From what the Internet told me, Russia was in a mess for barrels because a) they imported the high quality steel, b) the tooling was mostly german, and they had cut off software and maintenance support, and c) even if they had the steel and the tooling continued to function, the capacity is about 10x too small to keep up with wartime command, and they can't buy more tooling. This may all be inaccurate.
You left out the most important factor bubba........skilled employees! WE have them in America, Germany, Great Britain, etc......THEY NEVER HAVE, EVER! Russia has always been afflicted by a zero quality labor pool and a "good enough" attitude. Even in the handful of instances, militarily, that they've had a good idea or design, you were guaranteed it was going to be absolute shit because it was made in Russia, by Russians, out of Russian materials! The most recent conflict has only served to make this ALL TO APPARENT to everyone on planet earth, because it puts everything American in direct opposition and contrast to everything on offer from Russia and the discrepancies are VAST and DEEP!! They differences are are sooooo huge they look like completely different era's in industrial time.
@@Cody38Super Denmark have skilled people too, for doing just about anything, the problem is we like most of EU are lacking in these severely. Sadly the People that come to our little pink cloud of a country, well not skilled and not likely to be any time soon due to a heavy cultural luggage.
Tooling and steel are probably 2 of those big 'dual-use' goods that Russia is buying from China. China produces tons of tooling and they're probably still the leaders in steel production. It would be interesting to look up price charts on tool steel since the invasion. Germany and Europe probably produce the best machine tools and their tooling. However, this is simple steel forging and die cutting that don't require the best of the best carbide inserts for the CNC machines.
@@Cody38SuperWhat a load, no touch whit reality. There are numerous military factories in Russia that where not even active since they where constructed. They are there in case of war, like now. For your point on manpower, how do you think russian economy can function if they haw such bad knowhow? Enjoy you chinese made products bud, soon enough your goin to be whithout even them...
Is this the start of “making more videos?” Possibly “shorter” more frequent videos? Andrew I love it. I was excited last night when you mentioned this possibility, and here we are! Great work brother. 🇺🇸 🇺🇦
I take it this is referring to the 26-30 rotary forging machines the USSR acquired from Austrian company GFM in the 1960's? Less than half of those were capable of producing the most 'in demand' 152mm tubes & after more than 50 years of Soviet/Russian use, I very much doubt even half are still operable as intended. Russia is burning through artillery & tank barrels at a rate of six or more a day & has a replacement rate of half that.
@@bosatsu76 Aye, I was just referring to the rate at which barrels are being worn out, never mind destroyed. Heck, they're even scavenging barrels from destroyed pieces & literally firing artillery until catastrophic failure or the accuracy becomes ridiculously poor.
You can see them in operation. I watched a video of the Motovilikha plant.. Facilities never stopped producing apparently, as the plant manager noted they were making products for the oil and gas industry but they've returned to artillery barrels for the war. Interestingly he notes the Soviets stockpiled barrels in massive quantities in case of some large scale war and he noted that after a few thousand rounds they also refinish older barrels. He called it refloating, not a metal guy so either that is the right term or translation of Russian was imperfect in subtitles. Really cool to see the process.
I'm unsure where you are getting your figures from, but the UK lost its capability to manufacture large barrels completely in the 90s. Barrels for the new CR3 MBT are being manufactured in Germany because of this. However, rumour has it that we are looking at regenerating this capability under the new gov. Can't speak for the US/ Russia.
@@BangWax when you stop making something for a few years the workforce that knew how to make whatever it was will move on to different jobs, leave it a few decades and many of them will have retired. So that's what they mean by lost. The loss doesn't have to be permanent but regenerating that manufacturing capability takes time and money as you need to try to rehire the former workers and/or train new workers even if you still have the machines to do it. This is the reason nations like the US keep building military gear that they don't really need, it's to hold on to the workforce so they're still available when they do need them to manufacture something.
@@andrewperpetua i think the fly in the ointment here is based on continuous supply and all that hinges on november elections. if donald is elected and cut off all military support to ukraine then it really doesnt matter if ukraine has no ammo. so everything depends on november elections as the european are making 40 percent of the artillery ammo they have set a goal to make is what the european ammo manufacturers are saying off the record. the 2 million goal they set for 2025 is actually only around 700-800k rounds they are actually making. if donald is elected and cuts off ukraine support, the europeans know they cant supply ukraine and ukraine is gonna lose. the russians are on a war economy, and the europeans are just waiting and seeing. i think europe is still in denial that russia's intends to take back the old soviet borders.
