Russian invasion of Ukraine

With respect that’s not what NickH said, he said that the US and Europe could not equal Russia even if they wanted to. This is patently untrue as my link shows.

I don't see the relevance of those stats - weapons are no use if you don't have ammunition for them. The important numbers are the manufacturing capacity of artillery shells, AA missiles and glide bombs.

Shells: Russia is firing 5 times as many. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-­68778338 Even if the US and the West give all the shells they can make, Russia can get 3 times more. These are Nato numbers https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/polit­ics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us­-europe-ukraine/index.html

JD Vance makes a similar point in his NYT article. He says Ukraine wants 4m-7m shells per year. The US has recently doubled its capacity to 360k and intends to get to 1.2m by the end of 2025. I don't know whether he's used real numbers in good faith https://archive.ph/rpawV Perhaps somebody would like to check? The article is 2 days old and nobody seems to have contradicted it yet.

Glide bombs: these are a recent addition. Russia retrofits pop-out wings and GPS navigation to dumb bombs from the Cold War era. Here's a video, linked to by the FT https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/17752­26591875826115

Russia is believed to have vast stocks of the bombs, and the add-ons are cheap and easy to source. They drop about 100 glide bombs a day. Each has 500 kg - 1.5 tonnes of explosive. Enough to destroy an apartment block or a fortified position. They are dropped by planes from a distance of 60-80 km. Various Ukraine sources are saying there is virtually no defence against them. I don't know whether that's because of a shortage of AA missiles or AA systems or the long range. Probably a combo of all three. More detail in the FT https://www.ft.com/content/0d6612f2-5d59­-4ce2-bb2f-592309991430

AA missiles: Patriot missiles cost about $4m each. Ukraine doesn't have many left. According to Vance, Ukraine has asked for thousands of missiles per year. The US can make 550, or 650 if production is increased. But the US wants a large number for its own use. (The Iran attack last night may have needed 250.) Ukraine has other advanced AA systems, notably the Norwegian NASAMS, but it's safe to say that nobody has a big production line for the missiles.

Russia is using its artillery and glide bomb advantages to demolish Kharkiv, gain territory and kill Ukrainians, and there isn't much that Ukraine can do about it. That's why so many journalists are talking about a defeat. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=0b­c39af9d1d15b37&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1JZAP_enG­B1035GB1035&sxsrf=ACQVn08mJaDA3lYvIHb1KS­K39UdI6oRlYg:1713121580418&q=can+ukraine­+win+the+war&tbm=nws&source=univ&tbo=u&s­a=X&ved=2ahUKEwj61Ieas8KFAxXpUkEAHQ7gAF8­Qt8YBKAF6BAgOEAQ&biw=960&bih=459&dpr=2

If anyone is curious about the history of satellite-guided bombs, the US made the first ones by adding their JDAM kit to dumb bombs in 1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition#Similar_systems

The Russian kit is called UMPK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMPK_(bomb_kit)

Ukraine used the long range version of the JDAM against Russia last year. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/04/26/a-symphony-of-bomb-blasts-one-after-another-four-ukrainian-jdams-apparently-strike-russian-positions-in-bakhmut/?sh=6a4ccae51427