[Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

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Egg Moron: Jul 21, 2003; the dreams of the delighting void

If I was Russia I�d be pissed that Estonia was attacking me

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:17

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# ? May 25, 2024 03:51

sum: Nov 15, 2010

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:20

Starsfan: Sep 29, 2007; This is what happens when you disrespect Cam Neely

Morons, the difference is that Ukraine will repay all money sent to them in full with interest when they liberate their territory, and in fact the massive quantities of Russian equipment that has been destroyed is a payment in and of itself. Ukraine is the only investment that is a stone cold lock to repay you twice.

sum posted:

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

It is of course completely inconsequential to me, but it does put a smile on my face thinking about Frosted Flake in the future giving lectures on the methods the Ukrainians used to out-gun the Russians by a 10:1 ratio. An entire body of academic studies springing up out of the ground built entirely around Ukraine's fabrications on it's combat effectiveness.

Starsfan has issued a correction as of 00:42 on Aug 30, 2023

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:28

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

sum posted:

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

Doing the math is Haram and counter narrative.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:32

VoicesCanBe: Jul 1, 2023; "Cóż, wygląda na to, że zostaliśmy łaskawie oszczędzeni trudu decydowania o własnym losie. Jakże uprzejme z ich strony, że przearanżowali Europę bez kłopotu naszego zdania!"

sum posted:

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

This last paragraph is most important. Let's concede that Western artillery systems are overall more accurate and effective than Russian (I think that's incredibly debatable, but for the sake of argument let's say it is). We have from a multitude of sources an established fact that Russia is firing many times more shells vs. Ukraine - the number varies but I've seen estimates between 5 to 10 times more. Just to obtain even casualties, we'd have to assume Ukraine's artillery usage is 5 to 10 times more effective. I consider that a ridiculous assumption, and it'd have to be even more absurdly lopsided to assume Ukraine has inflicted significantly more casualties. It doesn't add up.

Apologies, second most important. First most important is that you stole time from the boss. Well done.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:39

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; They hated Futanari because His posts were shit.

Nonsense posted:

According to a 1985 UN report backed by Western countries, the KGB had deliberately designed mines to look like toys, and deployed them against Afghan children during the Soviet�Afghan War.[40]

Newspapers such as the New York Times ran stories denouncing the "ghastly, deliberate crippling of children" and noting that while the stories had been met with skepticism by the public, they had been proven by the "incontrovertible testimony" of a UN official testifying the existence of booby-trap toys in the shape of harmonicas, radios, or birds.[41]

Wow. What kind of sick, morally bankrupt nation would justify its own erasure from history by doing something like this?

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:46

Malleum: Aug 16, 2014; Am I the one at fault? What about me is wrong?; Buglord

im not an expert but i did read louis barthas's diaries and at least for the french army, they made lovely trenches on purpose for years. french trenches in the early war were just big foxholes and a lot of the time only chest height because the officers expected the men to go on the offensive at every opportunity and thought that a deep trench would make the men reluctant to leave it. the first chapter of poilu is a firsthand account of barthas's unit commander refusing to let the men dig a trench between 2 shelled out rail embankments because he wanted the reservists to run it under fire and make them learn what getting shot at was like and got 30 old men killed for nothing.

im less familiar with the british side but they were also under similar pressure to constantly be on the attack, and the initial expeditionary force shipped over without shovels so they had to rely on engineers to make every part of their trenchworks, and there werent a lot of those to go around.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:48

Marzzle: Dec 1, 2004; Bursting with flavor

Dokapon Findom posted:

Wow. What kind of sick, morally bankrupt nation would justify its own erasure from history by doing something like this?

they actually changed the color to orange because of that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKfWQ3Sij68

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:48

Marzzle: Dec 1, 2004; Bursting with flavor

go fast and break stuff humanitarian aid development strategy

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:49

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; They hated Futanari because His posts were shit.

Safety orange is even more of a "CAUTION" color than yellow! :mad:

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:51

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Okay FINE I'll repaint all the cluster munitions in a nice sakura petal scheme.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 00:57

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

sum posted:

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

This is good work.

