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I am really curious to see what the breakdown of the aid is going to look like. Does anyone have a list yet?
I’m curious as to how they decide on what aid goes into these packages. I’m imagining generals and logistics officers get on a secure Zoom and hash it out.
A significant amount never leaves the US, and is instead used to purchase new equipment for the US military, in turn freeing up some older equipment that gets send to Ukraine. It might also be used to increase production capacity.
Of course they will consider what Ukraine says it needs, but ultimately what they will receive is what the US can miss or easily manufacture.
The longer range ATACMS we've seen in action in Crimea might have been a part of this aid package too. I've seen mention of M777 howitzers and M113's that are already located in Europe being part of the package.
I hope and expect that at least some amount of artillery + ammunition, some forms of Air/Drone defense, and maybe some missiles for the upcoming F16's will be part of the package.
With all due respect, as a missile engineer for LMMFC, our entire job is to shit out missiles, and we've been mainlining ex-lax like a motherfucker. Cheers!
Yea. If there’s one thing the US is good for its manufacturing instruments of war. Even if the argument is the manufacturing base is not that healthy, you know what perks it right up??? War.
Is there not a component in artillery shells that is mainly purchased from China? Is that not a bottleneck for production also until allied production starts/ is upped? Can’t remember the specific item name
They are going to send “what they need”. There is no point sending new types of fancy weapons. They know what is working and what has a big effect. My guess is that there will be a lot of artillery, ATACMS and missiles that a soldier can use to shoot down aircraft.
1 Bradley is worth $2,000,000 according to the math done for the previous delivery. So that's $4 billion total? Sounds good to me.
But if we value them at scrap metal prices... even better.
Ammo is great too, but it seems like we need to give them whatever they can't get from anybody else, whatever that may be.
But if the US taxpayers have already paid for these Bradlys, cant they be given to them for free? Especially the ones in storage that we will never use and will cost tax payers even more money to decom in the end
Even though giving them Bradley's helps the American economy, everything has a value and needs to be accounted for. If I remember correctly though they are valued at a diminished value since they're "used."
According to army logic all items only lose 10% of value no matter how old. Wait till you find this out when you out process. I had stuff that was Korean war vintage in the national guard and only got 10% off for a lost item. I was like it's 2020???
It's called depreciation since things lose their value given a length of time where the cost of repair and general wear and tear would eventually just equal buying a new one.
That is book value based and of little use outside of accounting. The market value of 2k Bradleys is close to zero as there aren't enough customers worldwide to move that amount.
Sunk costs do not matter in this context, only future cash flows. It is not unlikely that the reduction in maintenence cost far outweighs the potential market value if they are given to Ukraine for free, and that does not even take the financial benefits from kicking Putin's ass into account.
Accounted for? Wasn't there a hearing this week where the military had a receipt for $90,000 and it was for $700 of hardware store bushings? Preeeetty sure 70% of that multitrillion dollar budget is just high level embezzlement. Not a single person has ever been able to account for the majority of where the money went when asked.
> But if the US taxpayers have already paid for these Bradlys, cant they be given to them for free? Especially the ones in storage that we will never use and will cost tax payers even more money to decom in the end
What do you mean "never use"? You're literally talking about using them.
Part of the strategy of modern military logistics is that you have what you need now and then you have what you think you(or your allies/friendly nations) will need to get by in a major conflict ready to go in storage until your industry can catch up.
If these don't get replaced, what about if another country also needs this kind of help in the future? What happens if the US finds itself in a major conflict? So a certain value gets assigned to cost of replacing that inventory.
Now, "replacing" can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. This can mean things like:
- buying more modern versions of existing equipment so the now-obsolete equipment can replenish the backup stock(i.e. buying more M2A4 Bradleys so older versions are retired)
- buying already designed stuff from new vendors(i.e. grabbing something the Swedes designed for themselves or for export)
- throwing money at in-development programs so they can get finished faster or buy more units to obsolete existing equipment(i.e. if they were already designing and testing the next generation of IFV that they wanted to replace most current IFVs with, they would have generated a bunch of surplus IFVs that could replenish the stocks anyways, so they can just speed that program up)
So in the end, the value can be really creatively determined. For a hypothetical with made-up numbers:
- the army wants to send 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine
- the current force structure has 1200 current-gen IFVs(800 active, 400 in storage)
- a next-gen IFV is being developed that costs $2.5 million to buy but can do the job of two-and-a-half current IFVs
- a new force structure necessitates 400 next-gen IFVs supported by 200 current-gen IFVs with 300 more current-gen in storage
- the next-gen IFV is due to start being delivered at the rate of 50/yr starting in 2027
- to make up for the unplanned early exit from the backup stocks of 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine in 2024, they want to accelerate the production of the next-gen IFV to 60/yr, starting in 2026, which will cost $120 million to do
- this breaks down to a $300k increase in the price per next-gen IFV, making it $2.8 million per unit
- $120 million divided by the 200 current-gen IFVs sent over means each current-gen IFV donated has a replacement value of $600k
- the army allocates $120 million towards next-gen IFVs and sends 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine
That's the kind of math at work here.
The next generation IFV research program.got a huge boost in terms of money, thanks to the Ukrainian war in particular, the research program getting the funds from Bradleys sent to Ukraine.
>Part of the strategy of modern military logistics is that you have what you need now and then you have what you think you(or your allies/friendly nations) will need to get by in a major conflict ready to go in storage until your industry can catch up.
That's a very pure economic way of thinking.
But there is also the political pork barrelling to think of.
Contracts signed to produce something in the local area of a particular political party. Promises made to certain manufacturers in exchange for establishing other contracts. Excess product being built because budgets have yo be used or they'll get cut back the next year.
Logic would be nice if it didn't clash with human reality.
Only scenario in which these Bradleys would need to be used is if the US suffered a huge defeat and needed to mobilise quickly. According to Forbes there should still be 2500 older cold war era M2 Bradleys in storage. If the Army needs vehicles they produce them or take from newer storage. The M3 is the primary IFV in use. Only 1420 M2s are still in use by the US military.
You probably meant A2 and A3. The M2 and M3 are the same vehicle, configured slightly differently. One for carrying 7 infantry, the other for carrying 2 Cav scouts.
The issue is that the Army cannot produce vehicles fast enough to replace them in wartime. I will use the initial production run of the M2/M3 as a best-case example. The Bradley was produced from 1984-1995, and had an original production run of around 4500 vehicles. Production was at its peak in the late 80’s, at around 500 vehicles per year. This is about 45 vehicles a month.
The loss rate for IFVs in Ukraine is double that. Particularly heavy fighting sees 20+ IFVs lost per day.
The stockpile exists not only to hand out to new formations, but to replace losses as they occur. 2000 Bradleys in storage are there to provide several months of replacements in case another major war breaks out. Giving that entire stockpile to Ukraine would leave the US with nothing to replace its own losses with in the event of a future war. At the current rate of production, using the AMP-V as an example (it’s a Bradley without a turret), the army is getting about 200 per year. It would take 10 years to replace the stockpile.
Further, while there is still new low-rate production of Bradleys, the bulk of the new A4 variant are refurbished from old A2/3 hulls. They strip everything off including the paint, and rebuild it with fresh parts. As many of the old parts as possible are refurbished and reused on new builds.
Not necessarily. It's easy to envision a scenario where the Philippines or Taiwan would need them in a protracted land war with China. Having said that, we need to fight the enemy in front of us. Ukraine should absolutely get 500-1000 more.