It's important to notice that making (large) gun barrels is not a particularily "high tech" process, BUT its a very specialized "exotic" process. The machinery needed is custom made and much of it is not shared with other industrial processes. That is, one cannot repurpose machinery for making a related product. Secondly, you either make high quality barrels or you don't make them at all. Good barrels (Russian standard) have a range of 25km. You make low quallity substitutes and the range falls to 15km ... making them mostly useless the way the war is being fought.
The rotary forges are used in a variety of other industries, but automotive and oilfields are common. The picture he used was of an half axle off the GFM website.
There's also the potential complication of making the barrels either as one piece or having a separate liner in there, that you can replace instead of replacing the entire barrel. Complications can make things easier down the line. Wonder what the orc choice is.
A point to consider is, regardless of the quantity manufactured, what is the quality? A small bend in a barrel creates inaccuracy and the longer the range of the shot, the more inaccurate it will be. And given that the russian authoritarian regime is putting the manufacturers under pressure for quantity, it is reasonable to assume that the quality will drop and inaccurate pieces will be sent to the front line.
Having your question answered in a dedicated video by the streamer himself: priceless award. (wasn't my question, but I can relate :D) Keep them coming!
There was an article I read about this topic. From what I recall the main problem is the type of high grade steel needed in the manufacture of artillery barrels. The steel before the war was made in low quantities in small specialized forges. Current production of this steel could not come close to supplying the needs of war time use. That was a year ago, no idea how much the situation has changed in improving the quantity of the specialized steel manufactured. As a side note, there are videos showing regular steel vs armor/ballistic steel for tanks, in a hydraulic press. The tank/ballistic steel is far far tougher/stronger, Its like a brick of wet clay against a brick of regular steel.
I see this artillery shortage referenced by Perun and many other fairly heavy duty analysts Has anyone found a source that analysed this based on real knowledge ? It’s an important topic we need to understand
There is a lot more to it than just buying a couple of auto forges from Austria , China or any where else . Making the sleeve is just the start of the process then there is the liner to be made and finally fitting the one inside the other . Old Soviet ordinance used one piece barrels & I am not sure if a modern multi piece barrel can be made as a strait substitute without substantial alterations to the breaches . Artillery barrels are a lot more complicated than most people who are not engineers & metallurgist could even start to imagine . If russia has the capacity that you suggest then they would not be removing old barrels from old machine to fit them to existing functioning machines . Modern barrels are a 3 to 7 piece construction so the main wear parts, the breech &the liner can be replaced . But old Soviet barrels are all one piece construction and that is a painfully slow process even if modern high speed tooling is programmed to make them . To get an understanding of the complexities it is easiest to start from the back & go to the beginning To work properly a barrel must be exactly the same microstructure from the inside to the outside for both it's circumference & entire length in both chemical composition & grain size The purpose of forging is to break up the large crystals and make them both smaller & orientated in the desired direction, the latter is sort of equivalent to the grain of wood . Size & chemistry are affected by temperature & time which we plot on TTT charts ( Time-Temperature-Tansformation ) and these determine how much work we can do to a barrel in any single operation between heatings and the temperatures between which the barrel can be worked plus the required force ( hammer blows if you like ) at each stage . Steel is just like coal and can have many many different physical grain structures just the same as carbon can be graphite, coal or diamonds ( plus more ) with each have different physical properties . All of this has to be carefully controlled or the barrel will wear too fast or fail in service unexpectedly . So before the billed gets loaded into the machines it has to be machined to very precise dimensions and inspected by X-rays & ultrasound for internal defects . Those billets themselves are extruded to break up the coarse cast microstructure Before extrusion the billets need to be homogenised because during casting the alloy separates according to the melting points of the various compounds & phases present in the alloy This is a solid state diffusion process and can take from a few hours to a few months at very precise temperatures in a furnace with a controlled atmosphere to prevent burning and more importantly to prevent hydrogen atoms dissolving into the steel ( search hydrogen embrittlement if you want to understand this ) . And now we are at the beginning , making the steel which is not like railroad tracks or reo rod, has to be made from all virgin materials with a very limited amount of process scrap of the same material then bottom poured or submerged poured into the billet moulds to prevent contamination from exposure to the atmosphere . If finances are available it will be double vacuum melted which is basically remelting the billets in another furnace that as the name suggests is either inside a vacuum chamber or in a controlled atmosphere room / factory and again bottom pouring . So hopefully this will sort of explain that there is more to it than just buying an auto forge from wherever , plugging it in dropping a chunk of steel in then pressing the big green GO button . Lots of ancillary equipment of very high precision is needed and every step of the process is very time dependent plus having highly trained & skilled staff does not hurt either . The alternative is going back to fully cast barrels where for a 152mm round would need to be feet thick and weigh 30 tons a piece , OK on a rail car or sip, not particularly good for a tank or field artillery
Não conseguem produzir o suficiente para reposição das perdas, conforme seus informes de perdas. No caso de tubos de obuses estão aproveitando canos antigos de 122mm.
