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Ukraine is burning ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce. This is the Pentagon's plan to close the gap

2023-02-17T11:35:58.763Z


Ukraine is using munitions faster than the US and NATO allies can produce to defend against Russia. So the Pentagon has a strategy to mass produce weapons to send to Kyiv. 


Ukraine keeps asking for more weapons like this to fight Russia 2:52

SCRANTON, Pa. (CNN) --

Inside a sprawling factory just off the President Biden Freeway in downtown Scranton, Pa., Ukraine's future war arsenal is being forged, a red-hot artillery shell at the time.

Running at full steam, as it was on a recent January morning, the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant produces approximately 11,000 artillery shells a month.

That may sound like a lot, but the Ukrainian military often fires those shells within a few days.

To meet that demand, the Scranton plant is undergoing a massive expansion, fueled by millions of dollars in new defense spending from the Pentagon.

It is investing in new high-tech machinery, hiring a few dozen additional workers, and will eventually switch to a constant 24/7 production schedule.

“It certainly increased over the last year.

As we bring in more modern equipment, it will be able to scale up even more,” said Todd Smith, senior director of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, which operates the plant for the Army.

“The intensity has increased,” Smith added.

"Let's put it that way."

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The United States and its allies have already sent nearly $50 billion in aid and equipment to Ukraine's armed forces over the past year.

To maintain that and rebuild its own stockpiles, the Pentagon is rushing to rearm, embarking on the biggest increase in munitions production in decades and putting parts of the US defense industry on a war footing despite that the United States is technically not at war.

  • The United States plans to buy 100,000 artillery munitions from South Korea to send to Ukraine

A 155mm artillery shell molded inside the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant.

(CNN)

The Pentagon has allocated roughly $3 billion just to buy munitions abroad from allies and ramp up production at home.

Some of that money will go toward producing what has become a staple of warfare: 155-millimeter artillery shells.

The Army is planning a 500% increase in production of artillery shells, from 15,000 a month to 70,000, according to Army procurement chief Doug Bush.

Much of that increase will be covered by the Scranton plant, which produces a large part of the country's supply of artillery shells.

In the United States, munitions factories are ramping up production as fast as possible.

A Lockheed Martin plant in Camden, Arkansas, is producing a number of rockets and missiles, including those used by the Army's Patriot missile system, all of which are in high demand in Ukraine.

The Army's Bush told reporters in January that the Army was building a new plant in Garland, Texas, to make artillery shells, while an existing plant is being expanded in Middletown, Iowa, that loads, packages and assembles shells. of 155 millimeters.

Bush told CNN that the Army intends to double production of Javelin anti-tank missiles, make about 33 percent more Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) medium-range surface-to-surface missiles a year, and produce every month a minimum of 60 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which were "almost not in production," according to Bush.

Stinger and Javelin missiles are some of the most critical munitions Ukraine relies on to thwart ground advances and airstrikes from Russia, which has previously told the US it needs 500 of each a day.

“We realized that we really had to put our foot down,” Bush said.

A race against time

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, the US and its allies face a serious problem: Ukraine is burning up munitions faster than the US and NATO can produce it.

The issue of dwindling ammunition supplies was front and center during a crucial meeting in Brussels this week.

Members of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, an alliance of 54 countries supporting Ukraine's defense, spoke openly about the challenges of continuing to keep Ukraine's military well supplied.

  • CNN gains access to secret location of US artillery being used in Ukraine

Ukrainian servicemen fire artillery near the front line in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine, January 5, 2023. (Stringer/Reuters)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that "Ukraine's current rate of ammunition spending is many times higher than our current rate of production," which is putting "our defense industries under pressure."

Much of that stress is being borne by US defense contractors.

But even as the United States embarks on a historic effort to rearm, there are questions about whether it will be enough.

As Ukraine prepares for a much-anticipated spring offensive in the coming weeks, the United States is still years away from reaching the expected level of increased weapons production.

“The war is highly dependent on defense industrial production, and these are critical investments that the United States and ultimately Ukraine will benefit from, but the question is whether they were made too late to affect what could be decisive phases of the conflict this year,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at the Center for Naval Analysis, a nonprofit national security research organization.

