say, they make it in such small numbers that most of their nicer stuff was off the battle field very quickly. And with such little actual usage, there is a lack of feedback, which is crucial to learn what actually works.

I also think that the US is way, way, way, way better positioned than Russia to take advantage of the drone revolution. The US already invested heavily in systems integration. The obvious next step is that the drones will detect targets and local commanders can immediately verify the finding and use the appropriate weapons system to take out the target. Local decision making has historically been very advantageous with regard to reaction time, so you can actually take advantage of opportunities and not allow the enemy to prepare. The downside is a lack of coordination with other units. Strong systems integration can give you the best of both worlds.

In contrast, Russia has a top-down culture, and a lack of trust in the chain of command, and between units. So aside from probably being unable to develop this technology at the same level, I don't think that they can use it effectively.

And the US has Palmer Lucky, who has a combination of insight and force of will to make things happen. And the US is taking advantage of that with ABMS and whatever the project is called that they do for SOCOM.

And with advanced systems integration, you actually need less munitions, because if the drone sends the exact coordinates directly to the artillery gun(s), it can be a one salvo or even one shot kill most of the time.

It seems obvious to me that the US has written off Russia as a true conventional threat and only sees China as such a threat. That is why they try to starve China of high-end computing, which the US seems to consider crucial for next gen weaponry.

[Rick50]

We just recently saw how EW can really mess with some "smart weapons", with JDAM and GMLRS, and even GLSDB units getting thrown off target by ground based Russian EW spoofing. Enough that it stopped delivery to the region until a fix has been found. I guess they are field testing a fix right now with the GLSDB. This is a ground launched rocket, fired from the M270 or HiMARS vehicles, but then a "Small Diameter Bomb" pops out glide wings, and follows GPS waypoints to it's possibly hardened target. SDB as in normally seen on a Strike Eagle Beagle, but mounted on a 227mm rocket motor!

My point though, is when such weapons are suddenly, even temporarily rendered "inert", then the troops are even more dependent on the remaining weapons and munitions that still work. Including the "dumb" munitions, which we didn't have enough of.

Just recently I wondered how long this "FPV Drone" era might last. Sure, at the moment it looks like an unstoppable force. But as people see this threat evolve and expand, there WILL be countermeasures of many kinds imagined and then fielded. Armies will have no choice but to adapt... can't have multi-million dollar vehicles taken out so easily by $500 toys, there's too much invested in tank warfare, not just in terms of money, but strategy defensive and offensive, training doctrine... but most importantly, what's the alternative to a tank or IFV ? I'm not convinced there IS an alternative just yet. 

Slat and cage armor will be improved, no doubt. Russians are fielding EW jammers on select vehicles to disrupt FPV drone signals. Sure, fibre optic lines neuter that, but the lines end up very short, and are vulnerable to tangling on trees buildings and then breaking. We know America is developing laser weapons to drop smaller drones, and eventually will increase capability and effectiveness. An EMP burst has been tested, seems to work, but I don't think they  are yet at the point of field testing, considering this would potentially damage friendly radios and datalinks, but that might be a future counter. Lately, armor shown at Arms trade shows have been sporting 30mm guns on independent RWS turrets, with the description that it would incorporate a small scanning radar to look for drones, and then send up shells on precision timing to airburst close to said drones.  I do think that would be effective, but that's a LOT of development effort to neutralise deadly quads... might not be much choice though.  On the upside, some of that development might be fully applicable to a later EMP or Laser solution.

I think the tank solution to FPV drones will mostly come to improved physical armour design, and possibly stealth. Prevent open hatches letting grenades fall through them. Prevent the drone from getting within a meter or two of the actual vehicle. Close the gaps that they have been exploiting. Chameleon like color-matching with the environment, thermal matching panels, so that the drone thermal cameras don't see the tank. "BAE System has recently developed ADAPTIV, an adaptive camouflage for combat vehicles that reduces their thermal signature"

 

 

[Rick50]

https://www.twz.com/land/ground-launched-small-diameter-bomb-headed-to-ukraine-for-its-second-try-at-combat-report

[Dragon1-1]

On 3/29/2025 at 8:19 PM, Aapje said:

Yeah, but the Soviet war machine has mostly stagnated since the cold war ended. They just kept the big old stocks, but don't seem to have been adding meaningfully to that anymore (especially if you factor in them selling stuff off to other nations), and develop relatively little new technology.

Technology still matters, and the bigger the technology gap, the bigger the numbers have to be to make up for it. And satellite photo analysis suggests that they've been depleting a lot of their old Soviet stock of vehicles. The only way for them to have a big superiority in numbers is for them to keep production relatively high for quite a while, and to start stocking up a lot. But after the current conflict is over, is that likely to happen? I think not.

