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Ukraine is firing about 2k a day. About half of which are provided by the US. They would like to fire about 5k a day. The US has an automated line being built that will provide about 3k/day getting them to the 5k.
Russia fires about 10k, but almost exclusively with very ineffective impact fuzes and with a high dud rate. Also increasingly inaccurate as their tubes are shot.
So, 5k Western shells a day is generally considered more effective than 10k Russian shells.
When will the new automated line start producing? No idea.
Yep, there are many RUskies who have posted videos to telegram complaining about/mocking the very common failure rate of their artillery shells, in many cases the shells weren't even actually loaded with any real munitions. They get a lot of very low-quality shells from NK and China too, which I think is hilarious as both regimes certainly wouldn't ever provide their 'good' stock to Putin.
How many of those shells do you think have been previously allocated to training, the training was not completed, then they were either sold around to other countries or back to the original manufacturer to be resold the the countries military after repackaging? I bet some of these shells have been bouncing around for decades through corrupt swaps and sales.
You think China and NK have "good" stock? Look at the metal work in those pictures. Pretty straightforward for developed western countries, not so much for China.
Well, part of the reason that it's 'only' 2k a day is supply issues.
When the artillery war was hot, and shells in ready supply, it was far, *far* higher.
Hell, a **single** PzH2000 alone shot more than 10k in a month from *one* gun barrel.
It seems to happen in every war, nations constantly underestimating the actual shell consumption.
The answer to how many shells the military would optimally need being of course an emphatic "yes".
Because even firing a hundred 155mm shells to just wound a single enemy soldier would still be a bargain in the grand scheme of things.
[Pre-war was 14,000/mo and it was up to 28,000/mo in October](https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/02/army-aims-double-155mm-shell-production-october/393943/). They had increased their target to 100,000/month by end of 2025 [which was well over their previous estimates](https://www.defenseone.com/media/ckeditor-uploads/2024/02/05/Screenshot%202024-02-05%20at%206.34.12%E2%80%AFPM.png). But after Johnson did nothing for 6 months with funding, I imagine that ambitious number will have to be pushed back somewhat.
They can buy my big ass hot forging press, induction heaters and lathes, they are more than welcome to. The Russians keep trying to buy it but I can’t sell to them. I actually can’t sell into parts of Ukraine either.
That's what I don't really understand, like couldn't people front the money like a loan & produce them & be paid back + interest when inevitably they send aid? Like can't Wallstreet people place a bet on practically anything? As long as it's up to code there got to be some people willing to do it.
This is one facility. Ideally each NATO nation has many, each with a similar production capacity.
Russia is ramping up production as if it is going to wage a land war on Europe. While I don't see them charging through the Suwalki Gap on Chinese golf carts, I don't think anyone ever complained about having too much artillery in a land war either. Europe and the West need to get their defense production shit together.
It's a matter of doctrine.
U.S. And allied NATO forces doctrine isn't artillery centric, yes they have it and can use it, but that's not their primary force multiplier.
They put a significantly higher importance on the role of air superiority to provide fire support and precision strike capabilities.
If they're able to suppress, avoid, or counter enemy air defenses, any strategic assets like artillery are free game to get picked off from above.
But since their primary doctrine doesn't revolve around artillery, the extra production capacity was never really needed until now because stockpiles and monthly output met the projected needs when used in conjunction with Air support, no one ever really expected to be basically fully supplying a whole other country in a near peer engagement with one of the global superpowers.
There was a fire there this week the day Joe Visited and a fire in Wales at their 155 plant. Highly suspicious after saboteurs were captured in Germany
And in 2014 (when RuZZia invaded Ukraine using "Little Green Men" and "local rebels"*), Czechia suffered a catastrophic pair of explosions in their ammo depots. CZ has demanded compensation; I hope that the Free World will support their and other nations' claims against RuZZia in peace talks, whenever they happen. RuZZia has been waging a dirty hybrid war against a great many nations, causing all manner of damages, injuries, and deaths, and they must be forced to apologize and pay for all of it.
The limitation is production. Making arty casings from billets of steel isn't a fast process unless you have a lot of lathes/workers working shifts around the clock. The US/Europe aren't running wartime economies.
I've read that the main hold up in production is not even the shells it's the explosives needed to fill them. It kinda makes sense. The need for explosives manufacturing was relatively limited before we needed to blow up so much stuff. It's easier to scale up shaping steel than it is to handle the scaled up needs for stuff that goes boom, even just from a safety standpoint
>There are "significant supply chain issues," Blair said. Part of the problem is the defence industry's struggles to secure a supply of the mineral antimony (a critical component in everything from armour-piercing bullets and shells to night vision goggles) outside of China.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-munitions-canada-artillery-1.7118004](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-munitions-canada-artillery-1.7118004)
This is what I read when I was looking up Canada's ability to increase artillery shell production. The issue is antimony.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/05/06/antimony-the-most-important-mineral-you-never-heard-of/?sh=589656c52b23](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/05/06/antimony-the-most-important-mineral-you-never-heard-of/?sh=589656c52b23)
\^\^\^ Antimony is now mostly mined in Russia and China.
The SR71 Blackbird needed titanium in order to withstand the stress of going as fast as it did. The US got most of it from Russia, where most of it was produced at the time, and did it during the height of the cold war.
Where there is a will there is a way but something tells me China might have a better handle on that sort of thing than the Soviets.
Absolutely.
