Ukraine War: Artillery Shortages Affect Both Sides

Since World War II, modern combat doctrine worldwide has emphasized wars of speed, maneuvers and mobility. Since the pioneering German blitzkriegs of 1939 and 1940, the notion of static battle lines, seen in the First World War, has been widely regarded as obsolete. Surprisingly, the current war in Ukraine has developed in a manner that looks very similar to the trench warfare of World War I.A century ago, that war saw very high volumes of artillery fire—so much so that artillery shortages were a clinical problem in 1916. And today, as then, Ukrainian and Russian forces are looking for sources worldwide to maintain the very high rates of artillery fire common in this war phase.* * * Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.