Hi All!
First, as promised there’s now a KP video of the armored car:
But before we do the automotive stuff, the other stuff.
This review was supposed be just Q&A with your questions about Ukrainian arms production, this following a visit I did to an armored vehicle manufacturer. I was hoping KP would finish up a Top Gear-style video on one of the company’s products for this review, which was a lot of fun to make, but the video’s still in production. So once it gets done I’ll put a link to it here.
But meanwhile Zelensky was in Washington, meeting with Trump, meeting with Harris, speechifying at the US, and at the end of it the US government announced. The general information is all over the US mainstream news, by which I mean the US mainstream covered it and you can find it if you look for it but, of course, Hurricane Helene and Florida, Bibi and Lebanon, NYC’s indicted mayor, the latest election polls, and the next round of college and pro football games are all bigger news stories.
I’ll just take the opportunity to weigh in with some “Yeah But” personal observations. If you’re not interested, the Q&A is at the bottom.
US Arms Assistance to Ukraine — Time for Another Reality Check
Point One: Yes the US just offered up close to $8 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, and it will be helpful, but it will be neither decisive nor is it a policy shift. It’s mostly ammunition, which obviously Ukraine needs.
But it isn’t massive amounts of ammunition of the scale that would allow Ukraine defenses to blast Russian attacks to bits.
Nor is it the kind of high-tech ammunition that would allow Ukraine to smash major Russian targets.
Key weapons systems Ukrainian critically needs and has used with devastating effect, are short or are just missing.
By the line items…
- 155mm and 105mm artillery shells but given US production capacity it won’t be enough to give the UAF firepower dominance on the battlefield
- No ATAMCS missiles, period. This is the single most effective ground system the US has given Ukraine, and unlike a lot of other systems there aren’t really alternatives from Europe.
- The AGS 154 glide bomb is not quite useless, but to get its maximum range the Ukrainian airplane dropping it has to fly high, and high-flying Ukrainian airplanes get shot down
- One Patriot missile system. Ukraine needs between 15–30 to cover all its air space.
- Expanding US-based F-16 pilot training for Ukrainians from six slots every 14 months to eighteen means that it will be about 2026 before Ukraine would have enough F-16 pilots to fly the F-16s donated by Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.
- Zelensky et al. have been telling anyone who will listen for months they have about 6–8 brigades of men that can’t go fight because weaponry promised by the West, hasn’t arrived. This is basically infantry fighting vehicles, artillery and tanks. The US has thousands sitting in mothballs. This arms assistance contains, as I read it, zero heavy weapons for Ukraine
It is of course absolutely fair and correct to point out that the US national security interest might not be best served by handing over all of the US Army’s ATACMS missiles and Patriot anti-aircraft systems wholesale to the UAF.
But anyone who says this scale of support is decisive and major US assistance to Ukraine, is selling you snake oil. This is six months of the US not assisting Ukraine at all, packed up all together at once, and dressed up like major assistance.
When US government officials say they are backing Ukraine, we need to be clear, that support is limited and it is not intended to get decisive effects.
And it really doesn’t matter how administration officials spin it, because we have 30 months of war that has given us an absolutely crystal clear picture of how battles are won and lost in actual combat. We can look at the facts and judge for ourselves.
Here’s the KP article for more:
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/39633
Point Two:
I qualify this because I may appear to some that I am picking on Donald Trump, and I am, but that’s not the main point I’m trying to make here.
Trump in a recent campaign speech for reasons best known to him talked about US assistance to Ukraine and European assistance to Ukraine, and pieces of what he said are demonstrably false, and advanced — once again — the bipartisan narrative that US assistance to Ukraine is somehow magic, decisive, and overwhelming in scale, and that Europe is a bunch of deadbeats.
- US military assistance to Ukraine is about half of all military assistance to Ukraine. Not 90 percent, or “almost all”, or “pretty much everything that’s important.” Half. Prior to this weeks assistance package annoucements, by the numbers, the figure had fallen to a bit less than half.
- US military assistance to Ukraine isn’t $100 billion, or $300 billion, like Trump said. It’s $55–60 billion, by the State Department’s numbers.
- If one just counts money — which, you know, you need in a war to pay soldiers and repair roads and buy food for the soldiers to eat and fuel for them to drive their tanks and so on — then US assistance to Ukraine relative to Ukraine’s other allies is even less, roughly one dollar US to two dollars everyone else.
- If one looks at military assistance to Ukraine relative to GDP, then not only is the US really far down on the national sacrifice chart, not just behind places like Denmark and Estonia, but in the dust BEHIND countries Americans like to point fingers at as not willing to cough up defense money, by which I mean Italy, France, Germany and Spain.
This narrative that America is paying everything for Europe’s defense and the Europeans are taking Americans for a ride is one of those lies that refuse to die. Guys like me have been writing and posting about it for years, but still, come elections in America, it’s “America is rich and generous and getting taken for a ride, and the Europeans are greedy deadbeats who aren’t doing their share.”