The manufacturing of gun barrels NOT done by radial forging. Process of a typical gun barrel - 1. gundrilling , rought 2. gundrilling, finish 3. honing, in multiple steps , between each step measuring , 5 rifling (not neccessary for tank barrels). Honing for small parts can be done manually, the tool stationarry, and a guy moving the part to make the conformal diameter. periodic checking required, needs lot of experience. For bigger parts a hoing machine required, not so complicated if there is an experienced craftsman on the machine. the honing is the most critical part of the process.
Actually, most pistol and rifle high volume barrels ARE made using this process. It is called: cold hammered forging. Tool used is called a mandril. Google it. Other methods are button barrelled (metal gets deformed plastically by a button tool) and a method by removing material using a cutting tool. On the other hand you are right describing the necessary steps before rifling is done. BTW modern cold hammered forging machines form the chamber as well as the rifling. After hammering no further honing is required.
@@ervie60 There is a difference between the CRITICAL process steps/machines, and the productivity iproving / cost decreasing machines. Example, in the bread making the oven is a CRITICAL process step, if you miss it then no chance to make bread. But the dought mixing machine is only a cost decreasing step. If the machine doesn't work then you can compensate it with few untrained hands. Same for barrell manufacturing. The pre forming of the barrel for gundrilling can be done by simply cut and machining the hot rolled bars, and after doing more rought gundrilling. Or by radial forgin. Or by cold foring. Or whatever that you imagine. Doesn't matter, those are NOT critial process steps to scale up the manufacturing. You can subcontract the work to generator/ship engine/water pump makers. cost bit more, but if you want to scale up the production tenfold in six month for two years then when you finish the installation ,training and debuging of radial forging the surge time over. Search in the google the "uk artillery barrel production". The second picture coming up to me showing barrel manufacturing from solid blank rods. they haven't got time do anything else. Again, in fast surge implementation there is no time for implement non critical complex processes. For a stable, ten years ahead planed insutry, like automotive, where 3 % cost cut means 30% increase in profit it makes sense to install and amortise the radial forging machines in a ten years period. but to run a process for two years ? you want lot of cheap machines with trained guys.
Apart from the liner, are the barrels of tank and artillery guns made from a single piece, or layered from multiple pieces that encase each other, like the barrels of battleship guns? That affects the complexity of the manufacturing process. Apart from that, I've been told that one of the main limiting factors for Russia is the quality of steel they can produce themselves is not good enough for high quality barrels, or at least they cannot produce it in the quantities they need.
@@TimvanderLeeuw They can produce higer quality steel for nuclear submarines than the USA ,in higher quanity. So, I think this is simply propaganda. There is several way to make the inside of the barrell hard, including carbonation and surface heat treatment afterward. SU and Russia used to make barrells in the quantity needed now, so I can't see a resason why thez can't scale it up. The artirrelly rounds has similar parameters like barrels. anyway , they managed to scale up in short time to extremel evels the artirelly production. By USA pricin 1500 155 mm cround (lifetime of barrell with full charge) ost 6-9 million USD , dwarfing the cost of the barrell. The M777 unit cost 4 million USD. One M777 barrell cost 690 k USD . Means rounds cost over lifetime of barrell magnitude higher than the cost of barrell. Means it require onlz 10% of reasources to replace the barrells.
I thought Russia's issue early in the war, was that they used to get the steel grade they use for barrels from Germany. If that was true, I doubt it would still be an issue.
RU has 1 plant making tank guns (#9, owned by Uralvagonzavod) and 1 plant making 152mm self-propelled howitzers (Uraltransmash). And it seems that that's it. Read that they're trying to restart some Soviet-era plants which have sat idle for 30+ years. Good luck with that, I wouldn't be holding my breath. Sounds a lot more like 200 barrels per year than 1000. If anyone could share some more meaningful info, that'd be great.
Odd because I watched a video of a plant called Motovilikha in Perm making barrels. So I'd double check your sources. Plants he noted were continuously operating but they were making pipes for oil and gas industry, so they've returned again to produced barrels. The rotary forge was Austrian he noted but when they walk through the process he notes that all the other equipment is Russian. It's a very cool process to see, just rewatched it on X and it was translated.
@@trogdortpennypacker6160 Thx 4 this. My understanding (pls correct me if i'm wrong): motovilihinskie was bankrupt financ'ly and they're now trying to revive it. Like I said, not holding my breath. Also heard that they're manufacturing 100mm guns for BMPs, not for field arty.
