Apparently, Ukrainian drones pushed through and started a chain reaction.

Explosions reportedly continued for hours, and authorities evacuated nearby settlements. Initial reports indicate that the site, previously protected by one of Russia’s densest air defense networks, suffered catastrophic damage.

  • gaael@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    12 hours ago

    I hace no idea how serious a blow this is. Can anyone provide any sense of magnitude for these 264 000 tons of munitions? Like how big a chunk of total ammunition stockpile woukd this be? How big is it compared to current manufacturing rate?

    • Realitätsverlust@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      42
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      12 hours ago

      It’s not that easy to calculate as “munitions” can be anything from artillery shells to ballistic missiles.

      If we assume it’s mostly/all artillery shells, it’s roughly one month of production. Russia currently produces 250.000 units of artillery shells per month if everything goes right. Russia uses roughly 10.000 of them per day, so it would be almost one months worth of combat.

      If the stockpile contained more of glide bombs and ballistic missiles, the damage is even worse because they are significantly more expensive to produce.

        • Realitätsverlust@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          12 hours ago

          True, for some reason, I thought of units instead of tons lmao.

          The damage is significantly worse then, probably months worth of production, maybe even a year. A standard shell weighs like what, 45kg?

          • philpo@feddit.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            50 minutes ago

            Don’t forget that artillery shells need charges to work. And these weight more than the actual shell.

          • Elrecoal19@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            14
            ·
            edit-2
            11 hours ago

            264.000.000kg/(45kg/unit) = around 5.866.666 units? Just wanted to have the number so others see the impact.

            • Sonor@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              17
              ·
              edit-2
              11 hours ago

              5.866.666 That is ~587 days worth of munitions if 10k a day is a good info mentioned above. bonkers

    • judasferret@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      34
      ·
      edit-2
      12 hours ago

      Chatgpt thoughts… With some spot checking on the math seems right… Here’s the context of 250,000 tonnes of munitions from the Russian side:

      Russia fires 10,000 to 60,000 artillery shells per day, depending on the front.

      A typical 152mm shell weighs around 40–43 kg.

      That means Russia can burn through 1,800+ tonnes per day in peak operations.

      Russian production in 2023 was estimated at 2 million+ shells per year.

      Russia also draws from Soviet-era stockpiles and imports from North Korea and Iran.

      Russian doctrine favors volume over precision. Their artillery-centric strategy relies on overwhelming force rather than accuracy.

      250,000 tonnes equates to roughly 6 million shells.

      For Russia, that’s only about 3–5 months of usage at current intensity.

          • kmaismith@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            14
            ·
            4 hours ago

            In an attempt to be more moderate: i think it is impolite to regurgitate the words of an LLM in a forum where we are expecting the dialogue to be between humans.

            • Gadg8eer@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              3 hours ago

              That’s fair, just realize some of us are tired of online pessimism to such a degree that an AI - telling me there are in fact potential solutions and to keep trying - is actually good for our mental health. I only use Perplexity for research and musings that I sometimes post here to be discussed, not to completely replace human interaction on the Fediverse.

            • Wanpieserino@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              2 hours ago

              Why do I trust a LLM more than humans? Because the LLM answers me instantly what I want to know. The human changes the subject and then after 10 interactions, they just ghost you.