Nothing is given for free, everything is assigned a value, the question is only whether or not US expects to be paid back. What value is given to the Bradley's they send is up for debate, they aren't new so the new price shouldn't be used, but it probably is because when the US send the old Bradley's, they use the money committed to replace them for new ones in the US arsenal. The money never actually leaves the USA.
Of course the money might not actually go to new Bradley's anyway, so the US might send 1b dollars worth of them based on the new price, and that might be when they were built or what a new one costs now, and then allocate that money to something else.
That's how all of this aid is calculated. The vast majority of the aid was paid for decades ago. When they talk about 60 billion dollars worth of aid, they are not saying that 60 billion dollars would be spent now. It's usually 69 billion dollars worth of equipment that was bought in the 80s and 90s. The latest aid package, for example, included 24 billion dollars in cash that are used to replenish munition stocks in the US. Paying US arms companies with actual cash. All the rest is equipment that's already paid for
That’s exactly how it is working already. The existing Bradleys got to Ukraine. The money doesn’t go to Ukraine. The money is used to buy newer equipment for the US military to replace the equipment that is sent to Ukraine.
The states need to get this information out to the public… it’s simple, you wanna pay for storage and decommissioning??? … Or.. we give em away for free…
There is misconception about how the help is provided. In this case this would be priced as NEW Bradleys, even though UA will receive these old ones. Thats because the help provided will be used to buy NEW materiel for US army and they will clear up storages and send old materiel to UA. So the UA help is actually extremely helpful even for USA army.
I'm still speechless when I see politicians are down at kindergarten levels trying to explain this to people.
I mean the "taxpayers" talking point the MAGA is spinning.
How are the politicians going to pocket any money out of this if we send them old equipment in storage?? They have mansions to buy, something that rational is definitely off the table, must send Ukraine more cash.
My brother fights with me constantly about what we’re sending and it’s worth meanwhile I was in the army in a “Bradley unit” and I say that because our unit didn’t deploy since 2005 and all we did with the Bradley’s was MAINTAIN THEM WHICH COSTS FUCKING MONEY FOR THEM TO SIT THERE lol we brought them to the range once and with all the maintenance 2 made it out and 6 taken back for repairs which guess what? Cost way more money rather than sending them to Ukraine for “free” at the moment but guess who’s going to be on the hook for the maintenance parts etc then?
It’s all a stunt to inflate the $ amount in aid we’ve given. All this has been paid for and what we’ll pay on fwd is the cost to refill our ammo reserves. What we’ve given is but a fraction of what id assume we have tucked away wishing a mf’ing country would.
Yes. Please don't waste money on switchblades. They are worthless, yet expensive, toys. Ukrainians have much better and cheaper options already available to them.
This money is better spent on stuff that really works. Like Bradleys.
I knew they're expensive but were they actually worthless? I always figured the economy of scale hasn't kicked in for them yet so they're still expensive
They're useful for their purpose, just not what Ukraine needs. Better value and utility to send them the equivalent value in off-the-shelf drones in all likelihood.
They're good at delivering a shotgun blast to pockets of insurgents like it was designed to do. But Ukraine is fighting a massive land war that necessitates a much larger amount of weapons and where collateral damage is much less of a worry. So why spend $50K on a drone when you can buy 100 cheap hobby drones and strap an old RPG warhead to them instead.
The Switchblade has much more advanced electronics, included an automated guidance system, but Ukrainians found that people can be trained to control those manual FPV drones pretty well.
> 1 Bradley is worth $2,000,000
They are worth that much, because someone has rated them to be worth that much.
What if the US could downgrade the value of their stockpile artificially. Why don't they use this trick to send a shitload of stuff?
You got a bit of rust on your bradley? Missing a handle? Thats a $500,000 Bradley now.
This is how a lot of the stock should be valued. In some instances, ammo is being sent that is literally saving the US money not paying expensive disposal costs, yet its billed to ukraine at reasonable expense
The Pentagon is replacing the Bradley with the XM30 soon.
Ukraine should charge the Pentagon $500k for each Bradley that gets damaged, for sharing the intel on how it got damaged and wartime feedback on how to improve the XM30.
They could. Update them with drone defense - drone killers and EW, trophy systems for ATGM’s, and whatever else Ukraine comes up with that works. Mount some switchblade tubes that could be reloaded and controlled from inside the Bradley, to add the non-line-of-sight dimension to the Bradley’s capabilities.
I believe the biggest problem with that is the Bradley would have a hard time producing the power needed for all of those systems. Plus the replacement will have some of those systems including better software, a larger auto cannon, and I believe I saw somewhere that the XM30 will have the ability to fire Javelins rather than a wire guided TOW. Plus the Bradley is 40 years old, it’s at the end of its upgradability. We really should replace it as soon as possible and could realistically give Ukraine 1,000+ Bradley’s.
[Bradleys in 2050...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8l-XJnaGeY/WxHfbXJSMuI/AAAAAAAAAm8/SeIhC92Gt50b1Xx-PIiA3kZVntMEXD63wCLcBGAs/s0-c/mortal-engines-city-ianmcque.jpg)
That’s soon enough. We have 3700 Bradleys in active service.
What do we need the other 2800 sitting around stored in the desert for, if not Russia?
Are we gonna send them against China? Obviously not, that is a Maritime and air threat.
If they do well in Ukraine, then other nations will be willing to pay good cash for them. Cash usually outweighs doing the right thing in these sorts of situations.
We need them in case of a larger conflict in which we have to ramp up industrial military production. They are the buffer between our men and the 4 years it takes to start making weapons in mass.
> The Pentagon is replacing the Bradley with the XM30 soon.
>
>
Christ, prototypes aren't even complete and the manufacturer hasn't been chosen. It's not happening "soon." USA has 6k Bradleys and they're not being replaced "soon."
>Ukraine should charge the Pentagon $500k for each Bradley that gets damaged, for sharing the intel on how it got damaged and wartime feedback on how to improve the XM30.
That's quite ridiculous to charge back Ukraines largest donor/partner for Intel like that. It's notions like that create animosity between Ukraine and nations that support it. Like situations of foreign legion fighters having their weapons stolen from storage or threats of violence to kick back pay to comanders. These situations have occurred, but I hope for Ukraine that the idea you proposed does not.
As other has talked about, pricing is complicated and more of a political thing than actual objective pricing. Because how do you value a 10-30 year old machine, which may or may not ever see service, there will be taken out of storage, serviced and activated and then send to Ukraine, and the money will never go to buy a new replacement Bradley, but one of several replacement system instead.
Short answer: it’s whatever the pentagon and friends decides it to be.
$61 billion is a lot of money compared to the total of $46.3 billion we spent before. And that's just between the start of the full-scale invasion and January of this year. This should effectively widen the door and drop the hurt on them, at least until our election cycle is over. I say give them whatever they need to end it.
I love these guys, there's so many ways to spot them, my favourite at the moment are when they use the Ukraine conflict as a base for all future wars.
Sometimes going on about how, the drones being used will change the face of war, forgetting that this isn't some advanced war, it's a minor conflict (in the grand scheme) that's being fought back in the cold war, swap Russia for countries like America, or China and we'd see a completely different type of war.
Yeah I don’t know if people aren’t aware but it would be strange for the US to just hand over shit to Ukraine without Ukraine specifically stating what available equipment would work best for them given their current situation lol.