“For Ukraine, the challenges are more immediate and medium-term, while much of the additional US production capacity appears to be two years away,” Kofman said.

In fact, according to Bush, it will take the United States between 12 and 18 months to reach its “maximum” production rate of 70,000 artillery shells per month.

  • ANALYSIS |

    The most difficult task for the West in Ukraine is to convince Putin that he is losing

A Ukrainian military vehicle drives by as an apartment building hit by Russian artillery burns in the distance on February 14, 2023 in Bakhmut, Ukraine.

(Credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

Replenishment of US reserves

In addition to ensuring Ukrainian troops have the equipment they need, the United States must also keep up with allied requests for more equipment, which have only been increasing.

"Many allies in Europe right now are increasing their orders for US military equipment as a result of the war, which is increasing demand for our production," Bush said.

Ukraine's need “changes from month to month,” he added, making it less predictable than foreign military sales, which are typically known well in advance.

On top of that, the United States has a lot of work to do to rebuild its own reserves, which the war in Ukraine has left dangerously low in the eyes of some experts.

A recent report written by Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warns that US assistance to Ukraine has "depleted US stocks of some types of weapons systems and ammunition, such as the Stinger surface missiles, airborne missiles, 155mm howitzers and ammunition, and Javelin anti-tank missile systems.”

Jones also told CNN that CSIS war games showed that in a Pacific conflict, the United States runs out of "key long-range munitions," such as long-range anti-ship missiles, in "less than a week of war." .

“If our whole strategy right now, especially in the Pacific, is deterrence, we want to deter conflict – a key part of deterrence is that you have the weapons systems and you have enough of them pre-positioned in key locations for any actor to Anyone considering the aggressive use of force knows that we mean business and that we have those systems in place to use and we have enough to use in a protracted conflict,” Jones said.

"We are not there now."

The Pentagon is working to speed things up as best they can.

Part of that effort involves changing the way you structure the work order for the country's big defense contractors.

The military often works on contracts year after year, making it difficult for industry partners to plan ahead for production and their workforce to meet the needs the military presents to them.

“No defense company in their right mind is going to start producing munitions if at the end of every fiscal year, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force take what they had budgeted for and move it to a different favored platform. or program,” Jones of CSIS said.

Bush said the Defense Department is looking at longer-term contracts, which it agreed would provide "a more efficient supplier base."

A seven-year contract, for example, allows the industry to plan its workforce and production for the long term instead of working year after year, he said.

And building that workforce will be critical as more plants and more shifts could ultimately mean more jobs.

A HIMARS vehicle assembled at a Lockheed Martin plant in Camden, Arkanas.

(Credit: Lockheed Martin)

"The Arsenal of Democracy"

This week in Brussels, top US defense officials struck an optimistic tone about being able to give Ukraine what it needs.

"With unity and urgency, we will return to the support we have promised to Ukraine," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

“We will put the capabilities in the hands of trained Ukrainian forces so they can integrate together on the battlefield.”

America's top general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, echoed the same sentiment at a news conference Tuesday, saying the international community "will continue to support Ukraine" until Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, “end your war of choice”.

But at home, there are questions about how sustainable the US engagement with Ukraine really is.

A poll released in December found that support for US aid to Ukraine was waning among Republicans, and there were concerns that a Republican-led Congress could lead to a drop in material support for Ukraine at a time when the rate weapons production could make all the difference on the battlefield.

Racks of painted 155mm artillery shells inside the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant.

CNN

Last week, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a bill to end US support for Ukraine, a move supported by a handful of far-right lawmakers including Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar.

However, Republican sources have told CNN that only a small group of Republican lawmakers is against funding aid to Ukraine.

And while then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested in October that Republicans could delay funding Ukraine if they took over majority control, sources said he has since privately backed down on his comments. to reassure the most senior defense hawks in the House.

If all goes as planned, production rates in the US in a year will be much higher than they are now, Bush said.

And while the hope is that the conflict in Ukraine will end much sooner, Bush is confident that the US military and industrial base will be ready for whatever comes next.

"We are still the arsenal of democracy," Bush said.

"And nobody does it better than the United States."

war in ukraine

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2023-02-17

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