The thing is, if you look at the US, how much of the post-Cold War new and shiny tech was an actual advancement? For a while, the US developed stuff like the F-22, but then, they started cutting costs. Soviets had things like Drozd APS during Cold War, and the tech to make a remotely controlled tank turret was there, but the US was comfortable with incremental upgrades to their old Abramses. They weren't advancing quite as fast as they probably could have, and the rest of the world caught up. Instead of peer combat, the US focused on bullying smaller countries and fighting insurgents in a cost-efficient manner. Something that wasn't going too well for them despite the tech advantage, BTW.

It seems that a winning strategy is both quality and quantity (note that it is not a new observation, a "high-low mix" is a well attested strategy). Specifically, a few "tip of the spear" high tech units backed up by a large number of older equipment that's been upgraded with enough new tech to support the spiffy ones. Basically, high tech gear would be used to breach the enemy's defenses, then cheap stuff would pour in and wreak havoc, while the high tech gear switches to preventing the enemy's high tech force from getting to the cheap stuff and wrecking it. The big advantage large numbers have is the ability to be in more places at once.

As for China, restricting tech flow to them is closing the stall long after the horse has bolted. 

[Aapje]

Even back in WW 2, lots of weapons systems got produced for a long time, and got upgrades along the way. See the Bf 109, which was a 10-year old airplane design in 1945. And lots of tanks got more and more armor bolted on, and cannons replaced.

Nowadays, there is relatively little progress in the actual flight stuff. So key for a modern airplane is the ability to keep upgrading the systems along the way. Only when that becomes hard to do, and you see stuff like sensor pods on the outside of the aircraft, I think that there is a really good reason to move to new different platform.

Besides, the complexity of modern airplanes is so high that you can't even keep replacing them, because it takes many years to get everything (mostly) working correctly.

And keep in mind that everything points to Russia doing a poor job at maintaining their stuff. So their big stocks seem to in large part just parts kits, that need a big overhaul to really be ready for war. In a conflict between Russia and the US, I see Russia struggling to overhaul their old stuff to even be somewhat competitive with what the US already has, and the US will then also outproduce Russia with much better weapon systems.

And the Kuznetsov is just scrap metal.

Even in a nuclear war, I have my doubts that Russia can actually deploy a meaningful amount of working nukes, given the apparent lack of tritium and other maintenance. But still, at least in theory this is the only real way that they can hit very hard.

China is very different.

And I agree that a mix of high and low is probably the best.

[Dragon1-1]

Yes, Russian stock is mostly part kits, but those are mighty handy to have when your working tanks get damaged. Russian stuff might be poorly maintained, and they're not very good at upgrading it, but they have it, which is more than Ukraine can say. As such, Russian armor doesn't need to be "competitive" with the US, it has to be good enough, and easy to make in large numbers. As long as it runs, a T-55 with a tablet and NVGs for the commander is extremely dangerous to anything that isn't a tank, and can have modern navigation and comms. With proper support, it can go quite far. Also, I have my doubts about the US being able to outproduce Russia on superior equipment (or even on stuff that's just as crappy). US weapon manufacturing operations are run on commercial principles, and have, like much other US manufacturing, been gutted in the name of increasing corporate margins. They do not seem to have much excess capacity. Rebuilding that capacity takes time. Europe has just realized they need it, and promptly set out to do it. I haven't seen much movement to that end in the US, indeed, if anything they'll be running even leaner in short term, especially as tariffs start to bite.

BTW, you actually don't need tritium to make a nuclear warhead. You need it only for thermonuclear ones. I don't know what proportions of warheads Russians have, but given the vastness of their arsenal, I wouldn't be surprised if they had enough simple fission devices to ruin everyone's day. Besides, nukes are a grand strategic deterrent first of all. If you actually get to try out if they work, they've already failed in their job. So by that measure, Russian nukes are working perfectly well. Even if it's a bluff, nobody is going to call it because the price for being wrong is being wiped off the face of the Earth. This is also why there's such vocal displeasure with Iran trying to make a nuke, and to a lesser extent with India for actually making them (while not making any fuss about Israel doing the same). It's not that anyone is worried about them actually launching any nukes, it's that they're afraid of not being able to bully those countries without repercussions. In their intended role, nukes are both frequently used and very effective.

As for Kuznetsov, it was only built because the Soviets saw the US having a lot of carriers and decided they wanted one, too. Russia doesn't need it, nor does it need a ship like it. The Soviets, quite sensibly, expected their large submarine force and their land-based cruise missile aircraft to fight US CVBGs. Their own Moskva-class was an ASW boat with helos, and they should have stuck to that. Anything the Kuznetsov can do, Russia's considerable force of long range land based aircraft can do better. They would be better off mooring the thing besides the Aurora and charging tourists for entry.