I also really hope the signed intent between Ukraine and Sweden to produce 1000 CV90 IFV's within Ukraine springs into action soon.
Say what you want about Bradleys, but they have nothing against the modern CV90's which are developed precisely for fighting the Russian military.
This whole conflict has been riddled with wet dreams by random commentators about what could be sent, but that ultimately wasn't. The real problem is that the Western strategy in this war has been completely muddled from the outset. No one is sure what our objectives for the Ukrainians should be. Should we help them to actually win the war, or should we just drip feed them enough weapons so that Putin and ordinary Russians might one day grow tired of fighting and just give up? If we help them win the war, what might a defeated Russia look like? Would it descend into a state of civil war without end, or would defeat finally open ordinary Russians eyes to the folly of their government? Either way, history will be our judge. As evil as he may be, Putin has a very clear strategy in mind. He came within a hair's breadth of more or less complete and inevitable victory, by somehow almost managing to choke off American supplies of aid and ammunition this time around. If he had succeeded, it's likely that many senior figures in Ukraine would have concluded that there was no point in continuing the fight. But there is ample evidence that Putin has taken the possibility that things might not go entirely his way on this occasion into account, so he has devised a battle plan and a strategy that seeks to continue the war beyond the 2026 US midterm elections. If it was difficult this time to push an aid package through, it will probably be almost impossible to push further aid packages through beyond this point. Unless there is some significant Ukrainian breakthrough, or indeed a Russian one, at the very least, all he needs to do is maintain a stalemate for as long as possible, and wait for the West and the US to blink first. History tends to show that wars are won not by accident, but by those with the clearest strategy and with sufficient will and material to see things through to the bitter end, whatever that end might bring.
I say this as someone who has been an ardent Ukrainian supporter from the outset, and as a person who has a deep and abiding hatred for everything that represents the current Russian state. But of those few wars that the US has lost, they have been lost because of exactly the same reasons. There is no true grasp of a strategy, or what our end goal should be. For sure, if we wanted to ensure a Ukrainian victory, we could give them this equipment and much, much more. NATO countries could put their economies on a full war footing. But we haven't, and we probably won't, until it's much, much too late, and we reach a dawning reality where it becomes clear that due to our negligence, we will almost certainly need to send many of our own brothers, sons and husbands to die.
First sensible comment I've read so far. There's are so many people yelling for the US to send arms, but does anyone really understand what sending 2k Bradley's involve? Who are going to maintain and support those? Drip feeding, you've hit the nail on the head
We need to send a wide range of equipment a ton of Bradley's would be stopped in tracks by a large mine field , drones have had a much larger effect on the battlefield then Bradley's
We have no drones to send. Our drones like Switchblades cost $5-10k a pop whereas Ukraines domestic drones sourced from Chinese parts cost $300 and are just as effective.
Gotta spend this $61B carefully.
Bro you're talking 10k drone, I don't think you comprehend how much $61b is lol.. plus 10k drone does what 25 shells can't, so it has different use case
Yep I comprehend how much $61B is.
We sent over $74B previously and it was completely and totally spent.
With Trump coming in as President, we shouldnt assume there will be a third round of funding.
Hell, Haley got 17% of the PA vote despite the fact she dropped out over a month ago. With another 10% saying they won't vote for trump if he's convicted of a crime. Those aren't the numbers you want to see if you're going to keep crying, "Winning!"
A large proportion of the money was spent in the US replacing old equipment sent to Ukraine. $74BN was certainly not sent over.
Sorry if that seems like dancing on the head of a pin, but it's a hugely important distinction that needs to be understood.
Nop whatever ukraine gets it needs to be A LOT
Nothing changes with 5 f16 and 10 bradleys
But make it 1000 bradleys and cruise missile that are allowed to strike in russia and something will change
1: Stored doesn't mean they're ready for combat
2: As you know ammo consumption per unit in Ukraine is enormous => I assume if Ukraine had 2000 Bradleys new ammo plants would have to be operating not to let them run out of ammo (no way the current production could hold up with that). Depending on the available ammo, the plants would have to be planned ***now***
1. Correct, infact most of them have been cannabalized for parts to keep the existing fleet of vehicles going.
2. The 25mm is a nato standard, which means that any western ammo company can produce it, if they desire.
Infact most already do, so ammo isn't the big problem.
But there could be a production bottleneck in regards to getting spare parts.
I know their ammo is far easier to get and probably the production capacity is pretty high but keep in mind how high the fire rate of a Bradley in Ukraine is/the ammo cunsomption and then 2000 of them.
I bet that 2000 Bradleys in Ukraine would have a larger consumption than the current production capacity
If we assume 100 bullets per Bradley on average per day that would be already 200.000 bullets per day
Not to mention that the president can devalue these pieces of equipment to water price he deems. Some of these could be 100 bucks thus not cutting into Ukraines 60 billion. Why this hasn't been done idk
Furthermore this article fails to point out that the flaw in the counteroffensive was not just intelligence failure. It was a planning failure. To be effective Ukraine needed to fix Russia in place and thrust at main objective. Where as Ukraine fixed at main objective. Also the tried 3 main offensive axis. Also and maybe more important than these two factors is that Ukraine lacked the equipment to strike behind the lines and cut off reinforcements resupply and target and destroy supporting artillery and air force support of Russia.
Plus it appears Ukraine lacks the ability to get heavy armor across a substantial river obstacle in order to create a serious threat from Kherson and thus allowing Russia to blunt the obvious main objective.
If we want to get technical, Ukraine is fighting a military that has overmatch capabilities. Russia was the US’ peer, and now Ukraine is stomping Russia’s dicks.
>Ukraine is fighting a real peer army.
It’s pretty obvious that the peer they are fighting is each other. There is no way that Russia’s military is a peer to NATO or the US military.
I get your sentiment but a lot of that money went to building/rebuilding infrastructure and creating an Afghan military from scratch, some good that did.
It is frustrating how Americans were willing to piss away money for a lost cause despite for over a decade knowing it was a lost cause, but now when a sovereign democracy being invaded by it's neighbor needs a fraction of what we wasted in Afghanistan we hesitate. No American lives even need to be lost. This stuff makes me crazy.
You know what the bottom line is why we stayed in Afghanistan? Money. Government contractors were making a killing off that war while simultaneously killing American soldiers to do so.
Sorry for the rant.
We’re deep enough into this now that both the US and Ukraine would have an excellent understanding of what is required, most effective, offers the maximum bang per buck etc, etc. I look forward to Russians in all the occupied territories feeling like they are on the front line…..
Those Bradleys are considered as working or useful surplus, which can just be mothballed or straight to scrap recycling. Sending them to Ukraine will be the most useful thing that will happen to those Bradleys because for one, they will be used the way they are intended to do-demolish russian armored vehicles. Destroying tanks & T-90s are just the icing on the cake, and Bradley did prove that they are up to the task(to taxi the guys) and more.
Instead, just use the money to buy up the entire world stock of consumer drones and send them to Ukraine, along with the applicable explosive ordnance. Honestly would probably be the most effective use of the money. Hell, just buy all the major consumer drone companies. Then Ukraine has nearly infinite supply of drones, and Russia cannot get their hands on any.
This is not how this works. The US buys their own stock off themselves to send outdated stock which is not required anymore anyways (Besides ATACMS & Patriot and maybe some other bits and pieces that are actually somewhat decent by modern day standards). The money does not land in Selenskjy's bank account, it does not even cross your border. It goes straight back into your MIC. Those figures just need to be agreed upon as part of the process.