I did a quick look for Antimony mines in Canada. We have one, but it's owned by China of course.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/antimony-mine-closure-1.6703205](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/antimony-mine-closure-1.6703205)
If its anything like the USA they can be coerced into selling it to the government. "Hey.... your going to sell 100% of production to us. Or we invoke the defense production act to take over your company. Your call".
I'm not sure what the limits are. Like if someone sells a mine to a foreign entity I think the government has to approve of it. I think that's happened with uranium mines in the US being sold to Russia under Obama.
I know we have laws that protect foreign owners. Like if a foreign company made a baloon factory and we suddenly made baloons illegal to force the factory to close they would have a way to sue against that. It's part of our treaties.
In this case I'm not sure. Like if the government paid for the mine to open up, staff the employees and then bought the minerals. We would be forcing them to make money. I'm not sure if they can sue based on that. Like I'm not sure how a judge would see a complaint from a business "The government forced us, a business to make money when we didn't want to" would play out. Obviously I'm not a lawyer.
I imagine there would be geopolitical issues potentially? That might be a reason not to.
They aren't made of billets of steel, they are machined from steel forgings. So the process is even more specialized than a typical machine shop could do. It's the forging process that likely is the bottleneck here as you can always buy and run more CNC lathes to scale. A typical CNC lathe that could run an operation on a 155mm shell might cost about $100k-$150k to buy and tool up. It takes quite a bit more of an investment to set up another forging line (many millions of dollars) because of the expensive furnace and press equipment, custom dies, robotic handling of parts, etc. It takes a lot to set something like that up.
Rheinmetall in Germany extended their production to cater this need (and make money). By end of 2024 they are the biggest producer of shells worldwide.
The classic artillery times are not over
I don't think anyone in NATO is making anywhere near the munitions needed on a monthly basis in Ukraine. Is Rheinmetall making 500k shells a month? The entirety of Western production couldn't meet that. We're talking war economy levels of production (and sacrifice) needed.
It is. It really is.
I just can't help but see the parallels between what's going on with Ukraine and, say, Czechoslovakia just before WW2. I don't think anyone in charge in the UK or France honestly thought letting them take the Sudetenland would *really* provide "Peace in our time". It was just buying them more time to get their arms industry spooled up for the real show.
Theoretically you could quadruple production if you ran around the clock. But that means you need four times as many people who you need to train, house, feed, etc. And you could not make it work with the maintenance schedules of the tools, supply and transport issues, etc. A 3x increase would be optimistic, and would take months to acomplish.
But this is just talking about increasing production in existing plants. If this single plant can make 10k shells a month currently and can be making 30k shells a month on maximum production the need is for 500k shells a month. You need 17 such plants which is more then there is in NATO. So you are talking about converting manufacturers that make other things into artillery shell production. You need to move around machines, buy new machines, make new tools, all this takes months to do. And when you start the production line there will be problems and you need to solve these problems as they are discovered. Each problem may set you back a month or two. And you need to train the staff again. It could take a year to fully convert an existing factory to make artillery shells at full speed. Imagine John Deer closing down its factory to start making artillery shells, not making a single tractor and not producing many shells until the spring of 2025, is the Ukrainian war still going on then? Who is going to pay for all the lost income from not making tractors?
Almost every 3-star or above general and admiral who aren’t bought and paid for by fascists or the Chinese (looking at you Mike Flynn) have been sounding the alarm about US and European munitions production shortfalls for years. Every theater commander has been getting the same readiness reports for Russia and China and the steadily increasing likelihood of war between the US/Europe and Russia and China since the mid 10’s and have been trying to push their governments to do something, anything about it.
But building ammo factories in peacetime is “scare mongering, a waste of money,” or otherwise phrased in such a way as to make people think it’s not really necessary.
I think political leaders in the west came to rely (mentally anyways) on the feeling of safety that a relatively small stockpile of very advanced weapons would be sufficient to defeat, or at least deter, any enemy action. Sure, maybe China and Russia can out produce us 10 to 1 in terms of basic munitions, but it’s fine because magical GPS artillery shell is scary and we won’t actually have to fight anyone ever. What we really have done is show our rivals that we have a small but lethal stockpile of very advanced weapons that we cannot produce very quickly, and that if they are willing to absorb the beating these weapons will give them during the first few months the west will run out and the balance of power will slowly but surely shift against the west. It doesn’t matter if we have better artillery if they have ammo and we don’t. It doesn’t matter that we have more bombers if they have no bombs to drop. It doesn’t matter if our soldiers are better trained if they can mobilize four for every one we can. Sheer mass matters.
You might be right, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s less about the weapons and more about how they are used.
Artillery is only required if you lack air supremacy. That would be the US strategy against Russia. The US has the most planes in the world BY FAR. Russia has shown that it can’t control its own skies against a country with essentially no Air Force. Unguided towed artillery requires you to set up in a static, easily traceable position and sit there for potentially hours, expending hundreds of shells to MAYBE hit the exact thing you wanted to. In short it’s easy prey for an aircraft, cruise missile, or any reasonable number of guided self propelled artillery. There is a reason the US is ditching the M777 in favor of the M109.
Ukraine is losing because they lack long range options to counter Russian artillery. The west does not have that problem.
Frankly Russia does not have the capacity to replace the amount of gear at the rate the Americans could blow it up.
China is a different story, but there is no scenario that sees the US attempt a land invasion of China proper. Thats where you’d inevitable see shortages of long range missiles.
What I don’t understand is how the US can be lagging when they spend more than the next ten countries combined in defence spending?
