Krieg in der Ukraine

[theoderich]

Biden Administration Announces Historic New Security Assistance Package for Ukraine

The capabilities in this announcement, which totals up to $6 billion, include:

• Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems;

• Additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);

• Equipment to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles, and radars with Ukraine's air defense systems;

• Counter-UAS equipment and systems;

• Munitions for laser-guided rocket systems;

• Multi-mission radars;

• Counter-artillery radars;

• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);

• 155mm and 152mm artillery rounds;

• Precision aerial munitions;

• Switchblade and Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS);

• Tactical vehicles to tow weapons and equipment;

• Demolition munitions;

• Components to support Ukrainian production of UAS and other capabilities;

• Small arms and additional small arms ammunition; and

• Ancillary items and support for training, maintenance, and sustainment activities.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/R ... e-for-ukr/

• Fact Sheet on U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine
  April 26, 2024
  
  https://media.defense.gov/2024/Apr/26/2 ... SAI_18.PDF

[theoderich]

In the Ukrainian army company where Sgt. Magura serves, only three of the 11 armored personnel carriers they had in 2023 are left. And of the three, one is being repaired because the starting system stopped working. The vehicles they use in their unit are the U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle, one of the additions that NATO allies brought to Ukraine for the 2023 summer counteroffensive. “But they are old vehicles that have arrived used and here they last only a few months,” says this officer of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the most comprehensive unit Ukraine has ever had, with Western armament and NATO training.

Her third Bradley may take many weeks to return to the battlefield, adds a spokeswoman for the brigade: the parts it needs have to arrive from Europe. The 47th Brigade is in a dire state, according to the military personnel interviewed by EL PAÍS, because it is the mirror of the weakness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the face of Russia’s domination on the front.

Magura — the code name of the 28-year-old sergeant, an architect by profession — shares two devastating facts: for every armored infantry vehicle that the Ukrainian army has, the enemy has 10; for every Ukrainian soldier defending the Avdiivka front, there are 30 Russians attacking them.

The 47th Brigade is the product of former commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s commitment to create a flagship unit to lead the counteroffensive in June 2023.

[...]

It was founded in the fall of 2022 and in the last year alone, it has had four commanders, an unprecedented turnover. The first commander of the brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Oleksandr Sak, was relieved in September 2023 after the catastrophic offensive on the Zaporizhia front. The 47th Brigade lost 30% of its soldiers in three months, according to military sources consulted by this newspaper that summer.

Sak was accused of persisting in the futile tactic of sending in armored columns that were blocked in minefields and annihilated by Russia’s drones and artillery. “Our commanders had too many expectations and bad predictions about our potential when the counteroffensive began,” Magura explains. “Then they were changed and there were smarter orders, but we lost a lot of resources and were left without many experienced people.”

Sak was replaced by Colonel Oleksandr Pavliuk. He held the position until last January. Military members of the brigade publicly accused him of not understanding the internal workings of a structure based on NATO models and of replacing infantry casualties with soldiers who were not prepared for front-line combat operations, according to the Military Land war analysis center.

Rise in casualties

EL PAÍS interviewed Alexander, a former artillery officer from the 47th Brigade, on April 17. He confirms that he himself was required to stop operating with the two howitzers for which he had been trained and to join an assault platoon. The howitzers, donated by the United States, were no longer precise enough due to overuse and, more importantly, they no longer needed as many personnel due to the lack of ammunition. Alexander, who had served in the Donbas war in 2015, decided to leave the army under the rule that allows a soldier to return to civilian life if he has lost an immediate family member in the war: his brother died in combat in 2023. “If I didn’t leave the army, I was facing certain death,” he says.

“If we focus so much on the 47th Brigade it is because it is famous, but its problems are seen in the rest of the army,” says Alexander. Common problems are a depleted arsenal and a shortage of recruits. The mobilization law approved by Ukraine in April should provide nearly 400,000 civilians to the army. But the new additions, according to the sources who spoke to EL PAÍS, will arrive with no experience at a time when Russian troops have acquired knowledge and weapons, and learned how to adapt to this war.

Those interviewed for this article agree that only the Ukrainian fleet of drones is slowing down the Russian advance. But as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned at the end of March, these drones cannot make up for the shortage of long-range weapons, anti-aircraft defenses and artillery. The invading troops have between six and 10 times more ammunition than Ukraine (depending on the sector of the front) and Zelenskiy said that Ukraine is firing 2,000 projectiles a day — a figure that’s between four and five times lower than what it was in the summer of 2023.

