Indeed, Russia is outproducing all of NATO and the U.S in terms of ammunition, rockets, and tanks, despite having a 2023 defense budget of just $100 billion and a GDP of $2 trillion. Compare this to the combined US/NATO defense budget of $1.47 trillion and a combined GDP of about $45 trillion.
How can this be?
In short, the United States and NATO allies are prosecuting a war they would like to win, while Russia is prosecuting a war it believes that it has to win — an existential war. Consequently, for the Pentagon and American defense contractors it is largely business as usual with profits and revenues being the primary concern. Sure, some contracts were/are being expedited so that the money can begin to flow more quickly. However, with no real defense reform there is no reason to believe that defense contractors won’t continue their long run of delivering weapon systems like the F-35, the Ford Class Carrier, and the Sentinel ICBM behind schedule and for billions more than originally promised.
Makes one wonder for whose benefit the nearly $1 trillion US defense budget is being spent. The security of the United States or guaranteeing profits of defense corporations?
Russian commanders are wary of drones probably because of fragging.
When drones are on the individual Russian soldier, he can march up to the city limits of Moscow and go to work. We may have seen that seven months ago.
If so, then that would seem to be a ridiculous amount of waste. 20,000 rounds of fairly precise artillery fired a day? That is a round fired every other second, 24 hours a day.
Russian and Ukrainian military forces are firing tens of thousands of ammunition shells daily, requiring increased production from Ukraine-backed NATO allies as a counteroffensive remains ongoing.
My dad talked about life at the front, from time to time. During the night, there was continuous rifle fire. Sounded like a huge battle going on. Nope. It was “interdiction fire”: shooting blindly into the night, every man would fire a round, adjust the direction a few degrees, fire again, adjust direction a few degrees, and fire, over and over, just in case the Germans thought of trying something, they might walk into a bullet.
The biggest artillery barrage he saw was not in support of a US advance, or against a German attack. Two US divisions moved laterally, during the night, creating a hole in the line for dad’s division to move into. The artillery barrage was just in case the Germans thought of exploiting that hole in the US line.
Perhaps both are difficult to ramp up. From the original link: the U.S. Army no longer believed artillery to be as central to the battlefield as it once was. All of the above adds up to an artillery ammunition supply chain in very bad shape, especially when compared to the 438,000 rounds per month U.S. ammunition plants could produce in 1980. To restore the supply chain, the U.S. Army requested $3.1 billion to ramp up 155mm shell production to 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025.
New factories have to be built. A new factory has been just completed in Mesquite, Texas 2 years and 2 months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Besides 155mm artillery rounds, there are bottleneck problems with the Javelin anti tank weapon also. Just one Javelin factory & the weapon system require 200 computer Chip per weapon.
Javelins are assembled in a plant in Troy, Ala., out of parts and materials sourced from around the country. Production is picking up, but it’s going to be expensive
The Pentagon has ordered another $309 million worth of replacement Javelins. But Mark Cancian says filling that order is going to be challenging because the assembly plant in Alabama can’t speed up until all its suppliers - plants that produce the chemicals, 200 computer chips and other highly specialized parts required in every Javelin - speed up first.
Luckily the Ukrainians discovered drones are excellent tank killers too.
Also a bottleneck for Stringer ground to air portable air defense weapon.
Looking at the low production number I expect there is only one facility making Stingers. And it requires electronics & computer chips also.
One system for which inventories and replenishment rates are limited is the Stinger anti-aircraft missile. According to the White House fact sheet, the United States has provided 2,000 Stingers to the Ukrainians. The United States has not purchased any since 2003. At that time, the total production was stated as 11,600 missiles (from the FY 2000 budget documents). With testing and training losses of 1 percent a year, the remaining inventory would be about 8,000. So, the United States has sent about a quarter of its inventory to Ukraine.
In 2003, the last time the United States procured Stingers, production rates were stated as 275 with standard shifts (called “1-8-5”) and 720 at maximum production rate. Production lead time was 24 months. That means it will take at least five years to replace the inventory drawdown (two years for lead time and three years for production).
The problem is that the production line is apparently kept alive only by a small number of foreign sales, so it may take longer than 24 months to ramp up.
Retired Raytheon engineers are being recruited to help train existing staff to build the almost 50-year-old Stinger missile after a massive increase in demand.
Additionally, according to Greg Hayes, the CEO of RTX, the missile’s electronics are outdated. “We’re redesigning circuit cards [and] redesigning some of the componentry,” Hayes told Defense One in an interview. “That just takes a long time,” he added.
Not much need to wonder. At least, I’m not wondering.
That said, NATO doctrine is to achieve air supremacy and use that advantage to exploit combined arms breakthroughs against enemy defense. A big WWI-style static artillery duel like what is happening in Ukraine isn’t what they are planning for and probably isn’t what they should be planning for.
FWIW, I read an analysis that concluded that Russia’s limitation won’t be artillery shells, it will be artillery tubes. They have an enormous number of them, but at current rates of fire they are wearing out quickly and Russia has a very limited ability to manufacture new ones. Similarly, the Russians have huge stockpiles of tanks which they can refurbish, but brand new tanks are coming off the line in a tiny trickle. Far short of the replacement numbers needed.
With the Pentagon late last year failing its sixth audit in a row and majority of major weapons systems coming in way over budget while [failing to deliver promised capabilities]1, it’s evident that our defense procurement system has major problems.
Perhaps the most significant underlying cause (among many) is that not only do all defense contractors make a profit from regulations — but the giant firms that have come to dominate our defense industry thrive on regulations. They turn regulatory compliance into a competitive advantage.
In other words, the more regulations and red tape levied on defense contractors, the more profits they reap.
I think we know costs are rising in the defense industry too. And military personnel costs have to be increasing too. Are they able to meet recruiting and retention goals? Paying more retention and signing bonuses. Should be first priority.
And Congress is most likely to support grand new projects that make jobs in their districts. Ammunition (and food) probably is routine and boring. Not much PR value.
But it is a long-term ongoing system essential to fight an artillery battle over years. There was an artillery shell production facility near here. I know because it was a large employer AND they periodically bought parts for some machines from us. Ammunition production ceased in 1976 (designated Superfund site in 1980s), so the govt eventually spent the money to clean it up. A variety of projects proposed, but no big ones.
Yes, we had a similar ammunition site in St. Louis too. Its story is similar.
I can imagine lots of pressure to fund the projects that make headlines. Protecting the nuts and bolts supplies from headline hungry politicians must be a challenge.
When building something becomes important, it will become prioritized. I made a comment upthread with a specific purpose.
Strategically, making dumb munitions is simple. While ramping up production is not instantaneous, we know how to do it.
When it becomes important, we will do it.
Hand wringing and discussion until then is for coffee, donuts and old friends.
I won’t talk about smart weapons. Even though I am privy to aspects of this area, I don’t know enough to be helpful other than to say the questions (and answers) will be highly dependent upon bleeding edge technology -which, by definition - is not understood by most.