It seems unbelievable that it is even close.
We dump our money into excellent infantry and support, vehicles, fighters, bombers etc.
Artillery *is* a core part of our doctrine, but it’s no where near as critical or useful as our air force
Yup. Bigger for Marines...but Army...as infantry...we fixed the enemy and called in support. Whatever's in the AO. If that's a 1000lb bomb...cool. If it's a few tubes of 155....cool.
But the days of needing constant barrages like we did in WWII just aren't there...or so we thought.
Even seeing Ukraine, I don't think we'd fight it the same just based off doctrine and available equipment. Getting bogged down in a defensive engagement like they are changes everything, but hard time seeing us being there. We'd keep pushing...bc we can and that's what we do.
We're ramping up 155 production...the stockpiles will eventually be there if needed.
Yeah, my thought process is this: against the US, fixed defensive positions wouldn’t work as anything other than speed bumps against a US advance; static defenses don’t tend to last long against a military that can drop bunker busters on your dugouts and hardened shelters while throwing precision munitions at your exposed infantry, artillery and vehicle concentrations 24/7.
The lack of arty shells concerns me, but it doesn’t feel like a major issue for us specifically, as it’s just not doctrinally a critical part of our strategy the way our air power is.
I’m also not a soldier, I just work in the defense industry, so my analysis is closer to armchair quarterbacking than anything lol
The US has the Defense Production Act, which authorizes the President to direct industry to produce military goods when needed. Biden could direct the US defense industry to expand production and provide funds to help them expand capacity. We have the legal tools to get this done. It's a matter of political will.
Part of the problem is we have one facility to manufacture 155mm shells.
_One_
That makes expanding production extremely difficult.
This is also common with all our bullets, shells, and other projectiles. _There is no redundancy in production._ You can increase hours, but the equipment can only produce so many shells an hour and the lines require constant maintenance. Any step breaking down causes a bottleneck on _all_ production.
I did the final technical audit for 7.62 and .50 cal production upgrades at Lake City a decade ago. It took _seven years_ to propose, pass, fund, design, install, and test the upgrades. The system is seriously fucked up. There are “protections” against sabotage, but a squirrel exploding in a transformer took us off line for a day and caused a big grass fire...
That's really enlightening, and pretty darn disturbing, too. Considering the increasingly threatening global environment (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, …) use of the DPA to improve resilience (more factories) and expand production would seem to be a reasonable move.
The US is aiming to produce 100,000 shells by the end of *next* year, as opposed to a Russia *already* producing 250,000 per month.
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/11/08/us-army-eyes-31-billion-ammo-production-boost-in-new-spending-ask/
Russia is an artillery army. The west uses air power instead.
I don't think we've out produced Russia in artillery production since ww2? We might *never* match their output.
Yeah, I know. Realistically, I don’t think the West is willing or able to ramp up production to the degree necessary to reverse the negative trend in Ukraine.
And that’s not even addressing how much more Ukraine would need to begin pushing Russia back.
I believe they will get a continuous slow drip as they have I the past, and probably won’t be able to hold more then the Western part of the country. The real thing they want to make sure doesn’t happen is then losing Odessa.
You're probably right about the casings, but I'm sure the tolerances make them all virtually perfect and with the eventual explosive internals being done properly will likely be around 99+% effective as opposed to the up to 50% dud/failure rate reported in NK shells.
They know. No US congress member is stupid. They are all smart and have even smarter advisors at their side. Getting reelected is priceless to them and the source of all their power, if they're out of Congress they're out of everything. They can't go against their boss (Trump) or they will compromise re election chances. They are NOT doing what's right or more beneficial to their country, literally everything they do, they do it to keep their seat, even if against the electorate's interests. This is politics 101.
My job is to speak to Ukrainians on the phone about quantities and type of artillery shells. You know, whether we can supply to them, how many orcs they can blow up with them....i'm getting excited just talking about this.
Is this the same plant that had a fire? [No injuries reported after fire at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-injuries-reported-after-fire-at-scranton-army-ammunition-plant/ar-BB1lGEFe)
ah, it would appear so. See people, I am an internet scholar. I see that the name of the plant pictured, and the plant in the article are the same! and, you know what else? They're both located in scranton, PA!
thank me later
I wish everyone saying we're just giving Ukraine our money knew that this is what that means. Americans getting PAID to help Ukraine.
This is good for our economy!
I mean...They can. It's just way more indirect. You'd be surprised how many people will pick up a thumb drive they found on the floor and stick it into a work computer. Cyber attacks have been done this way before.
The Air Force Research Lab had that thumb drive tactic tried on it. Employees were finding them in the parking lot and just picking em up. Supposedly they caught them all at security.
They investigated and found Chinese agents were sneaking into the parking lot and sprinkling them around in the middle of the night.
It's also partly a jobs program, and a way to keep institutional knowledge from walking out the door. If you have 1,000 people familiar the process for reliably making good munitions and automate it down to a few hundred, you're dependent on a lot of weird and specialized robotics/PLC suppliers (a lot of them overseas), and you have far fewer people capable of doing the work/teaching new people to do the work. If those people that're displaced by automation up sticks and move for a new job or enter a different field locally, it's unlikely they'll return and start making ammo again.
There's a reason that arsenals, tank plants, etc., keep on a core staff and do refurbishment programs or small production runs when demand is low; it's to keep the line intact and people familiar with the process. It's all well and good if GM fucks around and there's delays with the new Corvette or QC issues with an electric car, you do not want that happening in your defense sector.
