Why North Korean Ammo May Cause More Russian Than Ukrainian Casualties

Turns out North Korean storage and maintenance of ammunition is as bad or worse than Russia's. 

And when improperly maintained ammo gets sent on a 1,000 mile train ride...bad things could happen. Let alone what Russian forces find out when they try to use that which survives the journey. JL 

Trent Telenko reports in Twitter:

Old DPRK artillery munitions are far more dangerous than Ex-Soviet munitions."In the Yeonpyeong Island Incident of November 23, 2010 the North Koreans fired 170 copies of the Russian 122mm Grad rocket at the South Korean island. Fired at short range, only 80 rockets hit the island while 90 landed in the water. The 80 rockets that hit the island suffered a 25% dud rate. DPRK 122mm rockets are a terror weapon for Russian logistics and rocket artillery troops. Running thousands of 35-to-45 year old, badly stored, DPRK 122mm rockets down the Trans-Siberian railway will be marked by detonating trains, depots & BM-21 launchersSince everyone is talking about this 'controlled leak' to NY Time of US intelligence that Russia is buying DPRK artillery munitions. It's time for a logistics thread This is conditionally good news for Ukraine, not for the possible Russian ...artillery munitions shortage that it has people on Twitter speculating about. Rather, what is fortunate for Ukraine is what it portends, casualty wise, for Russian rocket artillery troops trying to use DPRK artillery rockets.

 

"There have also been signs that the effectiveness of some Russian artillery shells has been degraded because of storage problems or poor maintenance of its ammunition stocks"Generally, as artillery fuzes age, they get less reliable. This is because the chemicals in the Fuze's primer are the most unstable & subject to degrading over time. Artillery ammunition of all sorts has a life span. Highly energetic solid explosives & propellants degrade. ...over time as hot/cold cycles, humidity & trace contamination causes crystallization. An 18% dud rate on Smerch rockets is a symptom of the aging of the primer in the rocket fuze, AKA a time expired munition.The overwhelming majority of the munition explosions on that State Department list involved Ex-Soviet & Ex-Warsaw Pact artillery munitions. The punchline for all of this? Old DPRK artillery munitions are far more dangerous than Ex-Soviet munitions."In the Yeonpyeong Island Incident of November 23, 2010 the North Koreans fired 170 copies of the Russian 122mm Grad rocket at the South Korean island. Fired at relatively short range, only 80 rockets....hit the island while 90 landed in the water. The 80 rockets that hit the island suffered a 25% dud rate.

 

Thus 110 out of 170 rockets were completely wasted. And this was a premeditated attack that presumably used the best crews and highest quality ammunition available.The rockets were fired in a pair of time on target salvos coinciding with scheduled South Korean maneuvers on the island, so that SK Marines were caught in the open, but casualties were only 2 SK Marines killed, 2 civilians killed, 18 wounded."Having 110 of 170 rockets fall short or fail to detonate is a ~64% failure rate on the very best DPRK 122mm artillery rockets it horrid. The double punch line to that number set is 1. It happened 11 years ago & 2. It doesn't count rockets that misfired and never left.

 

This is where things get interesting. When you look up standard pattern DPRK 122mm rocket launchers, they come with 40 rockets each. Divide 170 rockets by 40 and you get 4.25 launchers, AKA 30 122mm rockets misfired...assuming the DPRK used five BM-21 class launchers. The kicker? The standard BM-21 122mm rocket battery is six launchers. This makes the misfire # 70 rockets.which seems high to me. Newer domestically produced DPRK 122mm launcher using smaller local truck chassis only carried 30 122mm rockets each. Since the Yeonpyeong Island Incident was a "show" put on for/by the latest Kim. Let's assume six of these.ix time 30 is 180 rockets, of which 170 launched, 90 fell short, and 60 of the 80 that hit the island actually detonated. So we have: 90 of 180 fell short of the island 80 of 180 reached the island 60 of 180 detonated on the Island 10 of 180 misfired on the launchersThe very best 122mm DPRK rockets fired on the newest launchers with the best crews had the following: 33.3% successful island impact rate** 50% fall short rate 5.5% misfire rate. ** This is far bigger than rated circular error probability, AKA wildly inaccurate.DPRK 122mm rockets are a terror weapon... ...for Russian logistical and rocket artillery troops. Russian standard 122mm rockets are too long to fit sideways in a standard Russian railway car. Thus the standard loading causes them to roll down.stacks of 122mm rockets. Running thousands of 35-to-45 year old, badly stored, DPRK 122mm rockets down the Trans-Siberian railway will be marked by detonating trains, depots & BM-21 launchers.