The US is trying to train Ukrainians to change the way they fight so they use fewer artillery munitions as NATO says its stockpiles are dwindling. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin detailed the efforts after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact group in Brussels on Tuesday.
“We are working with the Ukrainian soldiers in various places throughout Europe to emphasize additional training on maneuver so that as they place more emphasis on maneuver and shaping the battlefield with fires and then maneuvering, there’s a good chance that they’ll require less artillery munitions, but that’s left to be seen,” Austin told reporters.
The defense secretary acknowledged that Ukraine has used “a lot of artillery ammunition” and said the US is doing everything it can to keep the ammo flowing. “We’re going to do everything we can, working with our international partners, to ensure that we get them as much ammunition as quickly as possible and that we’ll do everything we can to sustain our efforts there as well,” he said.
The US has sent Ukraine an enormous amount of artillery ammunition, specifically 155mm shells. As a result, the Pentagon is planning to increase its production of artillery shells by 500% over the next two years to meet the Ukrainian demand and also maintain Pentagon stockpiles.
But even with the steps to increase production, it’s not clear if the policy of flooding Ukraine with weapons and ammo is sustainable. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that Ukraine is using way more munitions than the alliance can produce.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting allied stockpiles,” Stoltenberg said. “The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production, and this puts our defense industries under strain.”
Is this how the Nazis will turn it around and win? 😂 😂 😂
Nah, Russia cannot turn this around.
By turning around they’ll live longer.. That’s what “Boss Man” Austin means by “maneuver“.
Has anyone suggested blanks?
But you still have to make them … we can’t make anything unless there’s a very high profit margin to it.
Do you doubt the MIC’s ability to produce very expensive, high-margin, leading edge, advanced 4th-generation blanks?
The blanks could still kill people. Alec Baldwin killed Halyna Hutchins with one.
For all sides in all wars.
Russia has, especially on civilians.
John Mearsheimer has been telling everyone paying attention, since 2015, that the US has been leading Ukraine down the primrose path. Of course, not many were paying attention. Not enough are paying attention now.
As readers of the Christian New Testament or of Shakespeare may recall, the idiom refers to a path that leads to more than mere unpleasantness.
The cold-hearted cynicism of the scheme cited here is breathtaking.
The sponsor that got them into the mess that is wrecking their country and killing their troops en masse is belatedly admitting to the Ukrainians that it is unable to continue providing, in an artillery-dominated war, even enough materiel to enable it to continue firing one-tenth the rounds its opponent routinely fires. Oops.
We might call the “training for maneuver” scheme Plan B, if there was any indication that the US-NATO ever had a Plan A for this disaster, but it’s entirely clear that it did not. In reality, the scheme is a desperate attempt to avoid, for a while longer, a probably unavoidable military failure, an attempt guaranteed to result in more unnecessary suffering, death and destruction.
And maybe that’s a good thing. Let the War Party have it’s way for now. It might just be the most effective way to be rid of them.. Hanging from a scaffold as cheers from the mob of widows and orphans gathered become louder.
One of these days, they’ll finally screw up so badly that they can’t walk away, dump the mess into the memory hole and move on to the next misadventure. Simultaneously taking on Russia, China and Iran, together with the standard assortment of smaller targets, sure looks like a big misstep in the right wrong direction.
One of those days is nigh.
First, awfully idealistic of you. When Hitler’s germany had run out of power to make war, did it end war? no, just shifted where it was, from in europe to elsewhere. Empires failing isn’t a solution to war.
Second, even if the premise was true, it’s not worth the lives lost.
Instead of feeling smug that the war party will destroy itself eventually, it’s only a matter of time and how many people they slaughter first, it is incumbent on us to oppose this at every turn. It is wrong to “Let the war party have it’s way” for now or ever.
If we can’t let the war parties destroy themselves from within, we must destroy the war parties ourselves. We would have to do it without risking or losing lives, hold them accountable for war crimes and environmental crimes by sending them to the ICC for life and electing parties that will reverse all the damage they caused and see to it that no more damage will be caused.
This is a false dichotomy. “Either we do nothing at all, or we overthrow the whole thing!”
People can and should do little things to minimize the death cause by war.
If you’re an AMERIKKKAN, try contacting your congresspeople. You’ll receive a form letter in return.
Don’t you just love my spelling ability? 😁
The Regime hasn’t listened to the public since—wait for it—-Vietnam.
Additionally, a significant majority of Amerikkkans still support this war compared to those who oppose it.
During Vietnam, the consensus was nearly unanimous.
Stop making yourself look like an idiot with the whole “Amerikkkan” nonsense.
Nothing you said attempts to address my claim, or even has anything to do with anything we were discussing. So why on earth you are currently bringing it up is beyond me.
You can make the public say anything you want to when you phrase the question right. Ask the public if they want a negotiated end to the war, and the majority are “against” the war. Ask the public if america should support Ukraine, and those very same people are “for” the war. Poll have nothing to do with the real opinions of people so much as the implied opinions of the questions themselves.
