North Korea revealed to supply half of all Russian artillery shells used in Ukraine

[u/Sine_Fine_Belli]

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/10/05/north-korea-revealed-to-supply-half-of-all-russian-artillery-shells-used-in-ukraine-en-news

[u/EveryPassage]

I'm genuinely curious the build quality of North Korean weaponry.

Also maybe this gets SK to step up support for Ukraine.

[u/StopHavingAnOpinion → u/EveryPassage]

I'm genuinely curious the build quality of North Korean weaponry.

It's probably functional, and that's all it needs to be.

What are artillery shells, but big bullets with lots of explosive in it? The technology to make it is over a century old and it is cheap and brutally effective. If we say 1/3 of them are duds, they produce so much that it still makes tens of thousands of useful shells.

[u/FuckFashMods → u/StopHavingAnOpinion]

Yeah big bullets are famously effective when they miss their target by a kilometer

[u/EveryPassage → u/StopHavingAnOpinion]

It's probably functional, and that's all it needs to be.

In WWI when there were super clear battle lines with masses of troops on each side I wouldn't think precision artillery would matter a whole lot. In Ukraine, with sparse troops and intermingled battle lines it would seem to matter a lot more.

[u/MolybdenumIsMoney → u/EveryPassage]

Russia has access to drones that it can use to identify targets and correct its artillery shots (have the drone see how far off the hit was from its intended target and then adjust the artillery heading to compensate). And even without PGMs, modern artillery is much more consistent than WW1 artillery.

[u/EveryPassage → u/MolybdenumIsMoney]

If it's true that NK artillery rounds have varying amounts of powder, spotters wouldn't help much.

[u/MolybdenumIsMoney → u/EveryPassage]

I suspect that those stories are exaggerations from a few edge cases and not the norm. There's been plenty of that going around on twitter this war.

[u/ChillyPhilly27 → u/EveryPassage]

Tube artillery hasn't changed significantly since WWI. Then, as now, the goal of this system is to saturate a grid square of your choice with enough high explosive that anything exposed is destroyed, and anything that isn't exposed is forced to keep its head down. While precision munitions are certainly valuable, these tend to be used on other platforms, such as aircraft.

[u/Melodic_Ad596 → u/ChillyPhilly27]

An M777 has a cep of 50 meters at 25km

The M114 had a cep of 120 meters at 10km

Artillery has absolutely gotten better even since Korea.

[u/ChillyPhilly27 → u/Melodic_Ad596]

Yes, advances in metallurgy and materials science have allowed the production of longer barrels and better propellants. However, both of these are evolutionary changes. 50m CEP still isn't accurate enough to hit point targets, and the main job of artillery is saturation.

In comparison, the introduction of PGMs to aircraft was a revolutionary change - see the USAF's efforts against the Thanh Hoa Bridge before and after PGMs.

[u/UnskilledScout → u/EveryPassage]

Artillery shells don't need to be smart or precise, their platforms need to be.

[u/Melodic_Ad596 → u/UnskilledScout]

So long as powder and shell dimensions are consistent you are correct. The problem is if the shells don’t have consistent properties

[u/Powerful_Art_1906 → u/UnskilledScout]

PGMs are many times more effective than unguided ones, they’re just many times more expensive.

[u/king_biden → u/EveryPassage]

I'm not a defense person, but I assume that sides are never just sending over a single dumb artillery but instead a barrage of X shells. As so, you can just divide by the proportion of shells you don't expect to be duds

[u/EveryPassage → u/king_biden]

It's not so much as there being duds as artillery often relies on spotting rounds to hone in. If there is varying amounts of powder in shells, it makes spotting insanely hard and inefficient.

[u/Melodic_Ad596 → u/king_biden]

You are correct in that fire missions are almost never a single round, however there is a difference between needing 20 shells and 100 shells to measure a statistically probable successful strike.

[u/God_Given_Talent → u/StopHavingAnOpinion]

The math on accuracy gets bad quickly. The longer a barrage goes on, the less effective it will be so missing by a decent margin on early shells can lead to a massive reduction in casualties and effectiveness.

Oh and don't forget about a number of high profile incidents of DPRK ammo having a premature detonation much to the crew's consequences...

When it comes to DPRK artillery, when they shoot at ROK they often miss by hundreds of meters...which sometimes leads to them hitting things they didn't intend to. This may be more of an issue of their barrels than the shells but it is likely both. Since Russia is burning through artillery barrels at an unsustainable rate, that may become the true limiting factor...

[u/Reddit4Play → u/StopHavingAnOpinion]

You may be surprised! Artillery, like most weapons, is deadliest in its opening salvo. Once someone knows they're being shelled they'll take cover somehow, and historical studies say this makes them anywhere from 3 to 100 times harder to hit. A typical figure might be 10x.

