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[jipehog]

Der Spiegel: German arms manufacturer in talks about building tank plant in Ukraine
https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/der-spiegel-german-arms-manufacturer-in-talks-about-building-tank-factory-in-ukraine

Am I missing anything, because the idea of building an expansive tank factory in a warzone, in range of Russian missile strike sound like pure lunacy..

Yeah, sounds strange. On the other hand, I guess there are many possibilities to make it very hard for the russians to effectively hit such an installation. Maybe some kind of distributed production lines, underground facilities and what not.

According to the German article they claim it would be easy to secure such a site, but I more inclined toward starver idea that this statement has other purposes e.g. for propaganda value to show support for Ukraine or even simple political research about similar situation.


Sorry the ammunition depot link was a copy error, here is the article. Not particularly note worthy but I try to skim over any thing todo with ammunition including Russian depots blowing up after they claimed they adapted to HIMARS strikes.

----

https://archive.is/8RD6t#selection-1801.240-1801.521

Not sure if its true. But I did find this part weird which suggests that the EU out produce USA in terms of munition.

Currently, America can make about 180,000 155mm shells a year, while Europe, according to Bastian Giegerich of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank, produced about 300,000 last year. All told, that amounts to barely three months’ consumption for Ukraine.

[martinuzz]

Is that really weird? A lot of EU member states have their own production facilities, so it doesn't surprise me that it adds up to be more than a single (albeit large) country such as the US

[Ganondworf]

I knew one day my wargaming hobby would come to the rescue of my country

Putin seems to have the strategic skills of a below-average HOI4 player.

(Not so) funny, back in 2014 I told my gamer friend that Putin seemed to be like a pro gamer who, for example, knows exactly how far he can push something and get away with it. Like in Civilization, when you do something to annoy the AI, but it's not enough that they are allowed to declare war on you. Or in HOI, when you increase world tension, but stay low enough that the US cannot join the Allies faction.

Putin seemed to "get away with murder" for so long that nobody saw his below-average skills coming.

[Lord Shonus]

The US had fairly deep stockpiles before this war, and there was no expectation of a fight that really needed mass artillery use any time soon. Not only was a real peer war unlikely, three of the world's top air forces are American and planners fully expected airpower to be the primary heavy striking arm if war were declared. This meant that additional ammunition was mostly needed for keeping the stocks fresh and replacing the relatively small amount being used in actual combat and training.

European armies had a different focus. In a full war, the main goal of European NATO powers was "avoid dying until the US shows up" - a conventional WW3 was basically assumed to be a race between American reinforcements arriving en masse and the Soviets/Russians rolling over Western Europe. For those NATO nations that took the threat seriously, artillery was a big part of the "dump everything at the enemy today because there isn't going to BE a tomorrow" strategy. So the arm was taken more seriously. Ammunition manufacture was also a common way for smaller countries to meet their NATO commitments. Many of the smaller countries in Europe simply can't afford to produce real combat power, but can make things like spare parts, ammunition, tires, etc.

[jipehog]

Is that really weird? A lot of EU member states have their own production facilities, so it doesn't surprise me that it adds up to be more than a single (albeit large) country such as the US

Considering USA military footprint and that it is biggest arms manufacturer in the world, it seems weird to me.

Obviously I am on the lookout for data on the topic, meanwhile I suspect that those are inaccurate open source numbers and or that USA isn't committing fully because its primary strategic focus is on China and Taiwan atm.

[Lord Shonus]

Is that really weird? A lot of EU member states have their own production facilities, so it doesn't surprise me that it adds up to be more than a single (albeit large) country such as the US

Considering USA military footprint and that it is biggest arms manufacturer in the world, it seems weird to me.

Obviously I am on the lookout for data on the topic, meanwhile I suspect that those are inaccurate open source numbers and or that USA isn't committing fully because its primary strategic focus is on China and Taiwan atm.

Arms manufacturing requires huge facilities and workforces. It can't be hidden. Meanwhile, Russia is as much a primary rival to the US as China is. The figures you're seeing are public information and hidden.

Biggest Arms Manufacturer doesn't mean #1 in every way. The big US edge is in extremely advanced weaponry - stealth aircraft, sophisticated missiles, vehicles so stuffed with electronics that their capabilities look like sorcery compared to those of twenty years ago. That's an area where maybe half a dozen nations can compete. Dumb artillery shells? Anybody can make those.

