Ukraine looked at a weapon built when rotary phones were considered high tech and asked a simple question: what’s the minimum we need to change to make this thing kill drones today?
I wonder what is their range? How does this compare to the heavy machine guns which for some time were effective against Shaheds? And compare to the Gepards? Do these fire just dumb shells or explosive ammunition?
Hi Rolf, a Shilka can hit drones at about 2–2.5 km, with a vertical reach under 2 km. That’s far better than the old 12.7mm heavy machine guns Ukraine used early in the war, which topped out around 1 km and only worked when Shahed attacks were small and predictable. The German Gepard outclasses the Shilka. Its 35mm airburst ammo reaches out to 4 km, and the fire-control system is far more modern. A Gepard kills a Shahed with a few well-placed bursts. A Shilka kills it by filling the sky with metal. Both work, but one works cleaner. As for ammunition, Shilkas fire simple high-explosive shells; no proximity fuses, no programmable detonation. It’s brute-force gunnery. Gepards fire smart rounds. Machine guns fire basic ball or API rounds.
Given what you said above, are Shilkas still capable vs. the new "stay high and dive at the last minute" strategy we've been seeing the latest Shahed models employ?
Thanks for these stories. Informative and entertaining. And to some degree absurd. The weapon’s of this war is really wild. But I am still sortnof disappointed that the T34 doesn’t have a comeback:-) Seems to be limits.
Thanks for the kind words raoul. I also have a YouTube channel if you like your Ukraine War news in video form. But you have to look at my face the whole time lol https://www.youtube.com/@WesODonnellX
When Russia's invasion of Ukraine finally ends, however that happens, all the customers of the US military-industrial complex may well become former customers - pivoting instead to the Ukrainians and anyone else who shows the same grit in producing effective weapons on the cheap. If Lockheed, Raytheon, General Dynamics and the rest don't radically change their culture, they're in big trouble.
Greed got all the big primes Scrooge McDuck-sized money vaults over the past three decades. Like you said, Ukraine just proved that the future is cheap and high volume.
The post-World War II era established the big-dollar US MIC. It has seen its day. For decades, the world thought it was a safe bet to let the USA dominate weapons research and production. A lot of nations are growing up as a result of Trump - one of the unexpected outcomes of his tragic destruction of the America's national government.
Huh? Biden was president for the first 35 months of this war.
His DoD didn’t prioritize innovative American drone manufacturing at all. DoD slowrolled and stalled smaller companies who worked with Ukrainian end users to build the exact drones they were asking for, and then cancelled contracts, all because they were waiting for the Primes to offer overpriced solutions.
You might want to consider, Mediocre, that no one had much sense of how impactful drones would be until the last couple of years. And the Pentagon / MIC wouldn't know what to do with the whole small-is-better weapons strategy that has only recently redefined warfare. Did Biden slow-walk weapons to Ukraine? Yes, but it wasn't his fault that the US didn't get into drone manufacturing sooner - the American perspective just would allow for it. And I fear we still haven't moved very quickly on that idea.
A small company I consulted for in early 2023 had U.S. Army SOCOM units and the 82nd Airborne clamoring for the drones they demonstrated. The field grade officers and enlisted end-users knew exactly why they needed these drones ASAP. The ones who had advised in Ukraine had already spread the gospel and there was full buy-in from the ground-level troops. There was already a network of smaller aspiring defense contractors and ex-CIA field officers who were advocating for the U.S. military to go hard into the pivot towards small, cheap, and lethal disposable drones in 2022.
It was the procurement generals and DoD bureaucrats, all angling for board seats or senior positions at one of the big 5 prime contractors, who dragged their feet and pretended that they needed to study the issue. They were just buying time for the primes to slowly develop overpriced solutions, while continuing to insist we push big ticket items to Ukraine.
The U.S. Army, or at least the guys who'd actually be fighting in future conflicts, understood very early.
There's not really any excuse for the Biden admin other than that there was no one anywhere near him or his advisors that understood anything about the conflicts they were committing the U.S. to supporting. For supposedly being a foreign policy guy, Biden was a dumb son of a bitch who never bothered to bring on competent military advisors who might have actually told him what the military needed to accomplish his foreign policy goals.
That's one of the reasons Trump chose Hegseth as SecWar/SecDef. Hegseth actually has his ear to the ground because he never rose into the oxygen-starved heights of the Pentagon and DoD bureaucracies that seem to deprive our top officials and generals of the ability to move fast when they have an extremely compelling reason to do so.
