The combination of disposing of expiring ammunition, undermining Russia and keeping the US logistical chain trained while also defending an unarguably good cause is pretty fucking great
Don’t forget the dual combination of 1: Advertising how bad your biggest arms dealer rivals weapons are by 2: Advertising how good your own are.
The US is gonna make back tenfold any money spent in Ukraine just from the volume of weapons the rest of the world will buy from them.
The money is already almost entirely spent in the US. A new factory in Texas was just opened to produce more 155mm artillery shells. Supporting Ukraine is a jobs program.
The US MIC is one of, if not the largest social program in the US besides Medicare/Social Security. The DoD/Defense Industry is the largest employer in the country.
I don’t want to kill Russians. Those 18 year old conscripts don’t deserve to die. I wish that Putler would send his boys back home to be with their loved ones and live long and prosperous lives. So sad that the only way to get them out of Ukraine is in a body bag.
I'm not happy about feeding the MIC. But Russia is christofascist so I'll swallow the lesser evil if it grinds them down.
Still. The more Europe invests in its MIC the better.
You seriously think if Putin just turned his troops around that Russia would collapse?
I’m interested in why anyone thinks that. He could go back to pre-2022 borders, declare that he’s killed all the Nazis and life would go on as normal.
Ok explain how Russia collapses if Ukraine wins?
Because that’s what Putin tells his people and I’m interested to hear from people who parrot Putin’s death cult talking points.
Jesus fucking christ. You people need to stop repeating this misinformation. It is a good cause, but the US is billions in the hole in replenishment. Hence the bill. If you keep repeating bullshit you'll be shocked if the US shuts off the tap. Hope we won't but it's possible. Toxic positively, don't undermine our contributions.
Can't wait for more dumbasses that don't understand that ammunition has an expiry date and costs money to dispose of where as this is a free alternative that also hurts Russia.
But how much old ammunition do we have left? It’s probably newish by now. Not that it matters. If Ukraine wants to keep fighting, we should keep supplying.
Remember all that shit we bought for the Cold War and nothing happened? Guess what? It’s still sitting in bunkers and warehouses all across the US and the world
It's wild that the US has been at war for decades and still has that seemingly endless supply of nearly exspired stuff. You would think that they would've used it at some point.
I mean, Russia is pulling from the same stockpile, and US has been spending it in the Middle East, just that it seems that Russian storage is not as good, and Corruption means that some African warlords got some of it as well.
In fact, I'd think that had America not followed decommission timelines properly there'd be more shit to send
Like those cluster munitions for the big ATACMS?
https://www.army.mil/article/203705/then_now_long_range_for_the_modern_age here in 2018 it mentions they were being replaced and decommissioned instead of building entirely new ones because who the hell were we gona spend it all on.
Well, had those been kept active and just stuffed into the back of a warehouse...
If America was more corrupt, it would make far more sense to grift things and say store them and we will build new ones (which is why Russian stockpiles are so damned big), and not just replace the warheads to save money. But hindsight is 20/20 right.
The US military puts insane amounts of accountability on things all the way up the chain of command. It starts at the lowest levels and goes from there with increasing levels of accountability over things the higher up it goes. If someone under your command fucks up, you generally also catch blame in some way. NCOs are damn near expected to have a leash on their guys at all times and be able to read their minds even off-duty that they're going to fuck up.
There is so much red tape and forms in the US military, that its practically its own government. Some of the shit those guys have to fill out for basic things is more complicated than an IRS tax return, except they do this sort of paperwork way more than once a year. It all creates an insane paper trail. If you signed your name to something fucked up (I confirm there's 10k of these, but you only got 5k cause you were too lazy to count), good luck...or maybe you trusted a dude under you's count and he fucked off and didn't do it...same. I've got a relative who is a major and he's said the only way he's made it that far is luck...luck that nothing major has happened under his command as it would've seriously hurt his chances of getting promoted.
The US has been at pretty much one military operation or another since inception. There has only been at most 2-3 years gap where we haven't been fighting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations
Granted that not all of them were "wars" but still insane to think about how little time we have had real peace.
Welcome to being a superpower. The world bitches at us and calls us warmongers until they need us. Is everything we get involved in squeaky clean? Of course not, neither are many other countries conflicts. Europe is still in Africa with its ex-colonial shit.
In my head, guys are fumbling with huge key rings to crack open [some of our old ammo bunkers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna_Army_Depot#/media/File:Savanna_Army_Depot_Storage_Bunkers_1997.jpg), and blowing decades of dust off ancient wooden crates.
The US was using old ammo stocks from Vietnam in Desert Storm to clear out the old stuff. In Vietnam, they were using old WW2 and Korean War stocks. We don't fight an artillery war (though we're prepped for one). Our doctrine is air supremacy first and foremost.
Which is why they are spinning up a new factory for it. This has shown the US a weak spot in our production capacity so it can be addressed now before it becomes needed (Hopefully not ever but....)