[Rick50]

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The thing is, if you look at the US, how much of the post-Cold War new and shiny tech was an actual advancement? For a while, the US developed stuff like the F-22, but then, they started cutting costs. Soviets had things like Drozd APS during Cold War, and the tech to make a remotely controlled tank turret was there, but the US was comfortable with incremental upgrades to their old Abramses. They weren't advancing quite as fast as they probably could have, and the rest of the world caught up. Instead of peer combat, the US focused on bullying smaller countries and fighting insurgents in a cost-efficient manner. Something that wasn't going too well for them despite the tech advantage, BTW.
Dragon1-1

 

Wait... The Pentagon started to cut costs?! When??

Wait ‘till the Pentagon learns of this! And the taxpayers!!

Sure, the Abrams today is the same hulls and turrets of the 1980’s, but… there’s a mountain of difference between the effectiveness of the original configuration and the current SEP 3. The originals didn’t even have the 120mm gun, nor the later armour package. The “increments” you speak of are very significant individually, but taken all together, are nothing short of generations ahead. The battlefield capability improvement from original Abrams to that of today, IMO is much greater than the difference between a T-64 original, and a fully current T-90 of today. 

It would be more fair to say that the original first Abrams was so far ahead of it’s time, that it took the rest of the world years to catch up, and that until the T-14 starts being fielded in real numbers (say 25 into combat), Russia still had not caught up, 45 years later.

So if a tiny guy burns down your residence, are you bullying him if you ask the police to arrest him?

Also, have you looked at just how MUCH money was being spent for those 20 years??! There was NOTHING cost effective at all. Sure, they weren’t losing Eagles and Bradleys very often, I guess there’s savings in that. But the hundreds of bases built and supplied, fuel food and supplies for hundreds of thousands of troops, not for a 3 month exercise, but TWO DECADES of operations!? No, there was no savings going on for the American taxpayer that I could see.

And while all that was going on, America still had to put dozens of nuke subs to sea, bought more SM-6 missiles at 5 million each, upgraded their Abrams three times, built a rather large fleet of UCAV’s and surveillance drones, launched perhaps 25+ spy surveillance satellites...

 

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Yes, Russian stock is mostly part kits, but those are mighty handy to have when your working tanks get damaged. Russian stuff might be poorly maintained, and they're not very good at upgrading it, but they have it, which is more than Ukraine can say. As such, Russian armor doesn't need to be "competitive" with the US, it has to be good enough, and easy to make in large numbers. As long as it runs, a T-55 with a tablet and NVGs for the commander is extremely dangerous to anything that isn't a tank, and can have modern navigation and comms. With proper support, it can go quite far. Also, I have my doubts about the US being able to outproduce Russia on superior equipment (or even on stuff that's just as crappy). US weapon manufacturing operations are run on commercial principles, and have, like much other US manufacturing, been gutted in the name of increasing corporate margins. They do not seem to have much excess capacity. Rebuilding that capacity takes time. Europe has just realized they need it, and promptly set out to do it. I haven't seen much movement to that end in the US, indeed, if anything they'll be running even leaner in short term, especially as tariffs start to bite.
Dragon1-1

 

“Parts kits” are a lot less handy than what America has… the older vehicles and systems get put into “war storage”. In Russia that seems to mean, “park it and let it rust indefinitely”. In America that means regular parts inspections, fuel drained and replaced, grease removed and re-greased, new gaskets and rubber hoses for the engines are replaced. Batteries preserved and replaced. It means getting driven a few KM’s every few months, to make sure. Continuously.

 

The difference is, in war, Russian mechanics will have to tow that vehicle to the shop, go through and assess all the problems, and try fixing what they can, triage the vehicles, and send some to the troops. By contrast, the American going to get vehicles from war storage, brings a wrench to attach the battery cables to their posts, presses the START button, goes to the fuelling bowser, and drives away to the railhead to ship it wherever it’s needed. Probably doesn’t even need a mechanic to look at it, because it was just inspected 4 months ago in detail.

 

In the world of fleets, “cannibalisation” is when you grab parts off units to put onto other units. Nothing wrong with doing so, all organisations will do this to some extent, even America. But there are significant downsides to doing things that way, especially if you don’t keep detailed records of the parts removed, records that are kept accessible. By contrast, a full proper “war storage” means keeping the stored vehicles in the highest state of readiness. YES it is more expensive that cannibalising, but you get a better bang for the buck, better deterrent to adversaries, because all those vehicles, weapons systems are READY NOW. No delays. Not to mention your maintenance crews WILL be tired fatigued and make mistakes during wartime, because things break down. But proper war storage reduces that extra workload, so they can focus on keeping vehicles in the fight, or recovering them, instead of trying to build a fleet from rusted out junk.

