Yeah. Government-owned companies producing shells that probably wouldn't pass QC in "the west", and paying employees a pittance in comparison. Also at least based on aerial photos, Russians seem to use contact fuzes a lot (you can see the difference from the "splash" patterns) which are a lot cheaper than airburst / multifunction fuzes, but admittedly those might well have been old Soviet stock and their new production could well be more modern.
Still, regardless of the fuze used it's no surprise that Russian production is cheaper.
Reportedly the Russian factory workers are being paid quite well. And the lack of quality is just a myth I think. There's no indication that's actually true.
The real reason prices in the West are so high is that there's a shortage, and shells are supplied overwhelmingly by private contractors, and so the price has multiplied thanks to supply-and-demand market logic.
You may think the Efficient Free Market Knows Best™, so shouldn't they increase production? Think again. They're making record profits right now. Meaningfully increasing production involves building new factories for billions of dollars/euros, which might be ready in a year or two. By then the war will be over and they would have overcapacity, which would be inefficient and prices would plummet. Why would they do that to themselves?
So they're in a great negotiating position vis a vis desperate Western governments. They want guaranteed profits, of the same sort they're making right now, or else the shortage continues.
Which I'm sure are definitely not of lower quality with an increased ratio of duds produced by a more war-centric economy that's ultimately degrading their society even further.
I'm sure the Ukrainian drone manufacturers really appreciate this. The cheaper they are the more you have at depots, the bigger the boom when you bomb them.
Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost, according to an analysis shared with Sky News.
The figures, produced by the management consulting firm Bain & Company, underline a major challenge faced by the Ukrainian armed forces as they rely on supplies of ammunition from the United States and Europe to battle Russia's full-scale invasion.
It prompted the US, the UK and other European allies to seek to ramp up production in their respective factories, but their ability to manufacture artillery rounds still lags behind Russia's despite a combined economic strength that far outmatches Moscow's.
"Often, with just one, two or three shells, we can completely destroy a target," said Senior Lieutenant Kostiantin, an artillery battery commander with the 57th Brigade, which is fighting against a new Russian invasion into the Kharkiv region, in the northeast of Ukraine.
Sky News visited a group of new recruits in the east of the country who were learning how to use an N-LAW anti-tank missile, first provided to the Ukrainian military by the UK.
Sky News visited a factory in Belfast in April where the N-LAW missile is assembled by Thales, a global defence company.
The original article contains 931 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!