The big war is cancelled: there is not enough gunpowder!
Here we laughed together at Mr. Macron’s attempts to send his military to protect the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The laughter, of course, is so sad, because the French, and the Poles, and the Czechs, and whoever didn’t fit into the black soil...
There is no joy in this, it’s all at our expense in general. They will come - of course, we will respect them, but the further into the forest, more precisely, in the steppe of southern Ukraine, the less confidence there is in this.
Today the world has again become multi-polar, it is divided again, but does this mean that tomorrow one side will go to war against the other? On the one hand, many smart people have already talked about this, on the other hand, there are prerequisites for objecting in full.
Shell hunger
Reading and trying to analyze what I read from the reports on both sides of the Northern Military District, which is gradually beginning to be called a war, I got a very strange feeling that everything was not going according to plan.
So, on the other side, despite the help from the NATO common fund, everything is far from ideal. Moreover, already at the beginning of last year, cautious statements began to be made to the effect that the war was experiencing difficulties. Moreover, not in terms of thirst, because the blood or water of all military operations - oil, for now, is enough. That's it, there will be as much gasoline and diesel fuel as needed on both sides of the conflict.
Problem with something else. The problem is with gunpowder, which can safely be called the bread of war. And it was this very bread that was no longer enough.
What nonsense, some will rightly want to exclaim and will be almost fair in this impulse. However, it is true, and here's why.
The term “shell famine” is well known to us from last year, when (may God bless them all) the commanders of the Wagner PMC and the director of the company, Evgeniy Prigozhin, began to draw everyone’s attention to this problem through the media. And how, after some time, the official media showed whole rows of pallets with shells.
But somehow I didn’t have a chance to see the same pallets with charges. And that's normal, by the way.
In fact, counter-battery fire drones, aircraft with long-range missiles, tactical missiles and other “pleasures” of war pushed artillery batteries to the maximum distance from the front line. But the tasks that were set for the artillery of both sides were not canceled.
The further the barrels move away from the enemy, the more difficult shooting becomes. If there is 15 km between the gun and the target, it’s one conversation, but when it’s twice as much, it’s a completely different conversation. The projectile needed is the same, but the charge, alas, is different. Increased.
In fact, gunpowder burns in barrels at a higher speed than gasoline and diesel fuel in cylinders and chambers.
Shell hunger is not exactly a shell famine, it is also a cartridge famine, but a cartridge is just a reduced artillery shot and nothing more. An automatic cartridge contains one and a half grams of gunpowder, but the propellant charge of an artillery shell is 10-15 kg, depending on the caliber. The mortar shell dangles in the middle, but it also doesn’t want to fly without a propellant charge.
So any kind of “hunger”, no matter cartridge, shell, or mine, is a shortage of gunpowder. Gunpowder that sends both a 5,45 mm bullet and a 152 mm projectile into flight.
Of course, neither side discloses the exact volume of ammunition consumed. But in principle, judging by the fact that the allies recently promised Kyiv 4 million shells (they will only give 1,5 million so far), one can estimate that 40 tons of gunpowder should go with such a number of metal blanks stuffed with death.
Gunpowder in flasks
If you look through the specialized forums of the country (for example, guns.ru), then since the summer of 2022 there have been discussions about the fact that there is less choice of cartridges, and gunpowder for those who like to equip cartridges themselves is quite expensive.
Some even gave versions that the entire volume of gunpowder produced in the country goes to the needs of the SVO, but after talking with competent people, I was imbued with the understanding that hunting gunpowder is still quite different from combat gunpowder and cannot replace it in the same machine gun cartridges.
Another question is that yes, production facilities are used specifically for the production of combat gunpowder, and the assortment of hunting stores has become rather scarce due to the departure of Western manufacturers.
But let’s face it, gunpowder is more relevant for the army today than for entertainment. Hunters, no offense. But there is still not enough gunpowder, since its market has not yet recovered after the departure of Western manufacturers. And I don’t think it will recover until the end. We'll have to be patient.