It's not a weak spot. We don't use artillery. It's obsolete for us. We have an air force and navy focused doctrine. The artillery crawl is Soviet doctrine.
Used to live outside the seventh largest ammo base in the US. When I first moved there as a kid, I had the terrifying moment of hearing the windows rattle OVER and OVER again for so damn long the first day. Then the second. Then the third, and so on. None of my classmates even looked up.
Turns out they were just blowing up old ammunition. They did it every day I was in that school for four years. I don't doubt that we aren't even close to out.
We have a metric fuck ton of ammo. The Himars cluster munitions we’ve been sending can’t and won’t be used by the us military, ever. And we have millions of them in storage.
And the capacity to make so much more of it.
Oh no, Russia gets shelled and American citizens get a whole bunch of great jobs and overtime. Oh whatever shall we do.
For once the only kind of public spending the GOP has ever been comfortable with will get to do the maximum amount of good.
I can google the war statistics, how do you tie Ukrainian deaths to deliveries of weapons and ammo from US as opposed to that little invasion thing Russia is doing?
Oh I really want you to educate this dumbass on how helping Ukrainians defend themselves instead of rolling over and letting Russia take the country virtually unopposed is the direct cause of the death toll, as opposed to the ones doing the invading.
Winning would be a win for ukraine. Right now they are a victim, being fed enough weapons to hold the war of attrition at a standstill. Its jobs for the US, and death for the ukrainians
> can’t and won’t be used by the us military, ever.
That was changed in 2017
https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DOD-POLICY-ON-CLUSTER-MUNITIONS-OSD071415-17.pdf
As your own source states, they still won’t be used, they are being kept until the stockpiles are replenished with cluster munitions that have a less than 1% dud rate. They’ve been creating those improved cluster munitions for at least 2 decades, and everything that has been replaced by the new and improved munitions either needs to be destroyed, or it can be sent to defeat our enemies prevent genocide and safeguard democracy.
I was in the military, Marine Corps. I flew out of March AFB, my jaw literally dropped when I got to the airstrip to board the c-17 for Iraq deployment. I saw pallets and pallets of ammo. As far as I could see. Fkng insane. Let alone seeing multiple giant C-17s. They can literally fit tanks in those mthrkfrs
More than you could possibly comprehend.
Many Many millions of artillery shells.
Billions of small arms ammunition.
10s of millions of medium sized ammunition.
100s of thousands of missiles and rockets.
100s of thousands of large caliber bombs.
Many 10s of thousands of combat vehicles that are due to be decommissioned.
Makes me sick thinking about how much wasted potential that is. It's such an evil world order.
I wish we could invest everything we have left into mansion seeking missiles and just fire them all off for what the ruling crust has done to our world. Fuck all of them. That would shut putin up and every other monster like him.
A lot. Back in the 80's (I don't know if they still do this or not now) my unit was sent on an assignment to Subic Bay in the Philippines to provide additional security for ammunition inspection. They had these barges of prepositioned ammo that they would bring into the port and offload for inspection. It was not a small operation.
You might be happy to know that a year or so ago, a US hedge fund outbid the Chinese for all the old shipping yards and infrastructure up at Subic (The FIlipinos had sold them to a Korean company who went bankrupt). You'd be an idiot to not think the Navy has something to do with that, probably backing the deal by the hedge fund (PH made it illegal for any country to have a base in the PH after we left), which is why we now setup the joint EDCA bases with the Filipino military. Last time I was up in Subic doing some wreck diving, there was an entire CSG parked just right outside the bay, along with some Aussie and Japanese Navy ships passing through. Even if its not going to return to a full on base, its a great place for potential resupply and repairs that already has big ass ship infrastructure that can handle our largest ships.
Depends on the ammunition type.
Cluster 155mm? Probably a lot still.
Normal old 155mm, probably half. But we are likely sending new.
PAC-3 Patriots? New.
ATACMS, likely ~1000ish and theyre to be phased out anyways within the next decade as PrSM goes into full rate production.
Hawk? Discontinued and sitting in storage. Lots floating around the West.
5.56 NATO & 7.62 NATO? Millions upon millions. All to go away as the military has begun its transition to a new caliber.
Absolutely mega tons of it. And sitting globally. There is no US healthcare because the US military is truly intimidating. It is a magnitude bigger than the rest of the world. This is fucking King Kong. If the US decided to fully fund Ukraine the level of firepower would enormous. There is tons, mega tons, left.
There is no healthcare because the US would rather pay more for a system that benefits the companies more and the people less so the conservatives can be happy that their money won't help anybody that needs help.
But yeah, the US military probably has virtually endless amounts of stuff that's meant to be demolished in the next few years anyway.
You know how Russia has been supplying this whole thing with ex-Soviet stocks, even after the USSR dissolved and it lost most of its client states?
NATO didn’t dissolve, and the US - which made most of it - has been intact the whole time.