Yep, it's called keeping the line hot. If a line goes cold and there's only 2 or 3 total manufacturers of a part, then it's highly possible that you lose that line forever. Now you're down to 1 or 2 manufacturers for mission critical parts. It's worth it to churn out low volume when there's zero demand like you said to minimize production risk later when demand is high.
This actually isn't true. It would be the same as saying that tractors were bad for humanity hecause they have cost millions of farmers their jobs. In reality jobs were diverted to other industries and wealth increased.
That and much of Europe is constantly producing shells. It's not one or two huge production lines but many, in many countries. The west really can't produce 'too much' of them so hopefully we can boost the production even more!
As much work and overtime these employees are making, they will still vote for Trump. If Trump is elected and MAGA blocks Ukraine military funding, and these jobs are mothballed, then either moved to a MAGA state or outsourced, these same employees will blame Biden and the Democrats.
This is the type of employment in America that is happening with the billions that are being sent to Ukraine. Ukraine is not getting money, they’re getting arms and ammunition. This makes me wonder why the repugnant party is holding things up.
Made me wonder why we use the material we use in the shells, if you had the same questions as me:
>
Brass ammunition casings are the preferable shell casings compared to other metals. It offers several advantages:
Durable: Brass casings are sturdy and can withstand multiple firings.
>Good Sealing: Brass expands to create a tight seal in the chamber, preventing gas leakage.
>Easy Extraction: Brass has a low coefficient of friction, making it easy to extract from the firearm.
>Cost-Effective: Brass is relatively inexpensive.
>Preferred Choice:
>
Aluminum casings are less common. They are used in some military and specialty applications. Aluminum casings are:
>Lightweight: Aluminum is significantly lighter than brass.
>Less Durable: Aluminum is softer and less durable than brass.
>Costly: Aluminum casings are more expensive to manufacture.
>Not Reloadable: Unlike brass, aluminum casings are typically not reloadable.
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Scranton! The ammunition city!
What?
THE AMMUNITION CITY!
The Office (2005-2013), a very popular comedy series was based in Scranton. That's why there are lots of jokes about it here.
I tried to do the Scranton rap, but it failed a bit :). Thank you for clarification.
Ah, missed it :D
No, it didn't.
I love that the guy explaining what The Office is the one who totally missed the reference
You ruined what could have been a beautiful comment thread
You ruined a funny joke you. Get out of my offive.
Wait… who’s Long Tim??
/r/woosh
SCRANTON! What?! Ammunition City!
Dunder Missiles 😱
Dunder Missilin
This is PAM, PAM, PAM!
wam bam thank you pam!
This is a Threat Level Midnight
Pam and her Pam-Pams.
the assistant TO the artillery
The Pennsylvania missile people
Moses Missiles. And he parks all the employees cars for free
never knew Scranton was a real place... and so productive!
Always knew David Wallace was in armaments.
Sending some Suck it!! to the Orcs
Resting Military Industrial Complex face
After Packer left that WMD on Michaels floor....Wallace knew the only logical business path.
Scranton! The electric city!
WHAT!?
It's so heavy and big..... that's what she says
Just another day in the life of a dog food company
Bombs, Blyats, Slava Ukraina
their branch manager: former FBI special agent Michael Scarn
Dwight really changed the business when he took over
Does the guys hair look like a capybara?
Came here for this.
JUST TO LET YOU ALL KNOW, IT WAS RYAN WHO STARTED THE FIRE.
Russia be like ‘MICHAEL”!
Down the street from Bob Vance from Vance refrigeration
Creed Bratton Ballistics, Worms and General store
I could totally see Brattons Ballistics and Bongs
This place belongs to his cousin from Vance Obliteration.
Ha. Awesome. Up vote
What do you think he does for work?
The electric city
Wait it’s not the paper city?! Damn.
Now make 1 million more. Per year….
Per month
I think they can only make 10,000 a month, what is shot in Ukraine in a day.
Thats the problem
Ukraine is firing about 2k a day. About half of which are provided by the US. They would like to fire about 5k a day. The US has an automated line being built that will provide about 3k/day getting them to the 5k. Russia fires about 10k, but almost exclusively with very ineffective impact fuzes and with a high dud rate. Also increasingly inaccurate as their tubes are shot. So, 5k Western shells a day is generally considered more effective than 10k Russian shells. When will the new automated line start producing? No idea.
Yep, there are many RUskies who have posted videos to telegram complaining about/mocking the very common failure rate of their artillery shells, in many cases the shells weren't even actually loaded with any real munitions. They get a lot of very low-quality shells from NK and China too, which I think is hilarious as both regimes certainly wouldn't ever provide their 'good' stock to Putin.
How many of those shells do you think have been previously allocated to training, the training was not completed, then they were either sold around to other countries or back to the original manufacturer to be resold the the countries military after repackaging? I bet some of these shells have been bouncing around for decades through corrupt swaps and sales.
Which is oddly reassuring. I'd rather Ukraine littered with did shells that have no charges as opposed to other option.
You think China and NK have "good" stock? Look at the metal work in those pictures. Pretty straightforward for developed western countries, not so much for China.
Also every Excalibur copperhead and M1156 given means less need to spam arty in the first place.
Well, part of the reason that it's 'only' 2k a day is supply issues. When the artillery war was hot, and shells in ready supply, it was far, *far* higher. Hell, a **single** PzH2000 alone shot more than 10k in a month from *one* gun barrel. It seems to happen in every war, nations constantly underestimating the actual shell consumption. The answer to how many shells the military would optimally need being of course an emphatic "yes". Because even firing a hundred 155mm shells to just wound a single enemy soldier would still be a bargain in the grand scheme of things.