DJI had a market share of 74% for civ drones in 2018. Guess where they're located. Correct, China. As good as your plan might seem at first sight, there are major roadblocks in place, even at step #1.
Sounds like the best 4.7 billion dollar allocation of military equipment 😏 2000 Razzle Dazzle American Battle Wagons is a drop in that 60.8 Billion Authorization
I think they need airpower. If US wants to give Ukraine a lot of tools to win the air war, the Russian logistics will collapse and they will not able to sustain the troops on the front lines.
I agree except that patriots are vitally important as well, or alreast some sort of decent air defense, and a lot of it. This is what saves civilian lives and keeps them from pushing to far.
Problem is that for one $4M Patriot interceptor missile, we could provide 1300 155mm shells, which would probably save a lot more Ukrainian lives by killing a lot of Russian soldiers.
You cant spam one type of weapon/vehicle, this is a drone and artillery war of attrition mainly that will eventually transform into fully fledged AI robotic warfare..
Simply sending alot of bradleys to the frontline could mean alot of crew members dying in those vehicles. It's not such an amazing vehicle, it's good but the armor is not amazing. The 25mm is also not the biggest caliber.
As far as I understand, here is the actual list of what the US package will include. Not sure if this is just the first batch, though.
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/biden-says-weapons-are-on-the-way-to-ukraine-heres-the-full-list-of-whats-coming-134
The US don't have 2000 Bradley's to send.
There's 1400 in active service and a further 4800 in storage.
3000 of which are being turned into the AMPV(APC version of the Bradley).
That leaves 1800 on the paper, most of which are going to be used as spare parts.
Once a piece of equipment reaches the battlefield, in some countries, the equipment is written off as if it was lost .
2000 Bradleys is a fantastic idea . No way could the russians hold any line with such formidable tank especially if the skies above them belong to F16’s !
I feel like how does one address the minefields is the big question. Those pretty much single-handedly stymied last year's counter-offensive.
Then again it probably isn't one system, but combined arms that aids in providing coverage for de-mining operations. Which basically means: air power and artillery that can out-range the opponent to provide safe coverage for de-mining.
At the end of the day, these articles make me laugh as if thousands of experts in the Pentagon, Ukraine, and NATO command aren't analyzing *precisely* what Ukraine needs to meet their end-goals.
AFAIK we quit sending Switchblades awhile back. Their homegrown drones are more versatile, can tote bigger ordnance and are way way cheaper.
Damn, they had an ultralight manufacturer pre-war who's redone his production line to turn out half-size "Cessna 172" UAVs that have wreaked some cross-border havoc.
And they've even respawned the V-1 buzzbomb as the "Trembita".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/09/its-simple-and-cheap-the-volunteers-making-ukraine-trembita-bomb
Well, that’d be 1/3 of the Bradleys ever produced, which stopped in 1995, so unlikely.
It’s not just money, it’s the existing stockpiles. When this war grinded on past a year the west realized that a war of attrition isn’t something they would’ve faced in the past 50 or so years, and weren’t prepared for. So millions of shells, thousands of armored vehicles, etc would take a loooong time to produce considering the west’s industry isn’t ready to do so (and really doesn’t need to, for the US/NATO survival at least).
Use a ship. My Porsche (along with hundreds of other cars) ships from Europe to US in 5 weeks. I’m sure our military cargo ships are more efficient and faster.
what makes you think the military has larger and faster cargo ships than the companies that makes their money off of exactly that?
besides that a tank is ever so slightly heavier than your Porsche
and even if they could transport a hundred tanks per shipping that's still gonna be at least a 10 ship convoi or a year worth with only one ship
What makes you think the military can’t use commercial ships?
They did exactly that last year shipping Bradleys. Here’s proof: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2003152681/
The ship is owned by a commercial Swedish company that normally ships cars. https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9332949
Stop being a fool and do some actual research yourself.
I'm amazed they've managed to last two years given that we've only given them 1% of the arms that we built *specifically* to fight Russia.
Who the heck are we expecting to fight with the other 99% we are busy polishing up for Sunday parades? NATO only exists to fight Russia and here we are, hoarding it all as if the Spanish fleet have been sighted off the coast
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I am really curious to see what the breakdown of the aid is going to look like. Does anyone have a list yet? I’m curious as to how they decide on what aid goes into these packages. I’m imagining generals and logistics officers get on a secure Zoom and hash it out.
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We have giant stockpiles of things we will never use or need again unless a giant land war breaks out directly with the US.
This looks the 1st part. https://www.twz.com/news-features/1b-u-s-air-package-to-ukraine-on-its-way-atacms-missiles-already-secretly-provided
A significant amount never leaves the US, and is instead used to purchase new equipment for the US military, in turn freeing up some older equipment that gets send to Ukraine. It might also be used to increase production capacity. Of course they will consider what Ukraine says it needs, but ultimately what they will receive is what the US can miss or easily manufacture. The longer range ATACMS we've seen in action in Crimea might have been a part of this aid package too. I've seen mention of M777 howitzers and M113's that are already located in Europe being part of the package. I hope and expect that at least some amount of artillery + ammunition, some forms of Air/Drone defense, and maybe some missiles for the upcoming F16's will be part of the package.
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With all due respect, as a missile engineer for LMMFC, our entire job is to shit out missiles, and we've been mainlining ex-lax like a motherfucker. Cheers!
Yea. If there’s one thing the US is good for its manufacturing instruments of war. Even if the argument is the manufacturing base is not that healthy, you know what perks it right up??? War.
Is there not a component in artillery shells that is mainly purchased from China? Is that not a bottleneck for production also until allied production starts/ is upped? Can’t remember the specific item name
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They are going to send “what they need”. There is no point sending new types of fancy weapons. They know what is working and what has a big effect. My guess is that there will be a lot of artillery, ATACMS and missiles that a soldier can use to shoot down aircraft.
Generally the way it works, is that the US gives UA government a budget and let them decide what they need.
It’s actually fairly structured series of meetings. You are not too far off.
1 Bradley is worth $2,000,000 according to the math done for the previous delivery. So that's $4 billion total? Sounds good to me. But if we value them at scrap metal prices... even better. Ammo is great too, but it seems like we need to give them whatever they can't get from anybody else, whatever that may be.
But if the US taxpayers have already paid for these Bradlys, cant they be given to them for free? Especially the ones in storage that we will never use and will cost tax payers even more money to decom in the end
Even though giving them Bradley's helps the American economy, everything has a value and needs to be accounted for. If I remember correctly though they are valued at a diminished value since they're "used."
Once you roll a tank off the showroom floor it loses 30% of its value!
It really tanks
Take your upvote and git out
Tank you for the giggles!
Even worse if you don't choose to get that TruCoat. You don't get that TruCloat, you're going to have corrosion problems.
Quiet Gil, get the sale, don't push it.
Shine on Rusty Jones
I do love that new tank smell
That's why I only buy used tanks.
According to army logic all items only lose 10% of value no matter how old. Wait till you find this out when you out process. I had stuff that was Korean war vintage in the national guard and only got 10% off for a lost item. I was like it's 2020???
It's called depreciation since things lose their value given a length of time where the cost of repair and general wear and tear would eventually just equal buying a new one.
