Category: War
According to the Pentagon, the Russian military is running out of ammunition. The problem is so bad, the U.S. military said, that the Kremlin will soon start dipping into stocks of ammunition produced during the Cold War.
This isn’t necessarily a problem as ammunition isn’t perishable. In the right conditions, it can last a long time. The problem is that Russia tends not to store its ammo in ideal conditions that keep it from rotting.
An anonymous source in the U.S. military told reporters on Monday that Russia was running out of new ammunition. “Their stocks of, again, fully serviceable ammunition, you know, this would be new ammunition, is rapidly dwindling,” the unnamed official told reporters. “Which is probably forcing them to increasingly use ammunition in what we would consider degraded conditions.”
The Pentagon said that, at the current rate of use, Russia might run out of “fully serviceable” artillery and rocket ammunition by early 2023. As Moscow continues to burn through ammo in its war with Ukraine, the official said it will have to rely on less safe munitions.
“They have drawn from [Russia’s] aging ammunition stockpile, which does indicate that they are willing to use that older ammunition, some of which was originally produced more than 40 years ago,” the official told reporters.
Moscow isn’t the only country on the planet that uses old ammunition. The U.S. Air Force has repurposed 18,000 40mm shells built during World War II for use in the AC-130. The Pentagon has wanted to retire the AC-130’s 40mm cannons for a while, but they’ve proven too effective.
Properly stored in a climate-controlled environment, ammunition can last a long time. The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency oversees vast stores of munitions left over from America’s various wars. Some of what it’s sitting on is almost 100 years old. Kept in a cool dry place, some of these ammunition might still be usable. An improperly stored round can be volatile, misfire, and even explode, however.
Russia has never done a great job of properly storing its ammo. We know this because their depots tend to explode. In 2020, an ammo storage warehouse southeast of Moscow exploded, taking 75,000 tonnes of ammo with it. In 2019, an ammo storage depot in Siberia exploded. The warehouse was used to store artillery shells, rockets, and various other munitions. A similar explosion injured eight people in 2015, also in Siberia. In 2009, an explosion at an ammo storage warehouse in the city of Ulyanovsk killed two people.
These are just a few of dozens of examples of ammunition exploding in Russia. Ammo depots have exploded in former Soviet countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It’s also happened in Ukraine, multiple times.
The use of aged ammo is not necessarily the problem, it’s that Russia could soon be relying on unstable and improperly stored munitions pulled from Soviet-era warehouses that they’re lucky haven’t already exploded.
or one of all time great films about The Police action
Roland Bartetzko
former German Army, Croatian Defense Council, Kosovo Liberation Army1y
I have operated in enemy territory and I also have some friends who were lost behind enemy lines.
You don’t need a lot of things to get back to your own people. A map, for example, is a nice thing to have but it won’t show you where your enemy is positioned or where your own guys are, at least not in real-time.
As these “trips” into enemy territory usually don’t last very long (maximum 24 hours) you also don’t need some fancy survival gear or a lot of food and water.
A radio is also not really necessary. Your enemy might even pick up your radiofrequency signal and locate you before someone from your own side decides to send out a search and rescue party.
You also don’t need some “special” guns or survival knives. You will neither fight nor hunt.
In addition to this, in such a situation, you should travel as lightly as possible: get rid of your body armor, your helmet, and other unnecessary stuff (axes, excess ammo, squad weapons).
Returning from a night mission behind enemy lines during the Kosovo War. As you can see, I didn’t carry a lot of gear.
So what would I choose instead?
- Weapons: my rifle, three or four mags, and two hand grenades.
- Clothing: a jacket, a poncho, and a pair of light boots.
- Food and drinks: two 1 liter water bottles, disinfection tablets, and a combat ration.
- Additional stuff: a night vision optic, the more advanced, the better. Spare batteries for it.
That’s all. Far more important than what you carry is what you do, your tactics. Your skills will save you, not your gear.
The fight for Bakhmut in east Ukraine continues as Russian forces close in and Ukrainian soldiers repel them. In one fortified gun position, Bakhmut’s defenders are using a machine gun first invented almost 140 years ago. The Maxim gun, a belt fed machine gun, has become one of the reliable iconic weapons of the war.
“It only works when there is a massive attack going on…then it really works,” Borys, a soldier fighting for Ukraine, told the BBC. “So we use it every week”.
Ukraine has become a battlefield where advanced weaponry such as the IRIS-T air defense system and hypersonic missiles are being used for the first time. It’s a place where drones dominate the airspace and social media pages fill up with footage of every success and failure. But it’s also shown that older tactics and proven weapons can still be useful in a conflict as brutal and protracted as the war in Ukraine.
First invented in 1884, the Maxim Machine gun was the first fully automatic machine gun. The gatling gun predates it, but required someone to turn a crank to fire. The version of the Maxim that’s become popular in Ukraine is the M1910 model.
Maxims have been used in the Russo-Ukraine war nearly since the conflict began. Russia first invaded Ukraine with proxy forces in 2014 and the earliest footage of the weapon comes from a Ukrainian news network in 2016.
The M1910 Maxim was mass produced in Tsarist Russia. Its use has now outlived both the Tsar and Soviet communism. The antique weapon design is still popular because it’s easy to use, easily modified, and fires a standard 7.62x54mm cartridge that’s been used in Russia since 1891. It’s belt fed and water-cooled. A well-serviced Maxim can, theoretically, fire indefinitely without overheating so long as it’s fed both ammo and water.
That kind of reliability makes it a boon when a soldier is holding an entrenched position and fending off a heavy assault from infantry. That’s the position some of the Ukrainian defenders of Bakhmut currently find themselves in.
Soldiers in Ukraine are also heavily modifying the Maxim gun, making the 1910 model look and fire like a more modern weapon. The arms researcher Calibre Obscura surfaced a video of Ukrainian soldiers using a Maxim gun outfitted with modern optics, basic camouflage, a stock, and a suppressor. This is a weapon that typically sets in an entrenched position mounted on a heavy piece of steel. This modified version is a quieter, but not silent, burst fire weapon.
In another pair of videos pulled from TikTok, soldiers in Ukraine have attached four Maxim guns to a remote controlled rig that can spin 360 degrees. A video of a test fire showed a soldier aiming all four Maxim guns at once, each belt fed from ammunition canisters strapped to the rig.
By Paul Adams & George Wright
The UK is among a number of countries with military special forces operating inside Ukraine, according to one of dozens of documents leaked online.
It confirms what has been the subject of quiet speculation for over a year.
The leaked files, some marked “top secret”, paint a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine, including sensitive details of Ukraine’s preparations for a spring counter-offensive.
The US government says it is investigating the source of the leak.
According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1).
The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.
The numbers of personnel may be small, and will doubtless fluctuate. But special forces are by their very nature highly effective. Their presence in Ukraine is likely to be seized upon by Moscow, which has in recent months argued that it is not just confronting Ukraine, but Nato as well.
In line with its standard policy on such matters, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has not commented, but in a tweet on Tuesday said the leak of alleged classified information had demonstrated what it called a “serious level of inaccuracy”.
“Readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread misinformation,” it said.
It did not elaborate or suggest which specific documents it was referring to. However, Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real.
One document, which detailed the number of casualties suffered in Ukraine on both sides, did appear to have been doctored.
UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world.
The British government has a policy of not commenting on its special forces, in contrast to other countries including the US.
The UK has been vociferous in its support of Ukraine, and is the second largest donor after the US of military aid to Kyiv.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation and he was determined to find the source of the leak.
“We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” he said.