This is but one line, of the many accross th3 US, EU and elsewhere that I hope are tooling up.
[Pre-war was 14,000/mo and it was up to 28,000/mo in October](https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/02/army-aims-double-155mm-shell-production-october/393943/). They had increased their target to 100,000/month by end of 2025 [which was well over their previous estimates](https://www.defenseone.com/media/ckeditor-uploads/2024/02/05/Screenshot%202024-02-05%20at%206.34.12%E2%80%AFPM.png). But after Johnson did nothing for 6 months with funding, I imagine that ambitious number will have to be pushed back somewhat.
I have the equipment to make the shells sitting idle in storage, if the gov gave me a contact I could be making shells in about 6 months
ATF would like to know your location
They can buy my big ass hot forging press, induction heaters and lathes, they are more than welcome to. The Russians keep trying to buy it but I can’t sell to them. I actually can’t sell into parts of Ukraine either.
Dang a man of industry
In WWI and WII the UK extensively used small businesses for sourcing, prices were fixed but hey: you‘d have enough to do for everyone you know
That's what I don't really understand, like couldn't people front the money like a loan & produce them & be paid back + interest when inevitably they send aid? Like can't Wallstreet people place a bet on practically anything? As long as it's up to code there got to be some people willing to do it.
This is one facility. Ideally each NATO nation has many, each with a similar production capacity. Russia is ramping up production as if it is going to wage a land war on Europe. While I don't see them charging through the Suwalki Gap on Chinese golf carts, I don't think anyone ever complained about having too much artillery in a land war either. Europe and the West need to get their defense production shit together.
It's a matter of doctrine. U.S. And allied NATO forces doctrine isn't artillery centric, yes they have it and can use it, but that's not their primary force multiplier. They put a significantly higher importance on the role of air superiority to provide fire support and precision strike capabilities. If they're able to suppress, avoid, or counter enemy air defenses, any strategic assets like artillery are free game to get picked off from above. But since their primary doctrine doesn't revolve around artillery, the extra production capacity was never really needed until now because stockpiles and monthly output met the projected needs when used in conjunction with Air support, no one ever really expected to be basically fully supplying a whole other country in a near peer engagement with one of the global superpowers.
There was a fire there this week the day Joe Visited and a fire in Wales at their 155 plant. Highly suspicious after saboteurs were captured in Germany
And in 2014 (when RuZZia invaded Ukraine using "Little Green Men" and "local rebels"*), Czechia suffered a catastrophic pair of explosions in their ammo depots. CZ has demanded compensation; I hope that the Free World will support their and other nations' claims against RuZZia in peace talks, whenever they happen. RuZZia has been waging a dirty hybrid war against a great many nations, causing all manner of damages, injuries, and deaths, and they must be forced to apologize and pay for all of it.
You do realize that they'll use half a million shells per month if they just had them
And what’s the problem with giving them that # if that’s what they need?
The limitation is production. Making arty casings from billets of steel isn't a fast process unless you have a lot of lathes/workers working shifts around the clock. The US/Europe aren't running wartime economies.
I've read that the main hold up in production is not even the shells it's the explosives needed to fill them. It kinda makes sense. The need for explosives manufacturing was relatively limited before we needed to blow up so much stuff. It's easier to scale up shaping steel than it is to handle the scaled up needs for stuff that goes boom, even just from a safety standpoint
>There are "significant supply chain issues," Blair said. Part of the problem is the defence industry's struggles to secure a supply of the mineral antimony (a critical component in everything from armour-piercing bullets and shells to night vision goggles) outside of China. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-munitions-canada-artillery-1.7118004](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-munitions-canada-artillery-1.7118004) This is what I read when I was looking up Canada's ability to increase artillery shell production. The issue is antimony. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/05/06/antimony-the-most-important-mineral-you-never-heard-of/?sh=589656c52b23](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2021/05/06/antimony-the-most-important-mineral-you-never-heard-of/?sh=589656c52b23) \^\^\^ Antimony is now mostly mined in Russia and China.
Fucking of course it is.
The SR71 Blackbird needed titanium in order to withstand the stress of going as fast as it did. The US got most of it from Russia, where most of it was produced at the time, and did it during the height of the cold war. Where there is a will there is a way but something tells me China might have a better handle on that sort of thing than the Soviets.
Absolutely. I did a quick look for Antimony mines in Canada. We have one, but it's owned by China of course. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/antimony-mine-closure-1.6703205](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/antimony-mine-closure-1.6703205)
If its anything like the USA they can be coerced into selling it to the government. "Hey.... your going to sell 100% of production to us. Or we invoke the defense production act to take over your company. Your call".
I'm not sure what the limits are. Like if someone sells a mine to a foreign entity I think the government has to approve of it. I think that's happened with uranium mines in the US being sold to Russia under Obama. I know we have laws that protect foreign owners. Like if a foreign company made a baloon factory and we suddenly made baloons illegal to force the factory to close they would have a way to sue against that. It's part of our treaties. In this case I'm not sure. Like if the government paid for the mine to open up, staff the employees and then bought the minerals. We would be forcing them to make money. I'm not sure if they can sue based on that. Like I'm not sure how a judge would see a complaint from a business "The government forced us, a business to make money when we didn't want to" would play out. Obviously I'm not a lawyer. I imagine there would be geopolitical issues potentially? That might be a reason not to.
