“If true, this is a disgrace.”
“However, for this, funding must be secured quickly.”
Almost certainly FAKE NEWS, since literally EVERY SHELL produced in the West is tracked.
Much more likely is that they will say call it an ‘accounting error’ once they get the $61 Billion needed to ship the shells (which comes out to just under $100,000 each to ship a 50 lb shell).
While we're at it, the 122mm HE does weigh in the neighborhood of 50 pounds, it also requires its powder canister - so it will likely be closer to 65 pounds all up.
Never served in artillery, didja?
That was 96 pounds per NATO-standard 155mm HE... My darn “6” key sticks.
Not really. There are bunkers all over the world where cannon and rocket munitions are stored securely and then forgotten. You give the West way too much credit for competent accounting. Apparently, you've never heard of "artillery math".
In 1976, I was assigned to break out stored and preservation packed weapons for an artillery battery that had been cadred (decommissioned). We went to a tunnel in the side of a mountain above Pearl Harbor in the Lualualei Ammunition Depot and once we were admitted inside, began opening and counting. At the end of that darkened tunnel, we noticed another door that led deeper into the mountain. I assigned a Lance Corporal to fish through a ring of keys and after a short while, he had the door open.
There was another long length in that tunnel and it was filled with pre-WWII munitions, equipment and weapons - all neatly stored and in excellent condition! Nobody had ever entered that part of the tunnel in over 35 years!
We were stunned to find all of that and so were the Navy Security people with us.