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You are overlooking a critical fact: the US capacity is optimized for US military doctrine and practice i.e. how the US fights wars. For those purposes, they ha

You are overlooking a critical fact: the US capacity is optimized for US military doctrine and practice i.e. how the US fights wars. For those purposes, they have plenty. The US doesn't have vast numbers of artillery shells, for example, because the US doesn't need them nor would have any use for them if they were produced en masse. It would make no sense for the US to maintain the supply chain for a Soviet style military if the US isn't a Soviet style military. The shortages now are only relative to the military doctrine of other countries, not intrinsic to the US military.

brutusborn 3y ago
What if we need to support a country that does need lots of artillery shells like Ukraine? Surely they should have a plan for that contingency? I can understand not having full production facilities due to expense, but at least plans for those facilities if they need to be built in a hurry?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Common sentiment was that the US would go more isolationist, no more foreign adventures with the exception of maybe shooting some rockets on some djihadists.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > What if we need to support a country that does need lots of artillery shells like Ukraine? We have allies to do that for us. Before the Russia-Ukraine war escalated in 2022, Ukraine was procuring drones from Türkiye, artillery from Germany, and combat training from Canada and the UK. If we began directly providing offensive weaponry to Ukraine before 2022, we would have ended up escalating the conflict much sooner. By allowing our allies to handle procurement we were at least able to buy Ukraine enough time to rebuild their army after it collapsed in the aftermath of 2014.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    "Ukraine was procuring drones from Türkiye, artillery from Germany" Don't you mean artillery from Deutschland? :)
    - gumby 3y ago
      I think Turkey tried a couple of years ago to specify that the spelling of the country’s name in English should be the same as in Turkish. I remember reading about it in the news. Probably that suggestion/rule is followed by some parts of the UN and perhaps some documents from a few foreign ministries. I certainly hadn’t ever seen it in the wild until the GP comment. It made me chuckle…not at the commenter but at the country. But what the hell, yes I wrote (and will continue to write) “Turkey”, but I won’t call Istanbul Constantinople, much less Byzantium.
      - mensetmanusman 3y ago
        "Please spell our country name with letters you don't have in your language" Not sure why these absurd dictatorial tendencies are being taken seriously...
        wrp 3y ago
        Well, if governments in 東京, 서울, and กรุงเทพมหานคร do, shouldn't we also? /s
        lisasays 3y ago
        If it's okay for Côte d'Ivoire or Réunion then I don't see why Türkiye should be snubbed for making a similar request. Also it's 2023 and people know how to deal with tricky alphabets and stuff now.
        mock-possum 3y ago
        Right like it takes any effort to just look it up and copy and paste.
CrimsonCape 3y ago
The Stinger shortage is exactly contradicting your point about artillery shells. Everyone in the military did indeed have their "doctrine and practice" in mind, the status quo, and suddenly the world rushed up to the military's front door, knocked furiously at the door saying "we need 20,000 Stingers, fast!" And hopefully they had the introspection to realize 'wow, we failed. We can't supply this. Our doctrine and tactics are wrong." Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority. Begs the question what's going on with the lack of common sense in the military.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority. That doesn't make any sense at all. Stinger type MANPADS are designed for short range point defense, no greater than 5km range and limited by cloud cover. It's a completely different ballgame to have air superiority fighters with radar guided missiles covering you from above. US doctrine is based entirely around this fact; that winning a war means being the side which is able to maintain that.
- genmud 3y ago
  If the US military ever requires manpads to down enemy aircraft, things have gone so incredibly wrong that not being able to supply thousands a year is the least concerning part of the situation.
- greedo 3y ago
  Stingers would provide no protection against a competently managed and equipped air force. If we were fighting the Russians in Ukraine, we would be using JADAMs etc from well outside the engagement envelope of any MANPAD. The only way to achieve air superiority is with a fighter aircraft and its associated support aircraft. You can deny air superiority with a full spectrum AD program (which a MANPAD is but a small part), but you can not impose it.
thriftwy 3y ago
It could make sense for NATO to maintain the supply for Soviet style military. Poland plus Romania plus Czechia plus Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, and potentially Ukraine and Bosnia and Central Asia with Georgia and Azerbaijan, where these could be used. It was totally not obvious that Russia (an important but quite small subset of Warsaw pact) will keep its military production capacity but the rest of collective will not - eventually running out of it and often without meaningful replacement.
- pbazarnik 3y ago
