Posted on 12/19/2024 2:51:35 AM PST by Reverend Wright
But the obstacles the U.S. has faced in trying to supply Ukraine during the past two years have revealed a systemic, gaping national-security weakness. It is a weakness that afflicts the U.S. military at all levels, and about which the public is largely unaware. The vaunted American war machine is in disarray and disrepair.
.....Ted Anderson, a retired Army officer who is now a principal partner of Forward Global, a defense consultancy, told me, “You would stay awake all night if you had any idea how short we are of artillery ammo.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Exactly right. Whatever it takes to bring down the GAE is fine by me. The first step towards "making America great again" is to focus on America as a country (with a distinct non-mongrel population) and kick our imperial aspirations to the curb once and for all.
America First. America Only.
No problem. USA can just buy its bombs from Communist China, like it buys everything else from there. We hear they even offer free air delivery
(Sarcasm)
OBAMA started it by firing 400 generals and other high ranking officers . The Democrats just kept installing Trannies and Homos to make things even worse. I just hope in my last days on earth our country doesn’t fall to an invader!
That’s pretty funny, because the next 2 (and more recent) WSJ articles that came up below the article at your link are about how well two other company’s drones are doing in Ukraine.
Maybe you should try to stay current.
Ping for later.
Another change of the last 3 years.
New 155 forges are coming on line in America and among our allies like Australia.
“US Army Colonel Leon Rodgers, PM CAS, visited the Ajax/CECO/Erie Press (A.C.E.) manufacturing facility today to observe our progress in manufacturing two (2)155mm shell forging lines. Similar machines made by Erie Press Systems 85 years ago are currently being utilized to manufacture U.S. military arsenal rounds.”
bkmk
“You would stay awake all night if you had any idea how short we are of artillery ammo.”
I’ve been saying so since about January, 2023.
LOL. The Atlantic finally recognizes the sorry state of our military under Biden. This is old news except for the liberal wing nuts who subscribe to this highly partisan POS.
Despite the glaring weaknesses, the Atlantic still defends the environmentalists agenda.
“So, on top of other obstacles that stand in the way of a rapid surge in production—not just of howitzer shells but of any military ordnance and equipment—you can add the legitimate demands of “good government”: environmental regulations, safety regulations, and all the built-in safeguards against waste and fraud.”
One could spend all day discussing the nuts and bolts of what's wrong and how to mend it; but until national will is reordered, a dire threat remains. Praying it doesn't take another Pearl Harbor to shake America out of its stupor...Praying for Trump, as well. His election was absolutely essential.
It's been going that way for quite a long time. One only needs to look at our forever wars in places like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine that cost trillions of printed/borrowed money and end up in unmitigated disasters.
Time to move on. We're way overdue for a philosophical change in how we get along with the rest of the planet. Way overdue!
Maybe Elon can put the bloated military on his list of things to do!
‘As a new administration prepares to take power—led by a man, Donald Trump ...who admires Russia and Vladimir Putin...”
You have to ask yourself why he would inject that sentence into his analysis.
Is he stupid?
Is he so ideologically rigid that he can’t think logically?
Does he really believe it?
Can his analysis be trusted?
Old Cold Warrior here. I’m seeing the problems. But I’m not seeing the waking up at any practical levels. I hope you are right.
And perhaps we are seeing the true reason for supporting Ukraine. Not simply to allow them to confront the Russians but to allow us to ramp up production of military supplies without appearing to arming for a conflict with our adversaries. Once Ukraine and Russia are brought to the peace table we can continue to manufacture arms and ammunition at a far higher rate than just a couple years ago.
The improvements have been vast globally for our side, it is a game up catchup but one that started almost 3 years ago and is well under way, new factories in dozens of nations, new military budgets in same, new politics and discussions of national survival, new increases in military drafts or discussions of starting one, new awareness of new tactics and new weapons systems needed and implementing them, new alliances and reinforcing and refreshing established ones, a larger NATO, a Japan in the midst of their largest military build-up since WWII, Australia and Taiwan going more martial, new cooperation with the Philippines, India, Vietnam.
The problems are bad but they could have been fatal 3 years ago, this invasion has reawakened us, our Western allies and friends, and our Eastern allies and friends. While Russia depletes itself and weakens any help it could have given China, the West and our Pacific friends and allies are improving and growing stronger and more militarily modern.
Military spending is definitely a DOGE target.
Elon thinks that carriers and ultra expensive items like F35s are obsolete due to missiles and drones.
That’s right. If they are buying forging presses made in USA it is from Ajax/CECO/Erie.
(which if you notice is a merger of three much larger companies which used to be separate)
And Ajax/Erie are doing two more forging presses, which can produce (flat out ) ~2500 steel shells per day.
Well Ukraine needs ~10K per day to stay in the game. And USA inventories are (admitted in this article) almost down to zero. You can’t rebuild inventories if you are sending all ongoing production to Ukraine.
“We don’t need artillery shells in the amounts Ukraine does. We establish air dominance, then do the Highway of Death with air assets until the other side runs. “
What if that is wrong ? What if Russian AD can keep Western planes from dominating ?
One data point is Israeli planes did not even fly near Iran in the last round of missile exchanges. They launched from hundreds of km away, reportedly because they couldn’t suppress “Iranian” AD - which is actually SS400 operated by Russians.
With no air dominance, guess what ? You get to get on the ground with those guys, and that’s what their strength is.
They are firing up to 80K artillery rounds per day, which the West can’t produce in a month.
You are risking military defeat on a theory of air dominance which there is considerable evidence won’t be maintained.
The “free trade” fools were always the killer.
In the 1990s I was arguing with some of the free trade think tank people that outsourcing was a military vulnerability.
But at the time Russia was weak and China was still industrializing.
And in any case they argued that if economies were integrated enough there would be no more wars.🙃
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