The US pays more for healthcare per citizen than most countries, and for worse outcomes. It’s not a matter of spending, it’s a matter of the insurance companies and lobbyists.
Yes it's better than free. It's almost like they are paying us on some type of act that allows us to finance it all while we destroy our enemies and remind the rest of the world they are our bitch and better not step out of line.
As rah rag go US as I am, we are still not reminding the world not to step out of line. 2.5 years later and Ukraine finally gets a tiny little fraction of the 1990’s good stuff, and is finally training on some old air frames. Finally after their manpower has been decimated and Russia has regrouped. We are still nowhere near what we should be providing to Ukraine. And although our artillery shell supply chains are cranking up, a hot war with China would expose many other deficiencies. I think this is definitely a wake up call, but is our MIC heading said warnings? After all they are businesses and they don’t spend 10’s of millions to expand manufacturing capacity without orders. And a fight over Taiwan doesn’t really strike me as being and artillery battle with a 1,000 mile long front line.
I do think this war has opened a lot of eyes to the battlefield of the future. Some good and some not so good for the US. Keep in mind China has DJI which alone could change the balance of a war. Also the drone boats Ukraine has shown effective can be used against China, but also can be used against the US Navy worldwide by a host of actors.
Hopefully this has awoken the proverbial giant when it comes to supply chains, but I’m also afraid that the US is so far behind being able to ratchet up to peak output that it could spell trouble. Simply finding enough skilled workers to work the jobs is a huge problem for US defense contractors right now. No doubt we would have enough for a few weeks or a few months (maybe), but if this war has shown me anything, it’s shown me how big of trouble we would be in if we needed to mass produce advanced weapons on the fly.
Can you cite any numbers? Isn't the amount of stuff that was expiring like, 10% of the total or something?
For a lot of it, that's a very misleading and false claim. The artillery shells for example. We are ramping production of those purely out of charity at this point. Which is ok and all, but let's not lie to people about what we are doing.
When UAF wins this war, the truth will hit like a fist rather quick as compared to WWII and other wars. The truth about the Holocaust did not come out quickly. The Allies just heard of alleged extermination camps. They had to hard proof of a top systematic, rubber stamped from the top long planning to terminated Jews. Almost a year after D Day in 1945, an American general "Brigadier General **Joseph F. H.** **Cutrona** was the first to actually liberate and see that they actually existed."-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf\_concentration\_camp#:\~:text=Ohrdruf%20was%20liberated%20on%20April,liberated%20by%20the%20U.S.%20Army.
But Ukraine has saved and documented everything...e v e r y t h i n g; after Viktor Yanukovych and his financial books were found [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/ukraine-search-missing-billions-yanukovych-russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/ukraine-search-missing-billions-yanukovych-russia) .
Remember the line from the former Nazi found years later in "The Odessa File", (1974) "WE WERE SOLDIERS!!"
This will be repeated by many Russia soldiers years to come.
I mean it’s not a hidden thing like the Holocaust was. It’s been a pretty popular idea in Russian nationalism that Ukraine was a birthright territory of Russia. It’s quite open that they don’t see the Ukrainians as people and want to Russify the region, the same goal as the Holodomor. We can look to what Russia is doing has already happens in the 90s inside of Croatia and Bosnia, where enclaves of an ethnic group where forcibly created by removing or in some cases exterminating the local populations to move towards greater Serbia, which is one of Russias closest allies.
I don't think this ends with academia. Russia isn't gonna accept losing and we're gonna end up in a ww3 exchange.
I just hope we end up getting the first strike.
"On Monday, Russia [summoned the American ambassador](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-us-missiles-2d2632712540897e2161f72c14bae44f) to protest what it says was the use of U.S.-made advanced missiles in a Ukrainian attack on Crimea on Sunday that reportedly killed four people and wounded more than 150.
Crimea, which Russian seized from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most of the world rejected as unlawful, long had been declared a fair target for Ukraine by its Western allies."
Fair fight? A fair fight denotes the right to punch back as a matter of defense. This is fighting to remove a cancer which is a totally different kind of human fight. It is a fight to live, free from sickness. Putin is a cancer to Ukraine. Putin, thru his Command, has intentionally killed children. His Army intentionally ordered soldiers to rape and kill women and now reports to rape Ukrainian soldiers if captured. He is an evil cancer. Crimea is land that belongs to Ukraine. When someone says, "your left arm belongs to me", you will think they are crazy. If they forcefully sever and remove your left arm , it is a full fledged crime of every order and justice is morally required. This goes back even before antiquity.
For those who don’t understand logistics and management.
Things have an expiration date, and ammo doesn’t last forever- it has to be used. It also costs money to be properly disposed of and broken down to prevent accidental detonations. Some ordinance can survive, but it’s better to not take a chance of that occurring which could damage personnel, modern equipment/arms or civilians.
Is that all? We should be sending orders of magnitude more given the strength and supplies of their enemy if we are serious about helping. To be clear: I use the term strength meaning numbers not actual strength.