Machines are often underutilized and thus have a greater capacity than they normally use. There are other steps in that process that take up time and you can speed up production at the expense of financial efficiency by hiring more workers and building more equipment to handle the other tasks in the production process. Also adding a 3rd shift will increase production. Not only that, but any Russian company with a lick of foresight knew that investing in machine tools for military production is an amazing investment. So they probably already have been building more of these forging presses ever since the realization that it was going to be a long war. Never assume that production numbers and capabilities during peacetime are set in stone and unchanging when wartime comes around. Just because some European country made the tooling for that process in the past doesn't mean that only that company is capable of building those parts. The dies are probably a wear item anyway so the Russian factories probably routinely cut new ones. Also, the rest of the machine just appears to be a hydraulic system. The thing you need to look for with issues like this is the market for tool steels. Has the price per ton greatly increased since the war started relative to other products? If so, then that means that factories are buying up a lot in order to make tooling. That, and greedy people are buying it up because they know the price per ton will rise even more.
i am not an English speaker and have one question. what accent is when mr. Andrew says "stream" and "question" as "Shhtream" and "queshhchion"? no offence, just interesting
and "true" also as "chrue". so basically all "tr" are "chr". "st" are "sht" and i am not sure, but i guess "st" are "sht" so is it deutsch to some degree?
You forget that the United States was able to scale up barrel production in a matter of months during the Great War. And plenty of historians and engineers know the method they used with concrete lathes. If any industrial country made it a priority, within 2-3 years they could scale to make more barrels than they could possibly use. In the end, they are just big pieces of steel that people have known how to make for more than 100 years.
Manufacturing of the guns in Europe started 700 years ago. The development of manufacturing happened to satisfy the demand of weapon manufacturing. Making gun barrels not easy - it is as complicated as say the transmission of a luxory car. But doable, needs workforce .
the west was only able to mobilise there country though lies and tyranny America had company's work on credit and told them they would be paid after war was over they built up massive debt with these company's and when the war ended they just refused to pay and slandered anyone who complained branding them as "UNAMERICAN" and war profiteers. in the the uk government prohibited unions and sent soldiers with guns to factory's to threaten to kill workers who considered going on strike. during ww2 America changed the law giving them the power to seize any business needed for the war and use threat of seizure to force company's to make goods at the price the government dictated and even for free. you could never getaway with this stuff today and without it you cant mobilize the west at all
Whatever happened to that world war II German technology where they could forge a tube cut the tube off and then they would do a single strike through the middle of the tube to form a barrel? I know they had a process that they could like just pump out barrels like crazy, they weren't real precise but they were consistent quality in volume
Six and a half minutes of mumbling for something that could be said in seconds. TLDW: Russia has the same number of barrel forging machines as USA, GB, Germany individually Each of these countries can produce somewhere from 200 to a 1000 barrels per year. Yes, the estimates in this video are that accurate.
Question is what China is doing. They can often scale up things better then many others. And they have a big car industry and a big truck industry too.
Russian labor shortages especially anything requiring real skills keep getting worse. Pretty sure they can't maintain their equipment and accuracy will continue to get worse.
Russia has got itself, over a barrel
WITH SO MUCH NATO EQUIPMENT DESTROYED AND UKRAINIAN CONSCRIPTS SURRENDERING, HOW DID YOU COME TO A RIDICULOUS CONCLUSION??
closet BANDERITE?
🙋🙋🙋🙋🙋🙋🙋
From what the Internet told me, Russia was in a mess for barrels because a) they imported the high quality steel, b) the tooling was mostly german, and they had cut off software and maintenance support, and c) even if they had the steel and the tooling continued to function, the capacity is about 10x too small to keep up with wartime command, and they can't buy more tooling. This may all be inaccurate.
You left out the most important factor bubba........skilled employees! WE have them in America, Germany, Great Britain, etc......THEY NEVER HAVE, EVER! Russia has always been afflicted by a zero quality labor pool and a "good enough" attitude. Even in the handful of instances, militarily, that they've had a good idea or design, you were guaranteed it was going to be absolute shit because it was made in Russia, by Russians, out of Russian materials! The most recent conflict has only served to make this ALL TO APPARENT to everyone on planet earth, because it puts everything American in direct opposition and contrast to everything on offer from Russia and the discrepancies are VAST and DEEP!! They differences are are sooooo huge they look like completely different era's in industrial time.
@@Cody38Super Denmark have skilled people too, for doing just about anything, the problem is we like most of EU are lacking in these severely.
Sadly the People that come to our little pink cloud of a country, well not skilled and not likely to be any time soon due to a heavy cultural luggage.
What I've heard is that they've started importing machining equipment from China to cope.