  Poland has developed and is producing their own MANPAD system initialy based on Soviet design. They supplied significant number of these to Ukraine where it performed well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.armyrecognition.com/polish_missile_vehicles_systems_weapons_poland_uk/piorun_grom-m_manpads_man-portable_air-defense_systems_short-range_missile_technical_data_sheet_pictures_video_12612165.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.armyrecognition.com/polish_...
  - rasz 3y ago
    US purchased those for Ukraine https://defence24.com/industry/polish-piorun-manpads-exported-to-us-and-provided-to-ukraine-a-success-for-mesko-company https://defence24.com/industry/polish-piorun-manpads-exporte... Estonia and Norway also likes them https://www.technology.org/2022/12/01/piorun-manpads-goes-mainstream-third-buyer-in-a-year-after-impressive-results-in-ukraine/ https://www.technology.org/2022/12/01/piorun-manpads-goes-ma...
rapjr9 3y ago
The current US national defense strategy says the US must be capable of fighting one major war against a near peer enemy (nominally China) and defeating them: https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/558342-americas-flawed-war-strategies/ https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/558342-america... The lack of basic weaponry seems to be a failure in that regard. Imagine if the US and Russia were fighting directly. The US may not have air superiority because of Russian jamming and air defense systems. Neither side wants to use nukes. So a long term ground and air war is a possibility, and the same seems possible with modern China. The Pentagon was not prepared for this as shown by what is happening in Ukraine. Instead they seem to have assumed that there will be no more big wars (not unreasonable until Russia decided otherwise and the US decided to "diversify supply chains" away from China) and they spent all the trillions on ever more advanced weaponry, never making large quantities of anything, but always starting the next new program. It is apparent they were caught by surprise, as was the EU who underinvested in defense for a long time. Now everybody is putting out contracts for new arms, but the manufacturers are going to take years to ramp up production. I expect this is partly caused by Congress in the US who tend to assume money solves everything, but in this case money can not buy time. Much of the material needed to make gunpowder and rocket motors comes from China, good luck ramping up production of those quickly if the US is fighting China. Part of the problem is outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries such that the US no longer has the ability to quickly switch industry to a war footing. US car makers rely on thousands of parts from other countries. That happened slowly over time, but even so the Pentagon wasn't keeping their eye on the ball and let capabilities slip away; car factories today could not make a tank, they are not set up for handling the heavy sheets of armor, all the robots would be useless, and there are no workers still trained in the old manufacturing methods. Yet another factor is secrecy, the US can't/won't give its most current weapons to Ukraine because that would reveal them to Russia and China. So all our super weapons can't even be used because of secrets. This shows a lack of foresight that not everyone fighting on our side in a war is going to have access to the most current US weapons. If it was NATO fighting Russia the EU do not and would not have the most advanced versions of the F35 and F22 for example, they'd have the export versions. There are factors unique to the Ukraine war, such as the time needed to train the Ukrainian military to use Western weapons (where the assumption was the US and EU already knew how to use them, so no problem for us) and the fear of escalation to nuclear war, but it seems the US military really was not ready for a long drawn out war in a remote location and they are obviously scrambling to adjust to that. A big concern recently is the realization that it would be very difficult for the US to fight against China (say to protect Taiwan) because it is so far away and we have few bases in the area. F22's and F35's can be refueled mid-air, but mid-air refueling planes can be shot down. Aircraft carriers are really vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Basically it seems the world has changed (or perceptions of it anyway) and the US military has not adjusted (yet) to the that and didn't seem to see it coming. Maybe their hands were tied by Congress (for example demands to keep old planes flying instead of stocking more ammunition), we'll probably never know. The US has not fought a war against a near peer power in a long time, much of its planning for such a war has to be guesswork by people with little experience. If the US was attacked by Russia or China in a conventional war current munition stockpiles would probably be plenty, the long distance would work against the attackers. A war on the other side of the world is a very different set of logistical problems, yet may be considered just as crucial as defending home territory. If US military strategy says that is not worth considering, that's a decision to intentionally limit what kinds of wars can be fought. History would then judge whether that was a mistake or not.
baybal2 3y ago
[dead]
rasz 3y ago
That sounds great until first engagement where you learn your whole air superiority doctrine doesnt work because enemy rolled out some new type of weapon (swarm of $1000 autonomous drones).
gpderetta 3y ago
To be fair, Russia was not expecting to fight a trench war either.