Early war British shells had less effective Lyddite bursting charges, with made them somewhat less effective than German shells of the same calibre. Additionally in 1914-15 the British did not have medium artillery in any numbers and only had shrapnel shells for field guns. At Mons, Le Cateau, 1st Ypres, and the Marne, German artillery was much more effective than British for this reason. German medium batteries shot British formations to pieces and the British field guns had no answer.

Mons, an Artillery Battle goes into some of these early engagements, so does Riding the Retreat: Mons to the Marne 1914 and Retreat and Rearguard 1914: The BEF's Actions From Mons to the Marne.

Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 01:10 on Aug 30, 2023

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:03

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Frosted Flake thought is spreading. Infantry might be the queen of battle, but artillery is the king.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:07

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

gradenko_2000 posted:

Frosted Flake thought is spreading. Infantry might be the queen of battle, but artillery is the king.

This is a peacetime army politics thing, in the Commonwealth. Each infantry regiment produces officers for staff appointments, teaching positions, the staff college and there are a shitload of them, with alumni networks of senators, MPs, whatever. There is one artillery regiment.

Additionally, when in times of relative peace, it's the infantry units that sends troops to whatever, peacekeepers, Operations Other Than War. The artillery and engineers go decades without having a prominent role. The same thing happened from 1814-Crimea and from Crimea to The Sudan, probably 1914 in all honesty. It then happened again from 1918-39 and 45/53-Present Date.

The Artillery and Engineers have absolutely no pull in peacetime.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:13

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Ukraine must have some intense secret reserves of people if they've taken three quarters of a million casualties are still holding territory.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:13

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Danann posted:

the cia got restructured by mckinsey lol

lol

could this partly explain the tremendous failures in venezuela and bolivia

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:15

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

mlmp08 posted:

Ukraine must have some intense secret reserves of people if they've taken three quarters of a million casualties are still holding territory.

I don't think the point was necessarily that the actual figures that came out were on-point, so much that they diverge so much from the advertised official reporting that the latter becomes incredible in comparison

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:24

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/1696351942891466910

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:26

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

reminder tucker is more anti-war than bernie lol

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:30

bedpan: Apr 23, 2008

comedyblissoption posted:

reminder tucker is more anti-war than bernie lol

lmao

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:30

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

sum posted:

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

the russian propaganda is now coming from inside the thread!

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:33

razorscooter: Nov 5, 2008

i think it's an underestimate, the ukranian army has taken around 32.6 million casualties from artillery

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:40

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

comedyblissoption posted:

reminder tucker is more anti-war than bernie lol

tucker carlson, like every republican, wants to stop supporting Ukraine (bad, pointless war) and start murdering every Chinese person on Earth (good racial holy war)

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:41

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

tatankatonk posted:

tucker carlson, like every republican, wants to stop supporting Ukraine (bad, pointless war) and start murdering every Chinese person on Earth (good racial holy war)

materially supporting an actually existing non-imaginary devastating war makes someone more pro-war!

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:51

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

tatankatonk posted:

tucker carlson, like every republican, wants to stop supporting Ukraine (bad, pointless war) and start murdering every Chinese person on Earth (good racial holy war)

It's possible for him to be both an rear end in a top hat and right

And anyway when people say things like that it isn't a defense of tucker or trump, it's an indictment of literally everyone else in the american political class

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:51

Death By The Blues: Oct 30, 2011

Guess they are attacking everywhere tonight

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1696679300110426487

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1696687466642628935

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1696679300110426487

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1696678325106639186

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1696670494135848979

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:56

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

if an american does not like that there are billions going to a devastating losing war in ukraine, they are going to find resonance in trump, mtg, and tucker carlson

they are going to be pissed off at the pro-war moral scoldings from the perfidious bernard sanders, aoc, rachel maddow, etc.

what does this mean for american politics?

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:58

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

# ? Aug 30, 2023 01:58

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Are the figures for US money given to Ukraine generated by taking the paper value of all the equipment we send to them? How much is actual cash?

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:00

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Death By The Blues posted:

Guess they are attacking everywhere tonight

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1696679300110426487

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1696687466642628935

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1696679300110426487

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1696678325106639186

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1696670494135848979

Somebody wanted a positive news cycle / to be cruise missiled.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:02

Marzzle: Dec 1, 2004; Bursting with flavor

Slavvy posted:

It's possible for him to be both an rear end in a top hat and right

And anyway when people say things like that it isn't a defense of tucker or trump, it's an indictment of literally everyone else in the american political class

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:09

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Yeah, I don�t think those numbers are to taken on their face, but if you lower each side about 40%, 60-70k for the Russians and about 500-550k for the Ukrainians, it probably isn�t that far off looking at the rest of the evidence.