 

This thread discusses consumption of “war items” and how production doesn’t keep pace with war. The American/Western war storage means that production of those hoses, gaskets and all the other parts, is continuous, ordered regularly from suppliers. The Russian method… well, I wonder how stretched their supply of engine parts consumables has been the last few years? Shortages getting enough coolant hoses? Radiator cores? Fuel and oil pumps? Enough hydraulic lines?

 

Look, I’m not trying to criticise Russia on this, they probably didn’t have enough budget to do the Western/America style, it’s costly and some might call that a luxury most nations could not afford. Sometimes theoretical war is too costly and other things need budgetary money. 

 

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As for Kuznetsov, it was only built because the Soviets saw the US having a lot of carriers and decided they wanted one, too. Russia doesn't need it, nor does it need a ship like it.
Dragon1-1

 

Seems rather pricey for a vanity project… all that quality steel could have gone into next gen MBT’s or IFV’s. All that engineering, construction and drydock time could have been allocated to things actually needed.

I don’t think I buy this explanation. I think it’s more like a cope, an excuse “uh, well… uh, we didn’t really need it, yea that’s it! We DIDN'T need it so it doesn’t matter!”

Sorry, but no one builds an aircraft carrier “just for fun” and that’s not needed for some reason or another. Nations and Navy’s of the world don’t even KEEP carriers operational, the moment they no longer have a need/use for them…. Just keeping them operational, maintenance, upgrades, fuel consumption, time occupying a drydock (which is very valuable and prevents other ships and subs from getting maintenance / upgrades), keeping fully trained crews, doing air evolutions risking aircraft crashing/damage on the deck to maintain proficiency… in every case, the moment a Navy decides it doesn’t need a carrier, it ditches that carrier. If it can’t be sold, it’s sold for scrap. If scrapping the hull isn’t practical, it’s moored in a remote location and abandoned, no more paint for that hull, it goes nowhere. 

Why? Because just keeping a carrier operational is prohibitively expensive in any national defence budget, whether you are the USA, USSR or Canada. Yes, Canada used to have two aircraft carriers, at one time, HMCS Bonnaventure and HMCS Magnificent. They were very expensive for my nation at that time, and were sold or scrapped, depending on the conspiracy theories you believe or don’t believe. 

Edited April 3 by Rick50

[Rick50]

To expand on cannibalisation vs constant peacetime maintenance, with the cannibal situation, you are constantly removing components of uncertain age or condition, and placing them on units that need to go right back into the fight. That takes time, removal can sometimes damage that part. Now the unit it was removed from, is further from ever being used. Worse, as you cannibalise your fleet, if you don’t keep VERY careful records, you may  not realise when you are getting close to a shortage of a particular item, and not order from the original manufacturer in time to meet wartime needs. 

By contrast, the war storage method, means that a new part with zero hours on it, got installed at leisure in peacetime, and then had function tests done, again in peacetime. It’s not sitting on a shelf rotting, or waiting to be stolen, it’s installed already. And because it's all based on ordering and installing new parts, you know exactly  how many you have in inventory, and you can inform and discuss your future anticipated needs for parts in time for them to adjust to the future reality. But again, it's more expensive up front.

Edited April 3 by Rick50

[Aapje]

@Dragon1-1

All the major nations have tritium boosted nukes, which require a lot less fissile material for the same yield. This is why one avenue that anti-nuclear weapons activists are exploring is to try to ban tritium production, so the nukes become paperweights.

Russian commanders are known for not doing maintenance if it is not easily discovered, and pocketing that money. And then you also have Russia funneling their military spending mostly on things that are visible and things that they can sell, to put up a good front and to preserve their status as a major weapons supplier.

On both counts, the nukes are pretty much a perfect place to cut spending or pocket the money, since who is ever going to notice that most nukes won't work? If anyone ever tries pressing the big red button, the people who could persecute the military commanders, are probably more concerned with survival.

So my guess is that only a few nukes get proper maintenance, and if Russia attempts to do a large scale launch, the dud rate will be enormous. I would not be surprised if less than 10% actually function.

And I think that if the US gets serious about producing military goods and converts car plants and other factories into military factories, they will easily outproduce Russia. Don't forget that it was not just the West that deindustrialized, Russia has as well. Also on this front, China is by far the bigger threat, since China can actually produce in volume.

@Rick50

Yeah, I also have my doubts to what extent the remaining Russian vehicles can still be refurbished without replacing a gazillion parts.

But can you please refrain from making your messages bold?

