Russia is losing around 320 tank and artillery cannon barrels a month and producing only 20. The Russian engineering industry lacks the skills to build rotary forges; in fact, the world market is dominated by a single Austrian company, GFM. Russia is unlikely to acquire more forges and increase its production rate.

Russia was never a very powerful manufacturer, compared to the Western competition, or compared to China today.

To resupply its forces, Russia has been stripping tank and artillery barrels from the vast stockpiles it inherited from the Soviet Union. But these stockpiles have withered since the start of the war.

For a bit of perspective:
In WW2 Germany took (Austria mostly voluntary), France, Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia AND Ukraine.

Now after almost 3 years, Russia not only hasn't managed to take Ukraine, but has lost territory to them too. For months now Russia has still not been able to take it back!

Even sacrificing more than 1000 men per day the past 6 months, Russia is still doing poorly, and is running out of equipment.

In WW2 the Soviet Union didn't really do that well either. They only managed because they got a lot of equipment from USA, and because they also in that war sacrificed their soldiers as cannon fodder.

Ukraine on the other hand has done very well against Russia, managing to hold back a Nation with 4 times their population and 6-8 times their economy!!
Of course Ukraine is getting help now, but they managed to fight back in the start of the war, even before any help had arrived.

Slava Ukraini

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Now after almost 3 years, Russia not only hasn't managed to take Ukraine, but has lost territory to them too. For months now Russia has still not been able to take it back!

That was a battle cry for a tankie to show up and produce a different statistic. FYI, it's usually a time capped chart that limits data in Russia's favor.

War is a dynamic phenomenon, after all. (You can usually take a specific block of time from any point and produce a favorable result by limiting which variables are used. This is why internet charts and graphs must always be verified, actually.)

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

War is a dynamic phenomenon, after all.

Doesn't change the fact that this 3 week operation, is now a 1000+ day embarrassment for Russia. Where instead of taking Ukraine in 3 weeks, they've only managed 20% in almost 3 years, and at extreme cost of both human lives and war material. Plus they've committed a long string of war crimes.

I don't see how any tankie can turn this to look good for Russia, except flat out lying about it.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Even worse, their propaganda outlets were reporting three days at the onset

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

AFAIK the estimate given to Putin was 3 weeks, 3 days was media hype, I'm not going to repeat that nonsense.

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