Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year.
Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions per month, or about 3 million a year, according to NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production shared with CNN, as well as sources familiar with Western efforts to arm Ukraine. Collectively, the US and Europe have the capacity to generate only about 1.2 million munitions annually to send to Kyiv, a senior European intelligence official told CNN.
The US military set a goal to produce 100,000 rounds of artillery a month by the end of 2025 — less than half of the Russian monthly output — and even that number is now out of reach with $60 billion in Ukraine funding stalled in Congress, a senior Army official told reporters last week.
“What we are in now is a production war,” a senior NATO official told CNN. “The outcome in Ukraine depends on how each side is equipped to conduct this war.”
The United States fought for 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq and it was business as usual back home. There was no rationing. There were no steel drives. I don’t even remember them pushing war bonds. We did not have a draft. Most changes to civilian life involved airport security.
During WWII, they drafted so many men they had to shut down major league baseball. They tried to outlaw sliced bread because the steel for the slicers was needed for tanks and ships. Civilians had to ration food and production of most consumer goods stopped. Oh, and as a result of wartime industrialization, the United States became the world’s richest nation, the world’s only superpower and the world’s first nuclear power. In four years.
Meanwhile Ukraine has been doing remarkably well with the scraps we’ve let them dumpster dive. If I understand the situation correctly, we’ve been giving them our old stuff that was due to be disposed of because it’s cheaper to let the Ukrainians lodge our old stuff firmly in Russian torsos than it is to dismantle. Same with the F-16’s they’re getting soon. These aren’t new, a few NATO nations are retiring them in favor of new F-35s. Those F-16’s are 1970’s technology, but they’re a step up from the Soviet-era MiG’s they’re working with now.
Speaking of F-16s, do we know the time table for when the first jets should arrive? Some time this year?
I don’t know that. I hope no one like me knows that.
I do know that it’s kind of a monumental task, becuase…it’s an American-made jet from the 1970’s. In the 1970’s, American defense contractors were in the habit of NOT writing manuals and training aids in Ukrainian. We either have to translate the reference and training materials into Ukrainian, or their pilots and mechanics have to learn English. It’s not as simple as kick the tires and light the fires.