Because deep ocean game is very different, those cruisers will be moving constantly with 60mph speed in much larger area than black sea, so one need more robust intelligence system and higher speed and range to catch them.
Actually, it is clear. What Ukraine is doing would not work in the open ocean, they're simply too small.
However, the basic concept could be applied. Russia and China have been building big weapons intended to dash through the defenses fast enough that not all of them will be picked off. Our doctrine has been different, stuff meant to sneak though defenses. But it's still missile vs interceptor.
However, the war in Ukraine (and to a lesser degree the one in Israel) has shown that for the same cost in weaponry you can deliver more by overwhelming your target with simple things. I'll stick to western systems because they're easier to get numbers for. You want to attack a US naval force? Get a whole bunch of Boghammers or the like. Seems to be about $200k/unit. Since they're going to be stripped down units you can probably put simple robotic controls on for the cost of the systems you're not including. Total sitting ducks vs what they're going against--but the cheapest missile in the magazines capable of being fired at a Boghammer costs 5x as much. Sure the fleet will know they're coming but what can they do? We have already seen that it doesn't take very many units to overwhelm Russian gun defenses, we probably fare not better.
“Spokesman Wu Qian of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Defense Ministry recently said, “The Chinese military is ready, alongside the Russian military, to uphold justice worldwide.”
This means the US might have to face both China and Russia at the same time.
Wu Qian highlighted that China’s military strength could match all of NATO’s conventional forces, sending a strong message to NATO countries. “
Of course a Chinese propagandist would say that about their forces, with truth being at best coincidence. True world powers need not make empty boasts nor fear paper Poo bears.
Sure. The US has a treaty to defend Taiwan against foreign aggression. China has abstained from attacking the Taiwanese people since before I was born. Ergo, you are the only one who thinks China is stupid enough to behave in a nonsensical manner.
I am thoroughly enjoying wasting my time off dealing with your assertions. Like pigs, I enjoy being muddy. The man in the white house doesn't matter a flying flip with regards to treaty enforcement, and there's sufficient rule of law left in this country to correctly handle any Chinese aggression. Oh and the real reason China won't attack Taiwan is because the chip factories are rigged to explode and without that there's no reason to invade. But you already knew that, or should, with your illusion of expertise in this matter.
Let me try: From the resplendent shores of freedom, the invincible alliance of the United States and Taiwan stands unbreakable! As waves crash upon the might of our union, China's endeavors will dissolve into the sands of futility....Together, fortified by the treaties of solidarity, we will witness the dawn of triumph over China ambitions over Taiwan. Long live the US Taiwan treaty!
Donald Trump says a lot of stuff that is intended to prey on the minds of the public. His words (let alone his signature on a treaty) mean nothing and can be revoked at any time. Until he actually does something, the singular value of statements like these is to make headlines. If everything Donald Trump said was written into policy, he'd have contradicted himself into anarchy.
The parent's line of logic is sound; the United States has fundamental interests in securing Taiwan's independence. They are one of the very few countries that would receive Israel-levels of international intervention if their sovereignty was threatened, and China knows that. A ground invasion under current conditions would be political and materiel suicide; you have to imagine apocalypse-level global malcontent before NATO would roll over and go ahead with China's reunification strategy.
"...But a swift response may not be possible, in large part because of how shrunken the U.S. manufacturing base has become since the Cold War. All of a sudden, Washington is reckoning with the fact that so many parts and pieces of munitions, planes, and ships it needs are being manufactured overseas, including in China. Among the deficiencies: components of solid rocket motors, shell casings, machine tools, fuses and precursor elements to propellants and explosives, many of which are made in China and India..."
"Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said." - https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15243813
Because the United States has a strategy that relies on deterrence. That's what's stopping them today, and maintaining that advantage is a critical component of scaring China away from arbitrary harassment campaigns like they engage with in the Philippines.
You need to stop reading into sensationalist headlines and actually understand the strategies at-play here. This is about creating sufficient conditions for China to not invade Taiwan, not blowing each other up in a second floating Ukraine. China doesn't want that, Taiwan doesn't want that, and the United States doesn't want that either. The critical difference between posturing and realpolitik is actually doing something; China will refuse to commit to a violent invasion unless globalism fails them (hint: globalism never fails China).