One thing is that the density of infantry is far lower on the battlefield is significantly lower per sq km even if the accuracy and the firepower itself of shells have increased. Otherwise, the Russians also have an air and drone advantage, and they have been able to soften the hit to the regular army through auxiliaries.

Normally, an independent country would have surrender long ago, but Ukraine isn�t even a vassal or proxy, it is a puppet.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:14

Starsfan: Sep 29, 2007; This is what happens when you disrespect Cam Neely

gradenko_2000 posted:

I had forgotten about it actually, but thank you to Horace Campbell for the reminder

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:16

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Ytlaya posted:

Are the figures for US money given to Ukraine generated by taking the paper value of all the equipment we send to them? How much is actual cash?

34% of US aid was money, 5% more humanitarian aid. The majority of the direct financial for Ukraine is coming from European nations.

61% of US aid was weaponry, security assistance, or grants for weaponry. This is as of July 2023. Not included in these figures are cost of US ops that are a result of the war/crisis but don�t go to Ukraine (like mobilizing staffers units in response to the crisis or flying more recon than is normal or whatever)

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:32

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

mlmp08 posted:

34% of US aid was money, 5% more humanitarian aid. The majority of the direct financial for Ukraine is coming from European nations.

61% of US aid was weaponry, security assistance, or grants for weaponry. This is as of July 2023. Not included in these figures are cost of US ops that are a result of the war/crisis but don’t go to Ukraine (like mobilizing staffers units in response to the crisis or flying more recon than is normal or whatever)

Thanks for asking your manager to look it up

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:35

BearsBearsBears: Aug 4, 2022

sum posted:

I decided to steal some time from the boss today to try to project casualties in the Russian-Ukraine war based solely on WWI data. My thought was that since we have estimates for the total shell expenditures from Russia and Ukraine, we should be able to estimate how many casualties those shells should have caused based on the rate shells caused casualties in WWI. Anyway, the money page of the spreadsheet is below:

The top 4 rows are the data from WWI. First is combined KIA + WIA from the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts (i.e., I excluded prisoners), the second is shell production (from Salavrakos (2014)), the third is the raw number of casualties per shell produced, and the fourth is the number of casualties per shell produced multiplied by the fraction of casualties attributed to shells (I didn't do much research but the sources I found said 60-70%).

One thing to note is that the Central Powers took about half as many casualties on a per-shell basis than the Entente did. I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it's probably related to being on the strategic defensive for most of the war, having typically higher-quality trenches, and non-linearities in the volume of fire to casualties (i.e. shooting 2 times the shells will cause something less than 2 times the casualties).

The bottom three rows are for the current war. The first column is total shell expenditures (these are from RUSI and the Pentagon, respectively), the next three columns are projected casualties caused by shells alone (based on the rates shells caused casualties to the Entente, Central Powers, and both combined), and the last three columns are an estimate of total casualties, accounting for the fact that shells only cause X% of all casualties (in the screenshotted table I assumed 70%). These estimates were multiplied by the "modern lethality multiplier", which is a fudge factor to account for the fact that modern shells are typically much larger than the ones shot in WWI (e.g., a 152mm shell is about 4 times the mass of a 75mm shell), although things like improved body armor, battlefield medicine, and spotting, precision weapons, etc., could also be wrapped into it. Depending on which model and fudge factor you use, this method estimates Ukrainian casualties as typically somewhere between 300,000-1.5 million, centered around 750,000 and Russian ones are between say 60,000-350,000, centered around 100,000.

One thing that stuck out from this exercise was that to get to the typically-cited numbers of 300,000 Russian casualties to 200,000 Ukrainian casualties, the difference in casualties-per-shell had to be ludicrous. Ukrainian shelling would have to be something like 9 times more lethal than Russian shelling, despite being at an enormous disadvantage in number of systems, shells fired, precision shells, ISR, etc, while meanwhile Russia would need to somehow cause fewer casualties per shell than French 75's did.