Tooling and steel are probably 2 of those big 'dual-use' goods that Russia is buying from China. China produces tons of tooling and they're probably still the leaders in steel production. It would be interesting to look up price charts on tool steel since the invasion. Germany and Europe probably produce the best machine tools and their tooling. However, this is simple steel forging and die cutting that don't require the best of the best carbide inserts for the CNC machines.
@@Cody38SuperWhat a load, no touch whit reality.
There are numerous military factories in Russia that where not even active since they where constructed.
They are there in case of war, like now.
For your point on manpower, how do you think russian economy can function if they haw such bad knowhow?
Enjoy you chinese made products bud, soon enough your goin to be whithout even them...
Is this the start of “making more videos?” Possibly “shorter” more frequent videos? Andrew I love it. I was excited last night when you mentioned this possibility, and here we are! Great work brother. 🇺🇸 🇺🇦
Agreed
🔥Cheers Andrew…informative stuff, and less than 2 hours, thanks!
I take it this is referring to the 26-30 rotary forging machines the USSR acquired from Austrian company GFM in the 1960's?
Less than half of those were capable of producing the most 'in demand' 152mm tubes & after more than 50 years of Soviet/Russian use, I very much doubt even half are still operable as intended.
Russia is burning through artillery & tank barrels at a rate of six or more a day & has a replacement rate of half that.
Can you share sources?
I'm pretty sure they're losing 50 a day... That's a fairly conservative reporting across half a dozen sites, including the ISW...
@@bosatsu76 Aye, I was just referring to the rate at which barrels are being worn out, never mind destroyed.
Heck, they're even scavenging barrels from destroyed pieces & literally firing artillery until catastrophic failure or the accuracy becomes ridiculously poor.
You can see them in operation. I watched a video of the Motovilikha plant.. Facilities never stopped producing apparently, as the plant manager noted they were making products for the oil and gas industry but they've returned to artillery barrels for the war. Interestingly he notes the Soviets stockpiled barrels in massive quantities in case of some large scale war and he noted that after a few thousand rounds they also refinish older barrels. He called it refloating, not a metal guy so either that is the right term or translation of Russian was imperfect in subtitles. Really cool to see the process.
I'm unsure where you are getting your figures from, but the UK lost its capability to manufacture large barrels completely in the 90s. Barrels for the new CR3 MBT are being manufactured in Germany because of this. However, rumour has it that we are looking at regenerating this capability under the new gov. Can't speak for the US/ Russia.
“Lost” ?
@@BangWax As in, no longer has it. Died very quickly after the privatisation of the Royal Ordinance factories.
@@BangWax when you stop making something for a few years the workforce that knew how to make whatever it was will move on to different jobs, leave it a few decades and many of them will have retired. So that's what they mean by lost. The loss doesn't have to be permanent but regenerating that manufacturing capability takes time and money as you need to try to rehire the former workers and/or train new workers even if you still have the machines to do it. This is the reason nations like the US keep building military gear that they don't really need, it's to hold on to the workforce so they're still available when they do need them to manufacture something.
I thought Sheffield Forgemasters have some of the largest forging capacity globally?
The U.K. is in the process of regenerating the capability
Good stuff. 👍 thanks for the info.
Thank you :)
@@andrewperpetua i think the fly in the ointment here is based on continuous supply and all that hinges on november elections. if donald is elected and cut off all military support to ukraine then it really doesnt matter if ukraine has no ammo.
so everything depends on november elections as the european are making 40 percent of the artillery ammo they have set a goal to make is what the european ammo manufacturers are saying off the record. the 2 million goal they set for 2025 is actually only around 700-800k rounds they are actually making.
if donald is elected and cuts off ukraine support, the europeans know they cant supply ukraine and ukraine is gonna lose. the russians are on a war economy, and the europeans are just waiting and seeing. i think europe is still in denial that russia's intends to take back the old soviet borders.
It's important to notice that making (large) gun barrels is not a particularily "high tech" process, BUT its a very specialized "exotic" process. The machinery needed is custom made and much of it is not shared with other industrial processes. That is, one cannot repurpose machinery for making a related product.
Secondly, you either make high quality barrels or you don't make them at all. Good barrels (Russian standard) have a range of 25km. You make low quallity substitutes and the range falls to 15km ... making them mostly useless the way the war is being fought.
The rotary forges are used in a variety of other industries, but automotive and oilfields are common. The picture he used was of an half axle off the GFM website.
@k53847 Those are nor suitable for barrels. Dimensions matter.
The end result is, it's custom Equipment made form purpose.
great short video Andrew, I knew nothing of any of that.. Thanks..
There's also the potential complication of making the barrels either as one piece or having a separate liner in there, that you can replace instead of replacing the entire barrel. Complications can make things easier down the line.
Wonder what the orc choice is.