Gunpowder is generally a problematic product; its basis is cotton, from which nitrocellulose for gunpowder is synthesized. Alas, it does not grow in Russia. During the Soviet era, all cotton came from the Uzbek and Tajik SSR, today, as you understand, the issue is not an easy one. And foreign exchange.
But modern Uzbekistan is only the fifth largest cotton producer in the world, the leaders are China, India, Pakistan, and the USA. And among the top ten producers is Syria...
In general, the supply issue does not look as bad as it could be. We have.
But income is only half the question, the other is expense. And the expense, as we have all seen, can be simply monstrous. Maybe someone will calmly forget after seeing Bakhmut’s fiery hell, but it’s difficult for a normal person to do this.
We can say that due to the fact that air defense systems significantly neutralized the use aviation, and artillery began to play no less significant role than in the Second World War.
How do you generally calculate consumption? You can start from the statistics of the war in Afghanistan, where a group of Soviet troops of 100 people (counting absolutely everyone) spent about 000 million rounds of ammunition per month. If you count it, this is about 30 tons of gunpowder. But this was Afghanistan.
Today, on the territory of Ukraine, the fighting is much more severe, and I would say that its intensity is an order of magnitude higher. And the quantitative composition is not really known, but it is definitely five times more. From here, the cartridge consumption can be safely multiplied by 10. That is, 450 tons of gunpowder per month.
And also shells. It’s simpler here, Prigogine, may he rest in peace, voiced the figures of 20 thousand shells. In a day. Only in the Bakhmut area. But the battles there were terrible in intensity; it is probably possible to accept such a figure for the entire line. That is, 300 tons of gunpowder. Per day. More shots - more consumption. But it turns out that our artillery and infantry require a minimum of about 10 tons of gunpowder per month.
The factories seem to be coping; basically everything is developing normally. That is, we have cotton supply channels, we have chemical enterprises doing everything necessary, gunpowder factories produce as much gunpowder as the army needs.
Did you miss anything? If anything, correct it.
What do they have?
What the Czechs did by promising Ukraine 4 million shells can only be called a scam. They just staked out a number for themselves and went looking around the world for these same shells. It is already clear that nothing really will come of it, and God grant that Kyiv receives at least 1,5 million out of 4. Then. May be. Half.
But we will leave the Czech fraud on their conscience; it was clear from the very beginning that the Czechs simply do not have such a quantity of shells, but what kind of garbage dumps they will collect it from is absolutely not our headache.
But in parallel with the Czechs, another statement slipped through completely unnoticed. A joint. Denmark and Norway, together, promised Ukraine as many as 9 000-mm shells. This, as we understand, is for a day of not very active hostilities.
Norway will provide shells, and Denmark will provide charges and fuses. Naturally, this will be ammunition removed from storage. This is a very good indicator of the European attitude towards Ukraine: nothing personal, purely business. You can’t compare it with the Czechs, of course, but if these shells weren’t about to expire, do you think the Europeans would be generous?
So I think not. And here is a demonstration of how “All of Europe is concerned.” Of course, there is concern - how to make money before the Kiev shop closes completely.
And here, indirect information that Norway will replace its insanely generous gift by 2025 suggests that the brave descendants of the Vikings are not planning to fight in the near future.
And so throughout Europe, and not only there, by the way. Warehouses are being emptied, but no one is in a hurry to replenish them.
Early last year, the French company EURENCO promised to bring back gunpowder production from Sweden to its new plant in Bergerac. The main reason is that Ukraine must be saved! Macron promised to help with all his might, and this seems to be the result of his efforts.
The Bergerac plant is planned to produce 1 tons of gunpowder per year. This volume is enough to produce “200 thousand modular propellant charges for 500 thousand rounds, of which 95 thousand are intended for the needs of the French army within the framework of the law on the development of national defense until 15.”