brutusborn 3y ago

What if we need to support a country that does need lots of artillery shells like Ukraine? Surely they should have a plan for that contingency? I can understand not having full production facilities due to expense, but at least plans for those facilities if they need to be built in a hurry?

mschuster91 3y ago
Common sentiment was that the US would go more isolationist, no more foreign adventures with the exception of maybe shooting some rockets on some djihadists.
alephnerd 3y ago
> What if we need to support a country that does need lots of artillery shells like Ukraine? We have allies to do that for us. Before the Russia-Ukraine war escalated in 2022, Ukraine was procuring drones from Türkiye, artillery from Germany, and combat training from Canada and the UK. If we began directly providing offensive weaponry to Ukraine before 2022, we would have ended up escalating the conflict much sooner. By allowing our allies to handle procurement we were at least able to buy Ukraine enough time to rebuild their army after it collapsed in the aftermath of 2014.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  "Ukraine was procuring drones from Türkiye, artillery from Germany" Don't you mean artillery from Deutschland? :)
  - gumby 3y ago
    I think Turkey tried a couple of years ago to specify that the spelling of the country’s name in English should be the same as in Turkish. I remember reading about it in the news. Probably that suggestion/rule is followed by some parts of the UN and perhaps some documents from a few foreign ministries. I certainly hadn’t ever seen it in the wild until the GP comment. It made me chuckle…not at the commenter but at the country. But what the hell, yes I wrote (and will continue to write) “Turkey”, but I won’t call Istanbul Constantinople, much less Byzantium.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      "Please spell our country name with letters you don't have in your language" Not sure why these absurd dictatorial tendencies are being taken seriously...
      - wrp 3y ago
        Well, if governments in 東京, 서울, and กรุงเทพมหานคร do, shouldn't we also? /s
      - lisasays 3y ago
        If it's okay for Côte d'Ivoire or Réunion then I don't see why Türkiye should be snubbed for making a similar request. Also it's 2023 and people know how to deal with tricky alphabets and stuff now.
        mock-possum 3y ago
        Right like it takes any effort to just look it up and copy and paste.

CrimsonCape 3y ago

The Stinger shortage is exactly contradicting your point about artillery shells. Everyone in the military did indeed have their "doctrine and practice" in mind, the status quo, and suddenly the world rushed up to the military's front door, knocked furiously at the door saying "we need 20,000 Stingers, fast!" And hopefully they had the introspection to realize 'wow, we failed. We can't supply this. Our doctrine and tactics are wrong." Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority. Begs the question what's going on with the lack of common sense in the military.

ramesh31 3y ago
>Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority. That doesn't make any sense at all. Stinger type MANPADS are designed for short range point defense, no greater than 5km range and limited by cloud cover. It's a completely different ballgame to have air superiority fighters with radar guided missiles covering you from above. US doctrine is based entirely around this fact; that winning a war means being the side which is able to maintain that.
genmud 3y ago
If the US military ever requires manpads to down enemy aircraft, things have gone so incredibly wrong that not being able to supply thousands a year is the least concerning part of the situation.
greedo 3y ago
Stingers would provide no protection against a competently managed and equipped air force. If we were fighting the Russians in Ukraine, we would be using JADAMs etc from well outside the engagement envelope of any MANPAD. The only way to achieve air superiority is with a fighter aircraft and its associated support aircraft. You can deny air superiority with a full spectrum AD program (which a MANPAD is but a small part), but you can not impose it.

thriftwy 3y ago

It could make sense for NATO to maintain the supply for Soviet style military. Poland plus Romania plus Czechia plus Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, and potentially Ukraine and Bosnia and Central Asia with Georgia and Azerbaijan, where these could be used. It was totally not obvious that Russia (an important but quite small subset of Warsaw pact) will keep its military production capacity but the rest of collective will not - eventually running out of it and often without meaningful replacement.

