U.S. could face possible weapons shortage as it continues to supply military aid to Ukraine, war game shows

CBS News ^ | February 23, 2023 | David Martin

[McGruff]

With the war in Ukraine entering its second year — and the U.S. continuing to provide the embattled country with military aid in the form of rockets, guns and ammunition — the Pentagon is stepping up production of critically-needed supplies.

Cancian said Ukraine's use of artillery shells far outstrips the Pentagon's capacity to make them.

Precision-fired munitions for the long-range HIMARS system are another need, so Lockheed Martin is gearing up to turn out one new rocket every 10 minutes at its plant in Arkansas.

And with the U.S. struggling to keep Ukraine supplied in its fight against a decrepit Russian military, there is concern about what could happen if the U.S. were to become involved in a conflict with China. CSIS recently conducted a war game that showed that the U.S. would run out of a key weapon — Long Range Anti Ship Missiles (LRASM) — while trying to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

[dljordan]

Everythings going according to plan.

[It Aint Easy]

In like the “decrepit” statement the best. What’s the total GDP of countries supporting Ukraine vs Russia?

[Jeff Chandler]

That’s the US regulatory environment at work.

Actually, our high tech munitions does take a long time to manufacture. Even longer since we sent our industrial capacity to China.

[Jeff Chandler]

do

[Fai Mao]

Also the army replacing the M16/M4 with the Sig Saur M17-Spear with the new ultra high velocity 6.8 ammo. The army is buying piles of new ammo

[FlingWingFlyer]

Not as long as we can stop the Commie RATS from confiscating our weapons. We’ll be good to go. If the Ukies can handle the Russkies I know all the veterans we have can kick their Russki asses too.

[buwaya]

The “military industrial complex” is a small fraction of what it once was, and an even smaller fraction of the economy. Wall Street is not happy about the war, and any benefit to defense contractors doesn’t make up for it.

[DonaldC]

As much as we spend on the military every year, this better not be f’ng true.

[spokeshave]

There are no operating primary lead smelters in the United States.

I read somewhere that the lead used in the old Monotype hot metal printing machines makes good lad for casting bullets.

Most of those machines are long gone...replaced by electronics.

I recall looking for a house in the SF bay area one Saturday morning a while back....and a guy had one in his garage.

[Vermont Lt]

The Javelin is 20 year old tech. I HOPE we have better stuff.

[Paul R.]

The one HIMARS rocket every 10 minutes figure was what Lockheed-Martin’s CEO told CBS several months ago was the qty. L-M could ramp up to almost immediately. Plus, we have something like 200,000 old rockets to be decommissioned (partially due to the treaties on cluster munitions) — now those can be fitted with GLSDB’s (and some are).

What I did find disturbing about the report last year was that when it came to further increases, to, say, 15k new rockets per year, the CEO said they’d have to study it. Ie., nobody had a contingency plan!

[spokeshave]

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[kabar]

Big winner in the war in Ukraine: China. The Chinese will arm Russia as part of its proxy war against the US. Just as we use the Ukrainians to weaken Russia, the Chinese will use the Russians to weaken us.

[familyop]

"...so Lockheed Martin is gearing up to turn out one new rocket every 10 minutes at its plant in Arkansas."

Okay. :)

[angry elephant]

The military likely has to use a large part of its budget manufacturing pantyhose with front pockets for the tranny recruits.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

When you guys all leave to fight Brandon's Proxy War with Russia, we women will stay behind and do all the stuff that needs to be done here at home with half the population gone. And then, you can come home after 5 years or so, kick us to the curb, take our jobs, then complain about us 'ruining America' because even though we PROVED OUR WORTH when times were tough, you decided you needed us back in the kitchen, bedroom and nursery. ;)

Somehow, I don't think it's going to work out that way this time around. You can't even find anyone willing to make a pizza these days, fer Pete's Sake!

Buy all the ammo & weapons you can find and afford.

[hardspunned]

I guess when DC gets it’s war with the Chicoms over Taiwan the Marines can pick up some of those weapons we sent to Zelensky on the international arms black market.

[Paul R.]

We have a good supply of really cool, very effective high tech weapons.

Based on past exercises, assuming an adversary tried to take on our AF, a couple squadrons of our F-22’s would wipe out the AF of most medium size countries (even if well equipped with 4th gen fighters) in a few days.

F-22’s, advanced SEAD, and such, ain’t cheap.

However, we may have lost sight of conventional munitions needs. We are in a dicey situation with certain basic munitions needed for a grind-it-out conflict where we cannot* or don’t want to establish air superiority, such as Russia has steered the Ukraine war into. Our DOD has vastly increased it’s orders, the question is whether the long lead times are really THAT bad, or may in some cases be a ruse.

GLSDB deliveries (with appropriate launcher mods) to Ukraine were supposed to be several months out, yet a few recent Ukrainian strikes appear to have been by GLSDB’s.

*Wikipedia has a pretty good article on SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses).

[ealgeone]

However, if the chicoms can take out the runways those fancy dancy planes aren’t going anywhere....or landing anywhere.

[Paul R.]

What has happened is that the West and Russia have steered the conflict into the most favorable situation for Russia that can be dreamt up: A massive artillery war, with Ukraine severely constrained on weapons types it can receive, and constraints on what they can do with them. Somehow “the West” never thought it’d need all those artillery munitions and smaller rockets* because, well, we have so much other great stuff. But here the West is with one hand and 3 of the fingers on the other tied behind it’s back...

Take the smaller rockets for example. The US alone has over 200,000 of these scheduled for the scrap heap due to age and / or they are fitted with cluster munitions. But, although we haven’t signed on to the cluster munitions treaty, we have not used any since 2009 (a single attack on Yemeni terrorists.) We “could” send a boatload to Ukraine, but won’t. Instead, some are being fitted with guided SDB’s (of which we also have something like 50k just sitting around) but the adaptation takes time.