Moving Heaven and Earth: Why the Russia-Ukraine war could benefit the US/NATO
“Bullets don’t fly without supply”, logistics are the backbone of any modern fighting force - so how can we learn from the conflict in Ukraine?
The Russia-Ukraine war has been one of the most devastating conflicts of the 21st Century, without a doubt. Recent estimates put the casualties on either side at around 100,000 dead and untold thousands wounded, as well as the largest refugee crisis since World War 2 as civilians and non-combatants tried to flee the conflict. Infrastructure across entire regions has been levelled, with decades of economic and cultural reform has been obliterated through artillery, air strikes and intensive ground campaigns.
The US has been a staunch ally of the Ukraine since before the invasion on February 24th, 2022, both militarily as well as economically and even politically – having Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivering an address to U.S. Congress. With American support extending past their historic tenets of anti-Russian policy and extending into funding a de-facto proxy war in Eastern Europe, the steady flow of corporeal supplies and training has been essential to the current successes enjoyed by the Ukrainian forces in the Eastern oblasts.
However, other than the obvious benefits of keeping an ally going in Eastern Europe; with Ukraine exporting more than $5billion dollars of grain in 2021, as well as being a buffer zone between NATO countries and the Russian Federation – the question really becomes, why would the US and NATO care so much, and how would a protracted conflict offer benefits to them?
In this article, we will investigate how the US, and NATO by extension, benefit from the Russo-Ukrainian war in three key areas.
Logistical planning and delivery
Using up surplus and aging ammunition stockpiles, as well as obsolete equipment
Testing and evaluating untested technology
The Russo-Ukrainian conflict could offer a plethora of benefits to those looking to up their logistics capabilities.
Understanding Logistics
Quickly we’ll touch on why the western-backed forces aren’t facing the same issues as the Russians are, despite the geographical differences.
Russia’s armed forces have always operated under “push logistics”, this is the logistical framework that ammunition, and supplies are sent out in predetermined and prepackaged amounts from the manufacturer to the end-user. Ammunition for small arms, mortars, artillery, and armour, as well as food etc. will be sent based on demand forecasts, instead of more timely requisition requirement from the “boots on the ground”. Russian formations are a size smaller than their U.S. equivalents, so an armoured maneuver formation at Division level would be of Battalion size on the Russian side, and Brigade size on the U.S. side. At any one time, it is expected that a Russian formation will have roughly three-quarters the number of combat vehicles as a U.S. formation of the same size, yet three times the artillery power. This places a heavier strain on artillery stockpiles, a key issue that has already been observed as the Kremlin has already been observed attempting to purchase artillery and mortar rounds from North Korea. The Russian military is also heavily tied to the use of railroads, with main supply routes running from factory to depot, and finally to the forward deployment points. These forward deployment points, for obvious reasons, are not close to the front lines and so the remaining cargo is required to be transported on trucks.
“This means that Russian army rail sustainment capability ends at the borders of the former Soviet Union. Trying to resupply the Russian army beyond the Russian gauge rail network would force them to rely mostly on their truck force until railroad troops could reconfigure/repair the railroad or build a new one.”
The push system, under the right conditions and assuming the supply chain has enough resources, has the capacity to deliver material faster, albeit with more waste and the risk of oversupply in certain areas.
The Russian model of “push logistics” is more time-efficent, but can often lead to great wastage and shortfalls of critical supplies.
Western, and by extension U.S., logistics focuses more on the “pull logistics” model, which essentially requires the manufacturing and supply to be driven by actual customer demand. Soldiers and officers will feed back up the chain of command what they need, providing more accurate forecasting based on an accurate estimate of current usage. This requires a stronger economy and production base behind the supply chain, however, pull logistics will lead to less wastage and more accurate delivery of what is needed, where it is needed.
The Western model of “pull logistics” has the potential to be more effective and with less wastage, if overseen effectively.
Logistical Planning and Delivery
With war looming over Taiwan, it is almost a certainty that the US would benefit from the opportunity to perfect the practice of moving man and material across continents in good battle order. News reels have been chocked-full of numerous aid packages including Bradley M2A2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), the venerable HIMARS, HMMWVs, towed artillery, mortars, crates upon crates of small arms, Anti-Armour Weapon Systems, Equipment, Clothing, Food, Ammunition, and every other facet needed to fuel the endless fires of war. The only differences between fueling a conflict between Ukrainian and Taiwan areas of operations (AO) are permissibility of the environment (whether the shipments will be attacked or not) and the distance, a difference of around 1,400 miles.
The US war machine, having been locked in conflicts across the globe for the past 70 years, is likely the premier force when it comes to the logistics of moving a large fighting force thousands of miles to wage war. Other nations have tried to emulate this flexibility and dexterity of power projection. As part of the British Army’s 2020 Refine, the UK reformed 3rd (UK) Division to form two Armoured Infantry and two STRIKE Brigades. In essence, these are composed of either:
Two cavalry regiments and two infantry battalions, plus associated artillery, engineers, and logisticians
One cavalry regiment and three infantry battalions, plus associated artillery, engineers, and logisticians
Each NATO nation is also expected to contribute to the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps (NRDC), a Corps of troops that make up the backbone of the NATO rapid reaction capability. Except for a hurried deployment to Afghanistan in 2006, the then-Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) have seldom been used in anger, with operational experience expected to be lower than would be expected of the ‘tip of the spear’. In 2022, a NATO Response Force (NRF) deployed “high-readiness elements of the NRF in a deterrence and defence role” within 3 days to the Polish border with Ukraine, some 40,000 soldiers. A further 300,000 were placed on high alert. An impressive feat made even more so given much of this experience has been hard-earned in the sand of the Middle East.
