I’ve seen all those people in the West saying it’s so bad the Russians have an artillery advantage over Ukraine, let’s send Ukraine more artillery to give them more of a chance.

At this, I raise my eyes to heaven and think, God, kill me now, please, I can’t listen to those idiots any more, I need a vacation.

But let’s do it slowly so that even the average person in the West, who’s been living on a diet of celebrity gossip and CNN, can understand it.

Why do people use artillery in a war? The answer is, it’s the most cost-effective way of sending bombs across to the enemy. You basically spend the cost of ammunition, and the gun is cheap and re-used, with low maintennance. In comparison, aviation is a very expensive way of doing it; you have the cost of training a pilot throughout his career and the risk of his death or capture, you have an aircraft that goes through fuel like crazy, and needs maintennance, meaning parts and support crew. The rockets are even worse, because the airplane at least is re-used unless it’s shot down, and a rocket is a sophisticated device that is destroyed after a single use.

Why do people not use artillery in a war? First, it has limited range by definition. In the first world war they tried to make longer range guns, but it proved to be a bad idea because the barrels of those guns wore out so quickly that they had to have bigger calliber rounds for each firing. They were also stationary or tied to the railroads, and so on. Basically, the bigger the gun, the less cost/effective it is, and it creates more problems than it solves, which is why people made airplanes and rockets for solving the artillery range issues. The second problem with the artillery is that it’s a good target if the enemy has active airforce and/or long range rocket systems. Basically, in a modern war, you don’t ever hope to really use the artillery because you have to count on the fact that your enemy is going to see it as soon as it’s in a firing position, and then they’re going to pulverize it.

So, why is Russia using artillery? They are using it because they destroyed the enemy’s airforce within the first few hours of the war. Then they pulverized it more for good measure. If Ukraine had any long-range weapons that could be used against Russian artillery or airforce, it was destroyed very quickly because it was a threat that limited deployment of Russia’s cheaper and cost-effective systems. The only thing Russia couldn’t take out were the intelligence/recon systems because Ukraine outsourced those to America, and one would need to take out the American satellite network in order to prevent Ukraine from precisely targetting Russian weapons and command points. It’s doable, but they decided against it at this point because it would escallate things beyond the point that was deemed cost/effective in the current situation. So, basically, Russia is using the artillery because it’s the most cost/effective way of sending bombs to the enemy, and the enemy has no effective counter-measures.

Why can’t Ukraine use the artillery? Because unlike Ukraine, Russia can use long-range missiles and airforce, because it has total control over the sky of Ukraine, meaning that anything other than their own stuff flies there, it gets shot down instantly. NATO can’t change this situation because their stuff would get shot down as easily and quickly as the Ukrainian stuff, and that would escallate the situation past the point they deem acceptable at the moment. Essentially, if Ukraine deploys its own artillery to counter Russian artillery, Russian airforce destroys it as soon as it is deployed, unless there’s excessive risk to the civillian population. If the position has air defences that make it hard for the airforce, the Russians use Kalibr missiles to pulverize the air defences first, and then send the airforce to pulverize the artillery. Since only the Russians can do that, whatever artillery NATO sends to reinforce the Ukrainians will simply be destroyed following the same principle.

Basically, the reason why Russia can use the WW1 equipment is because they stripped down their enemy so much, that it makes no sense to use the expensive ways of delivering bombs when cheapest ones will do; they are basically optimizing warfare for cost-effectiveness. No, they didn’t run out of the sophisticated missiles, but you won’t use your iPad to swat flies if you have a slipper handy, either. They use the expensive stuff when nothing cheaper will do, but once they moved in with the artillery, you know the war is basically over, because in modern warfare the artillery is so easy to take out, you never get to use it unless you already reduced your enemy to the point of late 19^th century.

To conclude, the idea that Ukraine needs more artillery to counter Russian artillery supremacy is incredibly stupid and people saying this are idiots.