[Madman198237]

I could totally believe that the US was not actively producing all that many artillery shells; useful as it is in the last couple wars the US has fought the solution to running into anything more threatening than a white flag has not been "call up the firebase and request a couple 155s" but rather "call up the Air Force and request half a dozen JDAMs, a Spooky, and a rocket run for good measure".

[Lord Shonus]

Besides the United States Air Force, the United States Navy's Air Force, and the United States Navy's Army's Air Force, the US Army also has a pretty potent force of attack helicopters. Tube artillery doesn't have the same kind of operational flexibility.


Deciding to deemphasize the artillery arm because of this was a mistake, and there's been efforts starting to correct it. But that takes time.

[Grim Portent]

Is 'Our military doctrine barely uses artillery, so we won't buy much of it,' really a mistake?

I can't think of any situations the US has been in for the past few decades where artillery was important, let alone in great quantities, and to be honest I can't see them using much artillery in any hypothetical future wars. Sure it's relatively cheap, but all but the most over-engineered pieces of hardware in the active US armoury seem pretty good from a cost effectiveness perspective.

Shelling guerillas hiding in caves or bombarding a fortified enemy city are about all I can see the US actually needing old fashioned dumb guns for, and to be honest there are better things in their toolkit for both jobs.

[Lord Shonus]

There is very real concern that if the US gets into a peer or near-peer war, said peer will be able to knock back airpower enough to rob the ground forces of the expected air support. An equal (and more likely) concern is that the US might wind up supporting an ally in a serious land war where too much of the airpower is tied up guarding against another threat (if, for example, a crisis crops up in Taiwan while a Gulf War I scenario is ongoing). Right now, most US Army organic fire support is good at destroying point targets at fairly close range - the GMLRS fired by HIMARS systems is a good example. That's great capability, but it can't break up an infantry assault or rip apart a defensive position the way massed artillery barrages can.

This isn't me, an armchair civilian, saying this. There's a number of public reports from top brass that boil down to "holy shit we need more organic fire support". Granted, this was before most of the Russian SHORAD systems turned out the be paper bears, but that doesn't change the essential calculus.

[jipehog]

I could totally believe that the US was not actively producing all that many artillery shells

Yes.. that not the weird part but that EU --for which all your reasoning applies, minus the military size, budget, sizeable deployment overseas in conflict zones etc -- have MUCH higher actively production of artillery's shells.

From cursory look, it doesn't seem the numbers posted reflect pre-war production, but that EU was able to substantially ramp up its production far more than US.

[Loud Whispers]

The US had fairly deep stockpiles before this war, and there was no expectation of a fight that really needed mass artillery use any time soon. Not only was a real peer war unlikely, three of the world's top air forces are American and planners fully expected airpower to be the primary heavy striking arm if war were declared. This meant that additional ammunition was mostly needed for keeping the stocks fresh and replacing the relatively small amount being used in actual combat and training.

European armies had a different focus. In a full war, the main goal of European NATO powers was "avoid dying until the US shows up" - a conventional WW3 was basically assumed to be a race between American reinforcements arriving en masse and the Soviets/Russians rolling over Western Europe. For those NATO nations that took the threat seriously, artillery was a big part of the "dump everything at the enemy today because there isn't going to BE a tomorrow" strategy. So the arm was taken more seriously. Ammunition manufacture was also a common way for smaller countries to meet their NATO commitments. Many of the smaller countries in Europe simply can't afford to produce real combat power, but can make things like spare parts, ammunition, tires, etc.

It's one of the reasons why small countries like Estonia punched far above their weight in supporting Ukraine. They might not have been able to compare with the volumes or the tech of larger NATO countries, but they were able to supply things like artillery, shells and barrels which Ukraine urgently needed early in the war, and still does. Not like most Western NATO countries had or ever will have much interest in building up large stockpiles of ex-soviet shells

[jipehog]

Estonia like Poland and much of East of Europe has punched about their weight because while others debated what to do they sent everything they had to Ukraine

[Loud Whispers]

Don't forget the UK, who was sending stuff and training Ukrainian soldiers since 2014. They're also like Poland one of the countries which consistently broke some of the "taboos" countries like France and Germany had to reckon with, e.g. the UK sent most of its stockpiles of Javelins, NLAWs, brimstones and other anti-tank missiles the moment the invasion began whilst France was talking about not humiliating Putin and Germany was sending helmets, and broke a lot of the other western european taboos like sending IFVs or MBTs at a time when its peers ruled out such vehicles

[Il Palazzo]

Not to bash you fellas too much, but right now Morocco have done better w/r to sending MBTs than the UK. All the 'western tanks' promises look like a joke to me. Too late, too little.