Arguably, this conflict has been any military logistician’s dream scenario. The tenets of military logistics are to get what you need, where you need it, before such a time as you need it. A far-off conflict to which masses of materiel needs to be moved to over permissible terrain with minimal risk to those transporting it.
A source quoted the current transport time from US stockpiles to the Polish border as being, “likely between 1 and 4 weeks, especially once the chain of supply has been set in stone.”
The US has pledged to send 50 Bradley IFVs to Ukraine.
Using up surplus and aging ammunition stockpiles
Whereas the act of the Russian Ministry of Defence digging in to aging Soviet stockpiles is a clearer sign of desperation and of the true cost of the war on the armoured section (one IFV, three crew and seven dismounted infantry) used for the last 70-or-so years. Allied nations giving their aging, Soviet-era equipment to the Ukrainian cause differs in its nature. Slovenia have donated 28 1950s-era M55S tanks, an aging T-55 chassis outfitted with a British L7 105mm main gun, upgraded targeting system and new engine - the explosive-reactive armour (ERA) has also been updated giving the tank more punch and more survivability on the modern battlefield. However, Slovenia has long-since relegated the M-55S to a reserve role and upgraded to a much newer and more lethal model, in fact the Slovenian defence ministry only agreed to donate 28 articles to Ukraine in a trade deal with Germany – receiving 40 Rheinmetall military transport vehicles (MTVs) under the ‘Ringtausch’ (German for ‘exchange’) programme. Indeed, the ‘Ringtausch’ programme was proposed by the German government to other NATO allies to incentivize the donation of aging Soviet equipment to Ukraine and upgrade to Western hardware. Video footage has also been received of frontline Ukrainian units using World-War Two era Howitzer 105mm artillery pieces donated from NATO partners, suggesting an opportunity has been taken to rid themselves of ancient technology and upgrade to something newer, with more lethality, under the guise of altruism.
Slovenian M55S MBTs on a NATO Exercise. The Modernised T55 is a capabale chassis, but Slovenia feel they are better served with more modern equivelents.
It must be said, however, that this does make sense. When considering the viability of Soviet-era equipment versus more modern, Western counterparts – there really is no comparison. Equipment from the 1960s, to be generous, is lacking in both lethality and longevity. There are also far less available replacement parts and an ever-increasing demand – both in terms of time and financially– for keeping this aging fleet in working order. Western vehicles will be cheaper to procure in the long-term (with a few exceptions, looking at you Ajax), allied nations can often jointly develop tailor-made solutions to the problems they expect to face, and the logistical supply chain will often be far shorter – especially if the vehicle is made domestically under license.
Indeed, earlier this year, the UK government announced it would be donated 10,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, most of it coming to the end of its shelf life. The UK Government also announced it would be donating 11 Sea King helicopters amongst £2.3billion of defensive aid to Kiev, as well as the consideration to supply 10 Challenger 2 tanks to the war-stricken nation – a first amongst Western nations. The reasons for this are many, as will be touched upon in a future article, but the Challenger 2 has been touted to be replaced by the Challenger 3 – with the aim to provide the British Army with a Main Battle Tank (MBT) capability until 2040.
The UK may be eager to donate outdated Challenger 2 MBTs to Ukraine as it looks to replace the aging platforms with ‘Black Night’ upgraded Challanger 2 or Challenger 3’s.
Testing and evaluating relatively untested technology
A modern battlefield brings the opportunity to test technology on the cutting edge, and to develop countermeasures to threats as they present themselves. A main threat that has arisen for Ukraine has been cheap swarms of drones including the Shahed-136 drones (unsuccessful rebranded by the Russians as Geran-2), these are aimed in packs of five, ten or twenty at key targets included air defence and infrastructure. Where these issues arise, ingenuity is sure to follow.
Enter the EDM4S Skywiper anti-drone cannon. 110 units, purchased at a cost of 1.5million euro and donated to the Ukrainian armed forces. The weapon is designed to use electromagnetic pulses to interrupt the connection between the unmanned aerial system (UAS) and the controller – allowing it to be diverted harmlessly away from their intended course. The weapon can be used against small-to-medium sized drones, showing good effects against the Shahed-136 and the larger Eleron-3 Surveillance drones.
The EDM4S, developed by Lithuania and undergoing key trials in Ukraine, seeks to lessen the impact of Russian drone attacks on key infrastructure.
The sheer operational effectiveness of the Javelin and Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) systems would have been difficult to predict prior to the conflict. Released in the 1990s, the Javelin has always been regarded as a formidable weapon system – the infamous top-attack striking fear into the crew of Russian armour from the early days of the war. Leading to ineffective improvised countermeasure such as the “cope cage”, an attempt to prematurely detonate the tandem charge in the Javelin warhead. The NLAW has also had a resounding effect on the conflict, lightweight and disposable – the mass distribution of such an effective tool has all but nullified the “red wave” of Russian armoured vehicles. But we will touch on the effectiveness of anti-armour in a later article.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the whilst the U.S. and NATO aren’t exactly encouraging the Russo-Ukraine conflict, that’s not to say they haven’t taken advantage of some Russian errors, or the opportunity to improve their own logistics chain. Whether it be shortening the current supply chain and the time it takes to get “fresh” armour into the Ukrainian supply depots, using up current stockpiles of ammunition or indeed evaluating the impact of sparsely tested weapons systems, this conflict has been a treasure trove of use-case data for the Western nations.
If you have an interest in modern defence developments, feel free to read more of our articles.