This newspaper interviewed two other soldiers from the 47th Brigade in November 2023. Both have been discharged from the army. One of them, Ivan, captained an infantry squad in the northern sector of Avdiivka, where his soldiers were holed up on the railway tracks. He lost his entire unit, the 17 soldiers were either killed or captured by the enemy. Russia took Avdiivka in February. Since then, it has advanced six miles in the direction of Pokrovsk, the rear base on the Donetsk southern front. Fear is growing in the farms of the region, which are progressively closing their facilities and moving their machinery to other provinces.

“I know of a company with 80 soldiers that suffered 65 casualties in one week. Before, for every Ukrainian casualty, there were three Russian casualties. Now we are almost on par.” That’s according to Phoenix, who uses a pseudonym to hide his identity. He’s a civilian who works for the high command on the Pokrovsk front and for the Ukrainian intelligence services. According to Phoenix, in the northern sector of Avdiivka, the Russians took advantage of the coordination problems between the 47th Brigade and the 25th Airborne Brigade. Magura confirms that in this northern sector, where they are now resisting in the village of Ocheretyne, “there are errors in coordination between brigades, but this is because the situation changes very quickly.”

The scenario is worsening fast for Ukraine, and adapting takes time. Phoenix gives two examples of changes in brigades with NATO armament such as the 47th, changes resulting from Russia’s dominance of airspace thanks to its fleet of reconnaissance drones and bombers: “The usefulness of the Leopard [German tanks] on the front line is now nil, they don’t last.” In an article published on Saturday, military officers consulted by The New York Times said that the 47th Brigade lost several U.S. Abrams tanks in Avdiivka because they do not have sufficient short-range anti-aircraft defenses against drones.

It’s not just the threat of attacks from Russian drones, like the Lancet, or smaller aerial vehicles that can destroy a tank’s turret; Magura adds that the enemy has installed anti-tank missile systems in Avdiivka that are difficult to avoid. “Russian tanks are also dropping like flies, but they have hundreds; if we destroy 10, there are three others that accomplish their mission,” says Phoenix. The U.S. M-777 howitzer, which in 2022 were key to successful Ukrainian offensives in Kharkov and Kherson, have today taken a back seat, says Phoenix, because they are not self-propelled weapons and operations with them take too long given the Russian air threat.

“I have spoken with a thousand soldiers on this front and my conclusion is that NATO’s military theory is useless if you do not combine it with the Soviet one, which is the Russian one,” says Phoenix. “No NATO base in Europe has our combat experience, which is why we rely more and more on our own instructors,” explains a spokeswoman for the 47th Brigade.

M577 armored personnel carriers transferred to Ukraine

https://kam.lt/en/m577-armored-personne ... o-ukraine/

Lithuania handed over M577 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine

https://kam.lt/en/lithuania-handed-over ... o-ukraine/


https://www.facebook.com/LRKAM/posts/pf ... jijysBaGnl

[opticartini]

Der Ukraine fehlt eben die nötige Luftüberlegenheit, um im NATO-Stil kämpfen zu können.

Der klassische NATO-Kampfpanzer (teuer, schwer, komplex) hat an Nützlichkeit deutlich eingebüßt. Simplere Waffen, rasch produziert, in hoher Zahl sorgen für Erfolg. Hohe Feuerkadenz ist wichtig und generell bei allen Systemen: Beweglichkeit. Stationäre Artillerie ist zu schwerfällig und anfällig.

Natürlich benötigt die Ukraine mehr Munition aber die Anzahl an verschossener Munition muss nicht zwingend ein Maßstab für die Effektivität einer Armee sein. Nicht umsonst existiert das Sprichwort: Mit Kanonen auf Spatzen schießen.

[Woyzeck]

Der Ukraine fehlt eben die nötige Luftüberlegenheit, um im NATO-Stil kämpfen zu können.

Der klassische NATO-Kampfpanzer (teuer, schwer, komplex) hat an Nützlichkeit deutlich eingebüßt. Simplere Waffen, rasch produziert, in hoher Zahl sorgen für Erfolg. Hohe Feuerkadenz ist wichtig und generell bei allen Systemen: Beweglichkeit. Stationäre Artillerie ist zu schwerfällig und anfällig.

Natürlich benötigt die Ukraine mehr Munition aber die Anzahl an verschossener Munition muss nicht zwingend ein Maßstab für die Effektivität einer Armee sein. Nicht umsonst existiert das Sprichwort: Mit Kanonen auf Spatzen schießen.

Ich befürchte, sämtliche westliche Armeen wären in einem Szenario wie dem Ukrainekrieg ebenso verloren, da weder die Ausrüstung, noch die Ausbildung der Truppe adäquat für die in rapider Geschwindigkeit veränderten Gegebenheiten am Gefechtsfeld wären. Alleine beim Drohnenthema sind wir alle nackt, unsere Ausrüstung wird zu Apothekerpreisen in Kleinserie hergestellt und vor allem in Europa haben wir einen bunten Zirkus an länderspezifischer Ausrüstung, der logistisch in einem Abnützungskrieg nicht versorgbar wäre.