That means if you mess up your opening salvo because of bad quality control it can decrease artillery effectiveness way more than you would think. Say there's a situation where you can hit 4 people using 12 shells ordinarily. With a 25% dud rate you'll probably need 40 extra shells (the ordinary 3 to replace the 3 duds, but 10x as many because the target is alert and then 33% again because a quarter of those are also duds) to nab the 1 guy you missed. Thus a 25% dud rate increases shell expenditure in this case by over 300%. If the propellant is also wrong (so now the shells don't land on target) or the shell body doesn't fragment right (so you have to almost land the shell on top of the target for it to work) it can be even more extreme.

Of course it's not always that bad. A bad shell and a good shell sound enough alike that it'll keep the other guy's head down if that's all you need, and there are ways to mitigate the bad opening salvo problem somewhat. But in any event the quality of artillery ammunition is surprisingly important!

[u/Responsible_Owl3 → u/StopHavingAnOpinion]

It's probably functional, and that's all it needs to be.

Yeah North Korea is famous for rigorous QC and functional institutions lol. Even if 1 shell in a 1000 blows up inside the gun, they're close to useless.

[u/IpsoFuckoffo → u/Responsible_Owl3]

But clearly this ammo is not close to useless because Russia is relying on it to grind down Ukraine's forces, and having considerable success doing so. No amount of chauvinist theory-crafting can change those basic facts.

[u/HHHogana → u/EveryPassage]

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/18e6q2p/north_korean_charges_for_artillery_shells/

Basically piss poor. They investigated several randomly selected shells, and none of them even have the same gunpowder. The lead wire is also often missing. This means there's no QC done in NK whatsoever.

[u/EveryPassage → u/HHHogana]

Absolutely insane. That makes the shells only really useful for targeting city wide or general fear based tactics.

Which I guess does seem to be the Russian strategy though not even close to optimal to actually winning the war.

[u/IceColdPorkSoda → u/EveryPassage]

NK’s first strike if war broke out again would be to level Seoul with a general artillery barrage, so I guess these shells are fit for purpose.

[u/Formal_River_Pheonix → u/HHHogana]

QC is bourgeois nonsense. You have insulted the teachings of the Great Leader, please report to the gulag immediately.

[u/sponsoredcommenter → u/EveryPassage]

Functional, getting better. South Korean intelligence reported that Russia was sending tooling and equipment, and I imagine practical feedback from the front.

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/sponsoredcommenter]

Nah, that's vatnik cope

[u/sponsoredcommenter → u/groovygrasshoppa]

Famous vatnik coper, the South Korean Minister of Defense

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/sponsoredcommenter]

NK munitions have a 50% error rate - they are as likely to blow up their own firing crew as they are the enemy, if they even make it out the barrel.

Allusions of the SKMD making ridiculous claims on some blog hardly makes it so.

It's vatnik copium. Sorry if you fell for it. Maybe you picked it up from that r/redscarepod sub that you frequent.

[u/that0neGuy22 → u/groovygrasshoppa]

Do you have any links on that error rate?

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/that0neGuy22]

• https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-low-quality-north-korean-shells-injure-troops-ukraine-says-2023-12?op=1

• https://www.newsweek.com/half-russia-north-korea-made-artillery-shells-do-not-work-vadym-skibitsky-1873612

• https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/north-korean-ammunition-proves-fatal-for-russian-soldiers/ar-AA1kx1Qx

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/EveryPassage]

NK 155mm shells are reported to have a 50% dud rate

[u/t_scribblemonger]

Can we dust off “Axis of Evil”? Kinda seems appropriate now.

[u/RadioRavenRide → u/t_scribblemonger]

I can't belive W Bush was right about that.

[u/mlee117379 → u/RadioRavenRide]

Me to Dubya and David Frum:

[u/AniNgAnnoys → u/RadioRavenRide]

Another way to potentially look at it is, by branding these countries as the axis of evil, is caused them to be pariahs and start working together.

[u/DrunkenBriefcases → u/[deleted]]

What? Hussein was a brutal dictator that invaded other nations and killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, often with chemical weapons. He was as evil as they come

[u/KeithClossOfficial → u/DrunkenBriefcases]

Yeah, if we didn’t invade, whether it was Saddam or Qusay, whoever would be running Iraq would almost certainly be supporting Putin right now

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/[deleted]]

What?? What do you think Saddam was some kind of misunderstood dude or something??

[u/DrunkenAsparagus → u/groovygrasshoppa]

Iraq was not in an alliance with Iran and North Korea. Like they just weren't. The Axis of Evil wasn't a thing. Bush made it up.

[u/groovygrasshoppa → u/DrunkenAsparagus]

I see what you're saying. I don't think it was actually presented or perceived as an alliance though. More of just: "these 3 regimes are the worst"

[u/jzieg → u/groovygrasshoppa]

I mean, when you use the term "Axis" as a direct reference to the Axis of WWII, you are definitely implying an alliance through your word choice if nothing else.

