Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.
Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN, as well as sources familiar with Western efforts to arm Ukraine. Collectively, the US and Europe have the capacity to generate only about 1.2 million munitions annually to send to Kyiv, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.
The US military set a goal to produce 100,000 rounds of artillery a month by the end of 2025 — less than half of the Russian monthly output — and even that number is now out of reach with $60 billion in Ukraine funding stalled in Congress, a senior Army official told reporters last week.
“What we are in now is a production war,” a senior NATO official told CNN. “The outcome in Ukraine depends on how each side is equipped to conduct this war.”
well. They aren’t technically wrong, ironically, it’s not the high value cost items that are a terrible value. Just 2 trillion (?, i dont remember the actual value) to develop the f35 is a fucking STEAL.
The problem is all the small shit. Tiny drone? Thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. You sell software for arty to the military? You bet your ass that shit costs a fortune and a half. You sell something to the military and it needs maintenance? Oops, you need to be catered ALL the way out to where that problem is now just to fix it, because nobody produces repairable things anymore. (this one is actually a big issue now)
The biggest problem with the US opening up to a war economy would be the distinct lack of any existing industry in a significant capacity to support itself, im sure that could be fixed, but we already have issues with it today. Let alone if we were to double it for instance. Correct me if im wrong here, but we have dubious levels of industry for the existing shipyards as is, let alone any significant refit, although im sure that will eventually be fixed.
not everything that people say is “fighter mafia bullshit” or propaganda, the single biggest way you can fuck up, is by being wrong. We should be careful of these things, because this is the single biggest target during a time of war, after all. We all thought that one funny soviet jet was a “super fighter” and then it was made of steel, and it turns out we had accidentally 10x’d it already. Whoops.
I completely agree with literally everything you said. We do have issues to fix with our military industry for sure, but they’re nowhere near the troubles our industry was in during the Great Depression and pre-ww2, so we can still probably fix it. I’d see the CHIPS Act and Infrastructure Bill as potential first steps towards strengthening our war industry.
The “fighter mafia bullshit” remark was completely me being sick of hearing Tankies/random people act like the F35, and our supercarriers are just several billion dollar cardboard boxes.
yeah, that’s true, my main concern is less that we wouldnt be able to pull out, but more along the lines of we shouldn’t have this problem in the first place, given how much money we spend on our military.