> The US has a treaty to defend Taiwan against foreign aggression.
The US does not have any such treaty. First off, the US doesn't have any treaties with Taiwan, because the US does not recognize Taiwan as a country. What the US has is its own national law, the Taiwan Relations Act, which is deliberately ambiguous as to whether the US would actually intervene to defend Taiwan.
Are you telling me China built the largest navy in the world (hahahaha little pooh bear with small honey-pot syndrome) and now... Will use it in violation of international law? I don't believe you're high enough ranking in the Chinese military to be privvy to any such plans. You're welcome to come back with evidence, though.
While within the territory of China, the United States is sadly unable to fully protect the rights of oppressed humans, I am very happy that my tax dollars go to support innocent passage through the South China Sea, making a mockery of their so-called territorial claims that are consistently refuted by the UN. Here's my proof : "On 10 May[2024] , USS Halsey (DDG 97) asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, consistent with international Law." https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/37714...
Hey! Guess what? They're entirely within their rights to do so! We can even escort them with our own ships out at sea, since by definition these exercises occur in international waters! And if that changes, so does the US response.
It blows my mind how woefully ignorant people are about this.
Like think about it, you have an organization like the CCP that exists to exert control over 17% of the world's population and continues to deny them the basic human rights that every human being should be entitled to.
Can anyone seriously tell me that they're content to just do that to 17% of the world's population? Of course not. The fact that they haveb't extended their wretched grasp over the world isn't because they don't want to, it's that they can't do it yet.
The existance of monarchies and autocracies anywhere is a threat to the free world and the concepts of liberal democracy. Not only do we owe it to the people who live under repressive governments to free them but we owe it to ourselves to keep ourselves free.
Use it for what exactly? For decades the militaries of the world have subscribed to the theory of detterence - build up a force sufficiently large that no one in their right mind will try to attack you, and thus you don't need to fight. Under such a doctrine, the entire point of the massive spending is to not use it.
As we see in Ukraine, the decision to try and flex military strength can be quite disastrous when you demonstrate your immense military is actually a paper tiger - it generates complaints domestically, and erodes credibility abroad, to say nothing of the various other negative consequences of fighting a prolonged conflict.
China is a land power, always has been, always should be. It has no experience conducting naval operations, exceedingly few foreign bases for supporting long range naval power projection, and it is totally reliant on the maritime status quo. China likely wants to deter anyone from getting ideas about interdicting its shipping, and is probably happy to find a use for its excess steel production, but it would be crazy to pick a fight with the world's dominant naval power, which is coincidentally one of the world's premiere nuclear powers, and geographically unassailable by conventional forces, and there really isn't any naval opponent that isn't allied with one or the other. It's almost certainly intended as a fleet in being, at most an insurance policy in case America becomes isolationist in the next few years and there is a power vacuum.
I don't understand why everybody keeps underestimating China. Their space programs started with second hand copies of Soyuz capsules, and now runs circles around the US Space program...
Well that escalated quickly! I think in that case, the artillery shell production will be last of our concerns.
I see different and more feasible scenarios: An unsatisfactory peace in Ukraine that will leave neither Russia or Ukraine happy.
Any political weakness or apathy from the US side, will be picked quickly by China as the best opportunity in 50 years...
China will progressively increase their exercises. First as like now to involve 50 airplanes and 20 ships...then 100 planes and 50 ships...then 250 planes and 100 ships, getting closer and closer to the last 20 to 25 miles of Taiwan, until the day the exercise will become an incursion, that goes for directly targeting heads of government. Probably by then hundreds of soldiers disguised as business men already will be in Taiwan.
Even if the US decides to intervene it will arrive days to weeks too late, and will make a big fuss but decide its not worth it. Specially if enough TSMC facilities are already running in the US.
You build a very strong army, either to defend or to attack. Nobody is a threat to China or want's anything from China, so they are not creating an army to defend assets...
It didn't escalate quickly, you just didn't read the comment you replied to.
> I think in that case, the artillery shell production will be last of our concerns.
We're talking about the buildup of the chinese navy, not artillery shells. Though indeed, the presence of a massive nuclear arsenal renders the relative strength of conventional forces irrelevant for total war.