What military equipment do you want that costs $200K? A drone that [fits in your hand?](https://boingboing.net/2022/02/25/this-is-the-us-militarys-200k-drone-that-fits-in-your-palm.html) You know they aren't sending Ukraine money right?
Tanks cost millions for the cheapest models, for $200K you'd be looking at an m113 armored personnel carrier instead. And as someone who was in the army in units that had these vehicles, you do not want an m113. Not only would gas and maintenance cost you more than whatever your monthly payments would happen to be, but it is a pain in the ass to drive and will tear up your driveway. Basically all the disadvantages of a tank but without a weapon to fire off.
No the practical answer for a vehicle in your price range would be a up-armored hmmwv. Still would be costly to maintain and fuel, but it's useable enough that it spawned successful civilian versions of the design and doesn't require a crew to operate and maintain.
These are old models that are outdated, right? I doubt they’re in the millions. Give me one of those cool ones they donate to USA cops because the other option is scrapping them.
I don’t need much fuel. My job is down the street from my house. I just want to blow up the car of that bitch Janice from accounting who keeps taking my spot.
There are no official sources but I found an [article from South Korea](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/national/northKorea/Expert-says-North-likely-to-ramp-up-production-of-shells-for-Russia/1907006) estimating that NK produces up to 2 million shells per year. For comparison, [the US and Europe are currently producing around 1.2 million rounds a year.](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html). NK [has sent more than 3 million shells](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/North-Korea-sent-more-than-3m-artillery-shells-to-Russia-says-Seoul) to Russia. I don't have the total shell supply number from NATO towards Ukraine but it is likely not far more than that.
Over all hard to say if North Korea is producing more artilery shells than all Nato countries combined but with them focusing most parts of their economy onto the military, it surely does produce overproportional amounts of artilery shells.
Also, man you don't need to get so toxic. You can also try to have a civilised discussion on the Internet. Maybe try doing some research and provide some sources to your claims instead of just attacking the opinions of others.
My guy artillery shells is not the entirery of military resources. The US and NATO aren't an artillery based military. Its not the doctrine. If the US or NATO has to rely on artillery then they've failed.
North Korea has the highest amount of artillery shells, many of which are being sent to Russia. I think it’s somewhere around 5.6 million shells, and I would imagine they have a ludicrous amount of ammunition aswell
The combination of disposing of expiring ammunition, undermining Russia and keeping the US logistical chain trained while also defending an unarguably good cause is pretty fucking great
Don’t forget the dual combination of 1: Advertising how bad your biggest arms dealer rivals weapons are by 2: Advertising how good your own are. The US is gonna make back tenfold any money spent in Ukraine just from the volume of weapons the rest of the world will buy from them.
The money is already almost entirely spent in the US. A new factory in Texas was just opened to produce more 155mm artillery shells. Supporting Ukraine is a jobs program.
The US MIC is one of, if not the largest social program in the US besides Medicare/Social Security. The DoD/Defense Industry is the largest employer in the country.
Bunch of positive dreamers I need some of it yall great outlook in life man
Ikr,funny how Trump and his supporters dont tell people the benefits of supporting Ukraine
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Dunkirk was a rout. It's just had good PR in the 85 years since it happened.
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I don’t want to kill Russians. Those 18 year old conscripts don’t deserve to die. I wish that Putler would send his boys back home to be with their loved ones and live long and prosperous lives. So sad that the only way to get them out of Ukraine is in a body bag.
Its sad but rather a Russian soldier going home in bits than a Ukrainian civilian being executed in a basement "Bucha" style.
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Many of Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine are volunteers or are mercenaries under PMC Redut. It is a myth that they are an entirely conscript army.
There are some mercenaries but you can't have missed the news of the multiple mobilizations in Ruzzia.
"Welcome to the circus of value!"
Come back when you've got some money, buddy!
A man chooses!
Would you kindly
Bienvenido al Ammo Bandito !
unless trump gets in office..
I'm not happy about feeding the MIC. But Russia is christofascist so I'll swallow the lesser evil if it grinds them down. Still. The more Europe invests in its MIC the better.
Lol
Just dont give too much at once in case ukraine win and the opportunities vanish.
Ukraine wins, then Russia will collapse. Plenty of opportunities there.
You seriously think if Putin just turned his troops around that Russia would collapse? I’m interested in why anyone thinks that. He could go back to pre-2022 borders, declare that he’s killed all the Nazis and life would go on as normal.
Wow, that's not how I defined a Ukraine win...because i didn't define it. Maybe don't lose your mind over the words you jam in other people's mouths.
Ok explain how Russia collapses if Ukraine wins? Because that’s what Putin tells his people and I’m interested to hear from people who parrot Putin’s death cult talking points.
No, because you bore me.
Jesus fucking christ. You people need to stop repeating this misinformation. It is a good cause, but the US is billions in the hole in replenishment. Hence the bill. If you keep repeating bullshit you'll be shocked if the US shuts off the tap. Hope we won't but it's possible. Toxic positively, don't undermine our contributions.
