The lethal effects of artillery were not put on a really scientific basis until WW2.
There were lots of reasons for this involving money & politics I won't go into.
When the operational analysts to their first bite. They made charts like this mapping fragment impacts. 2/
The previous chart wasn't accurate because because it mapped a static detonation.
Analysts knew these maps were wrong because of damage inflicted in WW2.
It took early vacuum tube digital computers in the 1950's to accurately model how velocity altered that frag-pattern. 3/
What analysts were trying to achieve was a consistent modeling of airburst frag-patterns to kill infantry in trenches.
Then this information was fed into engineering shell designs to get the metallurgy & design of shells 4/
...such that they consistently made fragments of the right size/velocity to kill infantry over larger areas.
Starting in the 1970's through early 2000's this technological avenue was abandoned for the deployment of cluster munitions. 5/
The movement to ban cluster weapons lead to a push to replace lots of little bombs with more efficient fragmentation with 40 years better computer technology, explosives & metallurgy.
This Rheinmetall infographic shows what that means in terms of shell lethality. 6/
PBX4 IM is a insensitive plastic explosive that fragments steel more efficiently than TNT.
# Pre-Frag means the number of engineered fragments the shell produces. Now read the infographic bottom line from left to right.
7/
Russian 152mm shells have not ridden the increased lethality technological development train because Russia kept artillery cluster munitions.
The M795 155mm shell has. And it much more lethal on a shell for shell basis than a Russian 152mm shell because it did.
8/
There is a price to be paid for US M795 shell being both more lethal in its fragmentation and safer to use because of the explosives.
It costs more than a Russian 152mm shell.
There are reasons why the defense budget costs more for fewer weapons.
This is one of them.
9/End
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In WW2 according to US Army Medical department statistics, the US Army ground forces in NW Europe and the Mediterranean took 65% of their casualties from Artillery.
In 2025, Russia is taking 75% from drones.
2/
Drones are now more lethal in Ukraine than artillery was in the WW2, the most artillery heavy war in human history to date.
Drones have replaced, and then some, tube artillery, rockets and mortars as the indirect fire "King of Battle."
Strategypage -dot- com has a new article out on the decline of Russian that civil infrastructure that makes Frederick Lanchester smile.
Russian Civil Infrastructure Attrition🧵
1/
Text from the article:
"Russia wants to end the Ukraine War via negotiations with the United States. This will work if done from a position of strength. The current Russian situation is weak and getting weaker.
2/
...Russian forces in Ukraine are stalled and too weak to launch another offensive, even a small one.
It will get worse. The Russian economy is starting to collapse in some or many areas because of disinvestment.
3/
The semiconductor industrial base is the foundation of 21st century economic & military power.
The USSR only ever produced single detector element technology like Long Wavelength Infrared (LWIR) Infrared Line Scan (IRLS) or scanning infrared Search and Track (IRST) like those on the MiG-29 Fulcrum A.
2/
The USSR never produced any of the classic nodding or spinning mirror LWIR Forward Looking Infrared (FLIRs) sensors that the US introduced during the Vietnam war.
In fact there is no evidence Russia was able to sustain any of the large Soviet semiconductor industry.
3/
The vast majority of US military aid to Ukraine was in fact spent inside the USA to replace vastly overpriced by the Biden Adm. National Guard & Air Guard surplus weapons.
Spending aid money buying Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to replace NG surplus Humvees
...was just one of the aid grifts @JakeSullivan46 NSC crew played to pretend they were helping Ukraine while not offending Russia & buying US Defense contractor kit.
Pres. Trump is literally parroting Russian reflexive control scripts from Biden Adm.
This should not be a surprise as I've pounded on the fact for 2 years that Russia has mapped & fed to each specific US tribal & professional demographic the data to eat up messages/memes Russia wants those groups to believe.
This @sambendett thread here makes Russia seem like a poor kid looking through a candy store window at the "candy" of Ukrainian ground resupply drones.
I mean, seriously, Russia is now introducing a camel transport corps because the Russian startups and big defense contractors cannot produce supply UGV's at scale to deliver potable water to front line troops.
This 🧵by @GrandpaRoy2 demonstrating the increasing battlefield obsolescence of tube artillery in the face of fiber optic fiber guided FPV drones is a useful jumping off point the following:
66% of RuAF AFV's & equipment killed in Jan 2025 were victims of drones
Back in November 2024 I did a long thread on how drones were an "effectiveness revolution" on the battlefield and we would see drones displacing other battlefield weapons because of it.