> China will progressively increase their exercises. First as like now to involve 50 airplanes and 20 ships...then 100 planes and 50 ships...then 250 planes and 100 ships, getting closer and closer to the last 20 to 25 miles of Taiwan, until the day the exercise will become an incursion, that goes for directly targeting heads of government. Probably by then hundreds of soldiers disguised as business men already will be in Taiwan.
I don't think you understand what is involved in launching a naval invasion. Taiwan has 23 million people, a standing army of 180,000 and 1.7 million reservists, and defensible terrain. A successful invasion without any US support would still be an undertaking an order of magnitude larger than D-day; its preparation would take months and be clearly visible to satellite imagery. Building the ships necessary to transport the troops would take years, and be at the expense of other naval production. Ships in transit and troops at mustering stations would be vulnerable to Taiwanese missile strikes. Whatever troops China managed to land would be severely outnumbered and outgunned by an entrenched opponent.
> Even if the US decides to intervene it will arrive days to weeks too late
The US would already be there. Again, they'ed have months if not years of advanced warning. There are already numerous American bases in the area, and America would likely pre-position forces on Taiwan itself if an attack was imminent. At the very least, it would lift restrictions on arms exports to Taiwan, allowing it to even better prepare its own defenses.
> You build a very strong army, either to defend or to attack. Nobody is a threat to China or want's anything from China, so they are not creating an army to defend assets...
China faced a century of humiliation because everyone wanted something from them and they had no means to defend their assets. They have long standing feuds with nearly every nation in the region. They are jockeying for position with the world's leading power. The claim they have no concerns about defense is absurd.
Americans have been fed a steady stream of propaganda that they're the best at everything and that no one else in the world even comes close -- especially military stuff.
Some people just cannot conceive of a world where America isn't the best, especially militarily and they cannot conceive of a world where anyone else could ever close the gap.
America spent 20 years grinding down international good will and their armed forces in waste of time conflicts that went no where while China has spent their time fastidiously consolidating economic infrastructure to wage a long term war. What does America have to show for any of it?
Now I think it's definitely likely that America could muster up the strength to fight China, but that won't happen until enough people realize that they're facing legitimate existential threat.
Acknowledging that threat means fixing fundamental flaws in our modern economy and society -- We need wake the fuck up to the rampant corruption and graft in our society and get a manufacturing economy that benefits the little guy and not some grease-bag rent-seeking parasites who contribute nothing to society.
> We need wake the fuck up to the rampant corruption and graft in our society and get a manufacturing economy that benefits the little guy and not some grease-bag rent-seeking parasites who contribute nothing to society.
If I were that rent seeking parasite, I would prefer you to focus your attention and rage on China instead...
I’ve seen people claim that China has no desire to be a global hegemon and just wants regional security but this shoots that notion in the back of the head.
I agree with this. Their interests is regional geopolitics, which currently means unfettered control over the south china sea, but by extension, everything surrounding this side of India to past Japan.
However, once that dries up, it'll just be 'finance based colonialism' (my term). Pakistan has already fallen, for instance.
The site had multiple scoops so far, and never failed me until now. I agree on a first landing can look suspicions but, until proof of the contrary, and did not happen yet, I consider it somewhat reliable.
Is GDP really the best way to look at this though, when the US spends on the order of 2-5x more for equipment and weapons systems per unit compared to the Russian/Chinese equivalents, without necessarily being 2-5x better in real world applications?
It would be interesting to see a more accurate comparison with spending adjusted by total amount and actual purchase/operating costs, though I'm not really sure how to go about doing that, and it gets even more murky looking at price gouging by military contractors for ordinary objects in the US ($50,000 trash cans come to mind.) For the first reason and one above I suspect our actual reported value gained from our budget is vastly overinflated.
I also suppose something similar would be happening in Russia/China, maybe not as price gouging fraud but theft of supplies/funding, which would be harder to compare.
Putin is a war criminal, and let's hope Ukraine inflicts on Russia, a generational defeat. However, you are dealing with a country, that can put 2 millions workers in full war industrial footing.
And whose electronic countermeasures, by the Pentagon own admission, have been recently defeating some extremely sophisticated US weapons.