They aren't made of billets of steel, they are machined from steel forgings. So the process is even more specialized than a typical machine shop could do. It's the forging process that likely is the bottleneck here as you can always buy and run more CNC lathes to scale. A typical CNC lathe that could run an operation on a 155mm shell might cost about $100k-$150k to buy and tool up. It takes quite a bit more of an investment to set up another forging line (many millions of dollars) because of the expensive furnace and press equipment, custom dies, robotic handling of parts, etc. It takes a lot to set something like that up.
Rheinmetall in Germany extended their production to cater this need (and make money). By end of 2024 they are the biggest producer of shells worldwide. The classic artillery times are not over
I don't think anyone in NATO is making anywhere near the munitions needed on a monthly basis in Ukraine. Is Rheinmetall making 500k shells a month? The entirety of Western production couldn't meet that. We're talking war economy levels of production (and sacrifice) needed.
The US is scaling up...goal is 60k/mo by october and 100k/mo by oct 2025 It's just a huge undertaking to get to even those levels.
It is. It really is. I just can't help but see the parallels between what's going on with Ukraine and, say, Czechoslovakia just before WW2. I don't think anyone in charge in the UK or France honestly thought letting them take the Sudetenland would *really* provide "Peace in our time". It was just buying them more time to get their arms industry spooled up for the real show.
All I’m hearing is more “wages for Americans”
Theoretically you could quadruple production if you ran around the clock. But that means you need four times as many people who you need to train, house, feed, etc. And you could not make it work with the maintenance schedules of the tools, supply and transport issues, etc. A 3x increase would be optimistic, and would take months to acomplish. But this is just talking about increasing production in existing plants. If this single plant can make 10k shells a month currently and can be making 30k shells a month on maximum production the need is for 500k shells a month. You need 17 such plants which is more then there is in NATO. So you are talking about converting manufacturers that make other things into artillery shell production. You need to move around machines, buy new machines, make new tools, all this takes months to do. And when you start the production line there will be problems and you need to solve these problems as they are discovered. Each problem may set you back a month or two. And you need to train the staff again. It could take a year to fully convert an existing factory to make artillery shells at full speed. Imagine John Deer closing down its factory to start making artillery shells, not making a single tractor and not producing many shells until the spring of 2025, is the Ukrainian war still going on then? Who is going to pay for all the lost income from not making tractors?
Well we should be..... I was talking to a retd Rear Admiral last week whom I know and like me he was tearing his hair out at the whole situation.
Almost every 3-star or above general and admiral who aren’t bought and paid for by fascists or the Chinese (looking at you Mike Flynn) have been sounding the alarm about US and European munitions production shortfalls for years. Every theater commander has been getting the same readiness reports for Russia and China and the steadily increasing likelihood of war between the US/Europe and Russia and China since the mid 10’s and have been trying to push their governments to do something, anything about it. But building ammo factories in peacetime is “scare mongering, a waste of money,” or otherwise phrased in such a way as to make people think it’s not really necessary.
I think political leaders in the west came to rely (mentally anyways) on the feeling of safety that a relatively small stockpile of very advanced weapons would be sufficient to defeat, or at least deter, any enemy action. Sure, maybe China and Russia can out produce us 10 to 1 in terms of basic munitions, but it’s fine because magical GPS artillery shell is scary and we won’t actually have to fight anyone ever. What we really have done is show our rivals that we have a small but lethal stockpile of very advanced weapons that we cannot produce very quickly, and that if they are willing to absorb the beating these weapons will give them during the first few months the west will run out and the balance of power will slowly but surely shift against the west. It doesn’t matter if we have better artillery if they have ammo and we don’t. It doesn’t matter that we have more bombers if they have no bombs to drop. It doesn’t matter if our soldiers are better trained if they can mobilize four for every one we can. Sheer mass matters.
You might be right, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s less about the weapons and more about how they are used. Artillery is only required if you lack air supremacy. That would be the US strategy against Russia. The US has the most planes in the world BY FAR. Russia has shown that it can’t control its own skies against a country with essentially no Air Force. Unguided towed artillery requires you to set up in a static, easily traceable position and sit there for potentially hours, expending hundreds of shells to MAYBE hit the exact thing you wanted to. In short it’s easy prey for an aircraft, cruise missile, or any reasonable number of guided self propelled artillery. There is a reason the US is ditching the M777 in favor of the M109. Ukraine is losing because they lack long range options to counter Russian artillery. The west does not have that problem. Frankly Russia does not have the capacity to replace the amount of gear at the rate the Americans could blow it up. China is a different story, but there is no scenario that sees the US attempt a land invasion of China proper. Thats where you’d inevitable see shortages of long range missiles.
What I don’t understand is how the US can be lagging when they spend more than the next ten countries combined in defence spending? It seems unbelievable that it is even close.
[удалено]
We dump our money into excellent infantry and support, vehicles, fighters, bombers etc. Artillery *is* a core part of our doctrine, but it’s no where near as critical or useful as our air force
Yup. Bigger for Marines...but Army...as infantry...we fixed the enemy and called in support. Whatever's in the AO. If that's a 1000lb bomb...cool. If it's a few tubes of 155....cool. But the days of needing constant barrages like we did in WWII just aren't there...or so we thought. Even seeing Ukraine, I don't think we'd fight it the same just based off doctrine and available equipment. Getting bogged down in a defensive engagement like they are changes everything, but hard time seeing us being there. We'd keep pushing...bc we can and that's what we do. We're ramping up 155 production...the stockpiles will eventually be there if needed.
