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- Oct 11, 2023
https://archive.is/2L417
“We don’t have time to test these things on the firing range,” says Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s Minister of Strategic Industries, who oversees the nation’s military industry and often goes himself to see its newest weapons on the launchpad. “We test them in combat,” he tells TIME. “So we have to be there, making adjustments and improvements along the way.”
Such experiments, conducted with oversight from Kamyshin and his ministry, are likely to define the next stage of this war. On orders from President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainians have begun trying to ease their reliance on Western arms by manufacturing more of their own. Nearly all of the recent strikes against targets in Russia have come not from foreign stockpiles, Kamyshin says, but from Ukrainian factories and clandestine workshops.
Ukraine’s ability to produce enough arms for its own military will be central to its current strategy for defeating the Russians.
ENDQUOTE
I had long thought that this type of thing was something Ukraine should have done. It would be super easy to get a bunch of CNC machines and the like and make basic equipment for relatively cheap. Like you could make replacement parts for broken down and old tanks.
Making a lot of shells would be hard but I think you could manage it if you had someone even relatively competent.
An interesting thing is the article says Ukraine is not making basic stuff but things like missiles and drones. Drones make a lot of sense. Missiles however do not. It is almost like a wunder-weapon type of situation.
But Ukraine never did this instead relying almost entirely on old stocks and western donations.
This Is the Way Out’: Inside Ukraine’s Plan to Arm Itself-Time
“We don’t have time to test these things on the firing range,” says Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s Minister of Strategic Industries, who oversees the nation’s military industry and often goes himself to see its newest weapons on the launchpad. “We test them in combat,” he tells TIME. “So we have to be there, making adjustments and improvements along the way.”
Such experiments, conducted with oversight from Kamyshin and his ministry, are likely to define the next stage of this war. On orders from President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainians have begun trying to ease their reliance on Western arms by manufacturing more of their own. Nearly all of the recent strikes against targets in Russia have come not from foreign stockpiles, Kamyshin says, but from Ukrainian factories and clandestine workshops.
Ukraine’s ability to produce enough arms for its own military will be central to its current strategy for defeating the Russians.
ENDQUOTE
I had long thought that this type of thing was something Ukraine should have done. It would be super easy to get a bunch of CNC machines and the like and make basic equipment for relatively cheap. Like you could make replacement parts for broken down and old tanks.
Making a lot of shells would be hard but I think you could manage it if you had someone even relatively competent.
An interesting thing is the article says Ukraine is not making basic stuff but things like missiles and drones. Drones make a lot of sense. Missiles however do not. It is almost like a wunder-weapon type of situation.
But Ukraine never did this instead relying almost entirely on old stocks and western donations.