Hi Skian, thanks for reading. Ukraine has roughly 70–80 Shilkas still in storage in various conditions. Not all are salvageable, but about half are considered realistically repairable.
A full conversion to the A1 digital-radar standard takes 2–3 months per vehicle when the factory line is running steadily. With parallel work, Ukraine could push out 10–12 upgraded Shilkas per quarter. Funding is the real bottleneck, though. The Come Back Alive Foundation paid for the current batch, but scaling this up would require state money or Western grants, because volunteer groups cannot foot a nationwide modernization program.
30-40 isn't exactly many... can new ones be made at all, cost-efficiently? Or is it basically about refurbishing the 30-40 and then moving on to something else?
The US could learn a lot about repurposing older systems for new threats from Ukraine. However, I suspect it won't happen because it would cut into profits from selling new equipment.
I guess it is another cog in the patchwork of assets that the Ukrainians are using. Not what you would plan to do but what you have to do when its that or nothing. I don't know how mobile these are going to be. There would have to be an element of fortune for them to be in position to intercept shaheds rather then being a mobile anti-shahed fire brigade. I think their worth in those number is to protect the units they are with from lancets and fpv drones and maybe surveillance drone. They ought to be very good at that. Maybe even glide bombs?
It is a contribution. Seems like a good one. Of course there is need for more. But every little bit that helps is important. The Silkas will contribute, not win alone.
" 23mm autocannons melt Russian infantry positions, knock down tree lines, and shred Soviet-era vehicles that are too light for tank fire and too close for artillery"
Just like the WWII version - the German quad 20mm "Wirbelwind", and, to a lesser extent, the US quad .50 cal HMGs mounted on M3 half-tracks. Intended as close-in air defence, both proved very effective on many ground targets.
necessity is the mother of invention
I wonder what is their range? How does this compare to the heavy machine guns which for some time were effective against Shaheds? And compare to the Gepards? Do these fire just dumb shells or explosive ammunition?
Hi Rolf, a Shilka can hit drones at about 2–2.5 km, with a vertical reach under 2 km. That’s far better than the old 12.7mm heavy machine guns Ukraine used early in the war, which topped out around 1 km and only worked when Shahed attacks were small and predictable. The German Gepard outclasses the Shilka. Its 35mm airburst ammo reaches out to 4 km, and the fire-control system is far more modern. A Gepard kills a Shahed with a few well-placed bursts. A Shilka kills it by filling the sky with metal. Both work, but one works cleaner. As for ammunition, Shilkas fire simple high-explosive shells; no proximity fuses, no programmable detonation. It’s brute-force gunnery. Gepards fire smart rounds. Machine guns fire basic ball or API rounds.
Given what you said above, are Shilkas still capable vs. the new "stay high and dive at the last minute" strategy we've been seeing the latest Shahed models employ?
Thanks for these stories. Informative and entertaining. And to some degree absurd. The weapon’s of this war is really wild. But I am still sortnof disappointed that the T34 doesn’t have a comeback:-) Seems to be limits.
It would, but Russia needs the dozen T-34s it bought from North Korea for parades through Moscow.
But of course!
Thanks Wes, I've followed this war very closely from the beginning and this is one of the best articles I've read in 3 years :)
Thanks for the kind words raoul. I also have a YouTube channel if you like your Ukraine War news in video form. But you have to look at my face the whole time lol https://www.youtube.com/@WesODonnellX
Haha thanks Wes, I'm a subscriber on YT too!
Right on. Awesome video coming tomorrow. The Terrahawk Paladin comes to Ukraine!
When Russia's invasion of Ukraine finally ends, however that happens, all the customers of the US military-industrial complex may well become former customers - pivoting instead to the Ukrainians and anyone else who shows the same grit in producing effective weapons on the cheap. If Lockheed, Raytheon, General Dynamics and the rest don't radically change their culture, they're in big trouble.
Greed got all the big primes Scrooge McDuck-sized money vaults over the past three decades. Like you said, Ukraine just proved that the future is cheap and high volume.
The post-World War II era established the big-dollar US MIC. It has seen its day. For decades, the world thought it was a safe bet to let the USA dominate weapons research and production. A lot of nations are growing up as a result of Trump - one of the unexpected outcomes of his tragic destruction of the America's national government.
