>>384684>>401019I want to share my little investigation about this war from munition perspective.
In Russian military science we used term standard shell (SS) (Расчётный Боеприпас, РБ), which means most common 152-mm HE shell:
- 10 SS = 1 wounded (infantry in open terrain)
- 50 SS = 1 wounded (fortified infantry)
- 100 SS = 1 destroyed IFV/Tank (open terrain)
- 200 SS = 1 destroyed IFV/Tank (fortified)
This estimations from southern front in 2024. Most of targets, more than 90% are fortified infantry, fireteams of 2-4 soldiers. In USSR's artillery guides stated 150 SS/wounded for this type of targets. During World War 1 on the western front there is 32-43 SS/wounded for fortified infantry. Pretty similar situation, but only because of reconnaissance drones. This numbers are stable, because as soon as loses from some weapon leave 'comfortable' zone, the army react with various countermeasures. The homeostasis of war.
We have tables of various weapons, compared to standard shell:
- Ballistic missile (Iskander / ATACMS) = 300-600 SS
- Guided missile (Tornado / GMLRS) = 30-120 SS (×0.8 >15 km, ×0.4 >20 km)
- Sortie of Su-34 with 4 glide bombs = 300-600 SS (×0.6 >15 km, ×0.2 >20 km)
- Sortie of Ka-52 with LMUR missiles = 300 SS
- 152-mm guided shell (Krasnopol / Excalibur) = 20-50 SS (×0.6 >15 km)
- 152-mm cluster shell = 3 SS
- 152-mm HE shell = 1 SS
- 122-mm HE missile (Grad) = 0.7 SS
- 120-mm HE mortar shell = 0.6 SS
Electric warfare coefficient added for GMLRS and glide bombs, since both sides have strong EW-coverage after 15 and 20 km after frontline. Actually, there is a lot of coefficients (weather, interferences, recon, time, errors, etc), but if weapon less effective than mentioned range, then weapon will not be used in most of situations. The homeostasis, as I said.
Drones compared to standard shells:
- FPV-drone, fiber-optic = 9 SS (30 SS × 30% reached target)
- FPV-drone (2025) = 1.5 SS (30 SS × 5% reached target)
- FPV-drone (2024) = 2.5 SS (20-30 SS × 10% reached target)
- FPV-drone (2023) = 6 SS (10-30 SS × 30% reached target)
- Light multicopter (2024) = 2-4 SS (2-5 sorties lifespan)
- Heavy multicopter (2024) = 10-40 SS (5-7 sorties lifespan)
- Shahed / Geran = 50-100 shells (a little worse than glide bombs)
Currently reusable multicopters rarely used because of 5-10 km distance between sides, light ones can't reach target and return, heavy ones too slow and perfectly visible through thermal cameras of air defense drones. But multicopters are insane effective mine-layers, in 2022-2023 we had 30% losses from mines and most of them lied by multicopters.
Economy, prime cost of:
- 152-mm HE shell -- $500 dollars
- FPV-drone, basic -- 400-600 dollars
- FPV-drone, thermal -- 1000 dollars
- FPV-drone, fiber-optic -- 800 dollars
- FPV-drone, AI seeker -- 10k dollars
- Shahed / Geran, basic -- 5-10k dollars
- Shahed / Geran, GPS Comet -- 20k dollars
We have pretty good AI-seekers, but they used mostly with ordinary fiber-optic ambushes on the roads and for air defense drones. No one want to send swarm of expensive drones behind enemy lines, if you can't confirm hit.
All weapon have different capacities. Like 10 HE shells to destroy nets around hideout, then 6 fiber-optic drones to make sure that 2 of them reached target and second one check the result. Or 10 cluster shells to wound 2-3 of soldiers during rotation in the open terrain and then barrage of FPV-drones to kill slowed ones. Conversion to standard shells mostly used for operative planning, considering limitations of time and supply.