Who would have think it? A missile shortage. Perhaps the bombardment of Houtis with missiles weren’t such a good idea especially as we had the Ukraine Israel adventures going.
Citing low munitions stockpiles, the Pentagon is urging weapons contractors to accelerate missile production, doubling or even quadrupling production rates, to prepare for possible war with China.
Namely, it hopes to boost production rates for 12 types of missiles it wants on-hand, including Patriot interceptor missiles, Standard Missile-6, THAAD interceptors, and joint air-surface standoff missiles.
Washington needs to assess its current foreign commitments, primarily in Ukraine and Israel, before it depletes its current stores further, requiring more money, more industry, and more time to get back up to fighting shape. In other words, say experts, put the much needed focus back on the U.S. national interest even if that means turning off the spigot for other countries.
Experts told RS that ramping up missile production, in the way the Pentagon wants, could take years, and likely new weapons manufacturing facilities and infrastructure.
Didn’t we just go through this with 155mm artillery rounds?
I thought we had professionals running the Pentagon and great strategic thinkers educated at elite universities running the government.
What they REALLY don’t have is drones. Enough of them, or a strategy to get enough of them, or even a clue about them. (One General is trying to kill billions of dollars worth of useless programs to focus on them, but (of course) resistance:)
Until recently, defense experts had expected that new unmanned technology would allow U.S. troops to detect and kill the enemy from a distance, shortening wars and making them [less risky] (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-lose-drone-war) .
In places like Ukraine, the opposite was proving to be true.
One Ukrainian Army officer recently tried to explain to an American officer in Washington what it felt like to fight on a battlefield swarming with drones.
“Everything wants to destroy you,” Lt. Col. Volodymyr Dutko told his U.S. counterpart for a study published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Later in the article it notes:
Out With the Old
To pay for this new Army, General George needed to cut. That meant eliminating weapons that he and other senior leaders believed would not be able to survive drone attacks.
He cut the M-10 Booker, a light tank that was designed to fight through enemy machine-gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The Army had spent more than $1 billion to develop it but decided this year that it could be too easily destroyed by a $500 or $1,000 kamikaze drone.
Yep. An ‘existential’ fight for survival is causing Ukraine to desperately innovate and produce a dazzling array of drones to survive the grinding war of attrition being pursued by Russia, and the need to find a way to destroy refineries, depots and production facilities hundreds of of miles away in the absence of our missiles. Here is a discussion of the invention, production and implementation of the Palianytsia. Rita, Liutyi and Fire Point drones to date:This Ukrainian startup makes drones that strike deep inside Russia | AP News