[u/die_hoagie → u/[deleted]]

Rule V: Glorifying Violence
Do not advocate or encourage violence either seriously or jokingly. Do not glorify oppressive/autocratic regimes.

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[u/commentingrobot → u/t_scribblemonger]

Team Rocket

[u/InMemoryOfZubatman4 → u/t_scribblemonger]

Who was it? Iran, North Korea, and Iraq? Who would it be now? Sub in Russia for Iraq? What about China?

[u/ZanyZeke → u/InMemoryOfZubatman4]

Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China

[u/Superfan234 → u/InMemoryOfZubatman4]

Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua too

[u/CentreRightExtremist → u/Superfan234]

Syria, Belarus, and Eritrea.

[u/Connect-Society-586]

This is unacceptable escalation!!

“NATO will respond by giving 3 boats to show world who’s boss”💪

[u/RevolutionarySeat134]

There's a time limit here. I can't imagine north Korean production capacity matches the consumption, the factories have been operating for years and even north Korea only needs so many stockpiled.

[u/Spicey123]

North Korea, a dirt poor country with a GDP per capita equivalent to Liberia, can produce millions of artillery shells and make a very substantial difference in the Ukraine war.

Meanwhile nations a thousand times wealthier, much more populous, with access to vastly more resources and human capital... can't.

This is the "western degeneracy" we should be talking about. We should be drowning Ukraine with more weapons than they can handle.

[u/Silentwhynaut → u/Spicey123]

You're fucking insane if you think north Korea has helped Russia more than the west has helped Ukraine.

[u/Tapkomet → u/Silentwhynaut]

Well, not overall... but it has provided more artillery shells than the West has, despite being a tiny and poor country.

[u/KeithClossOfficial → u/Tapkomet]

This is part of the reason they are a poor country.

[u/JesusPubes → u/KeithClossOfficial]

it's obviously not lmao

they are not a poor country because they produce artillery shells

[u/KeithClossOfficial → u/JesusPubes]

They’re a poor country partially because they spend massive amounts of money they don’t have on military equipment they don’t need

Obviously there’s other factors, but pretending this isn’t one of them is not the way

[u/JesusPubes → u/KeithClossOfficial]

They produce artillery shells because they are a totalitarian dictatorship that exists solely to keep the ruling class living in luxury.

They are poor because they are a totalitarian dictatorship that exists solely to keep the ruling class living in luxury.

[u/watwatintheput → u/Tapkomet]

I'm reminded of Obama in a debate against Romney:

"Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed."

The tiny poor country is providing artillery shells. We're giving them missiles and tanks. Which one would you rather have?

[u/Spicey123 → u/watwatintheput]

If you listen to Ukraine? Artillery shells.

[u/IpsoFuckoffo → u/watwatintheput]

North Korea is giving aid as and when Russia needs it, for unlimited use as Russia's commanders see fit, with no sign of slowing down, no political sabotage and no hand wringing about escalation.

What sort of friends do you think Ukraine needs?

[u/Tapkomet → u/watwatintheput]

Why not both? Artillery shells are extremely important in the war in Ukraine. Also, to be frank, it's not that many missiles or tanks.

[u/CentreRightExtremist → u/Tapkomet]

The shells they provided are also poor, so it fits.

[u/TacoBelle2176 → u/Silentwhynaut]

I think it’s more of a relative thing

[u/Silentwhynaut → u/[deleted]]

We are literally covering 50% of all of their government expenditures, nevermind the billions of dollars of military equipment and training. Absolutely brain rotted take

[u/GingerGuy97 → u/[deleted]]

Because “helping more” is defined by proportion of success. Yes, obviously the monetary value of the West’s help massively dwarfs NKs to Russia, but we’ve hampered success in multiple ways with the political games that have been played around defense aid.

[u/Explodingcamel → u/Spicey123]

I don’t think North Korea serves as a good model of how America should act.

[u/etzel1200 → u/Explodingcamel]

That isn’t his point. It’s how the fuck were countries with actual fronts on their borders, with millions of their men mobilized, able to make tens of millions of shells a year a hundred years ago, and we, today, can’t?

Obviously we can, but have no will. What the fuck happened?

One modern factory making drones would basically end the war. Those things make millions of units a year.

But it isn’t happening.

It’s the fucking western degeneracy that practically makes me think we deserve to lose.

[u/Spicey123 → u/etzel1200]

Exactly. We're more than 2 years into the Ukraine war. Russia & its allies should not be outproducing the western coalition on anything let alone something so vital as artillery shells.

[u/Yeangster]

Reminder that North Korea finished its nuclear program when the US was distracted in Iraq.

Not saying we could have or should have stopped it (China backs NK, though China was a lot more passive internationally back then) but if we invaded one dictatorship based on the false premise that it was developing nukes…

[u/AnachronisticPenguin]

How much extra artillery can N. Korea even have?

[u/JesusPubes]

we're losing to north fucking korea

[u/PauLBern_]

Give Ukraine nukes NOW!!!