Posted on 07/16/2023 9:46:41 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Maybe we can get back all that ammo we sent to the IRS and SocSec.
Except for cluster bombs to blow up kids 💣
Plenty of those available
The Biden economy is booming.
I pointed out several times in the past, the fact that our weapon and ammo supplies were being depleted in order to supply Ukraine, and the war mongers assured me that Ukraine was getting old stuff that had been stockpiled. I argued that even those stock-piled weapons and ammo could come in handy if a time came that we needed them, since it would take a while to get production of new stuff back online. Biden appears to have confirmed my concerns.
The US isn’t short of that sort of ammo.
155mm artillery isn’t usually supplied to the IRS. I haven’t heard of them packing cannons with 30 mile range.
They are getting old stuff that’s been stockpiled. Some of it. They have been getting new or new-ish stuff too.
The critical issue is really about just a few items. 155mm HE artillery shells, and to a lesser degree GMLRS (GPS guided rockets). Less of an issue are Stinger manpads and Javelin atgms. All but the GMLRS are substitutable with foreign sources or equivalents.
We the people, OTOH.......
You have to consider what potential enemies you have. Keeping stockpiles is costly in all sorts of ways. They are a maintenance burden and they age out. Ammo, even artillery shells, has a shelf life. Technology has a shelf life. Maybe even your 5,000 tanks will be useless against a peer opponent in half a decade.
So, think, who is likely to be a big enough enemy in 5, 10, 15, 20 years, to justify a massive mobilisation requiring a turning out of masses of surplus equipment? You have to play scenarios.
BTW there is a wonderful place in Austria, where the Habsburgs put away an armies’ worth of 16th-17th century armaments and armor. They kept their stockpile so long it turned into art.
The US does not have a likely continental enemy in sight, save Russia. All that stockpiled stuff was intended for Russia, or the Soviet Union. So its going where it was (mostly) designed to go.
The US never intended to fight a ground war as they are doing it in Ukraine.
Artillery in US doctrine is not meant to fire bombardments for months on end. The US doctrine is offensive, and heavily dependent on airpower. A short, sharp breakthrough operation, followed by maneuver into the enemy flanks and rear.
Think Desert Storm, not Bakhmut.
Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have the means to do Desert Storm, for different reasons. So both are reduced to misusing artillery.
You won’t know until it hits you.
[Top Biden spokesman John Kirby shrugs off the cocaine scandal inside the Biden White House:]
John Kirby is a terrible liar. I worked around a bunch of them when I was Big 6. Every time I see him on TV he’s prevaricating.
US doctrine is offensive, and heavily dependent on airpower.
IF Russian air defence can limit US Air power, the USA is truly f#cked.
There is no plan B.
The Russians have been planning for air defence against US jets for 70 years.
Now, USA aircraft are so superior the Russians will just get mowed down.... blah, blah, blah
(that’s what we heard about the Leopards and Bradleys, turns out they are such crap that the Ukranians are now on foot like WW1)
No air superiority, the US gets on the ground with these guys and get blasted by 20K artillery shells per day, while diversity hire Austin tries to figure out how to buy forging presses.
Keeping stockpiles is costly in all sorts of ways. They are a maintenance burden and they age out. Ammo, even artillery shells, has a shelf life.
They don’t need stockpiles. they need mothballed production capability.
They need approx six long stroke forging presses of one thousand tons at $50 million each.
That’s $300 million one time investment, in a bloated budget of 900 BILLION PER YEAR !
Each press can produce 1000 shells per day
The machining of the shells can use commercial lathes and cnc machines which are readily available.
These ass clowns have had their head up their butts for more than a year on this.
They cannot figure out what they need, and they can’t pull the trigger on $300 million which is 0.03 percent of one years budget !
For liberals, competency is a non-issue. They are there just to get rich. If everybody dies in the process, they don’t care.
The US is buying oil from Venezuela..so maybe the Norks have a few pallet loads of 155 munitions they would like to trade.
The USAF has been working on SEAD for the same 70 years, with vastly more resources to throw at the problem. I’d bet on the US achieving air supremacy.
And it’s not just the planes. This is a complex array of systems including both defensive and offensive weapons, plus intel of many kinds.
The US has been buying oil from Venezuela for most of a century. The US has specially configured refineries to deal with Venezuelan heavy crude.
Well, when you’re right, you’re right. They should spring for this investment.
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