A point to consider is, regardless of the quantity manufactured, what is the quality? A small bend in a barrel creates inaccuracy and the longer the range of the shot, the more inaccurate it will be. And given that the russian authoritarian regime is putting the manufacturers under pressure for quantity, it is reasonable to assume that the quality will drop and inaccurate pieces will be sent to the front line.
Thanks for the update. Love your long streams. Keep it up.
Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
Heroyam Slava. 💙💛
Having your question answered in a dedicated video by the streamer himself: priceless award.
(wasn't my question, but I can relate :D)
Keep them coming!
No smoking around the machine 😊
There was an article I read about this topic. From what I recall the main problem is the type of high grade steel needed in the manufacture of artillery barrels. The steel before the war was made in low quantities in small specialized forges. Current production of this steel could not come close to supplying the needs of war time use. That was a year ago, no idea how much the situation has changed in improving the quantity of the specialized steel manufactured.
As a side note, there are videos showing regular steel vs armor/ballistic steel for tanks, in a hydraulic press. The tank/ballistic steel is far far tougher/stronger, Its like a brick of wet clay against a brick of regular steel.
That's not stopping them from going forward in Ukraine
Thank you Andrew for your excellent updates and information 👍🇺🇦
I see this artillery shortage referenced by Perun and many other fairly heavy duty analysts Has anyone found a source that analysed this based on real knowledge ? It’s an important topic we need to understand
Their tank barrels are smoothbore while artillery barrels are rifled.
There is a lot more to it than just buying a couple of auto forges from Austria , China or any where else .
Making the sleeve is just the start of the process then there is the liner to be made and finally fitting the one inside the other .
Old Soviet ordinance used one piece barrels & I am not sure if a modern multi piece barrel can be made as a strait substitute without substantial alterations to the breaches .
Artillery barrels are a lot more complicated than most people who are not engineers & metallurgist could even start to imagine .
If russia has the capacity that you suggest then they would not be removing old barrels from old machine to fit them to existing functioning machines .
Modern barrels are a 3 to 7 piece construction so the main wear parts, the breech &the liner can be replaced .
But old Soviet barrels are all one piece construction and that is a painfully slow process even if modern high speed tooling is programmed to make them .
To get an understanding of the complexities it is easiest to start from the back & go to the beginning
To work properly a barrel must be exactly the same microstructure from the inside to the outside for both it's circumference & entire length in both chemical composition & grain size
The purpose of forging is to break up the large crystals and make them both smaller & orientated in the desired direction, the latter is sort of equivalent to the grain of wood .
Size & chemistry are affected by temperature & time which we plot on TTT charts ( Time-Temperature-Tansformation ) and these determine how much work we can do to a barrel in any single operation between heatings and the temperatures between which the barrel can be worked plus the required force ( hammer blows if you like ) at each stage .
Steel is just like coal and can have many many different physical grain structures just the same as carbon can be graphite, coal or diamonds ( plus more ) with each have different physical properties .
All of this has to be carefully controlled or the barrel will wear too fast or fail in service unexpectedly .
So before the billed gets loaded into the machines it has to be machined to very precise dimensions and inspected by X-rays & ultrasound for internal defects .
Those billets themselves are extruded to break up the coarse cast microstructure
Before extrusion the billets need to be homogenised because during casting the alloy separates according to the melting points of the various compounds & phases present in the alloy
This is a solid state diffusion process and can take from a few hours to a few months at very precise temperatures in a furnace with a controlled atmosphere to prevent burning and more importantly to prevent hydrogen atoms dissolving into the steel ( search hydrogen embrittlement if you want to understand this ) .
And now we are at the beginning , making the steel which is not like railroad tracks or reo rod, has to be made from all virgin materials with a very limited amount of process scrap of the same material then bottom poured or submerged poured into the billet moulds to prevent contamination from exposure to the atmosphere .
If finances are available it will be double vacuum melted which is basically remelting the billets in another furnace that as the name suggests is either inside a vacuum chamber or in a controlled atmosphere room / factory and again bottom pouring .
So hopefully this will sort of explain that there is more to it than just buying an auto forge from wherever , plugging it in dropping a chunk of steel in then pressing the big green GO button .
Lots of ancillary equipment of very high precision is needed and every step of the process is very time dependent plus having highly trained & skilled staff does not hurt either .
The alternative is going back to fully cast barrels where for a 152mm round would need to be feet thick and weigh 30 tons a piece , OK on a rail car or sip, not particularly good for a tank or field artillery
Não conseguem produzir o suficiente para reposição das perdas, conforme seus informes de perdas. No caso de tubos de obuses estão aproveitando canos antigos de 122mm.
Interesting. Thank you.
@andrewperpetua Thank you for the analysis, informative, small but useful.
