• hydroptic
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      5 months ago

      Yeah. Government-owned companies producing shells that probably wouldn’t pass QC in “the west”, and paying employees a pittance in comparison. Also at least based on aerial photos, Russians seem to use contact fuzes a lot (you can see the difference from the “splash” patterns) which are a lot cheaper than airburst / multifunction fuzes, but admittedly those might well have been old Soviet stock and their new production could well be more modern.

      Still, regardless of the fuze used it’s no surprise that Russian production is cheaper.

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Reportedly the Russian factory workers are being paid quite well. And the lack of quality is just a myth I think. There’s no indication that’s actually true.

        The real reason prices in the West are so high is that there’s a shortage, and shells are supplied overwhelmingly by private contractors, and so the price has multiplied thanks to supply-and-demand market logic.

        You may think the Efficient Free Market Knows Best™, so shouldn’t they increase production? Think again. They’re making record profits right now. Meaningfully increasing production involves building new factories for billions of dollars/euros, which might be ready in a year or two. By then the war will be over and they would have overcapacity, which would be inefficient and prices would plummet. Why would they do that to themselves?

        So they’re in a great negotiating position vis a vis desperate Western governments. They want guaranteed profits, of the same sort they’re making right now, or else the shortage continues.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        considering the rate at which UA is destroying russian tube arty I can’t imagine the fuzing will make much difference in the war.

        what an absolute shit show.

        • hydroptic
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          5 months ago

          It’s not like literally all Russian artillery gets destroyed before firing off a single shot. Fuzing absolutely does make a difference

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            no, it’s just that 20-40+ tubes are eliminated DAILY. which is absolutely bonkers. They’re losing a division of artillery every couple weeks.

            you do realize it takes meatsacks to run the guns right?

            and while you may be able to refurb some of the damaged tubes, the meatsacks are gone and you’re going to have to train new ones?

            It’s not like literally all Russian artillery gets destroyed before firing off a single shot. Fuzing absolutely does make a difference

            no, it’s like, mathematically obvious, that literally all russian arty gets destroyed before firing off their second or third salvos, you know, the shots ‘fire for effect’ cover, the ones that matter?

            If you knew squat about field artillery you’d fucking know the first few rounds always require adjustment.

            You’d also understand shoot and scoot. Apparently all these concepts are new to you.

            What a fucking bellend, wannabe redleg pogue

  • Olifant@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Which I’m sure are definitely not of lower quality with an increased ratio of duds produced by a more war-centric economy that’s ultimately degrading their society even further.

  • olbaidiablo @lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    I’m sure the Ukrainian drone manufacturers really appreciate this. The cheaper they are the more you have at depots, the bigger the boom when you bomb them.

    • naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      99% of the people who participated in the 1989 anti-corruptipn protests are fine. They went after the figureheads who tried to skew the protests into being pro-democracy (coincidentally, most of these people ended up in the US and were offered asylum). Casualties primarily occurred in standoffs surrounding the square - police were strung up, molotovs were thrown, windows were smashed, national guard opened fire, and the (rather inadequately trained) riot police got handed equipment and told to deal with it.

      It was widely seen at the time that Deng Xiaoping’s policies for economic liberalization were harming the average person by allowing some regions and some people to get rich before others. What that meant in practice was that local government officials would grift the crap out of things… So the protests happened, Deng Xiaoping was forced to step down, and the pace of economic liberalization was slowed. The point of the movement was not for change of government or democratization - that skew happened incredibly late in the process, but most notably the protests did lead to substantiative change in China’s government, policy direction, and led to the most senior officials stepping down.

      The protests… Worked. Just like the white paper protests worked in ending COVID-19 restrictions. Just like hundreds of protests every year help bring attention to local government officials’ corruption. The protests led to substantiative change in policy, had repercussions on the relevant government officials, and, fundamentally, did exactly what a protest is designed to do.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine’s Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost, according to an analysis shared with Sky News.

    The figures, produced by the management consulting firm Bain & Company, underline a major challenge faced by the Ukrainian armed forces as they rely on supplies of ammunition from the United States and Europe to battle Russia’s full-scale invasion.

    It prompted the US, the UK and other European allies to seek to ramp up production in their respective factories, but their ability to manufacture artillery rounds still lags behind Russia’s despite a combined economic strength that far outmatches Moscow’s.

    “Often, with just one, two or three shells, we can completely destroy a target,” said Senior Lieutenant Kostiantin, an artillery battery commander with the 57th Brigade, which is fighting against a new Russian invasion into the Kharkiv region, in the northeast of Ukraine.

    Sky News visited a group of new recruits in the east of the country who were learning how to use an N-LAW anti-tank missile, first provided to the Ukrainian military by the UK.

    Sky News visited a factory in Belfast in April where the N-LAW missile is assembled by Thales, a global defence company.


    The original article contains 931 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!