Don't underestimate an enemy, who can suffer losses unthinkable for Western Armies, with minimal danger of societal collapse....
That's not a particularly high number for a country at war. During WW2 the US averaged around 500,000 artillery shells produced per day. Even in Russia, they are in the early stages of ramping up wartime production, and the west is deliberately hesitant to produce substantially beyond peacetime levels.
Yeah, Russia is at war, though it is limited. In WW2, for an example of total war, about 1.5 billion shells were used on the western front alone, which is nearly 700,000 per day for 6 years straight. By comparrison 40-60k shells per day is nothing. Russia is ramping up production, they report that their current rate is 2.5X what they were producing a year ago, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to if they were on a wartime economy.
The US, again being at peace, is even less motivated to ramp up its production. While the exact numbers aren't currently known, in 1994 the US had 20.4 million artillery rounds stockpiled. It has sent about 2 million of the oldest ones to Ukraine (equivalent to about 6 months of Russian production), and it is also selling large numbers to Israel. The army wants to boost artillery shell production because they always do, but the fact is the US does not currently need to match Russia's production rate, as it is not using shells at nearly the same rate. It's also worth noting that many other nations are likewise producing artillery shells to send to Ukraine. The limitation on western aide to Ukraine has been political will, not insufficient materiel.
And there are clearly folks here who are more than happy to carry water for them. It's nice of them to identify themselves so readily, they stick out like giant Winnie the Pooh dolls.
America shot itself in the foot! We have less and less people able to manufacture stuff, American work ethic is a thing of the past, and we funded the growth of China, which in the last 2 decades transformed itself of a great manufacturing power, which initially started by copying, but it's now leading including in the scientific discoveries area. Also, in order to the ties between Russia and Germany, we made a new union between Russia and China, which was the most stupid thing one could've come up with given Russian resources and Chinese manufacturing power! By trying to make Europe weak, we made China strong!
54 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadHowever, the basic concept could be applied. Russia and China have been building big weapons intended to dash through the defenses fast enough that not all of them will be picked off. Our doctrine has been different, stuff meant to sneak though defenses. But it's still missile vs interceptor.
However, the war in Ukraine (and to a lesser degree the one in Israel) has shown that for the same cost in weaponry you can deliver more by overwhelming your target with simple things. I'll stick to western systems because they're easier to get numbers for. You want to attack a US naval force? Get a whole bunch of Boghammers or the like. Seems to be about $200k/unit. Since they're going to be stripped down units you can probably put simple robotic controls on for the cost of the systems you're not including. Total sitting ducks vs what they're going against--but the cheapest missile in the magazines capable of being fired at a Boghammer costs 5x as much. Sure the fleet will know they're coming but what can they do? We have already seen that it doesn't take very many units to overwhelm Russian gun defenses, we probably fare not better.
This means the US might have to face both China and Russia at the same time.
Wu Qian highlighted that China’s military strength could match all of NATO’s conventional forces, sending a strong message to NATO countries. “
Maybe the iPhone 16 is the last version.
Can you elaborate?
"China warns on Taiwan, South China Sea at Shangri-La forum" - https://www.voanews.com/a/china-warns-on-taiwan-south-china-...
"Former U.S. President Trump Hints He Wouldn't Defend Taiwan From China" - https://youtu.be/5KEgY8FR51o
Let me try: From the resplendent shores of freedom, the invincible alliance of the United States and Taiwan stands unbreakable! As waves crash upon the might of our union, China's endeavors will dissolve into the sands of futility....Together, fortified by the treaties of solidarity, we will witness the dawn of triumph over China ambitions over Taiwan. Long live the US Taiwan treaty!
The parent's line of logic is sound; the United States has fundamental interests in securing Taiwan's independence. They are one of the very few countries that would receive Israel-levels of international intervention if their sovereignty was threatened, and China knows that. A ground invasion under current conditions would be political and materiel suicide; you have to imagine apocalypse-level global malcontent before NATO would roll over and go ahead with China's reunification strategy.
"The Pentagon Is Freaking Out About a Potential War With China" - https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/09/america-we...