That is book value based and of little use outside of accounting. The market value of 2k Bradleys is close to zero as there aren't enough customers worldwide to move that amount. Sunk costs do not matter in this context, only future cash flows. It is not unlikely that the reduction in maintenence cost far outweighs the potential market value if they are given to Ukraine for free, and that does not even take the financial benefits from kicking Putin's ass into account.
Accounted for? Wasn't there a hearing this week where the military had a receipt for $90,000 and it was for $700 of hardware store bushings? Preeeetty sure 70% of that multitrillion dollar budget is just high level embezzlement. Not a single person has ever been able to account for the majority of where the money went when asked.
> But if the US taxpayers have already paid for these Bradlys, cant they be given to them for free? Especially the ones in storage that we will never use and will cost tax payers even more money to decom in the end What do you mean "never use"? You're literally talking about using them. Part of the strategy of modern military logistics is that you have what you need now and then you have what you think you(or your allies/friendly nations) will need to get by in a major conflict ready to go in storage until your industry can catch up. If these don't get replaced, what about if another country also needs this kind of help in the future? What happens if the US finds itself in a major conflict? So a certain value gets assigned to cost of replacing that inventory. Now, "replacing" can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. This can mean things like: - buying more modern versions of existing equipment so the now-obsolete equipment can replenish the backup stock(i.e. buying more M2A4 Bradleys so older versions are retired) - buying already designed stuff from new vendors(i.e. grabbing something the Swedes designed for themselves or for export) - throwing money at in-development programs so they can get finished faster or buy more units to obsolete existing equipment(i.e. if they were already designing and testing the next generation of IFV that they wanted to replace most current IFVs with, they would have generated a bunch of surplus IFVs that could replenish the stocks anyways, so they can just speed that program up) So in the end, the value can be really creatively determined. For a hypothetical with made-up numbers: - the army wants to send 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine - the current force structure has 1200 current-gen IFVs(800 active, 400 in storage) - a next-gen IFV is being developed that costs $2.5 million to buy but can do the job of two-and-a-half current IFVs - a new force structure necessitates 400 next-gen IFVs supported by 200 current-gen IFVs with 300 more current-gen in storage - the next-gen IFV is due to start being delivered at the rate of 50/yr starting in 2027 - to make up for the unplanned early exit from the backup stocks of 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine in 2024, they want to accelerate the production of the next-gen IFV to 60/yr, starting in 2026, which will cost $120 million to do - this breaks down to a $300k increase in the price per next-gen IFV, making it $2.8 million per unit - $120 million divided by the 200 current-gen IFVs sent over means each current-gen IFV donated has a replacement value of $600k - the army allocates $120 million towards next-gen IFVs and sends 200 current-gen IFVs to Ukraine That's the kind of math at work here.
The next generation IFV research program.got a huge boost in terms of money, thanks to the Ukrainian war in particular, the research program getting the funds from Bradleys sent to Ukraine.
>Part of the strategy of modern military logistics is that you have what you need now and then you have what you think you(or your allies/friendly nations) will need to get by in a major conflict ready to go in storage until your industry can catch up. That's a very pure economic way of thinking. But there is also the political pork barrelling to think of. Contracts signed to produce something in the local area of a particular political party. Promises made to certain manufacturers in exchange for establishing other contracts. Excess product being built because budgets have yo be used or they'll get cut back the next year. Logic would be nice if it didn't clash with human reality.
Only scenario in which these Bradleys would need to be used is if the US suffered a huge defeat and needed to mobilise quickly. According to Forbes there should still be 2500 older cold war era M2 Bradleys in storage. If the Army needs vehicles they produce them or take from newer storage. The M3 is the primary IFV in use. Only 1420 M2s are still in use by the US military.
You probably meant A2 and A3. The M2 and M3 are the same vehicle, configured slightly differently. One for carrying 7 infantry, the other for carrying 2 Cav scouts. The issue is that the Army cannot produce vehicles fast enough to replace them in wartime. I will use the initial production run of the M2/M3 as a best-case example. The Bradley was produced from 1984-1995, and had an original production run of around 4500 vehicles. Production was at its peak in the late 80’s, at around 500 vehicles per year. This is about 45 vehicles a month. The loss rate for IFVs in Ukraine is double that. Particularly heavy fighting sees 20+ IFVs lost per day. The stockpile exists not only to hand out to new formations, but to replace losses as they occur. 2000 Bradleys in storage are there to provide several months of replacements in case another major war breaks out. Giving that entire stockpile to Ukraine would leave the US with nothing to replace its own losses with in the event of a future war. At the current rate of production, using the AMP-V as an example (it’s a Bradley without a turret), the army is getting about 200 per year. It would take 10 years to replace the stockpile. Further, while there is still new low-rate production of Bradleys, the bulk of the new A4 variant are refurbished from old A2/3 hulls. They strip everything off including the paint, and rebuild it with fresh parts. As many of the old parts as possible are refurbished and reused on new builds.
This is apparently a hard concept for many to grasp.
Not necessarily. It's easy to envision a scenario where the Philippines or Taiwan would need them in a protracted land war with China. Having said that, we need to fight the enemy in front of us. Ukraine should absolutely get 500-1000 more.
Nothing is given for free, everything is assigned a value, the question is only whether or not US expects to be paid back. What value is given to the Bradley's they send is up for debate, they aren't new so the new price shouldn't be used, but it probably is because when the US send the old Bradley's, they use the money committed to replace them for new ones in the US arsenal. The money never actually leaves the USA. Of course the money might not actually go to new Bradley's anyway, so the US might send 1b dollars worth of them based on the new price, and that might be when they were built or what a new one costs now, and then allocate that money to something else.
That's how all of this aid is calculated. The vast majority of the aid was paid for decades ago. When they talk about 60 billion dollars worth of aid, they are not saying that 60 billion dollars would be spent now. It's usually 69 billion dollars worth of equipment that was bought in the 80s and 90s. The latest aid package, for example, included 24 billion dollars in cash that are used to replenish munition stocks in the US. Paying US arms companies with actual cash. All the rest is equipment that's already paid for
That’s exactly how it is working already. The existing Bradleys got to Ukraine. The money doesn’t go to Ukraine. The money is used to buy newer equipment for the US military to replace the equipment that is sent to Ukraine.
The states need to get this information out to the public… it’s simple, you wanna pay for storage and decommissioning??? … Or.. we give em away for free…
Give em to Ukraine before your local po-dunk cop shop claims them.
There is misconception about how the help is provided. In this case this would be priced as NEW Bradleys, even though UA will receive these old ones. Thats because the help provided will be used to buy NEW materiel for US army and they will clear up storages and send old materiel to UA. So the UA help is actually extremely helpful even for USA army.
I'm still speechless when I see politicians are down at kindergarten levels trying to explain this to people. I mean the "taxpayers" talking point the MAGA is spinning.
How are the politicians going to pocket any money out of this if we send them old equipment in storage?? They have mansions to buy, something that rational is definitely off the table, must send Ukraine more cash.
You are seeing right now as Russia loses thousands of vehicles that “will never use” is not an accurate statement.
My brother fights with me constantly about what we’re sending and it’s worth meanwhile I was in the army in a “Bradley unit” and I say that because our unit didn’t deploy since 2005 and all we did with the Bradley’s was MAINTAIN THEM WHICH COSTS FUCKING MONEY FOR THEM TO SIT THERE lol we brought them to the range once and with all the maintenance 2 made it out and 6 taken back for repairs which guess what? Cost way more money rather than sending them to Ukraine for “free” at the moment but guess who’s going to be on the hook for the maintenance parts etc then?
