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Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost (news.sky.com)

submitted 5 months ago by nekandro@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] uebquauntbez@lemmy.world 69 points 5 months ago

No profits for companies. Wartime economy.

[-] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 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 13 points 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.

[-] sicaniv@lemmy.ml -1 points 5 months ago

Russian military is building their own while West is buying from others. Obviously the Russian's gonna be better and cheaper then westerners.

[-] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

What makes you think that? Do you think we are buying made in China artillery shells? Of course the West makes its own. The main difference is that we never expected to need very many of them, because in a typical war the West has air superiority and uses bombs/rockets instead of shells.

[-] sicaniv@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago

Russian military is building their own while western ones are buying it from corporations that want only profit and nothing else. So to keep this profit going up they don't expand their factory capacity creating an artificial scarcity of shells to keep their prices up. But it's not the case with Russian military.