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Which was part of the rationale for supporting Ukraine: the best way to build up a manufacturing base is if you have customers, and so supplying munitions to Uk
by ijk 1y ago
Which was part of the rationale for supporting Ukraine: the best way to build up a manufacturing base is if you have customers, and so supplying munitions to Ukraine was a win/win/win from the military's point of view: Ukraine gets ammo, the US gets to ramp up domestic military production with, effectively, someone else paying the bill. (Granted, some of that was US funds, so the 'someone else' was often another part of the US government, but the point stands in terms of manufacturing capacity.)
While there are shortages in some areas, I'm not aware of any reports of across-the-board procurement issues. In 2023 there was a shortage of 155mm artillery shells (at a production rate of ~8000/month), but no shortage of small arms ammo, APCs, or tactical vehicles [1]. By February 2025 the US was "manufacturing 30,000 155mm rounds per month" and "the Army is now “on a path” to producing 70,000 to 80,000 rounds per month by the end of 2024 or early 2025" [2].
That might not be enough to sustain a conflict with China if it started today, but it does demonstrate that the US is perfectly capable of scaling up domestic arms manufacturing if they choose to invest in it.
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-critical-systems https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-...
[2] https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/9/11/arms-manufacturers-catching-up-with-worlds-insatiable-need-for-155mm-rounds https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/9/11/a...
- int_19h 1y agoNote that Ukraine is using somewhere around 5k shells per day, and that's only because they have to ration it due to insufficient amounts. For another comparison, Russia is making 250k shells every month, and using 10-15k every day. At peak levels of artillery use in late 2023, when both sides still had ample stockpiles, the combined total was ~40k shells per day. So, yeah, it's good that we're ramping it up, but also, no, it's nowhere near fast enough if we want to be ready for a major war.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoHow many aircraft was the US producing in 1940? What about 1945?
- bumby 1y agoThe increase in aircraft manufacturing during that period came at the expense of lost civilian automobile manufacturing. There were practically no civilian American cars made from 1942-1945. Same can be said for other industries. To a certain extent, this belies load shifting rather than increases in overall capacity like your statement may suggest.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoIn 1940 the US manufactured 3MM cars. In 2024 it manufactured 10MM. Seems like there's industrial capacity to go around?
- bumby 1y agoSure, if you want to stop making cars to make weapons instead for a long period of time. Have you ever retooled a highly automated assembly plant? I have, and I can tell you it’s not something that can be changed on a whim.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoIs your contention that we should be churning out wartime levels of war materiel when we're not at war? Like specifically what do you think we should be doing?
- bumby 1y agoMy perspective is that we shouldn’t be trivializing the problem and recognize the tradeoffs and externalities. Pretending we have lots of manufacturing capacity for weapons systems because we know how to make cars misses the point of how difficult a transition from one to the other would be.
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoWe agree then! I was confused how GP expected anyone to infer meaning from statements about shell consumption.