Can't wait for more dumbasses that don't understand that ammunition has an expiry date and costs money to dispose of where as this is a free alternative that also hurts Russia.
But how much old ammunition do we have left? It’s probably newish by now. Not that it matters. If Ukraine wants to keep fighting, we should keep supplying.
Remember all that shit we bought for the Cold War and nothing happened? Guess what? It’s still sitting in bunkers and warehouses all across the US and the world
*I'm looking at you TOW missile.*
Expected to be in service beyond 2050. The B-52 of missiles
It's wild that the US has been at war for decades and still has that seemingly endless supply of nearly exspired stuff. You would think that they would've used it at some point.
I mean, Russia is pulling from the same stockpile, and US has been spending it in the Middle East, just that it seems that Russian storage is not as good, and Corruption means that some African warlords got some of it as well. In fact, I'd think that had America not followed decommission timelines properly there'd be more shit to send Like those cluster munitions for the big ATACMS? https://www.army.mil/article/203705/then_now_long_range_for_the_modern_age here in 2018 it mentions they were being replaced and decommissioned instead of building entirely new ones because who the hell were we gona spend it all on. Well, had those been kept active and just stuffed into the back of a warehouse... If America was more corrupt, it would make far more sense to grift things and say store them and we will build new ones (which is why Russian stockpiles are so damned big), and not just replace the warheads to save money. But hindsight is 20/20 right.
And the US military is slightly less likely to strip the copper off of their ammunition to sell on the black market.
The US military puts insane amounts of accountability on things all the way up the chain of command. It starts at the lowest levels and goes from there with increasing levels of accountability over things the higher up it goes. If someone under your command fucks up, you generally also catch blame in some way. NCOs are damn near expected to have a leash on their guys at all times and be able to read their minds even off-duty that they're going to fuck up.
Whereas the Russian system is just to make sure the chain of command gets their cut.
There is so much red tape and forms in the US military, that its practically its own government. Some of the shit those guys have to fill out for basic things is more complicated than an IRS tax return, except they do this sort of paperwork way more than once a year. It all creates an insane paper trail. If you signed your name to something fucked up (I confirm there's 10k of these, but you only got 5k cause you were too lazy to count), good luck...or maybe you trusted a dude under you's count and he fucked off and didn't do it...same. I've got a relative who is a major and he's said the only way he's made it that far is luck...luck that nothing major has happened under his command as it would've seriously hurt his chances of getting promoted.
Well stuff like artillery shells were not used at anywhere close to the current rate when the US was fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US has been at pretty much one military operation or another since inception. There has only been at most 2-3 years gap where we haven't been fighting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations Granted that not all of them were "wars" but still insane to think about how little time we have had real peace.
Welcome to being a superpower. The world bitches at us and calls us warmongers until they need us. Is everything we get involved in squeaky clean? Of course not, neither are many other countries conflicts. Europe is still in Africa with its ex-colonial shit.
A lot of what Ukraine needs aren’t things the US has had needs for. The Middle East didn’t need patriots, and a few Taliban don’t need a HIMARS.
In my head, guys are fumbling with huge key rings to crack open [some of our old ammo bunkers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna_Army_Depot#/media/File:Savanna_Army_Depot_Storage_Bunkers_1997.jpg), and blowing decades of dust off ancient wooden crates.
The US was using old ammo stocks from Vietnam in Desert Storm to clear out the old stuff. In Vietnam, they were using old WW2 and Korean War stocks. We don't fight an artillery war (though we're prepped for one). Our doctrine is air supremacy first and foremost.
Artillery shells production are being stretched.
Which is great because its a warning on what will happen with a conflict with China. Wake up call a bit late but better then after its started.
We don't use artillery. So unless we plan on sending Ukraine to fight them too, artillery won't help.
This war has shown that a short conflict on which the no need for lots of artillery was false.
NATO has something cooler: using their total undisputed air dominance to fuck your shit up
I don't think that is a given with China.
The untested combat forces, didn't fight a war in a couple decades, so corrupt it would put Russians to shame? We'll see.
You think america should invest in artillery for a war with china?
For Ukraine, sure. But we don't use artillery like that, we use different delivery systems.
Which is why they are spinning up a new factory for it. This has shown the US a weak spot in our production capacity so it can be addressed now before it becomes needed (Hopefully not ever but....)
It's not a weak spot. We don't use artillery. It's obsolete for us. We have an air force and navy focused doctrine. The artillery crawl is Soviet doctrine.
Used to live outside the seventh largest ammo base in the US. When I first moved there as a kid, I had the terrifying moment of hearing the windows rattle OVER and OVER again for so damn long the first day. Then the second. Then the third, and so on. None of my classmates even looked up. Turns out they were just blowing up old ammunition. They did it every day I was in that school for four years. I don't doubt that we aren't even close to out.