Edited April 2 by Aapje

[Dragon1-1]

59 minutes ago, Aapje said:

So my guess is that only a few nukes get proper maintenance, and if Russia attempts to do a large scale launch, the dud rate will be enormous. I would not be surprised if less than 10% actually function.

Have you looked at how many nukes Russia actually has? Even less than 10% would suffice to reduce both US and Europe to a wasteland. Also, while the vast majority of nukes are Teller-Ullam designs (not boosted fission), this does not mean they have no pure implosion type weapons in service. Lack of tritium would likely knock out all devices over 100kT in modern arsenal, so most ICBM warheads, but it would not actually eliminate all nukes, particularly the smaller devices.

Of course, all this is moot, because strategically, their arsenal has to be treated as perfectly functional. Nobody is dumb enough to risk calling their bluff and finding out the hard way they're wrong. You can't argue for making any other assumption without evidence much better than "that's how it usually works in Russia". In fact, this is why extremely tight secrecy and policy ambiguity is an important part of any nuclear strategy. If the enemy discovers a flaw, the value of the deterrent is much reduced.

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

And I think that if the US gets serious about producing military goods and converts car plants and other factories into military factories, they will easily outproduce Russia. Don't forget that it was not just the West that deindustrialized, Russia has as well. Also on this front, China is by far the bigger threat, since China can actually produce in volume.

What car plants? What other factories? US cars are mostly made in Canada and Mexico, and base components they use are made in China. A factory is useless without its supply chain... most of which had been offshored. Whatever manufacturing remains in the US is mostly high tech final assembly type stuff, not the components that you assemble the product from. Not to mention, you can't just convert car factories to tank factories. At most, you can get them to make militarized trucks, most US factories are heavily automated, and this means they are straight-up incapable of producing anything that doesn't fit within their design constraints. Oh, and lest we forget, there are only three actual car companies in the US, only two of which (Ford and GM) are actually based there. If the US actually getting them to go into "war mode" would not be easy nor cheap.

Russia has been focusing on resilience of their supply chain, they're trying to build their equipment with domestic components only, when possible. Their factories are more primitive due to lower labor costs and less skilled workforce (and therefore less specialized), which could make them more flexible. And of course, they have a land border with China, which doesn't seem to mind increased demand for their dual use components. Lastly, the power structure means it's easier for Russian government to make arbitrary decisions about what the factories make.

With China, of course, there's no contest. Not only have they been taking resilience seriously, that's where most of the manufacturing actually went to. There's a lot of them, they have a very large military, and a lot of population to support it. The only advantages the US could muster against them are nukes and the tech gap, which is closing rapidly.

[Aapje]

6 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Have you looked at how many nukes Russia actually has? Even less than 10% would suffice to reduce both US and Europe to a wasteland

Except the goal is not to kill as many people as possible, but to hit specific threats first and foremost. And because many targets are very important to destroy, the plans would actually call for multiple nukes on the same target, to increase the chance of a kill.

If the reliability is truly as low as that, and the Russians know it, they will have to use a lot of nukes per target, to boost the chance of successful destruction to high levels. This is actually one of the reasons why these arsenals are so big in the first place. Even with fairly high reliability, you need multiple nukes per target to have high certainty of a kill.

And note that a potential 10% success rate certainly doesn't mean that you can expect 10% of the 4300 Russian nukes to actually end up destroying a target. You also have 'counter-battery' fire (nuke facilities would be a primary target in a nuclear war, for obvious reasons), as well as self-defense systems. Depending on the scenario, many of the nukes may never make it out of storage. Basically, any quick escalation would be likely to result in that outcome.

6 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Nobody is dumb enough to risk calling their bluff and finding out the hard way they're wrong.

Wrong. We already did when Russia threatened a nuclear exchange if their territory would be attacked, including the newly captured territories. Yet the West allowed Ukraine to conquer part of Kursk. We called their bluff.

Ultimately, you cannot allow yourself to be blackmailed, so aggressive bluffs need to be called, or else you will lose everything anyway.

Quote

 In fact, this is why extremely tight secrecy and policy ambiguity is an important part of any nuclear strategy.

Giving the enemy the ability to delude themselves into thinking that they have a shot is very dangerous. Japan went to war because of that delusion. Germany went to war in WW I based on that delusion. Germany went to war in WW 2 based on that delusion. The anti-nuclear treaties had openness at the core, in part to avoid misjudgments and misunderstandings.

There were a bunch of theorists who came up with deterrence theory who were sure that the Russians would think the same way as them, but each time Westerners met with Soviet leaders and explained their deterrence theory, the Soviets made it clear that they didn't share these beliefs.