Just found your channel. Interesting content 👍 🇬🇧❤🇺🇦
The manufacturing of gun barrels NOT done by radial forging. Process of a typical gun barrel - 1. gundrilling , rought 2. gundrilling, finish 3. honing, in multiple steps , between each step measuring , 5 rifling (not neccessary for tank barrels).
Honing for small parts can be done manually, the tool stationarry, and a guy moving the part to make the conformal diameter. periodic checking required, needs lot of experience. For bigger parts a hoing machine required, not so complicated if there is an experienced craftsman on the machine.
the honing is the most critical part of the process.
Actually, most pistol and rifle high volume barrels ARE made using this process. It is called: cold hammered forging. Tool used is called a mandril.
Google it. Other methods are button barrelled (metal gets deformed plastically by a button tool) and a method by removing material using a cutting tool.
On the other hand you are right describing the necessary steps before rifling is done.
BTW modern cold hammered forging machines form the chamber as well as the rifling. After hammering no further honing is required.
I don’t know what made you think anyone here is talking about handguns.
@@ervie60 There is a difference between the CRITICAL process steps/machines, and the productivity iproving / cost decreasing machines.
Example, in the bread making the oven is a CRITICAL process step, if you miss it then no chance to make bread. But the dought mixing machine is only a cost decreasing step. If the machine doesn't work then you can compensate it with few untrained hands.
Same for barrell manufacturing.
The pre forming of the barrel for gundrilling can be done by simply cut and machining the hot rolled bars, and after doing more rought gundrilling.
Or by radial forgin. Or by cold foring. Or whatever that you imagine. Doesn't matter, those are NOT critial process steps to scale up the manufacturing. You can subcontract the work to generator/ship engine/water pump makers.
cost bit more, but if you want to scale up the production tenfold in six month for two years then when you finish the installation ,training and debuging of radial forging the surge time over.
Search in the google the "uk artillery barrel production". The second picture coming up to me showing barrel manufacturing from solid blank rods. they haven't got time do anything else.
Again, in fast surge implementation there is no time for implement non critical complex processes.
For a stable, ten years ahead planed insutry, like automotive, where 3 % cost cut means 30% increase in profit it makes sense to install and amortise the radial forging machines in a ten years period. but to run a process for two years ? you want lot of cheap machines with trained guys.
Apart from the liner, are the barrels of tank and artillery guns made from a single piece, or layered from multiple pieces that encase each other, like the barrels of battleship guns?
That affects the complexity of the manufacturing process.
Apart from that, I've been told that one of the main limiting factors for Russia is the quality of steel they can produce themselves is not good enough for high quality barrels, or at least they cannot produce it in the quantities they need.
@@TimvanderLeeuw They can produce higer quality steel for nuclear submarines than the USA ,in higher quanity. So, I think this is simply propaganda.
There is several way to make the inside of the barrell hard, including carbonation and surface heat treatment afterward.
SU and Russia used to make barrells in the quantity needed now, so I can't see a resason why thez can't scale it up. The artirrelly rounds has similar parameters like barrels.
anyway , they managed to scale up in short time to extremel evels the artirelly production.
By USA pricin 1500 155 mm cround (lifetime of barrell with full charge) ost 6-9 million USD , dwarfing the cost of the barrell. The M777 unit cost 4 million USD. One M777 barrell cost 690 k USD . Means rounds cost over lifetime of barrell magnitude higher than the cost of barrell.
Means it require onlz 10% of reasources to replace the barrells.
I love your work
I thought Russia's issue early in the war, was that they used to get the steel grade they use for barrels from Germany. If that was true, I doubt it would still be an issue.
RU has 1 plant making tank guns (#9, owned by Uralvagonzavod) and 1 plant making 152mm self-propelled howitzers (Uraltransmash). And it seems that that's it. Read that they're trying to restart some Soviet-era plants which have sat idle for 30+ years. Good luck with that, I wouldn't be holding my breath. Sounds a lot more like 200 barrels per year than 1000. If anyone could share some more meaningful info, that'd be great.
Both this plants use western made machines not supplied by spare part since 2022.
Odd because I watched a video of a plant called Motovilikha in Perm making barrels. So I'd double check your sources. Plants he noted were continuously operating but they were making pipes for oil and gas industry, so they've returned again to produced barrels. The rotary forge was Austrian he noted but when they walk through the process he notes that all the other equipment is Russian. It's a very cool process to see, just rewatched it on X and it was translated.
@@trogdortpennypacker6160 Thx 4 this. My understanding (pls correct me if i'm wrong): motovilihinskie was bankrupt financ'ly and they're now trying to revive it. Like I said, not holding my breath. Also heard that they're manufacturing 100mm guns for BMPs, not for field arty.