I redid your math for just the Eastern Front of WW1 to see what would happen. I've got 55 million shells produced for the entente(Russia + Romania), inflicting 3630000 casualties on the Central powers (Eastern Front). After applying the 70% shell casualties estimate that's about .046 casualties per shell (compared to .012 overall). That's about 22 shells to kill one Central Powers troop on the Eastern Front compared to 82 shells to kill one Central Powers troop overall.

Russia was provided with a large number of shells from the other Entente powers. Wikipedia says 50% but doesn't give any citations. If it really is a full half or their shells were imported then that cuts their shell efficiency to about the same level as the Central Powers (.023 or about 43 shells to kill a guy). Another factor is the absolutely massive numbers of Austro-Hungarians that the Russians took prisoner. No idea where to even start there, they're not part of the calculations but maybe they should be?

I think this shows that the more artillery you have the less efficiently you use it, probably because you can shoot at lower and lower priority targets. Either that or the more eastern a country is, the more efficiently it uses its artillery.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:38

BadOptics: Sep 11, 2012

Dokapon Findom posted:

Safety orange is even more of a "CAUTION" color than yellow!

Look, we can't be coloring our humanitarian aid pink/magenta/purple because then they'd think the US is a bunch of WIMPS!!!

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:44

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

mlmp08 posted:

34% of US aid was money, 5% more humanitarian aid. The majority of the direct financial for Ukraine is coming from European nations.

61% of US aid was weaponry, security assistance, or grants for weaponry. This is as of July 2023. Not included in these figures are cost of US ops that are a result of the war/crisis but don�t go to Ukraine (like mobilizing staffers units in response to the crisis or flying more recon than is normal or whatever)

Ah, so it's not "actually" $110B or whatever, since a significant portion are just the paper value of war materials (though as you mention there's also other costs not included in that figure).

Money figures for this stuff can get kind of confusing when the value of assets become involved, especially given how inflated the value of military hardware can be.

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:54

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/status/1696564241451438170?s=46&t=UyfxoSAUKW7QZlR_GhkuYA

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:56

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# ? May 25, 2024 03:51

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

BearsBearsBears posted:

I redid your math for just the Eastern Front of WW1 to see what would happen. I've got 55 million shells produced for the entente(Russia + Romania), inflicting 3630000 casualties on the Central powers (Eastern Front). After applying the 70% shell casualties estimate that's about .046 casualties per shell (compared to .012 overall). That's about 22 shells to kill one Central Powers troop on the Eastern Front compared to 82 shells to kill one Central Powers troop overall.

Russia was provided with a large number of shells from the other Entente powers. Wikipedia says 50% but doesn't give any citations. If it really is a full half or their shells were imported then that cuts their shell efficiency to about the same level as the Central Powers (.023 or about 43 shells to kill a guy). Another factor is the absolutely massive numbers of Austro-Hungarians that the Russians took prisoner. No idea where to even start there, they're not part of the calculations but maybe they should be?

I think this shows that the more artillery you have the less efficiently you use it, probably because you can shoot at lower and lower priority targets. Either that or the more eastern a country is, the more efficiently it uses its artillery.

I wouldn�t be surprised if there is a grain of truth in that the Ukrainians are probably going to be much more selective with targets than the Russians, but at the same time, the Russians have a bunch of an advantages in other ways (fortifications, (sometimes) caliber, drone utilization etc).

The Russians are also proportionally probably losing more vehicles per their amount of raw casualties as well than the Ukrainians just because they have more vehicles to lose, and it is clear the Ukrainians are using more infantry with minimal support.

In addition, the number of shells the Russians are devoting to counter-battery fire is probably rapidly declining because simply a paucity of targets and drones are simply more efficient; while the total number of shells fired is probably decreasing as well as combat slowly winds down.

You can take all that together though and you can have some bombastic statements but because the Russians just have such vast reserves to call on, it isn�t going to make a difference. I wouldn�t be surprised if they aren�t seriously starting to stock pile ammo at this point.

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Also, most evidence suggests that the Russians want the Ukrainians to dive deeper away from their defenses and closer to their defensive lines, simply because if it presents them an advantage. Even if the Ukrainians take the dragon teeth, there only more lines and defenses around them since they really haven�t been properly pushing their flanks.

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 03:01 on Aug 30, 2023

# ? Aug 30, 2023 02:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

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