And once again you go back to an argument where you have failed to address the key point:
What are Russia's stockpiles and production numbers actually like?
Ah, once again not answering any of the points I listed and goalpost shifting into something they have you not asked at all this entire dialogue so as to falsely present the fascade that I haven't addressed....before then immediately admitting we have, in fact, went over this before. I won't even address the fact you apparently lack the courage of conviction to @ me, despite having previously trying to pull the "well you don't respond" card.
When you brought up the issue before, I agreed that the US's production capabilities have declined. It's very well-documented.
However, when trying to supply numbers specifically on artillery shell production, all that you had was one indirect reference to a tweet that claimed the Ukrainians had been making 2 million shells a year for the Russians until the mess in 2014. No greater substantiation, no figures on what Russian production was like, and no clear numbers on what current stockpiles were like.
You just acted like you had proven your point, when the crux of the whole thing was completely lacking.
Or, you know, you could look at the context of that particular conversation being me citing the Twitter thread as a whole. If you wanted more evidence, you need only ask so directly in this conversation.
Here's a Pro Ukrainian take, for example:
Based on these figures, it is possible to estimate the volume of artillery ammunition production itself. If we look at the earnings of the corresponding industrial enterprises and conglomerates, we will see that during those years they ranged between 80-100 billion rubles. The earnings, of course, also include civilian products, which in some enterprises account for 25-30% of the total revenue. As a consequence, the ratio between recovered and newly produced munitions can be estimated, albeit roughly, as 1:2. Or for each 570,000 shells restored, there are up to 1.14 million new ones. Thus, the total annual rate of replenishment of artillery arsenals in the 2010s did not exceed 1.6-1.7 million shells of all types. It is worth mentioning an interesting detail: the supply of rockets of all types in 2017, for example, amounted to only 10,700.
To meet and exceed your standard of evidence of one tweet referencing
Ukrainian production, I showed a link to a tweet with an estimate of what Russia's pre-war shell stockpile had been like. I never saw you reply to that. Not the best cite, but the Russians are squirrely about letting people know how much they've actually been producing, and still better than what you offered.
A farewell to arms. By year end Russia will be left almost without shells, artillery and armored vehicles
You also failed to address the issue of how much of its budget Russia actually spent on shells each year to meet the kinds of numbers you were implying.
Interesting thesis Cotton, let's square it up with reality from RUSI:
Despite these frictions, Russia has achieved fires dominance through the sheer volume of tactical
artillery and munitions that it can bring to bear.17 In addition to vast stockpiles that the Soviet
Union accumulated, and which have yet to be depleted18 – by some estimates, several years’
worth still remains19 – the Russian defence industry has a significant capacity for producing
artillery shells. For example, Soviet-era armaments factories based in Ukraine were fulfilling
orders for Russian forces up until 2014 with the capacity to assemble 2,000,000 152-mm howitzer
shells per year in contracts that had been continued since the 1980s.20 Many similar large-scale
plants remain in operation inside Russia. Although the Ukrainian factory had the capacity to
assemble this many shells, actual outputs were often slightly below this figure, largely because
of a bottleneck in the production of explosive material for the propellant and warhead.21
What do you know, exactly as the tweet thread said, eh?
So yes, you conveniently disappeared when I cited evidence.
Just ignore all the replies that happened before that, as you always do.