Here’s a blurb from Scranton Army Ammunition Plant who makes US shells.
"SCRANTON, Pa., - The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant manufactures and ships large-caliber ammunition metal parts to be loaded, assembled and packed at partner ammo facilities across the United States and Canada. The metal parts produced at SCAAP range in size from 105mm to 155mm projectiles.
All projectiles manufactured at SCAAP go through a rigorous inspection process during each stage of production. Raw-material billets are initially forged into metal tubes. The tubes are produced at the forging process and are hot-inspected at temperatures near 1,700 degrees to ensure proper internal and external dimensions. From forge, the metal tubes are cooled on an underground conveyor system where they remain for four hours to cool to room temperature, and then cold inspected to verify their internal and external dimensions remained consistent. Once completely cooled, the tubes go through a series of machining operations, which begins their transformation from a tube to a projectile where the nose is pressed onto the tube. The projectiles will then be heat treated, final machined to exact dimensions, painted and shipped to facilities within the Army’s Organic Industrial Base for further processing."
Depending on the shell. there’s machining of the rotating band area, shaping the base, fuze well threading, fitting obturating/rotating bands, welding base plates (if part of the shell). The shells go to a Load Assemble and Pack plant where explosives may be melt poured or various cargo munitions loaded. Cargos could include WP smoke, illumination canisters, counter armo munitions, colored smoke, etc…
My impression is that facilities that manufacture shells, use the same types of machining equipment for all of their various sized shells. They may need to (re)create special production lines dedicated to 122 mm shells, but absent other information I’m not aware of, can think of no reason why Russian factories couldn’t recreate a number of dedicated 122 mm production lines.
The other thing to consider is that while Ukraine has been blowing up ammo dumps with some consistency, the sheer volume of artillery shells Russia has kept in their stockpiles is huge. Many of their shells in storage date back to the Soviet era (which carries its own complications). While estimates vary depending on the source, we’re likely talking about conservatively 50 million shells.
So there is the assassination of a young woman and/or the attempted assassination of her father who is a critic of Putin and a narrative blaming it on Ukranians fleeing to Estonia? If this isn’t Putin’s doing it certainly plays into his hands: public outrage over the murder of a young attractive woman, Ukraine and NATO to blame, and a message sent to any other critics of Putin.
Conversely there is little actual benefit to Ukraine to target this guy or his daughter. Just targeting supporters of the war wouldn’t change anything.
The daughter was an outspoken supporter of Russia and extreme in her views but the father was supposed to be in the car and is regarded as a thought leader for Russian fascists. The bomb was set and he decided to change cars at the last minute, so he was certainly a target.
Very little brass is generated, it’s an artillery war. The shots with small arms that would generate the brass are limited to infantry squad interactions, then the position is moved to avoid incoming fire. Picking up brass is not a priority. If peace returns, perhaps a niche job for scrappers.
Usable quantities of brass for recovery ate generated at training facilities. Qualification firing at a large base in the US will produce a couple of tons a week for recycling.
A few years back there was a lot of agitation from gun owners about not being able to access spent military brass (it was all going to recyclers). A law was passed to save the brass so citizens could bid for cartridge cases. It was a joke in that installations had to build infrastructure projects to store all the spent cases. Sanity eventually returned when it was evident that very little was actually purchased relative to the volume produced. A single big day of training at a large base would generate more than was needed to satisfy national demand for reloadable cartridge cases.
Recycling brass by remelting is easy. Simple washout and melt. Not complex at all. Note that the US military does not use remelted brass in cartridge cases, the MIl Specs require “virgin” brass.
Many of the oldest Soviet types used brass (really big cases); later rounds used spiral wrapped steel. US/NATO 155mm projectiles use propellent bags; either actual shaped cloth bags or with the propellant encased in a nitrocellulose case. US/NATO 105mm shells use steel cartridge cases, typically 3 or 5 piece spiral wrapped (so the case expands slightly sealing the gun chamber).
There are some old stocks of 105mm WP munitions that still have a brass cartridge case. These are retained, cut down in length, and resized/reloaded as salute rounds. Some of the cut down ctg. cases are engraved with retirement info as souvenirs.
This basically seems to say, “We found a Ukrainian person who lived near the area. Ergo, that is the killer.” To be sure, it could be the murderer but:
Russia is actively moving people from the Donetsk region into Russian territory - so while technically a “Ukrainian”, we’re talking one of the good, Russian Ukrainians that Russia likes and is working to defend and protect. I suspect that for any particular murder or assassination, anywhere in Russia, you could find some person from Donetsk or Luhansk within a few blocks.
It’s strange to be running an assassination mission with a 12 year old daughter in tow. If nothing else, I’d send the daughter out of the region before committing a major crime that is liable to bring the authorities down like a hammer. But here, they clearly state that the daughter was present in the city, on the day of the murder.
It’s not strange for a person in the neighborhood to attend a big, public festival in the neighborhood. Likewise, it’s probably not all that strange for a person who likes to do public speaking to go speak at the big, public festival in the neighborhood.
It’s probably not unreasonable for a Ukrainian person to flee the neighborhood when an important local person is assassinated, and everyone’s going to look at the local Ukrainians first, for a suspect. (And, that’s assuming that all of the details in the story are true. For all we know, the suspect was picked up in Moscow and forcibly vanished or never existed. - Though, I’m inclined to think that at least most of the story is true since the evidentiary basis for the crime is so scant and easily shot down.)
I don’t think we are talking 4,500 in use. I think we are talking 400-500. That’s what this think tank estimates. 4,500 is more likely to refer to all the stuff in storage, like the many thousands of moldering old tanks. The Russian army (certainly minus reserves) doesn’t have the manpower to deploy 4,500 122mm pieces on top of everything else.
That article offers a rough guesstimate of Russian ammo production capacity and usage (perhaps half of existing stocks to date). Maximum Russian production, assuming the above figures are in the right ballpark, cannot sustain this kind of intensity forever. But then we already knew this - NO country currently has the production capacity to sustain high intensity warfare indefinitely, costs aside.
Wild card regarding the artillery ammunition issue: Norinco in China makes compatible shells for their use and presumably for export. Putin may have to quietly pull a Wimpy to stock back up, putting them deeper in hock to China.
Yeah, which also means that the likelihood the U.S. gave a weapon system that wasn’t scheduled to be available until next year to Ukraine ahead of our own army is mighty low. It is also quite true no partisan is going to lug 500 lbs of C-4 to a target when a couple of ounces will do. Instead they are a lot more likely to lug a couple of ounces and attach it to the bountiful supply of 500 lb Russian munitions available at the site.
Possibly confirmation bias but I had predicted that Russia would move to befriend India - so as to escape dependence on China, post-sanctions - so this article is a bit interesting:
We’ll have to see if they start sending any more fruit baskets.
Gabriel Gatehouse on the BBC has just said that a dissident Russian group called the National Republican Army have claimed responsibility for the attack on Dugina (via an ex-Russian MP). There’s no evidence to support this of course but it is intriguing.
Understatement of the year from this Newsweek article:
The Russian Investigative Committee said Sunday it believed the blast that killed Dugina near the village of Velyki Vyazomy in the suburbs of Moscow was no accident.