That is, again we are not talking about helping Kyiv, but about replenishing our own reserves. But there still remains the lion’s share of 80 thousand charges, which can just be transferred to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Generously? Yes. Two, or even three months of shooting.
The whole problem is that the plant is not yet ready for operation and it will not be possible to launch it before 2025. But this is not the main problem.
There are also Spaniards, the company Expal, which belongs to the German concern Rheinmetall. Well, is there no need to say that the Germans are now plowing three shifts in Kyiv?
The big bell rang quietly in February of this year when China announced that it would stop exporting cotton to Europe. Their crop failure is terrible and as luck would have it, they need to re-equip the army reserves. Therefore, a thousand and one excuses, but there will be no cotton in 2024. And perhaps in 2025 too.
Who will be surprised that EURENCO management has already announced that plans to launch the plant will be revised and, in our words, “shifted to the right”? Until a new cotton supplier is found.
And with the Spaniards it’s even cooler! Expal actually has to fulfill an order from Rheinmetall for 100 thousand shells for Kyiv. And the Spaniards had to fulfill this order by the end of this year. But they won’t do it, because they… that’s right, problems with gunpowder!
So the Spaniards will sharpen the blanks, no problem there. But gunpowder - alas. But they promised to study the market, import substitution and all that.
It turns out that China is the most important link in the production of shells. Moreover, anywhere, from the USA to Russia. The country occupies 25% of the world cotton market, producing about 6 million tons of raw material. The same number is in India. In third place is the USA. But the United States sells all its “excess” cotton to Mexico, Honduras and... China!
We will not draw conclusions about why China suddenly needed such a surplus of cotton; here it is already clear why. The reserve is not easy on the pocket, especially if (judging by the statements) nothing like this is planned with Taiwan. Since the PRC will not do anything at all in terms of Taiwan, it is clear that several tens of thousands of tons of gunpowder are simply needed in warehouses.
Europe will definitely wait, Europe is not going to war
By the way, approximately the same can be said in relation to South Korea and Japan. They are not going to war either. This looks strange: against the backdrop of constant cries about the emanating threat from China and North Korea (especially from Korea), these two countries are sending some “surplus” shells to Ukraine.
It’s strange, to say the least: you have threats at your doorstep, and shells go to the other side of the world for free. Everyone understands that in the event of any problem in South Korea, for example, Ukraine will definitely not help. And there is nothing, and there is no need.
The conclusion is very simple: while some types of the original French president are shaking the air with promises to send their legions to death in Ukraine, the vast majority of European countries are quietly sitting in the corners and muttering something like “holy, holy, holy, save and carry.” It will really be difficult for them to fight.
I'm not saying that there were no shells, gunpowder and equipment left there in general. There are practically no shells, gunpowder and equipment left there for Ukraine, and this is far from the same thing. But two years of SVO have already shown quite well what volumes of everything such a conflict can gobble up without a trace.
In fact, I got the following impression: where they planned the conflict on the other side, they miscalculated. Yes, I turned it back two and a half years, looked at what experts and “experts” in the world were saying about a possible Russia-Ukraine confrontation and came to the conclusion that almost everyone agreed that in two weeks the Russian army would be in Kyiv. Or even earlier.
The theme of the blitzkrieg sounded powerful and even, and starting from it, they began to prepare counteraction. Yes exactly. The option that was calculated was the capture of Ukraine along the Dnieper line and in a fairly quick time frame. Just the thing: the infrastructure is intact, there is something to capture.
And according to the plans, a guerrilla-sabotage war against the invaders would have to begin from overseas. According to the model and likeness of the one that was in 1944-1951 of the last century.
Refresh your memory, what Western gifts did we talk about at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022? That's right, Bayraktars, Stingers and Javelins. And there are also grenade launchers and mines in stock. A very useful set for such a war, everything was chosen very accurately. For sabotage, sorry, Tanks, guns and tactical missiles are not needed. At all.