Dass Russland unter Sanktionsbedingungen derart rasch eine leistungsfähige Rüstungsindustrie hochfahren konnte und weder Marschflugkörper, noch andere High Tech Waffen auszugehen scheinen, während wir es mit unserer um ein Vielfaches leistungsfähigeren Wirtschaft nicht einmal schaffen, popelige 155mm Granaten in ausreichender Stückzahl herzustellen, ist ein Armutszeugnis. Unsere Armeen wären nach wenigen Wochen ebenfalls ohne Munition und ob dann was nachkommt, hängt nur von den Amerikanern ab. Weil wir sind z'deppert dazu.

[theoderich]

Dass Russland unter Sanktionsbedingungen derart rasch eine leistungsfähige Rüstungsindustrie hochfahren konnte und weder Marschflugkörper, noch andere High Tech Waffen auszugehen scheinen, während wir es mit unserer um ein Vielfaches leistungsfähigeren Wirtschaft nicht einmal schaffen, popelige 155mm Granaten in ausreichender Stückzahl herzustellen, ist ein Armutszeugnis.

Die Gesamtwirtschaft hinsichtlich des BIP pro Kopf, ja. Bei der Produktion von Rüstungsgütern schlagen jetzt eben die Folgen von 35 Jahren Abrüstung, Sparpaketen bei den Streitkräften, Reden von "10-jährigen Vorwarnzeiten" und "Rüstungskonversion" durch. Und obendrein Abhängigkeiten von Drittstaaten bei der Versorgung mit kritischen Rohstoffen:

China is a threat to Europe’s gunpowder supply, defense boss warns

Europe is too reliant on China to make powder for ammunition and risks a supply crisis that could threaten the continent’s security, one of the EU’s most important defense contractors warned.

In an interview with POLITICO, Saab CEO Micael Johansson called on governments to cut environmental rules to make it easier for companies to diversify their supply chains for critical military components.

When it comes to the supply of ingredients for gunpowder — the propellant used to fire out shells — Western defense firms should look to diversify their sources, said Johansson.

While lead times and prices for some components have improved, Johansson told POLITICO that the European defense industry still faced “bottlenecks”, especially on “powder and nitrocellulose to create powder”.

“The risk of China sort of disconnecting the deliveries of nitrocellulose to do powder in Europe … would be detrimental.”

By the beginning of 2026, the European Commission reckons the bloc will be producing 2 million shells a year. But one of the main bottlenecks to faster production is the shortage of propellant and explosive powder.

The European Commission is looking to help: Nearly half of the €500 million in EU subsidies under the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) were allocated to projects aimed at increasing powder production.

Propellant powder is made out of nitrocellulose, among other things, which itself is made from cotton fibers that mostly come from China.

When it comes to arms, the stakes of relying on Chinese raw material and components are especially high. According to U.S. intelligence services, China is likely providing nitrocellulose to Russia to help Moscow's war effort.

It’s a risk Brussels is aware of. One EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bloc’s gunpowder manufacturers must diversify sources of supply. They can do that "either by identifying new producers — but whose cotton they need to re-qualify for powder manufacture, which takes time — or by investing in new solutions such as wood cellulose, which some are already doing," the official told POLITICO. "This work is already underway," the official added.

Already in 2022, Finnish-Norwegian ammunition maker Nammo started looking into substituting tree-based cellulose for the cotton-based cellulose widely in use.

However, over-reliance on China goes beyond nitrocellulose, Johansson warned. Environmental rules need to be overhauled to make it easier for European companies to diversify their supply chains, he added.

Europe's defense manufacturers "have to look at the ecosystem and materials like aluminum and titanium, to see what dependencies we have on China, and Russia to some extent," Johansson said. Before Moscow invaded Ukraine, Europe's aerospace giants including Airbus were heavily reliant on Russia for titanium, which is a key material for the defense industry, used for building both military aircraft and submarines. Aluminum can be used for warships and military vehicles.

"Environmental approvals needed to get these materials from other parts of the world, including Europe, take up to 10 years to get approved," the Swedish executive added. "We can't have it like that if we want to change these sort of dependencies going forward."

https://www.politico.eu/article/saab-ce ... ns-europe/

6th Nitrocellulose Symposium (April 2014, Rijswijk, The Netherlands)

https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/about/cds/i ... -symposium

• Source - History - Application of Nitrocellulose
  
  Wim de Klerk, Program Manager, Ammunition Safety, TNO
  
  https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/-/media/fil ... CF4DC0B35B

Die Platzhirsche in Europa sind EURENCO und die Nitrochemie-Gruppe. In Polen gibt es noch einen bedeutenden Hersteller von Schwarzpulver, ZS Black Powder Sp. z o.o..