Stop making YOUR self look like an idiot by claiming that my remark has no factual basis. If you think a few people protesting this war is gonna make a hill of beans worth of difference, there’s a bridge across the Straits of Mackinaw I’d be willing to sell you at a bargain price.
As to the spelling of “Amerikkka”, with its three K’s, I’ll continue to employ it until there is equal justice applied to every race who resides here. A black kid walking through a white neighborhood with a pack of Skittles is murdered by a vigilante who is then found not guilty of committing a crime. How’s that grab ya?
If “Summerhays” is your actual surname, I’m guessing you’re a whiter-than -white WASP who is pissed off over losing his “white man’s privilege “.
Tough break for the innocent civilians but place the blame where it’s belongs.
For the Republic, the demise of the Empire is essential to its own survival and if that demise comes about by suicide – all the better.
YES Adolfo!
Guillotines work too…
But a bit of a mess. They’re both renewable!
YES Adolfo!
Guillotines work too…
When most of were a lot younger there was a great Bumper Sticker that read”We would all live better if the Air Force had to have a bake sale to buy bombers: Sounds like a plan.
It was originally created for an International Women’s Day in the 70s. There are lots of variations still out there, along with reproductions of various versions of the original. Here’s the bumper sticker version:
https://www.peaceproject.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/700wide-500-high/S116.jpg
Good one, Red! I recall that one 🙂
I don’t know about you but I prefer to live free in the USA instead of under the thumb of a foreign power.
Your standard answer for everything. We need an $858 billion dollar defense budget otherwise we’ll be living under the thumb of a foreign power. The propaganda machine doesn’t have to try very hard with you. Now, hurry, go hide under your bed.
👍
We are under thumb of a foreign power; the MIC, CIA collusion. Foreign to peace.
We are also under the thumbs of three more foreign powers: Saudi Arabia, Ukraine & Israel.
somehow, we “lived free” in the USA before 1940 w/o a national security state hoovering our tax money up and destroying our liberty at home and abroad.
Thats funny… it doesn’t seem the UK is under the control of a foreign power. Or Germany… or switzerland or spain. Or canada, or mexico.
Why can’t we have a military budget like any of those countries?
The countries you mentioned and many other countries are under the control of the US which is under the control of Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Israel.
So? What’s your point? The fact remains that America is spend way more on the military than it needs to.
Whether these countries don’t spend on their military because America is effectively the military for them doesn’t change that fact. It only makes it all the more obvious. We don’t need to be these other country’s police. Why waste the money?
You ARE under the thumb of a foreign power, numnuts. It’s called IsraHell.
If the US is getting their balls in an uproar over balloons what bare they ngoi8ng to do when their policies inspire or provoke real violence on the home front. Or to take it a step farther out,what happens if all the reports about UFOs are not some fantasy of Science Fiction.lTo assume that there is no life in other Galaxies ,Stars and possibly another Universe is not reasonable. Is this the only planet that got lucky?{sic}
Agree, Wendell!
It is impossible to imagine the largest purveyer of death and destruction the known world has ever seen will run out of ways and methods of killing people that oppose their policies.They have manufactured Biological weapons that do date have not been used a lot.Besides Nature is doing a pretty good job without our help. Only heaven knows what mysterious products have been made and stored.Has anyone noticed that all of the products from big Pharma that help or alleviate health problems with few exceptions have nasty and serious side effects which in some instances are worse then the disease? Not to mention price fixing which is an issue to be addressed by Congress which will never happen. Besides if they run out of bullets they will just use missiles and bombs to destroy mankind.
Also, here’s another valuable advice from the Pentagon. Use Snapchat filters that make you look skinny. You’ll be able to squeeze in between the Russian tanks unharmed. Now run along, you don’t need tanks or F16s. There’s more where that advice came from. (Sarcasm alert)
As I have been saying: Armies win battles, Industrial Production and Logistics wins wars.
Russia is not the West:
Russia has not sent their factories to China or other countries when it comes to production of munitions. In fact, unlike NATO countries that produce and sell munitions to each other, Russia produces it’s munitions in soverign Russia
Last year, Russia was producing 300,000 152 mm
artillery shells a month; while America is still producing only 15,000 155 mm shells a month.
“According to some estimates, Ukraine is firing up to 6,000-8,000 artillery shells each day, around a third of the daily amount that Russia is using almost one year into the war.”
“Russia is firing a staggering 24,000 artillery rounds per day, a senior U.S. defense official estimated, while Ukraine is firing from 4,000 – 6,000.” However, that is only 152 mm artillery shells. The total expenditure by Russia alone is 67,580 according to the Jamestown Foundation think tank.
Why the slow progress by Russia since mobilization to a War footing:
Keep in mind that Ukraine built fortification and defense lines in Eastern Ukraine from 2014 on. The Ukrainian
military has built a warren of defenses with NATO advice and backing. Each house in key cities is a fortification, tranches abound with blockhouses, minefields are ubiquitous, and artillery emplacements
abound.