Note that the deterrence beliefs include intentional weakness (not preparing for survivability). Basically, the population is offered up as hostages, without actually knowing whether that weakness reduces or increases the risk. After all, blackmail only works if there is a credible threat you can make. And blackmail is a very dangerous game, where both sides may end up with an outcome neither wants, because both sides feel that they need to defend their credibility by escalating.

You should read 'The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century' if you want to learn about deterrence theory and its weaknesses. It also allows you to move past the kind of stupidity you read in the newspapers, because journalists tend to be rather dumb people who are also very uneducated, especially in matter of war. For example, I've seen journalists claim multiple times that the nuclear treaties led to disarmament, when it merely requires looking at a graph of the nuclear stockpiles over time, to see that (Soviet) disarmament began before the treaties were signed.

[Dragon1-1]

20 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Except the goal is not to kill as many people as possible, but to hit specific threats first and foremost.

Look up counterforce and countervalue strikes. What you're describing is a counterforce strike. MAD is based on the idea of mutual countervalue strikes. In fact, lack of reliability of Russia's arsenal would be an incentive to focus on countervalue strikes. Because of the threat of counterforce strikes, nuclear weapons would be fired all at once. With 30 minutes between US and Russia, you're not going to take out very many of their nukes before they clear their silos. Subs are another matter, but their primary role is second strike capability, meaning if one side can somehow get a drop on the other, the other can still hit it from beyond the grave.

As for effective self-defense systems, in the West, they don't exist. In Russia, they're deployed around Moscow, and it's questionable just how good they are. ABMs are tightly regulated because they are capable of shifting the balance that underpins MAD. There's been progress in that area, mostly due to smaller ballistic missiles being around and in heavy use, but intercepting an ICBM RV with a Patriot is not going to happen (and even then, I doubt the Moscow system can prevent every single hit).

29 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Giving the enemy the ability to delude themselves into thinking that they have a shot is very dangerous. Japan went to war because of that delusion. Germany went to war in WW I based on that delusion. Germany went to war in WW 2 based on that delusion. The anti-nuclear treaties had openness at the core, in part to avoid misjudgments and misunderstandings.

You're confusing two different things. Openness was to ensure that both sides are adhering to the treaty (notice that Japan was able to think it could win because it worked its way around Washington Naval Treaty, which filled a similar role) and that they know, roughly, where they stand. At the same time, actual details are heavily classified, and actual launch policy is kept a closely guarded secret. Nukes are meant to create a war that definitely can't be won. Even with a nuclear force that's superior in every possible aspect, if the enemy has the minimum number of nukes needed to flatten your major cities, you simply can't win. "My pile of rubble is slightly less radioactive than yours" is not much of a victory. The nice thing about MAD is diminishing returns, because every nuke past that minimum number is effectively redundant. 4300 warheads is easily in "more than enough" territory.

You're also wrong about Germany. Them losing WWII has nothing to do with them underestimating their enemies and everything to do with their internal politics and ideology basically crippling their own war strategy. Even then, had they disregarded the treaty with Japan instead of declaring war on the US, WWII could have turned out very differently (doesn't mean they'd have won, that'd require them not to make a bunch of other bad decisions).

22 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Wrong. We already did when Russia threatened a nuclear exchange if their territory would be attacked, including the newly captured territories. Yet the West allowed Ukraine to conquer part of Kursk. We called their bluff.

Ukrainians invaded Russian land, not "The West". They called Russia's bluff in this case, not us. We didn't do anything (admittedly, this includes not bullying Ukraine into abandoning the plan). It was their call to make, of course, and consequences would've been theirs to bear. Despite Russian propaganda, they're not a puppet state. 

It's also important that a largely inconsequential, rural piece of land had been taken, one that Russia seems to be convinced they'll be able to take back. Was there, say, an ICBM silo on that piece of land, we'd be looking at a very different conversation. Ukraine is not an existential threat to Russia, and their incursion can only ever hurt their pride. If it was a purely conventional war, Polish troops would've been having a victory parade on the Red Square by now (or having a standoff with the Chinese from across the Urals).

And yes, sometimes, when fighting a nuclear state, the only option is to either be conquered or destroyed. All allies that could help you can send you weapons, but won't intervene on your behalf, because nukes. At most, you can hope to keep fighting on your own ground long enough for the aggressor to give up (Vietnam lasted a decade, Ukraine barely three years so far). For weaker countries, the answer is, get nukes of your own, or get in bed with someone who has them. North Korea understands it. Iran doesn't like this, but they also understand. So do both India and Pakistan. NATO countries understand this, and Ukraine does now, too (which is why it's trying so hard to get into NATO). Some are already starting to see nonproliferation efforts as a cynical attempt to keep countries off the "don't bomb, ever" list. It's getting kind of hard to argue against that view.