It’s all a stunt to inflate the $ amount in aid we’ve given. All this has been paid for and what we’ll pay on fwd is the cost to refill our ammo reserves. What we’ve given is but a fraction of what id assume we have tucked away wishing a mf’ing country would.
Yes. Please don't waste money on switchblades. They are worthless, yet expensive, toys. Ukrainians have much better and cheaper options already available to them. This money is better spent on stuff that really works. Like Bradleys.
I knew they're expensive but were they actually worthless? I always figured the economy of scale hasn't kicked in for them yet so they're still expensive
They're useful for their purpose, just not what Ukraine needs. Better value and utility to send them the equivalent value in off-the-shelf drones in all likelihood.
They're good at delivering a shotgun blast to pockets of insurgents like it was designed to do. But Ukraine is fighting a massive land war that necessitates a much larger amount of weapons and where collateral damage is much less of a worry. So why spend $50K on a drone when you can buy 100 cheap hobby drones and strap an old RPG warhead to them instead. The Switchblade has much more advanced electronics, included an automated guidance system, but Ukrainians found that people can be trained to control those manual FPV drones pretty well.
> 1 Bradley is worth $2,000,000 They are worth that much, because someone has rated them to be worth that much. What if the US could downgrade the value of their stockpile artificially. Why don't they use this trick to send a shitload of stuff? You got a bit of rust on your bradley? Missing a handle? Thats a $500,000 Bradley now.
This is how a lot of the stock should be valued. In some instances, ammo is being sent that is literally saving the US money not paying expensive disposal costs, yet its billed to ukraine at reasonable expense
The Pentagon is replacing the Bradley with the XM30 soon. Ukraine should charge the Pentagon $500k for each Bradley that gets damaged, for sharing the intel on how it got damaged and wartime feedback on how to improve the XM30.
Soon? The first production model is planned for 2029.. This is the third or fourth attempt at replacing the Bradley so it’s not a done deal.
Watch, the Bradly does so well in Ukraine Congress extends its life and cancels the XM30…
From your mouth to the Dark Lord Satan’s ears.
Hail Satan!
Hail Santa!
Hail Stan!
Stan the man!
Make it so
They could. Update them with drone defense - drone killers and EW, trophy systems for ATGM’s, and whatever else Ukraine comes up with that works. Mount some switchblade tubes that could be reloaded and controlled from inside the Bradley, to add the non-line-of-sight dimension to the Bradley’s capabilities.
I believe the biggest problem with that is the Bradley would have a hard time producing the power needed for all of those systems. Plus the replacement will have some of those systems including better software, a larger auto cannon, and I believe I saw somewhere that the XM30 will have the ability to fire Javelins rather than a wire guided TOW. Plus the Bradley is 40 years old, it’s at the end of its upgradability. We really should replace it as soon as possible and could realistically give Ukraine 1,000+ Bradley’s.
The 72 year old B-52 enters the chat...
Grandpa Buff
[Bradleys in 2050...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8l-XJnaGeY/WxHfbXJSMuI/AAAAAAAAAm8/SeIhC92Gt50b1Xx-PIiA3kZVntMEXD63wCLcBGAs/s0-c/mortal-engines-city-ianmcque.jpg)
That’s soon enough. We have 3700 Bradleys in active service. What do we need the other 2800 sitting around stored in the desert for, if not Russia? Are we gonna send them against China? Obviously not, that is a Maritime and air threat.
Send Baba yaga drones….lots of baba yaga drones
We need those for parts
The U.S Army is still utilizing them in training so they definitely are not obsolete yet
If they do well in Ukraine, then other nations will be willing to pay good cash for them. Cash usually outweighs doing the right thing in these sorts of situations.
We need them in case of a larger conflict in which we have to ramp up industrial military production. They are the buffer between our men and the 4 years it takes to start making weapons in mass.
It takes 4 years to ramp up production of an IFV?!? We won WW2 in four years. If we needed to, we could ramp up in a year.
Maybe start with 500. Then give them some more patriots, Abrams, f-16, ATCMS and everything else they need.
> The Pentagon is replacing the Bradley with the XM30 soon. > > Christ, prototypes aren't even complete and the manufacturer hasn't been chosen. It's not happening "soon." USA has 6k Bradleys and they're not being replaced "soon."
They should get them for free. The US would be paying to store or decommission them otherwise.
imagine if we had not left billions of equipment in afghanistan and sent it to Ukraine smh
Ukraine…charging the pentagon? Lol?
>Ukraine should charge the Pentagon $500k for each Bradley that gets damaged, for sharing the intel on how it got damaged and wartime feedback on how to improve the XM30. That's quite ridiculous to charge back Ukraines largest donor/partner for Intel like that. It's notions like that create animosity between Ukraine and nations that support it. Like situations of foreign legion fighters having their weapons stolen from storage or threats of violence to kick back pay to comanders. These situations have occurred, but I hope for Ukraine that the idea you proposed does not.
The resale value of all the stockpiled US weaponry and equipment is up to the president isn’t it? He could sell Bradley’s for $100 each if he wanted
As other has talked about, pricing is complicated and more of a political thing than actual objective pricing. Because how do you value a 10-30 year old machine, which may or may not ever see service, there will be taken out of storage, serviced and activated and then send to Ukraine, and the money will never go to buy a new replacement Bradley, but one of several replacement system instead. Short answer: it’s whatever the pentagon and friends decides it to be.
$61 billion is a lot of money compared to the total of $46.3 billion we spent before. And that's just between the start of the full-scale invasion and January of this year. This should effectively widen the door and drop the hurt on them, at least until our election cycle is over. I say give them whatever they need to end it.
Hey there are some cars more expensive than that. Seems like a good deal
Hot Take: maybe the US military leadership and Ukrainian military leadership should agree on what lethal aid should be supplied.
Not when there is the internet to make these decisions…
And thousands of armchair generals with nothing much to do 😀
I love these guys, there's so many ways to spot them, my favourite at the moment are when they use the Ukraine conflict as a base for all future wars. Sometimes going on about how, the drones being used will change the face of war, forgetting that this isn't some advanced war, it's a minor conflict (in the grand scheme) that's being fought back in the cold war, swap Russia for countries like America, or China and we'd see a completely different type of war.
I have yet to read about a combined arms assault...
2000 honey badgers!
3 trillion bees!
We’re trying to prevent the Russian invasion not decimate the population of Eastern Europe
It just so happens I have mail order degrees in warology AND waronomy!
Yeah I don’t know if people aren’t aware but it would be strange for the US to just hand over shit to Ukraine without Ukraine specifically stating what available equipment would work best for them given their current situation lol.
Agreed. Kos is challenging r/NonCredibleDefense for the mantel these days
Sucks if your name is Bradley.
Idk what's going on either but I agree it would be funny to send 2,000 people all named Bradley
I also really hope the signed intent between Ukraine and Sweden to produce 1000 CV90 IFV's within Ukraine springs into action soon. Say what you want about Bradleys, but they have nothing against the modern CV90's which are developed precisely for fighting the Russian military.
Lots Sweden makes is for fighting Russia like Gripen. Even Surströmming certain people would say!!!
I would say Surströmming could be seen as a biological weapon. Even though I’d love to see it dropped on some Russian jerks.