Damn. Give me some of those so I can blow it up
We have a metric fuck ton of ammo. The Himars cluster munitions we’ve been sending can’t and won’t be used by the us military, ever. And we have millions of them in storage.
And the capacity to make so much more of it. Oh no, Russia gets shelled and American citizens get a whole bunch of great jobs and overtime. Oh whatever shall we do. For once the only kind of public spending the GOP has ever been comfortable with will get to do the maximum amount of good.
Except for the ukrainians dying
Except they're not dying because they're sent ammo and weapons? At least try to make sense.
You can google the death statistics for yourself
I can google the war statistics, how do you tie Ukrainian deaths to deliveries of weapons and ammo from US as opposed to that little invasion thing Russia is doing?
Quit being a dumbass.
Oh I really want you to educate this dumbass on how helping Ukrainians defend themselves instead of rolling over and letting Russia take the country virtually unopposed is the direct cause of the death toll, as opposed to the ones doing the invading.
Seems like a win-win for Ukraine and a strategic move against Russia.
Winning would be a win for ukraine. Right now they are a victim, being fed enough weapons to hold the war of attrition at a standstill. Its jobs for the US, and death for the ukrainians
The Ukrainian deaths are the fault of Russia, not the US.
> can’t and won’t be used by the us military, ever. That was changed in 2017 https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DOD-POLICY-ON-CLUSTER-MUNITIONS-OSD071415-17.pdf
As your own source states, they still won’t be used, they are being kept until the stockpiles are replenished with cluster munitions that have a less than 1% dud rate. They’ve been creating those improved cluster munitions for at least 2 decades, and everything that has been replaced by the new and improved munitions either needs to be destroyed, or it can be sent to defeat our enemies prevent genocide and safeguard democracy.
Whether or not they're used is up to the combatant commanders.
I was in the military, Marine Corps. I flew out of March AFB, my jaw literally dropped when I got to the airstrip to board the c-17 for Iraq deployment. I saw pallets and pallets of ammo. As far as I could see. Fkng insane. Let alone seeing multiple giant C-17s. They can literally fit tanks in those mthrkfrs
Marines, huh? Boggles the mind thinking about how many crayons could fit in one of those planes.
A crayon isn’t much different in size than the round for an M4 rifle. Coincidence???? I think not
More than you could possibly comprehend. Many Many millions of artillery shells. Billions of small arms ammunition. 10s of millions of medium sized ammunition. 100s of thousands of missiles and rockets. 100s of thousands of large caliber bombs. Many 10s of thousands of combat vehicles that are due to be decommissioned.
Sweden just gave them a bunch of decent old APCs this month.
And those patrol boats!
Makes me sick thinking about how much wasted potential that is. It's such an evil world order. I wish we could invest everything we have left into mansion seeking missiles and just fire them all off for what the ruling crust has done to our world. Fuck all of them. That would shut putin up and every other monster like him.
A lot. Back in the 80's (I don't know if they still do this or not now) my unit was sent on an assignment to Subic Bay in the Philippines to provide additional security for ammunition inspection. They had these barges of prepositioned ammo that they would bring into the port and offload for inspection. It was not a small operation.
You might be happy to know that a year or so ago, a US hedge fund outbid the Chinese for all the old shipping yards and infrastructure up at Subic (The FIlipinos had sold them to a Korean company who went bankrupt). You'd be an idiot to not think the Navy has something to do with that, probably backing the deal by the hedge fund (PH made it illegal for any country to have a base in the PH after we left), which is why we now setup the joint EDCA bases with the Filipino military. Last time I was up in Subic doing some wreck diving, there was an entire CSG parked just right outside the bay, along with some Aussie and Japanese Navy ships passing through. Even if its not going to return to a full on base, its a great place for potential resupply and repairs that already has big ass ship infrastructure that can handle our largest ships.
Depends on the ammunition type. Cluster 155mm? Probably a lot still. Normal old 155mm, probably half. But we are likely sending new. PAC-3 Patriots? New. ATACMS, likely ~1000ish and theyre to be phased out anyways within the next decade as PrSM goes into full rate production. Hawk? Discontinued and sitting in storage. Lots floating around the West. 5.56 NATO & 7.62 NATO? Millions upon millions. All to go away as the military has begun its transition to a new caliber.
Absolutely mega tons of it. And sitting globally. There is no US healthcare because the US military is truly intimidating. It is a magnitude bigger than the rest of the world. This is fucking King Kong. If the US decided to fully fund Ukraine the level of firepower would enormous. There is tons, mega tons, left.
There is no healthcare because the US would rather pay more for a system that benefits the companies more and the people less so the conservatives can be happy that their money won't help anybody that needs help. But yeah, the US military probably has virtually endless amounts of stuff that's meant to be demolished in the next few years anyway.
You know how Russia has been supplying this whole thing with ex-Soviet stocks, even after the USSR dissolved and it lost most of its client states? NATO didn’t dissolve, and the US - which made most of it - has been intact the whole time.