[Rick50]

Whatever shortages in munitions count the Western nations will have, once the Uk Black Sea war is over, I  feel it's certain that Russia will  have it's own struggle to rebuild their military to even a basic purely  defensive capability. I know they can do it,  but it might take half a decade or more to rebuild. Hulls of all shapes and sizes sent to depots all around the nation to fully refurbish. Then build up basic stocks of munitions. After that, they can focus on the shortcomings discovered in the war. More importantly, get their economy going again, get  off wartime financial mode, get people out of uniform and back to work in the civilian economy. Probably the same for Ukraine too.

[Aapje]

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

MAD is based on the idea of mutual countervalue strikes.

Yes, but my point is that Russia never accepted this logic. The entire idea that both sides could agree on the value of targets is a rather ridiculous notion. In cultures where retaliation is used as a form of justice, you often just see escalation or cycles of violence, not an end to the conflict.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

In fact, lack of reliability of Russia's arsenal would be an incentive to focus on countervalue strikes.

It creates an even bigger incentive to never use them in the first place. And if there is no realistic way for Russia to keep up with the US in capability, then letting things rot away and spending the money on things that can actually be used makes a lot of sense.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

As for effective self-defense systems, in the West, they don't exist.

They do exist... I don't see why I should believe that the Western systems would be less effective than the Russian systems. At least the Western ones are being maintained, and get tested by people who don't just lie to their superiors that it works, when it doesn't.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

notice that Japan was able to think it could win because it worked its way around Washington Naval Treaty, which filled a similar role

No, they thought they could win by making it too costly for the US, which is a big misjudgment of US mentality.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Them losing WWII has nothing to do with them underestimating their enemies and everything to do with their internal politics and ideology basically crippling their own war strategy.

You ignore that Hitler misjudged Chamberlain's appeachment as an unwillingness to wage war, when it actually was a ploy to buy time, thinking that he could take Poland, and they were thus drawn into the world war before they were ready.

The declaration of war on the US was also a major misjudgment, with Germany thinking that the US would not scale up quickly, and that the subs could keep them from supplying the UK. Yet in reality, the US scaled up military production very quickly and by a huge amount. And although the submarine warfare was rather effective in the short term, it didn't do enough, and the US learned how to combat it.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Even then, had they disregarded the treaty with Japan instead of declaring war on the US

The treaty merely required them to declare war if Japan was attacked. Since Japan was the aggressor, they had no obligations.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Ukrainians invaded Russian land, not "The West".

That is not how Russia interpreted it, at least according to their propaganda.

Again, this brings it back to the infinite blackmail problem. If you leave an opening for blackmail, the other side can blackmail you with lies as well.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

They called Russia's bluff in this case, not us.

And we called Russia's bluff of claiming that this is an attack by the West and hoping that we would call off the attack.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

It was their call to make, of course, and consequences would've been theirs to bear.

The thing about bluffing about nuclear war, is that the consequences will be mutual.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

It's also important that a largely inconsequential, rural piece of land had been taken, one that Russia seems to be convinced they'll be able to take back.

This just seems to be you agreeing that their bluff was getting called.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Ukraine is not an existential threat to Russia, and their incursion can only ever hurt their pride.

Yes, so all we really need to do to prevent nuclear war with a somewhat rational entity is not to start a war of aggression with them, where we try to take their country, which is not something we want anyway.

The real risks are irrational behavior and accidents.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

And yes, sometimes, when fighting a nuclear state, the only option is to either be conquered or destroyed.

I think that due to an aging population with low fertility, the appetite for large scale war is very low, so realistically, we will only fight proxy wars, unless some dictator attacks us.

13 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

North Korea understands it. Iran doesn't like this, but they also understand. So do both India and Pakistan. NATO countries understand this, and Ukraine does now, too (which is why it's trying so hard to get into NATO). Some are already starting to see nonproliferation efforts as a cynical attempt to keep countries off the "don't bomb, ever" list. It's getting kind of hard to argue against that view.

You forgot Israel.

And at the end of the day, it still doesn't protect against strikes, unless you are willing to respond to a non-existential attack by risking total destruction. So realistically, it merely raised the bar, and probably protects against an all-out attack on your country.

[Rick50]

Edited: well off topic

Edited April 3 by Rick50

[MAXsenna]

@Rick50 What did you smoke or drink today?

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Dragon1-1]

 

8 minutes ago, Rick50 said:

In the past, that was probably true. But today, the very top people who decide how we all live... they want a massive reduction in population now.

