Ukraine Could Run Out of Critical HIMARS Missiles in Months: Expert

Retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian predicts that the supply of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) missiles provided by the U.S. to Ukraine to combat Russian aggression will be depleted within the next three or four months.

"[Three to four months is] a pretty wild guess, but I don't think that's crazy," Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek. "Some people have estimated a month or so. I don't think they're firing them that fast."

"We will get to that point where the U.S. will have to reduce the number of missiles provided because the stocks will be running low. I think there will be a series of discussions inside the Pentagon," Cancian added. "The military will probably want to hold on to more; the civilian officials will probably want to release more, and they'll come to some sort of agreement on what is an acceptable level of risk."

Cancian, who spent over seven years working on Department of Defense (DoD) strategy and war funding at the Office of Management and Budget and did two tours in Iraq, said, "The number of rockets [produced by the U.S.] is relatively limited." He said that the U.S. has produced about 50,000 guided rockets since they began production in 2004 and will buy about 5,800 this fiscal year.

NEWSWEEK NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP > On July 25, the Defense Department said a new security package consisting of about $175 million in equipment pulled from existing U.S. military stocks, in addition to $95 million in equipment from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, included four additional HIMARS systems—providing Ukraine with a total of 16.

MORE>>>>>

“My guess is we used maybe 25,000 to 28,000 [HIMARS missiles]—DoD does not publish numbers—but you just make a guess from what was in the war funding....That would let us give Ukrainians about a third,” Cancian said. “We’ve done that with the Stinger and Javelin, giving them about a third of the inventory.”

Giving Ukraine about a third of the inventory would provide the country with up to 10,000 missiles, according to Cancian. That would allow the U.S. to help Ukraine but still withhold enough for America’s own purposes.

Lockheed Martin referred Newsweek to the DoD for questions about the time it would take to replenish the stock of missiles that were sent to Ukraine.

A senior Defense Department official told Newsweek, “We are working around the clock to fulfill Ukraine’s priority security assistance requests, delivering weapons from U.S. stocks when they are available, and facilitating the delivery of weapons by allies and partners when their systems better suit Ukraine’s needs.”

Cancian told Newsweek that Lockheed is “trying to increase production levels [of missiles], but it takes quite a while. Usually, it’s about 18 to 24 months.” He said the HIMARS launcher, first fielded by the Army in 2010, is not in production and would likely take longer to produce.

It remains unclear how many HIMARS the U.S. actually has. After originally being introduced at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2005, about 250 units had been produced for the Army and Marine Corps by 2009.
___________

READ MORE
Russia Launches Airstrike As It Tries To ‘Make Up’ for Loss of Troops: Kyiv
Russian Units Linked to Bucha War Crimes Likely ‘Destroyed in Combat’
More Ukrainians Now Expect to Take Back Donbas, Crimea From Russia: Poll

___________

Per an unclassified budget document from April, the U.S. bought about 5,800 rockets from Lockheed Martin in the current fiscal year. In fiscal year 2024, the budget proposes about 4,700 purchases, and between 3,500 and 4,000 per year after that.

“But that is just a plan” and could be increased, Cancian said.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, in a recent Daily Beast article, mentioned supply and demand in regards to weaponry provided to Ukraine.

When asked if Rubio believes the limited amount of HIMARS/long-range artillery currently available puts the U.S. in a compromising or difficult position because there’s only so much to go around, or if it makes the U.S. more vulnerable in terms of its own military capabilities, a Rubio spokesperson referred Newsweek to an op-ed from May following a $40 billion Senate bill advancing military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

“Much of that spending is incredibly important,” Rubio wrote in May. “Not only will it provide direct security assistance to Ukraine, but it will also replenish depleted U.S. military weapons stockpiles and support American troops deployed to NATO countries earlier this year. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden should not assume Congress will rubber stamp his next request. America cannot afford an endless, undefined commitment

Ukraine Could Run Out of Critical HIMARS Missiles in Months: Expert

Air Power @MIL_STD

Max #GMLRS production capacity is 10K/yr. US Army just indicated that it intends to⬆️ #HIMARS max production from Fiscal Yea r24-28 by 30%. A similar request for ⬆️ #GMLRS production rate would not be surprising. It will not take a very long time to make up a 10-15k AUR deficit.

https://twitter.com/MIL_STD/status/1551716616294936576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1551716616294936576%7Ctwgr%5E8a8e7ff50c76adc0e951eb35ddf57216e4cc7649%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedrive.com%2Fthe-war-zone%2Fare-there-enough-guided-rockets-for-himars-to-keep-up-with-ukraine-war-demand

I watched an economist talk about this issue. He pointed out that not only did the US and its allies have huge stocks of each item, but they also had alternate methods of achieving the same mission. Probably the US and its allies have ramped up production to the maximum possible, which I’ll explain in a moment why that won’t be spectacular, but the allies don’t need any particular weapon to ensure their safety. Therefore, the allies can make the strategic decision to run their stocks down to zero with no risk.

Now on the production side, I was in the military industrial complex for 33 years. Because each item is bought on a one-year budget no producer will invest in automation to produce an item because the cost of automating must be amortized over a longer period. You may have a five year contract for x hundreds or thousands of an item, but the budget is for one year. Therefore, each item is produced mostly by hand, by a limited number of skilled artisans. You can’t suddenly generate more artisans no matter how the government throws money at you. Then, as in 1945, when the war ends all those contracts are cancelled. If the government wants to mass produce any particular system or ammunition it must buy and automate the entire facility and then hire a contractor to run it.

Systems like the Stinger missile have apparently been out of manufacture for two decades. They have been updated periodically, but the production line itself is shut down and the critical people who made the item a quality, reliable product have long since retired or moved on. Why? Probably because the Stinger’s mission has been taken over by other systems or combinations of systems. If this is the case, we might as well hand over all of the Stinger’s and then ramp up other systems that are in serial production. I can attest that the necessary redesign of the Stinger and setting up a new production line will take at least a year. Probably closer to two years. You might, if you threw barrels and buckets of money at it get that down to nine months. But then you’d be producing something for which there is no internal market. Therefore, it won’t get done.

From my experience, what you say is largely true. In a former life, I was in charge of purchasing and stocking a particular semi-finished good whose main customer was the U.S. military.

I strongly recommended to corporate that purchases be drastically cut back when the ObaMao regime took charge because of everything I read. My recommendations were pooh-poohed because the business had been steady and dependable for many years.

When I tried to back down purchases just a little, the manufacturer (who happened to be our overseas parent company) complained and I was ordered to maintain the same level of purchases even as inventory rose.

When the GOP took control of congress after the 2010 midterms, the military cancelled the contract and the bosses demanded to know why we were carrying so much inventory. Fortunately, I'd kept copies of the communications to throw right back at them.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.