This fact alone accounts for the Russian’s current slow advance on the front.
https://jamestown.org/program/ukrainian-strikes-cause-moscow-to-re-think-munitions-supply-and-logistics-part-two/
Vladimir Putin is about to win the ammunition war against the West
NATO has little time to ramp up production before Moscow resolves the remaining inertia of its manufacturing base
Jack Watling 14 February 2023 • 6:19pm
The Telegraph
‘The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production,” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’S secretary general, said this week. “This puts our defense industries under strain.” In two sentences he confirmed a major hitch in the West’s efforts to support Kyiv, one that experts have been highlighting since the first months of the war: we are running out of
supplies.
In fact, Ukraine is not using excessive amounts of artillery shells compared with historical conflicts. These shortages are instead a stark demonstration of the hollowing-out of NATO since the end of the Cold War. Now, lifting munitions production cannot be done with an on-off switch – it will require several issues to be resolved concurrently.
The manufacture of artillery ammunition centers around five primary processes: the forging of shell cases; the
production of explosive energetic; charge manufacture; fuse manufacture; and filling.
The first process – forging the cases – is simple and can be expanded through the repurposing of civilian forging
capacity. But making the payload to go in them is far less easy. Firstly, there is the need to secure the relevant raw materials, which are in high demand on the international market and therefore expensive. Secondly, as the product is a high explosive, the factory must meet certain regulatory criteria. Thirdly, the product must have very high-quality control and conform to specified requirements.
The propellant charges, for example, must release energy at a rate that conforms to the tolerances of the system through
which it will be fired and match the power upon which the range tables for the system are based. If the UK were producing 155mm rounds for its own artillery, this would be one problem, but Ukrainian forces use 17 artillery types of both NATO and Soviet legacy design, not all of which we have the technical specifications for.
Moreover, filling and cooling shells is a precise process.
The high explosive must be heated, poured into the shell casing and then cooled at a specified rate so that it does not contain deformities, cavities or cracks. The facility for doing this must be protected from climatic variations. This, again, brings significant regulatory constraints.
Then we have the less-than-favorable economics of the enterprise. Shells are used in vast quantities during wartime and must be cheap. This means the manufacturer makes a small margin of return on each shell. Therefore, in peacetime, the incentive to produce is vastly reduced, since the state requires a small number of shells. Yes, stockpiling is an option, but shells have a shelf life of around 20
years so it can also be wasteful.
Some might say the answer is to have excess capacity.
But this requires companies to keep factory facilities idle for decades, which comes with considerable overheads. Western producers cannot justify absorbing such a cost while facing cuts and being driven to compete for international contracts. Thus, munitions factories have
been shrunk or closed.
Russia also requires vast amounts of ammunition. However, Putin has put his entire economy on a war footing. It is not subject to the same commercial constraints as NATO’s defense industry, and Russian producers are not constrained by concerns over industrial safety. NATO must strive to ramp up production before Moscow resolves the inefficiencies, corruption and inertia of its manufacturing
base.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/14/vladimir-putin-win-ammunition-war-against-west/
The major question that remains to be seen is what is the US going to do when its idiotic gambit fails and Ukraine is destroyed and Europe is ruined economically. It is not the first country that the Military has hurt. Viet Nam,Iraq, Afganistan,Syria,Serbia and the beat goes on.Will the US withdraw the weapons and support from this operation and go home counting their profits and licking their wounds if no Amsericans die. Or is it more likely they will strike somewhere else in a futile effort to save their Empire of War,Destruction,Death and EconomicDomination like China,Iran or South America and Africa?
“Keep in mind that Ukraine built fortification and defense lines in Eastern Ukraine from 2014 ” So what? A modern army would by pass those fortifications in weeks.
The focus of the Russian operation has been the East, Donbas. Prior to the entry of the Russian army, Ukraine (Kiev) had amassed forces at the border of Donbass. Russia could have gone full “shock and awe”, like some countries.
“We are working with the Ukrainian soldiers in various places throughout Europe to emphasize additional training on maneuver so that as they place more emphasis on maneuver and shaping the battlefield with fires and then maneuvering, there’s a good chance that they’ll require less artillery munitions, but that’s left to be seen,” Austin told reporters.
Quite the word salad. Interpretation: Don’t shoot off so many fucking rounds because we don’t have enough in stock to keep up.
Austin could not lead an Army to a Whore House on Sat. night.
I haven’t even read the article yet, but that headline is killing me.
“US training Ukrainians how to use less ammo”…
Like negotiating? is that a good way to use less ammo? or was that not one of america’s recommendations?
Ok, on with the article.
Finish the article. “Negotiations “ was not an option.
It is a war of attrition. Which side runs out of stuff first?
Three guesses, Andrew. First two don’t count.
Like your kitty 🐈⬛ btw🙂
Well, Amerika will not run out first. Billions of dollars get poured on the fire with no push-back from the folks I see around me, here, in the heart of the Empire. Like a parasitized caterpillar, Amerikans are.
THIS explains the article about Blinken acknowledging that Crimea would be a red line.
“The Pentagon is planning to increase its production of artillery shells by 500% over the next two years.”
Unless US has access to the Eye of Horus, Ukraine doesn’t have two years.
Sounds like some right out of the Vietnam era BS to me..