Honestly, I doubt it's true for people actually at the top. There are movements which advocate for drastic population reductions (mostly on account of "Earth can't support that many" theory), but as far as people in power go, Hanlon's Razor is in effect. Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Conscription was floated in the UK because the old farts have noticed young people had enough of their idiocy and figured the best way to fix it was to indoctrinate them to be "patriotic" (as opposed to, you know, not acting like idiots). People in power mostly care about two things: staying in power and getting rich. 

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

Yes, but my point is that Russia never accepted this logic. The entire idea that both sides could agree on the value of targets is a rather ridiculous notion. In cultures where retaliation is used as a form of justice, you often just see escalation or cycles of violence, not an end to the conflict.

Russia didn't have to "agree" to anything for MAD to work. It's simple as that, they'd nuke US cities in retaliation for US nuking anything on Russian soil, or attempting to degrade their nuclear capabilities. That's why we can assume they would do a countervalue strike.

Also, before you start putting too much into things not working due to Russian corruption, check the map of Ukraine. However decrepit is their kit, clearly enough of it is functional. That's ultimately what MAD is about. It doesn't matter if you get hit by 4500 nukes or 45000, you'll be just as dead. Sure, the US vastly exceeds Russia in nuclear capabilities... but it doesn't matter. Again, your argument boils down to "my pile of rubble is slightly less radioactive than yours, so I won".

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

They do exist... I don't see why I should believe that the Western systems would be less effective than the Russian systems. At least the Western ones are being maintained, and get tested by people who don't just lie to their superiors that it works, when it doesn't.

Name them? Aegis Ashore, maybe (a grand total of two batteries, in Poland and Romania, at that)? I was talking strategic ABMs, as defined by the ABM treaty. Right now, this capability has only been shown by the SM-3 on the US side, and that missile is mounted on ships, most of which are not in position to use it against ICBMs flying over the Arctic. Russia's sole example is the A-235 protecting Moscow, and even if it works perfectly, it's unlikely to be enough. For the purposes of Russia/US nuclear exchange, the US side has no ABM protection, and for Russia-Europe, Poland's sole battery (Romanian one is too far south) wouldn't help a whole lot.

No, tactical ABMs don't count. You're never going to take out enough individual MIRVs with THAAD batteries, or the S-400 for that matter. So better just forget about them, they're not in the same class. 

42 minutes ago, Aapje said:

That is not how Russia interpreted it, at least according to their propaganda.

That's how Russia said they interpreted it. As you said, it's propaganda, and everyone knows that. Russia is raving about "The West" acting as Ukraine's puppetmaster, but what it really wants is for Western countries to normalize relations with it. Putin is hoping that the war will be over, he'll keep his gains, and it'll be back to business as usual. Sadly, he's quite probably right as far as the likes of Germany or Slovakia are concerned, no matter how much Poland and Ukraine will ring the alarm bell. We've been through this before.

45 minutes ago, Aapje said:

You ignore that Hitler misjudged Chamberlain's appeachment as an unwillingness to wage war, when it actually was a ploy to buy time, thinking that he could take Poland, and they were thus drawn into the world war before they were ready.

Yeah, because Poland was so successfully defended against unprepared German forces. As for the Brits, they were stuck on their island after Dunkirk, getting the crap bombed out of them, their army was out of its good gear, and in no position to strike back for the foreseeable future. Had the US not become involved in Europe, they would have stayed there a lot longer. Germany was doomed by its decision to take on the Soviets, and by its complete ineptitude at actually doing so before they got their act together (see: getting bogged down at Stalingrad and Leningrad just because of who they were named after).

And no, while the formal text of the Tripartite Pact was indeed a defensive alliance, in practice, Japan (and to some extent Italy) pretty much roped Hitler into declaring war on the US. He was actually reasonably sympathetic to both Americans (in fact, he loved Winnetou books so much he declared Apaches to be Aryans, which seriously ticked them off) and Brits. Before WWII, the sympathy was quite mutual in some circles, too.

39 minutes ago, Aapje said:

And at the end of the day, it still doesn't protect against strikes, unless you are willing to respond to a non-existential attack by risking total destruction. So realistically, it merely raised the bar, and probably protects against an all-out attack on your country.

Raising the bar is still kind of a big deal. Also, it's worth noting that besides Russia (with caveats I already mentioned), of the nuclear powers only Israel has been seriously attacked, and then, mostly by irregular forces which can't be effectively targeted by nukes, anyway. Of actual countries, only Iran has hit it, and that strike was intended as a political statement, not to inflict damage. Also worth mentioning that Israel's threshold for nuclear deterrence is a lot higher due to them pretending to pretend to be a non-nuclear country (it's also essentially a dependent US territory). So clearly, having nukes works better than not having them.

[Rick50]

1 hour ago, MAXsenna said:

@Rick50 What did you smoke or drink today?

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

 

Edited: well off topic

Edited April 3 by Rick50