Here's an exact quote from Joe Biden:
"We’ve Run Out Of Ammunition”
Yes, Joe Biden just confirmed that the US cannot win a peer war with
China by stating, on camera, that the US has run out of ammunition.[1] I know half of you don't believe me so go to the link and listen to the video for
yourself. It’s only a few seconds long. Here’s the direct link to the video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1678012747513200640
This means that the US lacks the inventory of weapons to
even supply a minor (not even regional, as it’s only two countries) conflict between
Ukraine and Russia, let alone sustain a war with China. Far, far worse, we’ve been draining our
munitions inventories since the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and we’ve
been unable to produce enough new munitions to even replace what we’re giving
away. At this point in WWII, we were
well on our way to gearing up and factories were churning out vast quantities
of weapons.
The damning conclusion is painfully obvious: we lack the infrastructure and industrial
capacity to produce the quantities of arms necessary to sustain a war with
China.
Just as we beat Germany and Japan by outproducing them, it
would appear that China can outproduce us in a sustained war. They’re already demonstrating on a daily
basis that they have more industrial weapons production capacity than we do and we’re
supposedly well over a year into gearing up for production. In other words, China is outproducing us
while we’re in the midst of stepped up production!!!!!
Now, obviously, ‘running out of ammunition' doesn’t mean that
every munition is we have is down to near zero levels but we’ve already heard,
publicly, that many types are down to a third or less of their pre-Ukraine
inventory levels. One example is the ubiquitous
155 mm artillery shells, as noted below.
Biden
told Zakaria that the cluster munitions were being sent as a “transition
period” until the US is able to produce more 155mm artillery.[1]
I’ve stated repeatedly that you don’t win a war with what
you have to begin; you win with what you
can produce during the war.
Terrifyingly, it appears that we have only a very limited capacity to
produce enough to win a war. This isn’t
really all that surprising. We’ve been
talking about it for years. Consider our
front line ships and aircraft. When war
starts, how many replacement ships and planes can we produce per year? The answer is … almost none.
We did a post on how much our munitions orders have
increased in the last year and it was … almost none (see, “2024 Weapons Procurement Increase”) – not because we
don’t want to produce more and don’t want to fund more but because we lack the
production capacity. Manufacturers are
publicly stating that their capacity is max’ed out.
The United States is no longer the arsenal of democracy.
This should scare the pudding out of us but there seems to
be little reaction from the military or government.
Note: This is not a post about the geopolitics of
supporting Ukraine. It’s about our
industrial weapons capacity. We’re not
going to discuss politics.
__________________________
Between the attack on Pearl Harbour and Japan's surrender the US laid down and commissioned 14 - Essex class carriers, 2 - Alaska class cruisers, 8 - Baltimore class cruisers, 2 - Atlanta class cruisers and 15 - Cleveland class cruisers then you have nearly a hundred escort carriers, over 100 destroyers and several hundred destroyer escorts.
ReplyDeleteAll the above plus the massive aircraft, tanks and other weapons built with a US population of 140-145 million.
Today the US has over 330 million and 1% of the above numbers is a damn pipe dream.
Hell I bet the US today couldn't even get a single P-51 Mustang factory built and running in 4 years let alone building aircraft and in the 1940's it took months!
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2023/01/11/navy-frustration-building-over-late-weapons-ship-deliveries/
ReplyDelete"Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro weighed in as well, telling reporters Jan. 11 the Navy and Pentagon are offering a combination of carrots and sticks to weapons-builders."
CNO Admiral Gilday :
“The message that I’m trying to send there is, not only am I trying to fill magazines with weapons, but I’m trying to put U.S. production lines at their maximum level right now and to try and maintain that set of headlights in subsequent budgets, so that we continue to produce those weapons."
So the defense companies say covid and supply chain disruptions have been problematic.
So this article discusses the DODs plan of action.
What's your analysis of that article? Are the points valid or not?
Delete"navy-frustration-building-over-late-weapons-ship-deliveries/"
DeleteCould not the headline equally - or more so - read, "Industry Frustration Building Over Constant Navy Changes To Orders"?
It very well could be due to changes in specifications ! The DOD, it seems ,was not thinking proactively, years ago . Now they want to incentivize the defense industry to produce more ( by "carrot & stick").
DeleteThe Navy pushes production of technologies that are not always mature ( eg Ford class carrier issues, software, etc. )
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteCovid & supply chain shortages are factors in this munition shortage problem. Thinking proactively years ago may have lead to a conclusion that we need to do something ASAP.
DeleteLook no further than the Flags at the Pentagon. The ammunitiona combat usage tables are ridculously low. When Iraq crossed over into Saudi at Khafji, Marines used way more ammo in one day than they were allocated. But no one paid attention once we won. The Flags should have read the usage data in the first month and been able to project and recognized the short fall and issued urgent contracts to start production of ammunition. Instead no one wanted to upset the funded programs or to ask for more money for unglammorous ammunition. Instead it has taken months to issue contract that in some cases will take years to fulfill (Stinger redesign and testing for parts no longer in production). I blame the brass mostly for this and the civilian administration becuase they keep promoting these incompetent Flag Officers. Does the Fleet have a full SM load for ALL ships? I keep hearing from sailors about crossdecking between ships leaving an Op Area and the ones inbound. Military Professionals are supposed to understand logistics and that goes all the way back to the components. There is no time for consensus building and briefings when you can project a shortfall.
