No one has ever been surprised by Russia having an artillery advantage, but it's fighting a different war than Ukraine is. This doesn't tend to surface in Russian propaganda, so the firehose of falsehoods shills that fill this thread with pages of amplified nonsense don't really want to talk about what's really happening.
First - Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine, so that requires more munitions. They are constantly shelling all over the place. On the other side, Ukraine is just trying to repel Russian forces, not destroy its own cities. That's one of the main asymmetries in this war and it's unlikely to change.
Second - Russia is really bad at war. This can't be overstated. They've had a massive artillery advantage from day one and while they are shelling like crazy, they're not effectively using it to accomplish meaningful strategic objectives. While Ukraine operates under a more modern mission command model, Russia is sticking with it's failing command and control model. Russian units will continue to shell coordinates until someone tells them to do something different, even if they're shooting at nothing. So the waste of Russian artillery has been massive, and that's without getting into all of the ammo dumps that Ukraine has destroyed because ... Russia's military is terrible.
Further, Russian counter battery has typically been less effective because Ukraine will "shoot and scoot" before Russia can return fire whereas Russian batteries tend to stick around longer opening themselves up to destruction from Ukrainian artillery. Long story short, Russia has gotten far less bang for their buck in the past year and we haven't seen anything to indicate that Russia's military is going to start fighting better as they release more and more untrained troops to replace the cannon fodder they are losing.
As Forbes reported, Milley (and others) talked about this last summer.
Here's a more recent article from a West Point professor.
So while having sufficient artillery is vital to Ukraine's defense, Ukraine doesn't need to achieve parity to win (they certainly haven't had parity to this point and have been successful in defending against the poorly performing Russian military). To this point, the biggest advantage Russia has in this war has been the fact that they don't count their losses, not their artillery advantage. That may change at any point, although I doubt it will ever get to the point where Putin starts sweating the death of his soldiers.
Cue Russian shills on 3 ... 2 ... 1.
First - Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine, so that requires more munitions. They are constantly shelling all over the place. On the other side, Ukraine is just trying to repel Russian forces, not destroy its own cities. That's one of the main asymmetries in this war and it's unlikely to change.
Second - Russia is really bad at war. This can't be overstated. They've had a massive artillery advantage from day one and while they are shelling like crazy, they're not effectively using it to accomplish meaningful strategic objectives. While Ukraine operates under a more modern mission command model, Russia is sticking with it's failing command and control model. Russian units will continue to shell coordinates until someone tells them to do something different, even if they're shooting at nothing. So the waste of Russian artillery has been massive, and that's without getting into all of the ammo dumps that Ukraine has destroyed because ... Russia's military is terrible.
Further, Russian counter battery has typically been less effective because Ukraine will "shoot and scoot" before Russia can return fire whereas Russian batteries tend to stick around longer opening themselves up to destruction from Ukrainian artillery. Long story short, Russia has gotten far less bang for their buck in the past year and we haven't seen anything to indicate that Russia's military is going to start fighting better as they release more and more untrained troops to replace the cannon fodder they are losing.
As Forbes reported, Milley (and others) talked about this last summer.
Quote:
"I would say that the numbers clearly favor the Russians," U.S. Army general Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in June. "In terms of artillery, they do outnumber, they out-gun and out-range."
But the numbers don't tell the whole story, Milley stressed. "The Russians have run into a lot of problems. They've got command-and-control issues, logistics issues. They've got morale issues, leadership issues and a wide variety of other issues."
Failures of command result in a lot of wasted shells and rockets and all-too-frequent friendly-fire incidents. Even when artillery is hitting nothing or, worse, hitting allied positions, the gunners just keep blasting away.
There's a "near-absence of reversionary courses of action" in the Russian fire-control system, analysts Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds explained in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
What that means is, in Russian doctrine, brigades, battalions and batteries tend to freeze up in the absence of detailed instructions from higher command. While awaiting fresh orders, lower units just keep doing what they already were doing. Even when it doesn't make sense. Even when the current course of action is killing friendly troops.
"This approach has probably had the greatest impact in creating a gap between potential and actual capability as regards Russian fires," Zabrodskyi, Watling, Danylyuk and Reynolds wrote.
Russian gunners simply don't think for themselves. "All reported contacts are treated as true. All fire missions appear to be given equal priority and are prosecuted in the order in which they are received unless an order to prioritize a specific mission comes from higher authority."
"It seems that those directing fire missions either do not have access to contextual information or are indifferent to it," the analysts added.
Here's a more recent article from a West Point professor.
Quote:
During the wider invasion of Ukraine that began last February, the Russian employment of artillery did not go as intended. Russian drones were inadequate for locating Ukrainian targets, and the communication networks were too unreliable for units to share information about the battlefield. As such, the BTG commanders opted to use their artillery to blast away at large areas with the hope of hitting Ukrainian targets. Estimates give that as many as 60,000 rounds of artillery were fired by the Russian forces per day, most of which did not hit any military target. Indeed, Oryxpioenkop.com only reports 1,810 destroyed or damaged pieces of Ukrainian military equipment.
A larger issue arises with the employment of counter-battery systems by the Ukrainians. These advanced systems can detect an incoming round and pinpoint the round's origin prior to it even making impact. As such, modern doctrine requires that artillery systems move immediately after firing to avoid counter-battery fires.
However, the Ukrainians are not necessarily targeting the artillery pieces themselves. Indeed, the Ukrainians have only destroyed a small percentage of the Russian artillery carried into the war, with fewer than 400 pieces destroyed. Rather, once the Ukrainians know the location of the artillery cannons, they also know the general vicinity of the BTG. The Ukrainians can then use their arsenal of drones and electronic warfare systems to pinpoint Russian command posts, vehicles, and troop concentrations, which are subsequently targeted and destroyed.
These issues with artillery likely arose from a lack of training among the Russian ranks. Prior to the invasion, many of the units were under-trained, with large training events likely cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the Ukrainians have decimated the Russian officer corps, forcing the Russians to deploy under-trained officers with little experience into a ferocious fight. These somewhat overwhelmed officers would naturally be attracted to artillery given its firepower and standoff; however, they lack the experience to know the second order effects from over-using artillery.
Artillery at its most basic level requires three things: ammunition, cannons and soldiers to fire it. The Russians are quickly depleting their supply of all three.
So while having sufficient artillery is vital to Ukraine's defense, Ukraine doesn't need to achieve parity to win (they certainly haven't had parity to this point and have been successful in defending against the poorly performing Russian military). To this point, the biggest advantage Russia has in this war has been the fact that they don't count their losses, not their artillery advantage. That may change at any point, although I doubt it will ever get to the point where Putin starts sweating the death of his soldiers.
Cue Russian shills on 3 ... 2 ... 1.
