German weapons-maker Rheinmetall opened Europe’s largest munitions plant on Wednesday, a move hailed as boosting Western defences by NATO chief Mark Rutte.
German weapons-maker Rheinmetall opened Europe’s largest munitions plant on Wednesday, a move hailed as boosting Western defences by NATO chief Mark Rutte.
350,000 a year are 1,000 a day are 1 a day and km on a 1,000 km frontline. Ukraine has an active 850 km frontline.
Russia is producing 250,000 per month.
How are we going to win?
See, the way counting works, is that you count to 1 first, and then go on to count to 10.
But in a slightly less dickish answer, Europe is fundamentally at peace. We’re doing peacetime production, meaning that companies will only produce what they can sell at a profit until they at the very least recoup the investment. If the EU starts making 1.5m shells per month, nobody will buy them. Companies being companies, they will maximize profit, meaning they only really want to build efficiently.
Russia is fundamentally at war. They will buy every single shell anyone can produce. Screw profit, screw efficiency. If you’re hand-lathing 7 casings per year in your garden shed, they’ll take em. Volume is more important than cost or efficiency. Retooling existing factories, putting up old, inefficiënt and unprofitable factories is a great idea if all you want is more at whatever cost.
But if/when Europe goes to war, the same will happen. BMW will start making military trucks, Corus will be making shells and armor, Lego starts making claymores etc etc. But we’re not doing that right now, because economics doesn’t work like that.
We are at the same war as Russia. If we don’t outproduce Russia then what is our winning strategy?
Yeah, support for Ukraine is really half assed at best. The winning strategy seems to be waiting on the Orange to do something which he won’t ever.
I mean, we SHOULD be, but honestly, we’re not
A proxy war is different than a hot war on your doorstep.
Russia isn’t producing 250k per month of anything, apart from gullible people on the internet believing their bullshit
How would the USA defeat Spain?
Because the economic size difference is about the same. People need to stop thinking Russia is like the USSR. It’s not. It’s a single medium size european country. Its economy is the size of Spain’s. Each of France, Italy, Germany are bigger.
350,000 in a single factory. There are a lot of others and other manufacturers as well.
Also being 1000km from the frontline in another country is a massive advantage. It means Russia can not easily bomb it.
100 rounds do not matter if they are made so poorly and fired from cannons so old they end up hitting 3km away from the target. Even more so if the cannon is obliterated minutes later thanks to precise counter fire.
1 round matters greatly if it lands exactly where it was supposed to. As the round is in the air, the cannon has already packed up and is on its way somewhere else, making counter fire impossible.
If you have many cannons and they all shoot at roughly the same area, the many imprecise rounds end up saturating the area effectively.
I fully agree with you that we cannot just look at the raw numbers, but we should also acknowledge that quantity can beat quality. In the modern context we see that with drone swarms that overwhelm sophisticated missile AA systems and lead back to the quantity over quality defense with high RPM cannons being more effective.
Based on your history here, I’m not entirely convinced what your “we” is in this conflict, ngl…
Aren’t we at war to defend the values that allow us to have divergent opinions? I am and will be involved in the war, no matter what I say, because the majority decides. At the same time I think it’s at least a bit of my duty to point out that the German population is fooled once more.
While Ukraine does indeed also fight this war for the future of a free Europe, we are not at war.
But although Ukraine also fights for our values that allow us to have divergent opinions, that doesn’t stop people here that like to take an opposing position towards various matters to root for the other side. Can you say you want Ukraine to be victorious against Russia?
It is a hybrid war with a lose lose lose situation for Ukraine. Win, lose, keep fighting, nothing is good. Seeing this like a sport event with teams to root for ignores how entwined the situation is.
Russia invaded Ukraine and right now, Ukraine has to fight Russia in order to survive. Nothing cloudy about that.
Everyone will have an opinion on the question whether they want Ukraine to succeed. Russia has a clear opinion, I have a clear opinion,…
The “team” I root for is fighting for its survival.
It’s your choice whether you want to root for them to survive or don’t.
It’s your choice to frame this as a competition of teams or not.
What will be the outcome if Ukraine wins?
Have you seen the surveillance that is coming up for the EU and the tendency to dissolve the nation states? Kyiv is fighting to be ruled by Brussels in exchange for Moscow. Ukraine won’t survive in the EU either.
NUCLEAR WAR!!!