Russia's simple problem is that although they can do any one thing, they cannot do everything.
How many can China, Iran and other Ruzzia suppliers make? Just asking, to compare apples with apples. Unfotunately, Ruzzia is not alone.
But can it manufacture the trained personell to use them?
Lets not forget the South Koreans, have a guess at how many barrels they can make...
Russiaan have making barrel since world war one
Machines are often underutilized and thus have a greater capacity than they normally use. There are other steps in that process that take up time and you can speed up production at the expense of financial efficiency by hiring more workers and building more equipment to handle the other tasks in the production process. Also adding a 3rd shift will increase production. Not only that, but any Russian company with a lick of foresight knew that investing in machine tools for military production is an amazing investment. So they probably already have been building more of these forging presses ever since the realization that it was going to be a long war.
Never assume that production numbers and capabilities during peacetime are set in stone and unchanging when wartime comes around. Just because some European country made the tooling for that process in the past doesn't mean that only that company is capable of building those parts. The dies are probably a wear item anyway so the Russian factories probably routinely cut new ones. Also, the rest of the machine just appears to be a hydraulic system.
The thing you need to look for with issues like this is the market for tool steels. Has the price per ton greatly increased since the war started relative to other products? If so, then that means that factories are buying up a lot in order to make tooling. That, and greedy people are buying it up because they know the price per ton will rise even more.
Anecdotes are beginning to pile up re. the RuZZians' problems with ball bearings, too!
i am not an English speaker and have one question.
what accent is when mr. Andrew says "stream" and "question" as "Shhtream" and "queshhchion"?
no offence, just interesting
and "true" also as "chrue".
so basically all
"tr" are "chr".
"st" are "sht"
and i am not sure, but i guess "st" are "sht"
so is it deutsch to some degree?
If you're interested in the topic, then I advise watching the video by Dr Geoff Lindsey "Why do some people say Shtrong" I found it very interesting!
I'm not sure I really have an accent anymore. its more of an idiolect.
Not really an accent
@@fraggaz5474 thank you, thank you
You forget that the United States was able to scale up barrel production in a matter of months during the Great War. And plenty of historians and engineers know the method they used with concrete lathes. If any industrial country made it a priority, within 2-3 years they could scale to make more barrels than they could possibly use. In the end, they are just big pieces of steel that people have known how to make for more than 100 years.
Manufacturing of the guns in Europe started 700 years ago. The development of manufacturing happened to satisfy the demand of weapon manufacturing. Making gun barrels not easy - it is as complicated as say the transmission of a luxory car. But doable, needs workforce .
the west was only able to mobilise there country though lies and tyranny America had company's work on credit and told them they would be paid after war was over they built up massive debt with these company's and when the war ended they just refused to pay and slandered anyone who complained branding them as "UNAMERICAN" and war profiteers. in the the uk government prohibited unions and sent soldiers with guns to factory's to threaten to kill workers who considered going on strike. during ww2 America changed the law giving them the power to seize any business needed for the war and use threat of seizure to force company's to make goods at the price the government dictated and even for free. you could never getaway with this stuff today and without it you cant mobilize the west at all
Hows about China & DPRK?
imo you can't expect china not to get involved
Whatever happened to that world war II German technology where they could forge a tube cut the tube off and then they would do a single strike through the middle of the tube to form a barrel? I know they had a process that they could like just pump out barrels like crazy, they weren't real precise but they were consistent quality in volume
If you don't know anything about something best if you stay silent.
Six and a half minutes of mumbling for something that could be said in seconds.
TLDW: Russia has the same number of barrel forging machines as USA, GB, Germany individually Each of these countries can produce somewhere from 200 to a 1000 barrels per year. Yes, the estimates in this video are that accurate.
@@Thomas..Anderson You have an extreme ego problem.
Just consume your favorite propaganda flavour, dont think...😂
Question is what China is doing. They can often scale up things better then many others. And they have a big car industry and a big truck industry too.
Russia makes 10 times more barrels than US and EU together.
This is a wishfull thinking video.
I tend to think the same. However, no one in the west knows for certain, and everyone is just guessing, no matter what number they say.
Tell us your evidence of this. We’ll wait right here. The wishful thinking is entirely on your end.
Source or is this another trust me Bro????
@@Paul-wo3qh I expect the source is “Russia stronk!”.
Correct they have so many rotary forges there are literally spares for sale on the korean internet lmao. These ukifanbois are delusional as usual
Ukraine is going to get those F16s and Russia is running out of barrels, and then and then.... PROPAGANDA
Russian labor shortages especially anything requiring real skills keep getting worse. Pretty sure they can't maintain their equipment and accuracy will continue to get worse.