If one must fight a conventional ground war against a near-peer opponent, one must make sure they have superior firepower.
The ability to produce and supply millions of artillery rounds and more millions of bombs is the deciding factor.
“Ukraine is burning through ammunition for 155mm howitzers quickly and it is leaving the United States in a bind, according to a new report by think tank CSIS.”
Pretty OBVIOUS what happened here. The Leftist Dweebs who are running the country figured that they could send most of our ground weapons to Ukraine and then simply backfill them by making a phone call or two to Big Defense.
What they found out is that they were right...except that their answers also included timelines of 5 to 10 years to fully replace.
I expect the Neocon Supporters, rather than address the STUPIDITY of their idols, will claim, without evidence, that it Russia is running out weapons even faster than us.
Xi is patient.
Hmmm... So just think. How many years will it take Russia to replenish their military’s losses... Tanks, Jets, Ammo, Soldiers... They’ve lost a hullava lot more military equipment and weapons than the west has.
The end is nigh for Putin... It’s just a matter of time.
Joe will refuse to replenish ammo because the price is too high...just like the SPR recently.
I swear, I think he’s depleting our defensive capability because he wants to give America to China.
What utter tripe. It’s the Russians that are running out of stuff including people.
We won’t be able to defend ourselves from the cartels... They’re probably next. They’ve already propositioned their army around the US...
The globalists’ plan is coming together. Whatever hurts America is their objective.
Don’t want USA to run out of ammo... but it would be nice if we ran out of $’s to send to Ukraine.
“This condition would be untenable for the Ukrainians as the current heavy fighting in the Donetsk region, especially around the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar, require significant artillery fire since Russian soldiers are advancing in waves.”
I guess on the bright side that the fighting for Soledar seems to have ended, now that Russia has liberated the town.
Simply a failure to build more capacity to produce 155mm. We're talking WWI tech here. The complexity of the computer guided systems is an issue, but again all it needs is some intelligent attention, although that is sorely lacking in the current procurement system.
The report estimated that Ukraine is firing 143,000 shells a month or close to 4,700 rounds each day. This is unsustainable for the United States. Other militaries among the allied coalition will have to step in at some point to be the sources for artillery rounds
The United States budget is bloated with billions, perhaps trillions of dollars spent (do we actually have the money or is it just printed?) on frivolous stuff and wokeness.
It's all a matter of priorities and politics.
We could easily go to three shifts at the existing armories or even add more armories.
I don't think we'll actually run out, but we could find ourselves pressed against the wall and have to drop other important things to fix the issue.
If you look at the history of the United States, when it comes to defense, this is nothing at all new.
In the Louisiana Maneuvers (War Games) of 1941, which Patton won, BTW, as the opposition commander, many of our troops had to drive cars or trucks with cardboard signs on them saying "Tank" and some troops had broom sticks for machine guns.
Of course, after Dec 7th of the same year, we went on a crash course to make stuff. To today's democrats, we did it before, we can do it again--until we can't. Best get to work, Biden!
How did DOD fail to maintain mandatory minimum inventory for our own defenses?
Putin is in for a disappointment, the Fed Alphabet Agencies have billions of rounds they're saving to use on Americans.
The IRS bought up plenty.
They could send it on over.
$850 billion a year for Defense - and USA is running out of basic 155 artillery shells, HIMARS, TOW missiles and lots of other basic gear after a mere 10 months in Ukraine - with NO US troops involved????
Just more proof of the absolute bloated, insider waste and corruption of Fed.gov, of which DOD is the worst offender.
“what if America has to fight a war?”
Darn, you mean we might have to wait a few more years to invade some other country in the Middle East?
“China should pounce now...”
I think if we have to fight China, the whole war will be decided on the seas, not with 155mm howitzers.
all the tubes will be shotout before that happens...