In Österreich fehlen schon Ausgangsstoffe zur Munitionsproduktion (Abgesehen davon, dass es in Österreich bis auf RUAG Ammotec, Rheinmetall Waffe Munition Arges, Hirtenberger Defense Systems und anscheinend DeNovus praktisch keine Munitionshersteller mehr gibt. Treibladungen für Werfergranaten entstehen bei der Kaufmann & Gottwald GmbH in Wien - siehe auch dieses Patent.).

• Department of Defense
  Review of the Foreign Comparative Testing Program
  FY2005 - FY2006
  

  Celluloid Mortar Increment Containers – Austria – 2004
  
  The Warheads, Energetics and Combat Support Armaments Center of the Army’s Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is evaluating foreign celluloid mortar increment containers as a second source for the nitrocellulose-based belted-fiber Mortar Increment Containers (MIC) used to contain and protect propulsion charge systems in 60mm, 81mm and 120mm mortars. The candidate containers are manufactured by Kaufman & Gottwald (KAGO) GmbH of Austria, a world leader in celluloid material fabrication. Qualification of KAGO as a second source of celluloid MICs will significantly reduce U.S. production costs and improve the durability of propulsion charge systems for semi- and auto-loading capabilities required for the Army’s Future Combat System. The test article contract was awarded to KAGO in April 2004 and certification of the Austrian celluloid MIC tooling and manufacturing process was completed in first quarter FY 2005. The FCT test program will continue through FY 2007 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.

  https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA487483.pdf

Der einzige österreichische Hersteller von Ausgangsprodukten für Nitrozellulose ("Schießbaumwolle") ist Austrocel Hallein. Konzentrierte Salpetersäure, wie sie für Explosivstoffe erforderlich ist, wird bei uns überhaupt nicht produziert (Nitriersäure). Zur Herstellung von konzentrierter Salpetersäure benötigt man Schwefelsäure, die bei uns ausschließlich von der Donau Chemie AG hergestellt wird:

Pulps or cellulose derivatives are starting products or additives in a variety of everyday products. These range from the food and the cosmetics industry through to the cement industry. AustroCel Hallein focuses on pulp specialties which are suitable for the production of nitrocellulose, cellulose ether, micro-crystalline cellulose, sausage skins, and other specialty applications, for example.

https://www.austrocel.com/en/pulp/

Es gibt auch keine Produktion von Schwarzpulver. 1986 existierten noch elf österreichische Firmen, die Munition oder Sprengmittel herstellten:

• PLIENEGGER Alfred: Die österreichische Rüstungsindustrie - Hypothek oder Versprechen für die Zukunft?, in: Truppendienst, H 5 (1986), p. 468-474
  
  https://bibisdata.bmlv.gv.at/187910.pdf

• Rüstungskapazität, in: ASMZ, H 11 (1988), p. 38-48
  
  https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=a ... %3A%3A1527

Die Bowas Induplan Chemie GesmbH entwickelt und konstruiert u.a. Produktionsanlagen für Nitrozellulose, Treibladungspulver und TNT:

https://www.bowas-induplan.com/manufact ... itary.html

Wenn man dagegen nach Ungarn schaut: Dort entsteht momentan eine eigene Sprengmittelfabrik und ein Werk zur Munitionsproduktion.

[theoderich]

[theoderich]

Italy has given Ukraine long-range missiles, says UK defense minister (29. April 2024)

Britain’s defense minister has stated that Italy has sent Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, lifting the lid on months of secrecy surrounding Italy’s supply of weaponry to Kyiv.

Grant Shapps made the announcement while touring the factory in the UK where missile maker MBDA manufactures the Storm Shadow, which has been used by Ukrainian forces against Russian targets in Crimea and elsewhere.

“I do think the Storm Shadow has been an extraordinary weapon,” Shapps told The Times of London.

“It’s the UK, France and Italy positioning those weapons for use, particularly in Crimea. These weapons are making a very significant difference,” he said.

Britain has previously announced sending Storm Shadows to Ukraine, while France has announced sending its version of the missile, known as the SCALP-EG. But Italy has mostly declined to give any details on arms it sends to Ukraine and has never reported dispatching the MBDA missile.

On Monday a spokesperson with the Italian defense ministry declined to comment on Shapps’ remarks when asked by a Defense News reporter.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/euro ... -minister/

[kapfe1933]

Teilweise recht interessante Fahrzeuge, welche die Russen, anscheinend schon abgeschossen oder erbeutet haben.

[theoderich]