pbazarnik 3y ago
Poland has developed and is producing their own MANPAD system initialy based on Soviet design. They supplied significant number of these to Ukraine where it performed well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.armyrecognition.com/polish_missile_vehicles_systems_weapons_poland_uk/piorun_grom-m_manpads_man-portable_air-defense_systems_short-range_missile_technical_data_sheet_pictures_video_12612165.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.armyrecognition.com/polish_...
- rasz 3y ago
  US purchased those for Ukraine https://defence24.com/industry/polish-piorun-manpads-exported-to-us-and-provided-to-ukraine-a-success-for-mesko-company https://defence24.com/industry/polish-piorun-manpads-exporte... Estonia and Norway also likes them https://www.technology.org/2022/12/01/piorun-manpads-goes-mainstream-third-buyer-in-a-year-after-impressive-results-in-ukraine/ https://www.technology.org/2022/12/01/piorun-manpads-goes-ma...

rapjr9 3y ago

The current US national defense strategy says the US must be capable of fighting one major war against a near peer enemy (nominally China) and defeating them: https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/558342-americas-flawed-war-strategies/ https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/558342-america... The lack of basic weaponry seems to be a failure in that regard. Imagine if the US and Russia were fighting directly. The US may not have air superiority because of Russian jamming and air defense systems. Neither side wants to use nukes. So a long term ground and air war is a possibility, and the same seems possible with modern China. The Pentagon was not prepared for this as shown by what is happening in Ukraine. Instead they seem to have assumed that there will be no more big wars (not unreasonable until Russia decided otherwise and the US decided to "diversify supply chains" away from China) and they spent all the trillions on ever more advanced weaponry, never making large quantities of anything, but always starting the next new program. It is apparent they were caught by surprise, as was the EU who underinvested in defense for a long time. Now everybody is putting out contracts for new arms, but the manufacturers are going to take years to ramp up production. I expect this is partly caused by Congress in the US who tend to assume money solves everything, but in this case money can not buy time. Much of the material needed to make gunpowder and rocket motors comes from China, good luck ramping up production of those quickly if the US is fighting China. Part of the problem is outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries such that the US no longer has the ability to quickly switch industry to a war footing. US car makers rely on thousands of parts from other countries. That happened slowly over time, but even so the Pentagon wasn't keeping their eye on the ball and let capabilities slip away; car factories today could not make a tank, they are not set up for handling the heavy sheets of armor, all the robots would be useless, and there are no workers still trained in the old manufacturing methods. Yet another factor is secrecy, the US can't/won't give its most current weapons to Ukraine because that would reveal them to Russia and China. So all our super weapons can't even be used because of secrets. This shows a lack of foresight that not everyone fighting on our side in a war is going to have access to the most current US weapons. If it was NATO fighting Russia the EU do not and would not have the most advanced versions of the F35 and F22 for example, they'd have the export versions. There are factors unique to the Ukraine war, such as the time needed to train the Ukrainian military to use Western weapons (where the assumption was the US and EU already knew how to use them, so no problem for us) and the fear of escalation to nuclear war, but it seems the US military really was not ready for a long drawn out war in a remote location and they are obviously scrambling to adjust to that. A big concern recently is the realization that it would be very difficult for the US to fight against China (say to protect Taiwan) because it is so far away and we have few bases in the area. F22's and F35's can be refueled mid-air, but mid-air refueling planes can be shot down. Aircraft carriers are really vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Basically it seems the world has changed (or perceptions of it anyway) and the US military has not adjusted (yet) to the that and didn't seem to see it coming. Maybe their hands were tied by Congress (for example demands to keep old planes flying instead of stocking more ammunition), we'll probably never know. The US has not fought a war against a near peer power in a long time, much of its planning for such a war has to be guesswork by people with little experience. If the US was attacked by Russia or China in a conventional war current munition stockpiles would probably be plenty, the long distance would work against the attackers. A war on the other side of the world is a very different set of logistical problems, yet may be considered just as crucial as defending home territory. If US military strategy says that is not worth considering, that's a decision to intentionally limit what kinds of wars can be fought. History would then judge whether that was a mistake or not.

baybal2 3y ago

[dead]

rasz 3y ago

That sounds great until first engagement where you learn your whole air superiority doctrine doesnt work because enemy rolled out some new type of weapon (swarm of $1000 autonomous drones).

gpderetta 3y ago

To be fair, Russia was not expecting to fight a trench war either.