To fight the US Army, you need almost more than more than more ammunition - experts

According to experts, in the event of a conflict with China, the US forces will end with critical ammunition in just eight days. For example, all Tomahawk missiles will be able to release approximately 2300 ammunition without additional charging. The US Armed Forces do not have enough ammunition in the Indo-Pacific. In the event of a potential conflict with China, the production of 155 mm shells should be increased by 3. 6 times to meet the needs of the US Army.

This is stated in Defense News from December 19. The authors of the publication noted that this problem has increased against the background of events in Ukraine and Israel. In particular, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were granted 300,000 155-mm artillery shells from their reserves in Israel at the beginning of 2023. At that time, it was the only conflict in which the United States was actively involved, but after the terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7, the situation changed.

The observers estimated that Ukraine consumes from 110,000 155 mm shells per month for the stated minimum need for 356 400 shells per month. At the same time, it is advisable for the Ukrainian forces to have up to 600 thousand shells on a monthly basis. "Even when the projectiles are doubled, the United States produces only 28,000 per month. This means that Ukraine's current costs of 155-mm projectiles exceed the US monthly production by about 3. 6 times.

" Considering in such a way, the observers emphasized that part of the reserve of the military reserve of the Pacific region can be involved to cover the deficit, but in this case, the US army will be weakened in the event of unpredictable situations with China. "It is unlikely that it makes sense when China is called a major call for the United States in the National Defense Strategy," experts say.

In addition to the situation with artillery shells, another problem may be the shortage of airbomb and Tomahawk missiles. For example, according to procurement documents, in the 2022 financial year the United States will only buy 3000 JDAM ammunition and 2000 high -precision SDM bombs. This amount of Israeli aircraft spent six days.

As for Tomahawk running missiles, military exercises have repeatedly shown that in the United States, critically important ammunition would only end in eight days if there is a high -intensity conflict with China. According to experts, the Navy has about 4,000 of these missiles.

If 20% of the vertical launching of the US fleet and 100% of the VLS fleet cells are equipped with "tomagawats" and if 80% of the surface fleet, 60% of shock submarines and 33% of US strategic submarines can be deployed can release about 2,300 Tomahawk without additional charging. "Thus, the tomahawk's stock in the Navy is so small that they are likely to be able to recharge all their ships even once," experts summed up.