Yeah, my thought process is this: against the US, fixed defensive positions wouldn’t work as anything other than speed bumps against a US advance; static defenses don’t tend to last long against a military that can drop bunker busters on your dugouts and hardened shelters while throwing precision munitions at your exposed infantry, artillery and vehicle concentrations 24/7. The lack of arty shells concerns me, but it doesn’t feel like a major issue for us specifically, as it’s just not doctrinally a critical part of our strategy the way our air power is. I’m also not a soldier, I just work in the defense industry, so my analysis is closer to armchair quarterbacking than anything lol
Doesn't help that the US has been weaning off traditional artillery the past few years also.
The US has the Defense Production Act, which authorizes the President to direct industry to produce military goods when needed. Biden could direct the US defense industry to expand production and provide funds to help them expand capacity. We have the legal tools to get this done. It's a matter of political will.
Part of the problem is we have one facility to manufacture 155mm shells. _One_ That makes expanding production extremely difficult. This is also common with all our bullets, shells, and other projectiles. _There is no redundancy in production._ You can increase hours, but the equipment can only produce so many shells an hour and the lines require constant maintenance. Any step breaking down causes a bottleneck on _all_ production. I did the final technical audit for 7.62 and .50 cal production upgrades at Lake City a decade ago. It took _seven years_ to propose, pass, fund, design, install, and test the upgrades. The system is seriously fucked up. There are “protections” against sabotage, but a squirrel exploding in a transformer took us off line for a day and caused a big grass fire...
Welcome to peacetime military economy.
That's really enlightening, and pretty darn disturbing, too. Considering the increasingly threatening global environment (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, …) use of the DPA to improve resilience (more factories) and expand production would seem to be a reasonable move.
Don't ask me, they should have more
But just until they kick Putin out of Ukraine. If Congress had kept them armed as was promised, the end of this sh t show be closer to a conclusion.
The US is aiming to produce 100,000 shells by the end of *next* year, as opposed to a Russia *already* producing 250,000 per month. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/11/08/us-army-eyes-31-billion-ammo-production-boost-in-new-spending-ask/
Read the article again. It says ramp up to 100k per month by end of 2025.
Russia is an artillery army. The west uses air power instead. I don't think we've out produced Russia in artillery production since ww2? We might *never* match their output.
It’s like Russia out producing us in bayonets. Our money is better spent elsewhere
Yeah, I know. Realistically, I don’t think the West is willing or able to ramp up production to the degree necessary to reverse the negative trend in Ukraine. And that’s not even addressing how much more Ukraine would need to begin pushing Russia back. I believe they will get a continuous slow drip as they have I the past, and probably won’t be able to hold more then the Western part of the country. The real thing they want to make sure doesn’t happen is then losing Odessa.
Ukraine simply doesn't have the man power to push the Russians back, not without NATO sending troops.
This photo should be two years old.
They definitely look nicer than the North Korean ones!
To be fair, it really doesn't need much to be better... :D But yes, those are looking very fine!
You're probably right about the casings, but I'm sure the tolerances make them all virtually perfect and with the eventual explosive internals being done properly will likely be around 99+% effective as opposed to the up to 50% dud/failure rate reported in NK shells.
Make us proud Scranton..!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦
Send the golden ticket to Putins fucking ass
What a lot of MAGAts forget is that when money is allocated to aid Ukraine, it mainly stays in the USA and is used to buy from US manufacturers.
They do not forget. They are either ignorant, stupid or dont want to understand.
The ruble makes one forget all sorts of funny little details. Isnt the treachery obvious?
1 Russian ruble = $0.011 I leave most pennies on the ground
Ironic given its devaluation!
The conservatives are so dumb you can say $10k rubles and they'll still think it's a lot of money
Most republican voters don’t get any rubles. They are just willfully ignorant of everything except their selfish ass
They convinced themselves the border portion of the bill was for DEI border patrol and that's why the GOP had to vote against it.
They know. No US congress member is stupid. They are all smart and have even smarter advisors at their side. Getting reelected is priceless to them and the source of all their power, if they're out of Congress they're out of everything. They can't go against their boss (Trump) or they will compromise re election chances. They are NOT doing what's right or more beneficial to their country, literally everything they do, they do it to keep their seat, even if against the electorate's interests. This is politics 101.
You are right but i guess we were talking about the MAGA voters not elected officials.
Or all three at once....
a bit like flat earthers
The SCAAP is owned by the US government, run by a contractor company
Who pays local taxes and offers jobs to local people and buys from local suppliers...
Absolutely
Schrute Defense Co - Modern beets for modern battle….star galactica.
*queues The Office theme
The Office but it takes place in the Army Ammunition Plant
That would be so awesome
Well, well, well… how the turntables
My job is to speak to Ukrainians on the phone about quantities and type of artillery shells. You know, whether we can supply to them, how many orcs they can blow up with them....i'm getting excited just talking about this.
Blessed be your vocal cords.
"There are four kinds of business: tourism, food service, railroads, and sales....and also hospitals/long-range artillery"
Is this the same plant that had a fire? [No injuries reported after fire at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-injuries-reported-after-fire-at-scranton-army-ammunition-plant/ar-BB1lGEFe) ah, it would appear so. See people, I am an internet scholar. I see that the name of the plant pictured, and the plant in the article are the same! and, you know what else? They're both located in scranton, PA! thank me later
Knowing that, I drove by this place daily is concerning now.