"...But a swift response may not be possible, in large part because of how shrunken the U.S. manufacturing base has become since the Cold War. All of a sudden, Washington is reckoning with the fact that so many parts and pieces of munitions, planes, and ships it needs are being manufactured overseas, including in China. Among the deficiencies: components of solid rocket motors, shell casings, machine tools, fuses and precursor elements to propellants and explosives, many of which are made in China and India..."
"Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said." - https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15243813
You need to stop reading into sensationalist headlines and actually understand the strategies at-play here. This is about creating sufficient conditions for China to not invade Taiwan, not blowing each other up in a second floating Ukraine. China doesn't want that, Taiwan doesn't want that, and the United States doesn't want that either. The critical difference between posturing and realpolitik is actually doing something; China will refuse to commit to a violent invasion unless globalism fails them (hint: globalism never fails China).
The US does not have any such treaty. First off, the US doesn't have any treaties with Taiwan, because the US does not recognize Taiwan as a country. What the US has is its own national law, the Taiwan Relations Act, which is deliberately ambiguous as to whether the US would actually intervene to defend Taiwan.
Checks notes: ....Uyghur camps...Hong Kong...takes whole South China Sea...
Yeap, my notes say it will.
Like think about it, you have an organization like the CCP that exists to exert control over 17% of the world's population and continues to deny them the basic human rights that every human being should be entitled to.
Can anyone seriously tell me that they're content to just do that to 17% of the world's population? Of course not. The fact that they haveb't extended their wretched grasp over the world isn't because they don't want to, it's that they can't do it yet.
The existance of monarchies and autocracies anywhere is a threat to the free world and the concepts of liberal democracy. Not only do we owe it to the people who live under repressive governments to free them but we owe it to ourselves to keep ourselves free.
As we see in Ukraine, the decision to try and flex military strength can be quite disastrous when you demonstrate your immense military is actually a paper tiger - it generates complaints domestically, and erodes credibility abroad, to say nothing of the various other negative consequences of fighting a prolonged conflict.
China is a land power, always has been, always should be. It has no experience conducting naval operations, exceedingly few foreign bases for supporting long range naval power projection, and it is totally reliant on the maritime status quo. China likely wants to deter anyone from getting ideas about interdicting its shipping, and is probably happy to find a use for its excess steel production, but it would be crazy to pick a fight with the world's dominant naval power, which is coincidentally one of the world's premiere nuclear powers, and geographically unassailable by conventional forces, and there really isn't any naval opponent that isn't allied with one or the other. It's almost certainly intended as a fleet in being, at most an insurance policy in case America becomes isolationist in the next few years and there is a power vacuum.
But even if they were landing people on Mars right now, I don't see how that would be evidence they could win a nuclear war.
Well that escalated quickly! I think in that case, the artillery shell production will be last of our concerns.
I see different and more feasible scenarios: An unsatisfactory peace in Ukraine that will leave neither Russia or Ukraine happy.
Any political weakness or apathy from the US side, will be picked quickly by China as the best opportunity in 50 years...
China will progressively increase their exercises. First as like now to involve 50 airplanes and 20 ships...then 100 planes and 50 ships...then 250 planes and 100 ships, getting closer and closer to the last 20 to 25 miles of Taiwan, until the day the exercise will become an incursion, that goes for directly targeting heads of government. Probably by then hundreds of soldiers disguised as business men already will be in Taiwan.
Even if the US decides to intervene it will arrive days to weeks too late, and will make a big fuss but decide its not worth it. Specially if enough TSMC facilities are already running in the US.
You build a very strong army, either to defend or to attack. Nobody is a threat to China or want's anything from China, so they are not creating an army to defend assets...
It didn't escalate quickly, you just didn't read the comment you replied to.
> I think in that case, the artillery shell production will be last of our concerns.
We're talking about the buildup of the chinese navy, not artillery shells. Though indeed, the presence of a massive nuclear arsenal renders the relative strength of conventional forces irrelevant for total war.
> China will progressively increase their exercises. First as like now to involve 50 airplanes and 20 ships...then 100 planes and 50 ships...then 250 planes and 100 ships, getting closer and closer to the last 20 to 25 miles of Taiwan, until the day the exercise will become an incursion, that goes for directly targeting heads of government. Probably by then hundreds of soldiers disguised as business men already will be in Taiwan.