Huh? Biden was president for the first 35 months of this war.
His DoD didn’t prioritize innovative American drone manufacturing at all. DoD slowrolled and stalled smaller companies who worked with Ukrainian end users to build the exact drones they were asking for, and then cancelled contracts, all because they were waiting for the Primes to offer overpriced solutions.
You might want to consider, Mediocre, that no one had much sense of how impactful drones would be until the last couple of years. And the Pentagon / MIC wouldn't know what to do with the whole small-is-better weapons strategy that has only recently redefined warfare. Did Biden slow-walk weapons to Ukraine? Yes, but it wasn't his fault that the US didn't get into drone manufacturing sooner - the American perspective just would allow for it. And I fear we still haven't moved very quickly on that idea.
A small company I consulted for in early 2023 had U.S. Army SOCOM units and the 82nd Airborne clamoring for the drones they demonstrated. The field grade officers and enlisted end-users knew exactly why they needed these drones ASAP. The ones who had advised in Ukraine had already spread the gospel and there was full buy-in from the ground-level troops. There was already a network of smaller aspiring defense contractors and ex-CIA field officers who were advocating for the U.S. military to go hard into the pivot towards small, cheap, and lethal disposable drones in 2022.
It was the procurement generals and DoD bureaucrats, all angling for board seats or senior positions at one of the big 5 prime contractors, who dragged their feet and pretended that they needed to study the issue. They were just buying time for the primes to slowly develop overpriced solutions, while continuing to insist we push big ticket items to Ukraine.
The U.S. Army, or at least the guys who'd actually be fighting in future conflicts, understood very early.
There's not really any excuse for the Biden admin other than that there was no one anywhere near him or his advisors that understood anything about the conflicts they were committing the U.S. to supporting. For supposedly being a foreign policy guy, Biden was a dumb son of a bitch who never bothered to bring on competent military advisors who might have actually told him what the military needed to accomplish his foreign policy goals.
That's one of the reasons Trump chose Hegseth as SecWar/SecDef. Hegseth actually has his ear to the ground because he never rose into the oxygen-starved heights of the Pentagon and DoD bureaucracies that seem to deprive our top officials and generals of the ability to move fast when they have an extremely compelling reason to do so.
How many repairable Silkas does Ukraine have, and how quickly could they be converted? And, is there funding?
Hi Skian, thanks for reading. Ukraine has roughly 70–80 Shilkas still in storage in various conditions. Not all are salvageable, but about half are considered realistically repairable.
A full conversion to the A1 digital-radar standard takes 2–3 months per vehicle when the factory line is running steadily. With parallel work, Ukraine could push out 10–12 upgraded Shilkas per quarter. Funding is the real bottleneck, though. The Come Back Alive Foundation paid for the current batch, but scaling this up would require state money or Western grants, because volunteer groups cannot foot a nationwide modernization program.
30-40 isn't exactly many... can new ones be made at all, cost-efficiently? Or is it basically about refurbishing the 30-40 and then moving on to something else?
Hello West! Thanks for your work!
And happy soltice!
And donated ones? Many shilkas around in ex soviet arms depots...
The US could learn a lot about repurposing older systems for new threats from Ukraine. However, I suspect it won't happen because it would cut into profits from selling new equipment.
Gotta keep the Lockheed shareholders happy lol
16? Seems like an especially small number, given how many targets the Russians attack every night.
I guess it is another cog in the patchwork of assets that the Ukrainians are using. Not what you would plan to do but what you have to do when its that or nothing. I don't know how mobile these are going to be. There would have to be an element of fortune for them to be in position to intercept shaheds rather then being a mobile anti-shahed fire brigade. I think their worth in those number is to protect the units they are with from lancets and fpv drones and maybe surveillance drone. They ought to be very good at that. Maybe even glide bombs?
It is a contribution. Seems like a good one. Of course there is need for more. But every little bit that helps is important. The Silkas will contribute, not win alone.
" 23mm autocannons melt Russian infantry positions, knock down tree lines, and shred Soviet-era vehicles that are too light for tank fire and too close for artillery"
Just like the WWII version - the German quad 20mm "Wirbelwind", and, to a lesser extent, the US quad .50 cal HMGs mounted on M3 half-tracks. Intended as close-in air defence, both proved very effective on many ground targets.
Crimea is Ukraine