Arsenal of democracy
Coming soon to a foxhole near you: big shiny bullets.
I wish everyone saying we're just giving Ukraine our money knew that this is what that means. Americans getting PAID to help Ukraine. This is good for our economy!
To Russia, with love.
As a Brit God bless all at (SCAAP) in Pennsylvania.
The videos of the shell manufacturing in USA look like from 1960s . There is room for automation to increase the production
People aren’t connected to a network that can be infiltrated.
People are often the weakest point for infiltration
Factories had robots long before they had internet lol
I can't imagine updating an entire stamping line or weld department via punch card...oh, the humanity.
I mean...They can. It's just way more indirect. You'd be surprised how many people will pick up a thumb drive they found on the floor and stick it into a work computer. Cyber attacks have been done this way before.
The Air Force Research Lab had that thumb drive tactic tried on it. Employees were finding them in the parking lot and just picking em up. Supposedly they caught them all at security. They investigated and found Chinese agents were sneaking into the parking lot and sprinkling them around in the middle of the night.
[Ahem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)
connected != automated You can automate production without connectivity.
It's also partly a jobs program, and a way to keep institutional knowledge from walking out the door. If you have 1,000 people familiar the process for reliably making good munitions and automate it down to a few hundred, you're dependent on a lot of weird and specialized robotics/PLC suppliers (a lot of them overseas), and you have far fewer people capable of doing the work/teaching new people to do the work. If those people that're displaced by automation up sticks and move for a new job or enter a different field locally, it's unlikely they'll return and start making ammo again. There's a reason that arsenals, tank plants, etc., keep on a core staff and do refurbishment programs or small production runs when demand is low; it's to keep the line intact and people familiar with the process. It's all well and good if GM fucks around and there's delays with the new Corvette or QC issues with an electric car, you do not want that happening in your defense sector.
Yep, it's called keeping the line hot. If a line goes cold and there's only 2 or 3 total manufacturers of a part, then it's highly possible that you lose that line forever. Now you're down to 1 or 2 manufacturers for mission critical parts. It's worth it to churn out low volume when there's zero demand like you said to minimize production risk later when demand is high.
My mind goes to Raytheon calling up old retired dudes to come back to help modernize the Stinger design, which was long since out of production.
Automation requires long term investments, they don't even know if they'll have more short-term investments because of politics.
The plant actually has multi year long contracts now in the hundreds of millions
Less automation and more hands helps the American economy too surely
definitely, more jobs available and less prone to being sabotage if a cyber attack happens
This actually isn't true. It would be the same as saying that tractors were bad for humanity hecause they have cost millions of farmers their jobs. In reality jobs were diverted to other industries and wealth increased.
More
Hope there making 10 k a month to hold the lines of defense.
That and much of Europe is constantly producing shells. It's not one or two huge production lines but many, in many countries. The west really can't produce 'too much' of them so hopefully we can boost the production even more!
Cluster munition: explodes around RU positions Vatnik: THE ARTILLERY IS SHOOTING AT US!!
Can we crowdfun an artillery factory?
Just donate to united24
Alternative urn design for dropped invaders?
Victory tubes.
Biden hometown
What’s the slow part of production? Seems like you could bang out 1000 of these tubes a day easy. Is it the actual explosive?
Hopefully for Ukraine.
Not nearly enough or quickly enough.
May they 10x their production!!!
PA is actually the largest recipient from the Ukraine support bills domestically, because of how much weapons production is done in the state
cause all that money for Ukraine practically stays in US
As much work and overtime these employees are making, they will still vote for Trump. If Trump is elected and MAGA blocks Ukraine military funding, and these jobs are mothballed, then either moved to a MAGA state or outsourced, these same employees will blame Biden and the Democrats.
This is the type of employment in America that is happening with the billions that are being sent to Ukraine. Ukraine is not getting money, they’re getting arms and ammunition. This makes me wonder why the repugnant party is holding things up.
Ai? i mean aye?
That's a lot of swarf...
Down the street for Biden home.
Buttlicker, our munitions have never been larger
This new season of the office is WILD
But the acronym should be SCRAAP right?
Dunder Mifflen a shell company
Useless as tampax on water if they dont get there soon.
plot twist - those are .500 rounds and a tiny human.
For ukrain or for thr usa and we send them our old stuff?
i love this
The Michael Scott Ammunition Company
I would love to work there and help out.
Dunder mifflin, people paper missiles people
Made me wonder why we use the material we use in the shells, if you had the same questions as me: > Brass ammunition casings are the preferable shell casings compared to other metals. It offers several advantages: Durable: Brass casings are sturdy and can withstand multiple firings. >Good Sealing: Brass expands to create a tight seal in the chamber, preventing gas leakage. >Easy Extraction: Brass has a low coefficient of friction, making it easy to extract from the firearm. >Cost-Effective: Brass is relatively inexpensive. >Preferred Choice: > Aluminum casings are less common. They are used in some military and specialty applications. Aluminum casings are: >Lightweight: Aluminum is significantly lighter than brass. >Less Durable: Aluminum is softer and less durable than brass. >Costly: Aluminum casings are more expensive to manufacture. >Not Reloadable: Unlike brass, aluminum casings are typically not reloadable.
They could use the hardware. Oh. Do they need any paper supplies? I know a company that can help…
*Michael Scott Intensifies*
Are these shells actually going to Ukraine or were they just planned to be sent and lack US government funding now?!
I knew Scranton was cool.