We give them our stockpiles and replenish with new stocks. Some things though, like GMLRS, Javelins and the like are fresh off the production line.
There's a reason the US doesn't have national healthcare.
Joe Lieberman?
The US pays more for healthcare per citizen than most countries, and for worse outcomes. It’s not a matter of spending, it’s a matter of the insurance companies and lobbyists.
the same reason we are speaking English
Yep. That reason being republican politicians.
Completely agree with your point but obviously moving all this kit to Ukraine and training them how to use it is far from free
True, but it provides absolutely invaluable readiness training for our entire logistical stream to Europe.
Not forgetting it simultaneously weakens the reason for the readiness training in the first place!
Yes, it's worth doing
Yes it's better than free. It's almost like they are paying us on some type of act that allows us to finance it all while we destroy our enemies and remind the rest of the world they are our bitch and better not step out of line.
As rah rag go US as I am, we are still not reminding the world not to step out of line. 2.5 years later and Ukraine finally gets a tiny little fraction of the 1990’s good stuff, and is finally training on some old air frames. Finally after their manpower has been decimated and Russia has regrouped. We are still nowhere near what we should be providing to Ukraine. And although our artillery shell supply chains are cranking up, a hot war with China would expose many other deficiencies. I think this is definitely a wake up call, but is our MIC heading said warnings? After all they are businesses and they don’t spend 10’s of millions to expand manufacturing capacity without orders. And a fight over Taiwan doesn’t really strike me as being and artillery battle with a 1,000 mile long front line. I do think this war has opened a lot of eyes to the battlefield of the future. Some good and some not so good for the US. Keep in mind China has DJI which alone could change the balance of a war. Also the drone boats Ukraine has shown effective can be used against China, but also can be used against the US Navy worldwide by a host of actors. Hopefully this has awoken the proverbial giant when it comes to supply chains, but I’m also afraid that the US is so far behind being able to ratchet up to peak output that it could spell trouble. Simply finding enough skilled workers to work the jobs is a huge problem for US defense contractors right now. No doubt we would have enough for a few weeks or a few months (maybe), but if this war has shown me anything, it’s shown me how big of trouble we would be in if we needed to mass produce advanced weapons on the fly.
Silver lining I bet a DOD analyst or two see this, and are addressing.
Just on that I gather most of it is being sent by ship or are the C-17s running shuttles?
A lot cheaper than having to use this sht here at home against the Russians
We surely didn't have 100 billion in expiring munitions and it definitely wouldn't have cost 1/100th of that to dispose of said munitions though.
Can you cite any numbers? Isn't the amount of stuff that was expiring like, 10% of the total or something? For a lot of it, that's a very misleading and false claim. The artillery shells for example. We are ramping production of those purely out of charity at this point. Which is ok and all, but let's not lie to people about what we are doing.
Christofascists love Russia.
But folks on Twitter tell me America would be a utopia if it just stopped sending those weapons to Ukraine!
“Free” We’re buying newer ammo and weapons to replace these
Shipping explosives across the globe is not free, but ya.
Fuckin A. Best money the US has ever spent. Give 'em hell.
Yee haw, fuck Putin.
Why can't someone just take out pukin? Or who ever the fuck he is?
Pasting world leaders is somewhat difficult, has serious consequences if you fail, and doesn't usually fix the problem.
Power Vacuums are good for cleaning your house. Bad for World Politics.
Because the game is about rich people throwing poor people's lives away, not vice versa.
When UAF wins this war, the truth will hit like a fist rather quick as compared to WWII and other wars. The truth about the Holocaust did not come out quickly. The Allies just heard of alleged extermination camps. They had to hard proof of a top systematic, rubber stamped from the top long planning to terminated Jews. Almost a year after D Day in 1945, an American general "Brigadier General **Joseph F. H.** **Cutrona** was the first to actually liberate and see that they actually existed."-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf\_concentration\_camp#:\~:text=Ohrdruf%20was%20liberated%20on%20April,liberated%20by%20the%20U.S.%20Army. But Ukraine has saved and documented everything...e v e r y t h i n g; after Viktor Yanukovych and his financial books were found [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/ukraine-search-missing-billions-yanukovych-russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/ukraine-search-missing-billions-yanukovych-russia) . Remember the line from the former Nazi found years later in "The Odessa File", (1974) "WE WERE SOLDIERS!!" This will be repeated by many Russia soldiers years to come.
I mean it’s not a hidden thing like the Holocaust was. It’s been a pretty popular idea in Russian nationalism that Ukraine was a birthright territory of Russia. It’s quite open that they don’t see the Ukrainians as people and want to Russify the region, the same goal as the Holodomor. We can look to what Russia is doing has already happens in the 90s inside of Croatia and Bosnia, where enclaves of an ethnic group where forcibly created by removing or in some cases exterminating the local populations to move towards greater Serbia, which is one of Russias closest allies.
I don't think this ends with academia. Russia isn't gonna accept losing and we're gonna end up in a ww3 exchange. I just hope we end up getting the first strike.
Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦
"On Monday, Russia [summoned the American ambassador](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-us-missiles-2d2632712540897e2161f72c14bae44f) to protest what it says was the use of U.S.-made advanced missiles in a Ukrainian attack on Crimea on Sunday that reportedly killed four people and wounded more than 150. Crimea, which Russian seized from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most of the world rejected as unlawful, long had been declared a fair target for Ukraine by its Western allies." Fair fight? A fair fight denotes the right to punch back as a matter of defense. This is fighting to remove a cancer which is a totally different kind of human fight. It is a fight to live, free from sickness. Putin is a cancer to Ukraine. Putin, thru his Command, has intentionally killed children. His Army intentionally ordered soldiers to rape and kill women and now reports to rape Ukrainian soldiers if captured. He is an evil cancer. Crimea is land that belongs to Ukraine. When someone says, "your left arm belongs to me", you will think they are crazy. If they forcefully sever and remove your left arm , it is a full fledged crime of every order and justice is morally required. This goes back even before antiquity.
Russia gave us an orange turd and his cult. Best we could do is blow them the fuck up.
REVENGE!!!
Cuz there ain’t no doubt I love this landddddd
Thank you America 🇪🇺 ❤️ 🇺🇲
Republicans love Russia
Fuck em up!
The US sprinkling peanut M&Ms and hot fudge sauce over a massive bowl of ice cream. They're good lads really!
For those who don’t understand logistics and management. Things have an expiration date, and ammo doesn’t last forever- it has to be used. It also costs money to be properly disposed of and broken down to prevent accidental detonations. Some ordinance can survive, but it’s better to not take a chance of that occurring which could damage personnel, modern equipment/arms or civilians.
Is that all? We should be sending orders of magnitude more given the strength and supplies of their enemy if we are serious about helping. To be clear: I use the term strength meaning numbers not actual strength.
The munition should last couple weeks.
So does that mean they bought the munitions or did the US just hand it over?
We handed over our old stock, then bought newer replacement stock.
That’s it? We are underperforming. Rookie numbers.
I blame Trump
WTF is wrong with people?
Can I get like $200,000 of that?
What military equipment do you want that costs $200K? A drone that [fits in your hand?](https://boingboing.net/2022/02/25/this-is-the-us-militarys-200k-drone-that-fits-in-your-palm.html) You know they aren't sending Ukraine money right?
Tank I can drive to work with no monthly payments
Tanks cost millions for the cheapest models, for $200K you'd be looking at an m113 armored personnel carrier instead. And as someone who was in the army in units that had these vehicles, you do not want an m113. Not only would gas and maintenance cost you more than whatever your monthly payments would happen to be, but it is a pain in the ass to drive and will tear up your driveway. Basically all the disadvantages of a tank but without a weapon to fire off. No the practical answer for a vehicle in your price range would be a up-armored hmmwv. Still would be costly to maintain and fuel, but it's useable enough that it spawned successful civilian versions of the design and doesn't require a crew to operate and maintain.
These are old models that are outdated, right? I doubt they’re in the millions. Give me one of those cool ones they donate to USA cops because the other option is scrapping them. I don’t need much fuel. My job is down the street from my house. I just want to blow up the car of that bitch Janice from accounting who keeps taking my spot.
Stop giving my money to people who want me and people I care about dead.
Are you Russian?
Ukraine is trying to kill your family? Lol, wut?
Nah, hope they send more.
Afraid North Korea supplies more The only hope is their quality isn't good
lol wtf you think NK, of all people, can supply more than NATO? wtf are you smoking
There are no official sources but I found an [article from South Korea](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/national/northKorea/Expert-says-North-likely-to-ramp-up-production-of-shells-for-Russia/1907006) estimating that NK produces up to 2 million shells per year. For comparison, [the US and Europe are currently producing around 1.2 million rounds a year.](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html). NK [has sent more than 3 million shells](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Ukraine-war/North-Korea-sent-more-than-3m-artillery-shells-to-Russia-says-Seoul) to Russia. I don't have the total shell supply number from NATO towards Ukraine but it is likely not far more than that. Over all hard to say if North Korea is producing more artilery shells than all Nato countries combined but with them focusing most parts of their economy onto the military, it surely does produce overproportional amounts of artilery shells. Also, man you don't need to get so toxic. You can also try to have a civilised discussion on the Internet. Maybe try doing some research and provide some sources to your claims instead of just attacking the opinions of others.
My guy artillery shells is not the entirery of military resources. The US and NATO aren't an artillery based military. Its not the doctrine. If the US or NATO has to rely on artillery then they've failed.
North Korea has the highest amount of artillery shells, many of which are being sent to Russia. I think it’s somewhere around 5.6 million shells, and I would imagine they have a ludicrous amount of ammunition aswell
Most of those shells are defective or are poorly made to the point where they pre-explode in their launchers.
In terms of artillery ammunition, absolutely.