It was MANPADS and ATGMs that made up the bulk of the “gifts” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at that time. We somehow didn’t think much about it, but yes, Europe and the United States supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the beginning of 2022 in much the same way as they did to the Afghan Mujahideen in their time. And some attempts to supply heavy weapons began only at the end of 2022, when it became clear that the blitzkrieg would not take place.
Moreover, today it is difficult to unambiguously answer the question of why this happened: either they couldn’t, or didn’t want to. There are arguments for both versions, but in the end it turned out that there would be no guerrilla war. Yes, the Stingers played their role, especially against helicopters, and the Javelins worked as best they could, but then the need arose for tanks, guns, missiles, drones, and - especially - full-fledged air defense systems.
And here something began that no one expected in Europe. Demands for arms supplies began at a completely different level. First, all warehouses in the countries of the former ATS were swept out. Then there were attempts to organize transportation from the republics of the former USSR, but somehow this did not work out. And finally, old European-made items were used. But that too ended.
And here is the biggest problem: the newest weapon no one wants to give it away. Expensive - one, and what to be left with - two. IRIS-T, Storm Shadow, Patriot and so on are, of course, good weapons, effective, but who will give them enough to saturate the front line?
Nobody, of course. As a result, the United States practically withdrew, they say, get busy, we have China and Taiwan on the agenda here. There is no time for Ukraine now. And the European allies not only don’t want to give something new, they’re already struggling with the old, poor things.
And now I will allow myself a small historical excursion
It was a long time ago. Back in 1940. In the small German town of Zossen in southern Germany, a military plan-game took place, in which the Barbarossa plan was played out. He was played by the same personalities who had previously played the fate of Poland, Belgium, Denmark, and France on tablets here. We know these names very well: Halder, Paulus, von Brauchitsch, Guderian, von Kleist and others.
We won't go into the details of this game because we know how it all ended. So, the speaker, General Paulus, who was leading the game, ended up saying this strange phrase: “Strategy, gentlemen, is the algebra of war, which makes it possible to differentiate the final result of the battle long before it. We need to be better prepared.".
And better than anyone else, this algebra was understood by the Chief of the General Staff, Halder (it would be strange if the Chief of General Staff did not understand the essence!), who after and without unnecessary witnesses said to Paulus: “We need a blitzkrieg. Prolongation of the war threatens us with disaster...".
The blitzkrieg did not take place in 2022. It doesn't matter for what reason. The guerrilla sabotage war died in its infancy. In European countries that support Ukraine, there is less and less... no, not money. No one is interested in money if it is not turned into shells and cartridges.
More precisely (I will correct myself), money, of course, is not a bad thing for the Ukrainian elites, who will be happy to “master” it to the fullest extent, but the pound sterling - they will not shoot at the “Geranium”, which is flying towards the target. And euros cannot be loaded into machine guns; they must be converted into weapons.
And with this there are difficulties, and enormous difficulties! Europe can't cope with the war! They really needed a blitzkrieg, because then they could strangle Russia with sanctions, throwing firewood on the smoldering fire of “popular resistance.”
But no, it didn't work out. And now ALL mighty Europe can do nothing to oppose Russia with its two rogue allies Iran and North Korea? Seriously?
Yes seriously. The Spaniards will spend a year sharpening 100 shells, which were shot at Bakhmut in a week. The French will be looking for where to get cotton for gunpowder, including for these shells.
There won't be a big war. NATO is not ready for it, this must be admitted today so that it does not cause excruciating pain tomorrow. Europe is not ready for a big war. Outside Europe - the USA and Türkiye - they have their own cockroaches and interests.
What are we even talking about, what kind of global war with Russia, if the Europeans don’t have gunpowder for such a thing?
Of course, there is still the scenario of a nuclear war, but cotton is definitely not needed for that. But this, you understand, is even more ridiculous than the war to admonish Russia by NATO.
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