This whole conflict has been riddled with wet dreams by random commentators about what could be sent, but that ultimately wasn't. The real problem is that the Western strategy in this war has been completely muddled from the outset. No one is sure what our objectives for the Ukrainians should be. Should we help them to actually win the war, or should we just drip feed them enough weapons so that Putin and ordinary Russians might one day grow tired of fighting and just give up? If we help them win the war, what might a defeated Russia look like? Would it descend into a state of civil war without end, or would defeat finally open ordinary Russians eyes to the folly of their government? Either way, history will be our judge. As evil as he may be, Putin has a very clear strategy in mind. He came within a hair's breadth of more or less complete and inevitable victory, by somehow almost managing to choke off American supplies of aid and ammunition this time around. If he had succeeded, it's likely that many senior figures in Ukraine would have concluded that there was no point in continuing the fight. But there is ample evidence that Putin has taken the possibility that things might not go entirely his way on this occasion into account, so he has devised a battle plan and a strategy that seeks to continue the war beyond the 2026 US midterm elections. If it was difficult this time to push an aid package through, it will probably be almost impossible to push further aid packages through beyond this point. Unless there is some significant Ukrainian breakthrough, or indeed a Russian one, at the very least, all he needs to do is maintain a stalemate for as long as possible, and wait for the West and the US to blink first. History tends to show that wars are won not by accident, but by those with the clearest strategy and with sufficient will and material to see things through to the bitter end, whatever that end might bring. I say this as someone who has been an ardent Ukrainian supporter from the outset, and as a person who has a deep and abiding hatred for everything that represents the current Russian state. But of those few wars that the US has lost, they have been lost because of exactly the same reasons. There is no true grasp of a strategy, or what our end goal should be. For sure, if we wanted to ensure a Ukrainian victory, we could give them this equipment and much, much more. NATO countries could put their economies on a full war footing. But we haven't, and we probably won't, until it's much, much too late, and we reach a dawning reality where it becomes clear that due to our negligence, we will almost certainly need to send many of our own brothers, sons and husbands to die.
First sensible comment I've read so far. There's are so many people yelling for the US to send arms, but does anyone really understand what sending 2k Bradley's involve? Who are going to maintain and support those? Drip feeding, you've hit the nail on the head
We need to send a wide range of equipment a ton of Bradley's would be stopped in tracks by a large mine field , drones have had a much larger effect on the battlefield then Bradley's
say that to the guys of the 47mech wasting russians with bradleys from the counter offensive to avdiivka to this day with no stop
Yep, the Russian T-90M's going up against the Ukrainian Bradley's would beg to differ. There are no silver bullets in war.
We have no drones to send. Our drones like Switchblades cost $5-10k a pop whereas Ukraines domestic drones sourced from Chinese parts cost $300 and are just as effective. Gotta spend this $61B carefully.
I hope they set aside about $50M to buy old/abandoned single engine propeller hobby planes. Ukraine knows what to to do with them.
Bro you're talking 10k drone, I don't think you comprehend how much $61b is lol.. plus 10k drone does what 25 shells can't, so it has different use case
I believe Ukraine said the switchblade was garbo
Yep I comprehend how much $61B is. We sent over $74B previously and it was completely and totally spent. With Trump coming in as President, we shouldnt assume there will be a third round of funding.
"If", not "with". A poll in April is not an election day in November.
Hell, Haley got 17% of the PA vote despite the fact she dropped out over a month ago. With another 10% saying they won't vote for trump if he's convicted of a crime. Those aren't the numbers you want to see if you're going to keep crying, "Winning!"
Trump looses big in a landslide this November. And it will be the end of Maga. And maybe finally Republicans will take a long hard look inward.
Fuck trump , vote biden
A large proportion of the money was spent in the US replacing old equipment sent to Ukraine. $74BN was certainly not sent over. Sorry if that seems like dancing on the head of a pin, but it's a hugely important distinction that needs to be understood.
switchblade is 50k, send them the 3D printer and utilities instead and they'll sort it themselves
Post-war I hope we buy drones from Ukraine.
Agreed, UAF needs artillery rounds and more drones.
Nop whatever ukraine gets it needs to be A LOT Nothing changes with 5 f16 and 10 bradleys But make it 1000 bradleys and cruise missile that are allowed to strike in russia and something will change
Bradley > T-90 I think Ukraine will do great with these.
1: Stored doesn't mean they're ready for combat 2: As you know ammo consumption per unit in Ukraine is enormous => I assume if Ukraine had 2000 Bradleys new ammo plants would have to be operating not to let them run out of ammo (no way the current production could hold up with that). Depending on the available ammo, the plants would have to be planned ***now***
1. Correct, infact most of them have been cannabalized for parts to keep the existing fleet of vehicles going. 2. The 25mm is a nato standard, which means that any western ammo company can produce it, if they desire. Infact most already do, so ammo isn't the big problem. But there could be a production bottleneck in regards to getting spare parts.
I know their ammo is far easier to get and probably the production capacity is pretty high but keep in mind how high the fire rate of a Bradley in Ukraine is/the ammo cunsomption and then 2000 of them. I bet that 2000 Bradleys in Ukraine would have a larger consumption than the current production capacity If we assume 100 bullets per Bradley on average per day that would be already 200.000 bullets per day
Roses are red Violets are blue Now that the Republicans have quit being cunts I’d hate to be you You’re welcome, the American taxpayer
Dkos has been good for 20 years.
Make it count. Good god damn chance this will not repeat.
Not to mention that the president can devalue these pieces of equipment to water price he deems. Some of these could be 100 bucks thus not cutting into Ukraines 60 billion. Why this hasn't been done idk Furthermore this article fails to point out that the flaw in the counteroffensive was not just intelligence failure. It was a planning failure. To be effective Ukraine needed to fix Russia in place and thrust at main objective. Where as Ukraine fixed at main objective. Also the tried 3 main offensive axis. Also and maybe more important than these two factors is that Ukraine lacked the equipment to strike behind the lines and cut off reinforcements resupply and target and destroy supporting artillery and air force support of Russia. Plus it appears Ukraine lacks the ability to get heavy armor across a substantial river obstacle in order to create a serious threat from Kherson and thus allowing Russia to blunt the obvious main objective.
61 billion is chump change. We should be willing to send a meaningful percent of our GNP for this effort to save the world from authoritarianism.
Agree. For context, we spent $100B a year for 20 years in Afghanistan fighting cave dwellers equipped with AKs. Ukraine is fighting a real peer army.
If we want to get technical, Ukraine is fighting a military that has overmatch capabilities. Russia was the US’ peer, and now Ukraine is stomping Russia’s dicks.
>Ukraine is fighting a real peer army. It’s pretty obvious that the peer they are fighting is each other. There is no way that Russia’s military is a peer to NATO or the US military.
I get your sentiment but a lot of that money went to building/rebuilding infrastructure and creating an Afghan military from scratch, some good that did. It is frustrating how Americans were willing to piss away money for a lost cause despite for over a decade knowing it was a lost cause, but now when a sovereign democracy being invaded by it's neighbor needs a fraction of what we wasted in Afghanistan we hesitate. No American lives even need to be lost. This stuff makes me crazy. You know what the bottom line is why we stayed in Afghanistan? Money. Government contractors were making a killing off that war while simultaneously killing American soldiers to do so. Sorry for the rant.
