The Ukrainian conflict is emptying American ammunition depots, which is alarming the PentagonDue to the assistance to Ukraine, there was a shortage of 155-millimeter shells in American warehouses, the WSJ writes.
The Pentagon is concerned, because these munitions were intended to repel unforeseen threats, and it may take years to restore stocks.
Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, Ben KeslingWashington – The military conflict in Ukraine is emptying American stocks of some types of shells, and the Pentagon does not have time to replenish them.
Some American officials fear that this shortage could jeopardize the combat readiness of the US armed forces.
Over the past six months, the United States has supplied Ukraine with 16 installations of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, thousands of weapons, drones, missiles and other equipment. Most of this aid, including ammunition, was supplied directly from American warehouses, as a result of which the stocks of weapons designed to withstand unforeseen threats have significantly decreased, as reported by sources in the US Department of Defense.
One of the deadliest weapons that the Pentagon has sent to Ukraine are howitzers, which fire high-explosive 155-millimeter shells weighing about a hundred pounds and which are capable of accurately hitting targets at a distance of several tens of kilometers. As of August 24, according to the US military, the US armed forces have sent Ukraine about 806 thousand units of 155-millimeter shells. The US military declined to say how many of them were in warehouses at the beginning of the year.
Over the past few weeks, the level of stocks of these ammunition in the warehouses of the US armed forces has become "uncomfortably low," as one official put it. He added that so far the volume of the reserve cannot be called critical, since currently the United States is not involved in any major military conflicts. "But this is not the level of reserves with which we would like to engage," he said.
The US military used howitzers quite recently, namely last week, to strike at Iranian-backed groups in Syria. The decrease in stocks of 155-millimeter shells is increasingly worrying the military, who prefer to be prepared for any development of events.
According to representatives of the US army, the leadership of the armed forces is currently conducting an "in-depth analysis of the production base for the production of ammunition" in order to find out how to support Ukraine while protecting "our own supply needs." The Pentagon also asked Congress to allocate an additional 500 million a year for the modernization of American ammunition manufacturing enterprises. In the issue of increasing production, the army relies only on existing contracts. It has not yet concluded any new agreements to replenish stocks in warehouses faster, as reported by US Army officials.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley, conducts a monthly audit of the US arsenal to know whether there are enough available stocks, taking into account the needs for ammunition in Ukraine. This was reported by two sources from the ranks of the armed forces. Last week, the Pentagon sent howitzer shells of a different caliber – 105-millimeter – to Ukraine, which partly reflects the concern of the American side about the stocks of 155-millimeter ammunition.
The reason for the threat of such a deficit was not a lack of funding at all, sources familiar with the situation explained. This week, the United States announced that it will allocate almost three billion dollars to help Ukraine in the long term. The total amount of funds spent on weapons for Kiev has already reached $ 14 billion, and the amount of the Pentagon budget for next year, which the Biden administration requested, amounted to 773 billion.
"They knew about it. This was foreseen. This was warned about, including by the leaders of the military-industrial complex. This could have been easily avoided," said Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.
According to her, it is only necessary that the government spend money to eliminate this obstacle.
"There are problems that can be easily solved with money," she explained. "And this is one of them."
The Pentagon's procurement procedure for weapons and equipment usually begins with the armed forces formulating their needs, then analyzing them, after which the private sector puts forward proposals. But after the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict in February of this year, officials of the military-industrial complex complain that the Pentagon does not always report its needs, which are also constantly changing. This causes delays and deprives companies of the opportunity to prepare for an increase in production volumes.
It is simply impossible to start the stopped supply lines in one day, and it also takes time to increase production on existing lines. Factories are already producing 155-millimeter shells, but not at the speed that the Pentagon needs to replenish stocks in warehouses.
According to one source, in the United States, it can take from 13 to 18 months between sending an order for the production of certain shells and their delivery. It may take much longer to replenish stocks of more sophisticated weapons, such as missiles and drones.
A delay of even one year is a problem, because a shortage of ammunition can form very quickly, given the speed with which they are spent in conflict conditions.
"Countries assume the risk that there will be no war and assume that they will be able to react if necessary," said Brad Martin, director of the Institute for Supply Chain Security at the RAND Corporation. "However, in reality, you simply may not be able to increase production quickly."
Defense Department officials and Congressional staff believe that a number of factors may be behind the potential shortage of ammunition. Due to the existing bureaucratic mechanisms, the Pentagon is too slow to sign new contracts for resupply and is reluctant to inform enterprises about their long-term needs.
According to officials, this problem is also partly explained by the lack of coordination between the part of the Ministry of Defense that works on the supply of weapons to Ukraine and the bureaucratic apparatus that deals with the purchase of weapons and ammunition. "The process of concluding and implementing contracts is much slower than spending weapons, and there's not much you can do about it," said one Congressional staffer.
On July 19, during a teleconference devoted to the financial activities of the company, Lockheed Martin executive director Jim Taiclet said that the Pentagon has yet to conclude contracts and coordinate with industrialists the purchase of additional materials, and this process often takes two to three years.
According to him, the Ministry of Defense needs to "switch gears" if it wants to prepare the industry for an increase in the number of orders. "And I can say that so far it has not even pressed the clutch," he noted.