If you are American and planning to vote for Trump, then again, my issue here isn’t that I want to make your candidate out to be a liar. If it makes you feel any better, the administration he’s running against has a long history of pretending that assistance is signficicant and important, when in reality it’s pretty much enough to head off charges the US isn’t doing anything — but not much more than that.
KP article to the same effect:
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/39565
Ukrainian Domestic Arms Manufacturing, Particularly Armored Vehicles — Q&A
Earlier this month I got a chance to visit the premises of Ukrainian Armor LLC, which is a private company specializing in armored vehicle manufacturing for the Ukrainian military. I got to talk with the director for about an hour and then along with another KP reporter I spent another couple of hours crawling over one of this company’s products, which is an armored car call the Novatar.
I even had a chance to test drive the armored car, but far more importantly, I got to ask my questions and pick the brains of guys who had designed the vehicle, and also test drivers, and combat users. For instance, if I wanted to know why the suspension was that particular way, I could just ask and then the designer could just squat next to the front end and point to pieces of the suspension to help him answer.
I mostly try and keep personal experience out of these reviews, but I think it’s relevent to note that from 2015–2019 I worked for the OSCE in Donbas, Mariupol sector, where I led patrols and drove thousands of kilometers, and a goodly part of that was along the front line. We drove uparmored Toyota Land Cruisers. So, this was a rare case when you had a reporter with some (I would say) reasonably respectable real-world experience about the subject he was trying to report on.
The company is called Ukraine Armor. The vehicle is called a Novator.
James Touza
Q: My question is: has Ukraine fully utilized the engineering brain power they inherited from the Union in aerospace and weapons development? I’ve been reading how some design bureaus were underfunded due to “old practices”, or ties to the wrong oligarchs. By now, they have to realize they must depend on themselves more than the West.
A: Certainly not fully. The company I talked to competes directly with government design bureaus, and government manufacturers. They say the problem is that winning a government contract means you have to convince the decision-makers that state companies can’t produce the same thing cheaper, better etc.
The other problem is the law drastically limits the cash flow of private military manufacturing in two ways. First, there are maximum profit margins, if I recall right 10 percent gross markup on value of input materials and 30 percent markup on cost of input labor.
The other barrier is the Ukrainian state effectively enforces a ban on private companies exporting product. This makes some sense in a war but the thing is an international market could deliver a cash flow, and the Ukrainian state has limited cash to commit to private industry, especially since in a lot of cases state industry supposedly could/did/might make the same thing.
So even with a war on and a huge demand for military equipment, the company has real trouble generating more cash flow for expansion and research.
The company people didn’t tell me even indirectly that Ukrainian government contracting at times really looks corrupt.
But they made clear to me the real problem for them was limits on potential cash flow, which made growing production and further development really difficult.
Шон Алмейда
Q: What’s your sense of the scale of production that is possible, assuming that funding is not a limiting factor? Seems Ukraine needs thousands of these types of vehicles yesterday..
A: As noted above, “funding” is one thing, but actually getting cash into a company is another. The short answer seems to be that these guys are at about 100 vehicles a month. For this particular vehicle, about 60 percent is Ukrainian, and about 40 percent imported. Of the imported, the main item is a Ford 550 truck. So the engine/chassis isn’t an issue until you start pushing Ford’s capacity to produce that truck. I read Ford has two factories that do that and that overall Ford F-series production monthly is abut 50–60,000 vehicles. Some portion of those is the 550. So that certainly wouldn’t be the first limiting factor.
The other main foreign component is a super-beefy suspension enhancement kit, which the Ukrainians enhanced some more. It’s from Canada, I have the name of the company written down if someone is curious. But obviously a Canadian company producing niche market suspension kits would be a possible bottleneck. That being said, it’s not like just one company produces the kits.
On the Ukrainian components side, the message was, “we need money to expand production”. Sticking my finger in the wind I suspect that given funds they could probably ramp up 50 percent pretty quickly and maybe 100 percent, but beyond that and you start asking questions like what’s more efficient to manufacture in Ukraine. As you know, this is exactly the kind of manufacturing the Ukrainians have serious, real-world competitive advantages in.
Michael Vinther
Q: The best question have already been asked. How fast can they make 1000 new ones?
My question is; How tough is the armour? / how safe are the soldiers inside it?
A: To be clear, they were very specific, on production plans, they expect to manufacture 1,000–1,200 in 2025.
On armor toughness, I asked about that. It’s not just the steel, it’s the build quality. I was told that the armor is impervious to .50 caliber on the front arc, which I found a little hard to believe, but they insisted that was the case. It’s really more “can take a .50 hit from the front at normal battle ranges, but if it’s a .50 200 meters away firing straight on, OK, the windows would get punched out pretty quickly.” It’s pretty clear medium machine gun and smaller it’s resistant all around. I have no doubt you could put a hand grenade on the roof, detonate it, and you would get scoring and scratches but nothing more.
On shells, I asked specifically, and the answer was that if a 152mm detonated close enough for the explosion to hit the armor hard, then yes the people inside will not get hurt past getting their bells seriously rung. I asked “OK, so a 152mm blows up next to the passenger door, how’s the door getting opened after that?” I got what I thought was a pretty honest answer, which was “A 152mm blow up that close, the doors are opening on their own.”