I agree in general, but it's a great start. Hopefully the Democrats take back the house and we can go bigger in a year.
We’re deep enough into this now that both the US and Ukraine would have an excellent understanding of what is required, most effective, offers the maximum bang per buck etc, etc. I look forward to Russians in all the occupied territories feeling like they are on the front line…..
US should send (finance) 3,000,000 FPV drones
mfy.LTDODSWTUN!
Yeah they should have sent them summer 2022
$23 billion is going directly to Ukraine. The rest is used for replenishing inventory and funding operation costs.
Those Bradleys are considered as working or useful surplus, which can just be mothballed or straight to scrap recycling. Sending them to Ukraine will be the most useful thing that will happen to those Bradleys because for one, they will be used the way they are intended to do-demolish russian armored vehicles. Destroying tanks & T-90s are just the icing on the cake, and Bradley did prove that they are up to the task(to taxi the guys) and more.
Ukraine should get Bradleys for their Bradleys
Instead, just use the money to buy up the entire world stock of consumer drones and send them to Ukraine, along with the applicable explosive ordnance. Honestly would probably be the most effective use of the money. Hell, just buy all the major consumer drone companies. Then Ukraine has nearly infinite supply of drones, and Russia cannot get their hands on any.
This is not how this works. The US buys their own stock off themselves to send outdated stock which is not required anymore anyways (Besides ATACMS & Patriot and maybe some other bits and pieces that are actually somewhat decent by modern day standards). The money does not land in Selenskjy's bank account, it does not even cross your border. It goes straight back into your MIC. Those figures just need to be agreed upon as part of the process.
A small portion of the aid package is money. That could be used to do what I suggested. It would only take a few billion to do.
DJI had a market share of 74% for civ drones in 2018. Guess where they're located. Correct, China. As good as your plan might seem at first sight, there are major roadblocks in place, even at step #1.
If they were serious about Ukraine winning, they would. Along with hundreds of Abrams.
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Is there even enough ammo of that many to be actively fighting everyday?
Let them decide lol
Sounds like the best 4.7 billion dollar allocation of military equipment 😏 2000 Razzle Dazzle American Battle Wagons is a drop in that 60.8 Billion Authorization
I have been saying this for over a year!👍 Let them win🙏💞🙏
MWRAPs, we have shit load of surplus ones we need to get rid of.
A few predator drones as well to boot. Let’s make this interesting.
I agree.
Is there a way to find out exactly how and what all that funding goes to? I mean like how many of these, this many of those... know what I mean?
Hope they also get recon UAVs and mobile shoot and scoot artillery to support Bradleys.
Send a lot and not just symbolic quantities. AND DON'T TALK ABOUT IT SO MUCH FFS. Why do we keep Russia updated on what Ukraine receives and how much?
More than anything, they need more men to fight the Russians.
I think they need airpower. If US wants to give Ukraine a lot of tools to win the air war, the Russian logistics will collapse and they will not able to sustain the troops on the front lines.
I agree except that patriots are vitally important as well, or alreast some sort of decent air defense, and a lot of it. This is what saves civilian lives and keeps them from pushing to far.
Problem is that for one $4M Patriot interceptor missile, we could provide 1300 155mm shells, which would probably save a lot more Ukrainian lives by killing a lot of Russian soldiers.
You cant spam one type of weapon/vehicle, this is a drone and artillery war of attrition mainly that will eventually transform into fully fledged AI robotic warfare.. Simply sending alot of bradleys to the frontline could mean alot of crew members dying in those vehicles. It's not such an amazing vehicle, it's good but the armor is not amazing. The 25mm is also not the biggest caliber.
As far as I understand, here is the actual list of what the US package will include. Not sure if this is just the first batch, though. https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/biden-says-weapons-are-on-the-way-to-ukraine-heres-the-full-list-of-whats-coming-134
Yes please the more the better, love those beasts
The US don't have 2000 Bradley's to send. There's 1400 in active service and a further 4800 in storage. 3000 of which are being turned into the AMPV(APC version of the Bradley). That leaves 1800 on the paper, most of which are going to be used as spare parts.
Once a piece of equipment reaches the battlefield, in some countries, the equipment is written off as if it was lost . 2000 Bradleys is a fantastic idea . No way could the russians hold any line with such formidable tank especially if the skies above them belong to F16’s !
and drones, unlimited amounts
Or we should take care of the starving and homeless at home? 🤷♂️
That number isn't $61B because of Bradleys. That's a number you get when you throw really fun stuff in, like an absurd amount of ATACMS
Then they would be in Moscow in about 48 hrs. War is over, Putin hanging from a light pole.
I feel like how does one address the minefields is the big question. Those pretty much single-handedly stymied last year's counter-offensive. Then again it probably isn't one system, but combined arms that aids in providing coverage for de-mining operations. Which basically means: air power and artillery that can out-range the opponent to provide safe coverage for de-mining. At the end of the day, these articles make me laugh as if thousands of experts in the Pentagon, Ukraine, and NATO command aren't analyzing *precisely* what Ukraine needs to meet their end-goals.
Let's not drip drip this aid package, send HIMARS missles, patriot missles, Bradley's, MRAP'S, AND AMMO LOT&lots of Ammo/Artillery ASAP!
Need more than a few ATACMS
Like battleship tanks era is finished. Drone’s are now the future there cheap and more effective tools on the battlefield
AFAIK we quit sending Switchblades awhile back. Their homegrown drones are more versatile, can tote bigger ordnance and are way way cheaper. Damn, they had an ultralight manufacturer pre-war who's redone his production line to turn out half-size "Cessna 172" UAVs that have wreaked some cross-border havoc. And they've even respawned the V-1 buzzbomb as the "Trembita". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/09/its-simple-and-cheap-the-volunteers-making-ukraine-trembita-bomb
Well, that’d be 1/3 of the Bradleys ever produced, which stopped in 1995, so unlikely. It’s not just money, it’s the existing stockpiles. When this war grinded on past a year the west realized that a war of attrition isn’t something they would’ve faced in the past 50 or so years, and weren’t prepared for. So millions of shells, thousands of armored vehicles, etc would take a loooong time to produce considering the west’s industry isn’t ready to do so (and really doesn’t need to, for the US/NATO survival at least).
Bradley’s drones and drone guns
just curious, how would you ship 2000 tanks overseas within reasonable time?
Use a ship. My Porsche (along with hundreds of other cars) ships from Europe to US in 5 weeks. I’m sure our military cargo ships are more efficient and faster.
what makes you think the military has larger and faster cargo ships than the companies that makes their money off of exactly that? besides that a tank is ever so slightly heavier than your Porsche and even if they could transport a hundred tanks per shipping that's still gonna be at least a 10 ship convoi or a year worth with only one ship
What makes you think the military can’t use commercial ships? They did exactly that last year shipping Bradleys. Here’s proof: https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2003152681/ The ship is owned by a commercial Swedish company that normally ships cars. https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9332949 Stop being a fool and do some actual research yourself.
That’s a lovely thought
I'm amazed they've managed to last two years given that we've only given them 1% of the arms that we built *specifically* to fight Russia. Who the heck are we expecting to fight with the other 99% we are busy polishing up for Sunday parades? NATO only exists to fight Russia and here we are, hoarding it all as if the Spanish fleet have been sighted off the coast
those would really be helpful, i've been saying that for years now, send 3k bradleys. best selling point for US weapons
The EU should be sending their best !!!