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How close are US munition stockpiles to depletion, and what do they do afterwards? (hexbear.net)

submitted 19 hours ago by insurgentrat@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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I was looking at the production numbers for stuff like thaad missiles and tomahawks. They're all in the dozens annually and seemingly have been for ages.

Given the staggering numbers these are used in, and how it seems like the way the usa fights wars now is to launch stupid amounts at people, like multiple years worth in a day. What happens when they can't? How close are they to that, interceptors are low atm but given there are hilarious announcements like: https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/over_1000_tomahawks_1900_aim_120s_500_sm_6s_per_year_us_moves_to_multiply_missile_production-17408.html I assume many offensive rockets are running low.

Is that level of production feasible? I know the usa has a surprising industrial base but a 20x increase in even one armament seems ambitious, do they have the factories mothballed? The skilled workers? The raw materials?

If they don't is there any inkling of what their military people intend to do when they can't realistically threaten to park a fleet off your coast and level your cities?

I'm not a military nerd, just a random person if I'm missing sometimes obvious or said sometimes funny.

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[–] D61@hexbear.net 17 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

No... no its not.

There definitely isn't enough time to build out the facilities to ramp up production. These aren't fin stabilized bombs. These are very technically advanced doohickies and require lots of specialized equipment, personnel, and facilities to manufacture.

Most of these munitions are going to require a network of radar installations to have any shot of functioning, everything from early warning to target acquisition. Having more munitions but them being blind... is a bit of a problem.

As munitions get low, the launchers are going to start showing signs of wear and tear, being damaged in attacks, or being outright destroyed. So having more fancy missiles stops being useful. Maybe its easier to build more launchers than the missiles but if the USA is balking at having more manufacturing capacity for the missiles why wouldn't this also apply to the launchers.

All the while, somebody has got to figure out how to get all the stuff from the USA or Europe to the Western Asia area to be installed in the countries who are being attacked by Iran and other resistance groups. With Iran and those other resistance groups being pretty open about why these USA aligned countries are being attacked, "Stop working with the USA/Israel, who are attacking us, and we will leave you alone." At some point, the math is going to work out for some countries where "Hey, the USA has already failed to protect us once when they had all sorts of fancy radar installations, launchers and munitions for the launchers... now that they are rushing to rebuild the radar sites, launchers and munitions... why not take those resistance groups up on their offer of "we'll stop the attacks when you stop letting the USA/Israel do {insert thing here} on your country's soil?"