They didn’t tell me this, but one way they saved weight was to step away from the Afghanistan experience where buried bombs are the threat, and belly armor is flatter than on an MRAP and I assume not as thick. An anti-tank mine will take out this vehicle, they said so.
It’s kind of a high vehicle but the test driver told me it’s pretty hard to roll over. There are hooks and seat belts inside so at least theoretically passengers and crew have a way to tie themselves down in case of a rollover.
Daryl Eves
Q/comment: Michael Vinther To give some perspective, a large-scale assembly plant in London, Ontario, Canada with a highly trained work force, stable supply chain covering all of Canada ensuring no parts shortages, modern automated production facilities, and a favorable political climate can produce about 7 to 10 of the pictured units per month.
A: The comment I would make on that is that according to the Ukraine Armor people, supply chains exist, they function smoothly, components are sourced all over the world and come into Ukraine via reliable delivery networks, and given sufficient funding parts supply is simply not a problem. I can from personal experience vouch that the border checkpoints are functioning normally.
As to trained work force, first place, Ukraine and Ukrainian war-making is a testament to the argument that work force training is overrated, what you need is motivation (money, patriotism, whatever) and systematic organization at a high enough level that manufacturing can react to perceived needs in the field. Ukraine is manufacturing at a guess 50–150,000 small drones every month, it’s quite possible more than any other country in the world, and three years ago neither the industry nor the work force to do that existed.
Ukraine has a fully developed automotive industry and mechanical skill in the actual work force, I would go to the mat on this, is far ahead of in developed countries. In Ukraine close to every driver knows basic maintenance, and even it’s a reasonable expectation that a generic mechanic in a provincial garage somewhere would be perfectly comfortable pulling an engine, switching out worn pieces of a transmission, etc. For a westerner it’s ridiculous how ubiquitous and inexpensive automotive repair is in Ukraine. That’s a ready work force for automotive manufacturing.
Jerry Sousa
Q: How is the factory still undamaged after all the Russian missile attacks?
A: Well, yes and no. On the yes part, they didn’t give details but they told me they were sure the Russians had intentionally targeted their manufacturing sites. The “no” part is in the plural — they have spread out their manufacturing into smaller shops spread out all over creation.
The WW2 buffs among you will recognize this is the same response to aerial bombardment that the Germans and Japanese went once the US Air Force started targeting their aircraft production.
It’s a little ironic that in this war the Americans are on the side getting bombarded, and still the bombardees have to spread out manufacturing.
Pete Shmigs
Q: Does it have cup holders?
A: No, but it has air conditioning and I am informed it works well.
Neil Brown
Q: Hope they recycled the metal from this pile of Russian Junk, what poetic justice it would not be…
A: That’s an interesting question, the simple answer is I don’t know. They didn’t tell me directly but based on how they described their foreign components, most if not all of the armor used in the vehicle is domestic steel. They told me that in some competing vehicles manufacturers use kevlar and other ceramic compounds, and their approach is maximum steel because it’s easier to get and much easier to repair.
Ukrainian steel is still being manufactured from raw ore, I believe in Zaporizhzhia, and of course there are smaller smelters who are melting scrap into something useful.
I would say that if it makes any sense at all from a practicality point of view to melt down trashed Russian armored vehicles into new Ukrainian steel plate, for sure the Ukrainians are doing it.
Roy Cauldery
Q: Does the CEO see a time when Ukraines need for Western/NATO is diminished enough that companies like his, can not only supply their own native forces but become suppliers externally?
Because you wouldn’t want to buy ruzzian now would you? Also electronic counter measures? (anti-drone) Standard fit or adaptable ‘retro’ fit?
A: Sure, the director sees that as possible right now. In his opinion he can manufacture a competitive armored car at about half the cost NATO countries pay for theirs, at least as good in all characteristics and better in several. He was adamant about that, he said the Ukrainian transporter in a fair competition would always win out over western vehicles, lower labor cost, better understanding of where build quality must be outstanding and where overbuilding wastes money, real war ergonomics, etc. etc. Obvoiusly the guy has a vested interest telling reporters his products are great, but, I can’t fault his arguments. The only other vehicles of this type that have really been tested in a proper modern conventional war, are Russian.
As to ECM, yes, specifically anti-drone, the Ukrainians manufacture a system. At this point it’s an addable option. The director told me there is a plan to make it standard.
But as an aside on ECM, one of the real lessons of this war has been that the tech moves continuously, and fast, and either you build with an understanding of that or six months down the line your whizz-bang super-duper-paratrooper ECM which shot down everything, will get countered and then it’s just expensive deadweight.
So for fun I asked how upgradable the ECM on the Novator is, and I got told that’s a military secret.
continued..
Thanks for the story, quite interesting and positive. I would go for the option of anti drone, but thats just me.
…yeah, “assistance”, with friends like this who the fuck needs an enemy
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/west-keeps-sending-ukraine-weapons-154019139.html