ReplyDeleteLogistics and resupply is a science often neglected by higher authorities.
ReplyDeleteYou’re right but there’s not much excuse for it.
Delete“My logisticians are a humorless lot . . . they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” – Alexander the Great
Yep!
DeleteAs I've written before, the #1 US Navy priority should be the construction of a naval magazine (ammunition storage facility) in the Marianas, and stock it for war.
ReplyDeleteAnd before someone says China could just destroy it with missiles. It would consist of a hundred small concrete bunkers several hundred yards apart, connected by road to a dozen small piers. (Subic/Cubi Point had a great layout) Yet note our current ammo bunkers tend to be large bunkers very close to China (Sasebo, Okinawa, Yokosuka)
DeleteI meant the Marshall Islands. The Marianas are a bit too close to the threat and we have some ammo on Guam already. The ships and subs will be vulnerable when they pull up pierside to load up, so distance matters. The Marshalls are well outside air attack range and outside the range of medium sized missiles.
DeleteA few months ago I was reading a study about options to rapidly increase our military sealift. (Sorry, I don't recall where). It noted South Korea and Japan have a limited ability to boost ship construction. The only real option is to have ships built - in China!
ReplyDeleteYou’re right that we lack the production capacity to boost the manufacturing of eg 155 shells, but more worryingly we don’t even have the capacity to increase the capacity. Nobody these days wants work in an ammunition factory, and nobody wants to live anywhere close to an ammunition factory.
ReplyDeleteSide issue; the EU has apparently set aside $2 billion Euros for the purchase of 1 million 155 artillery shells for Ukraine. Q. How the heck can it cost anything like $2,000 bucks to produce a single artillery shell?
I would expect that part of the cost is because they're likely to be going to spicier fancier 155, like SMART and BONUS. Basic American 155mm HE costs about a grand per round.
DeleteOn the other hand, 2k per round is still peanuts when it comes to procurement costs.
That’s what they used to cost - we’ll see what they cost once we ask suppliers to ramp up supply. Rheinmetall - the biggest German producer - has announced a sale at 3.3k per unit, with the astronomical price down to ‘increased demand and the need to retool’ or something.
ReplyDeleteI mean if you can take maybe $100 worth of steel and maybe $10 worth of copper and brass - forge it, put it on a lathe, drill it out, temper it, press on a rotator band, fill it with 20lbs of HE and governments will buy as many as you can make at whatever you care to charge….nice work if you can get it.
Ironically, this ammo shortage actually argues in favor of big naval guns, Which is easier to mass produced cheaper and faster to replenish stocks- Naval artillery shells or guided missiles? If a Burke is has fired say 32 missiles at a millions a pop, and it takes 3 weeks to build each missile, then once it has fired all its ordinance in an engagement, then you are looking at a minimum of 32 million dollars and takes how long to make a single missile?
ReplyDeleteYet more conventional naval guns--even a big 16 inch--can have ammunition made cheaper and more rapidly than any missile in the naval inventory.
Granted, there is the range some missiles provide but there are plenty of island areas around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. where the range isn't as significant. And this blog has spoken many times to the limits of sensors for targeting at long range.
Had the Navy not stupidly demanded that each and every round fired by the Zumwalt's 155mm be a guided missile but had been simply longer range versions of the Army 155mm artillery round, we wouldn't have stopped at building 3 with zero ammunition.
The Army at least has acknowledged it and is looking to increase production amounts by 500% (!), though it is going to be awhile before they can do it. Other areas that they are ramping up- but it does not look like it's enough to face off against China and Russia simultaneously over the course of a year- were Javelins and GMLRS rockets (not even close to what they need). The reality is they need a ton more capacity and they also need a stockpile that is probably equal to 5 years of full bore fighting for day one. One can only hope China has been the typical corrupt if not king of corrupt military procurement Commie crew, but if they are simply using quantity of old stuff on top of their new stuff, we will be in tight shortage quickly. Add in what some cruise missiles that make it over our territory and hit some of our limited factories and you get the point, it's bad. Other thing left unsaid, notice I said Army. No mention of Navy, no mention of air force. Not enough silver bullets and no way in hell they can mass produce enough ships/SM-6's/new jets, etc...
ReplyDeleteInvesting in production infrastructure, ammunition and storage facilities should be way less controversial than the rest of the procurement process (ships, subs and planes). This is what the government should be doing during recessions when people would be otherwise unemployed and labor is cheaper.
ReplyDeleteSeparately, we should probably consider (as a Plan B) sourcing from allies such as South Korea, Japan and Europe. Of course we don't want to have to do that, that's why it's a Plan B. But when your back is up against the wall like ours is, it would be foolish not to explore this option as at least a temporary gap filler.
I have two thoughts on this:
ReplyDelete1) Regardless of what you think of our support of Ukraine, it has been a relatively painless (for the US anyway) experience to find out how unprepared we have been,
2) If you are going to waste money, keeping production capabilities for weapons and munitions (for example, keeping the tooling for the F22) is probably a decent area to waste it.
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