I don't think you understand what is involved in launching a naval invasion. Taiwan has 23 million people, a standing army of 180,000 and 1.7 million reservists, and defensible terrain. A successful invasion without any US support would still be an undertaking an order of magnitude larger than D-day; its preparation would take months and be clearly visible to satellite imagery. Building the ships necessary to transport the troops would take years, and be at the expense of other naval production. Ships in transit and troops at mustering stations would be vulnerable to Taiwanese missile strikes. Whatever troops China managed to land would be severely outnumbered and outgunned by an entrenched opponent.
> Even if the US decides to intervene it will arrive days to weeks too late
The US would already be there. Again, they'ed have months if not years of advanced warning. There are already numerous American bases in the area, and America would likely pre-position forces on Taiwan itself if an attack was imminent. At the very least, it would lift restrictions on arms exports to Taiwan, allowing it to even better prepare its own defenses.
> You build a very strong army, either to defend or to attack. Nobody is a threat to China or want's anything from China, so they are not creating an army to defend assets...
China faced a century of humiliation because everyone wanted something from them and they had no means to defend their assets. They have long standing feuds with nearly every nation in the region. They are jockeying for position with the world's leading power. The claim they have no concerns about defense is absurd.
Americans have been fed a steady stream of propaganda that they're the best at everything and that no one else in the world even comes close -- especially military stuff.
Some people just cannot conceive of a world where America isn't the best, especially militarily and they cannot conceive of a world where anyone else could ever close the gap.
America spent 20 years grinding down international good will and their armed forces in waste of time conflicts that went no where while China has spent their time fastidiously consolidating economic infrastructure to wage a long term war. What does America have to show for any of it?
Now I think it's definitely likely that America could muster up the strength to fight China, but that won't happen until enough people realize that they're facing legitimate existential threat.
Acknowledging that threat means fixing fundamental flaws in our modern economy and society -- We need wake the fuck up to the rampant corruption and graft in our society and get a manufacturing economy that benefits the little guy and not some grease-bag rent-seeking parasites who contribute nothing to society.
If I were that rent seeking parasite, I would prefer you to focus your attention and rage on China instead...
However, once that dries up, it'll just be 'finance based colonialism' (my term). Pakistan has already fallen, for instance.
In terms of GDP, that's like saying "China might have to face the US and Belgium at the same time".
Russia's military output is constrained enough that importing shells from North Korea was a significant boost for them.
It would be interesting to see a more accurate comparison with spending adjusted by total amount and actual purchase/operating costs, though I'm not really sure how to go about doing that, and it gets even more murky looking at price gouging by military contractors for ordinary objects in the US ($50,000 trash cans come to mind.) For the first reason and one above I suspect our actual reported value gained from our budget is vastly overinflated.
I also suppose something similar would be happening in Russia/China, maybe not as price gouging fraud but theft of supplies/funding, which would be harder to compare.
And whose electronic countermeasures, by the Pentagon own admission, have been recently defeating some extremely sophisticated US weapons.
Don't underestimate an enemy, who can suffer losses unthinkable for Western Armies, with minimal danger of societal collapse....
"Russia's electronic warfare has repeatedly foiled American precision weapons in Ukraine." - https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-electronic-warfare-s...
"Every day, Russia produces 12,320 artillery shells" - https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/05/26/every-day-russia-pr...
They did not go to Korea and China because they can't produce ammunition. They went because they consume so much of it...
"The U.S. Army will boost production of 155mm artillery shells more than sixfold to 85,000 a month" - https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/2023/03/28/...
Just for comparison...in the Donbas region, Russia is estimated to have fired 40,000–60,000 152mm shells per day...
That is the US Army current monthly production in two days...
The US, again being at peace, is even less motivated to ramp up its production. While the exact numbers aren't currently known, in 1994 the US had 20.4 million artillery rounds stockpiled. It has sent about 2 million of the oldest ones to Ukraine (equivalent to about 6 months of Russian production), and it is also selling large numbers to Israel. The army wants to boost artillery shell production because they always do, but the fact is the US does not currently need to match Russia's production rate, as it is not using shells at nearly the same rate. It's also worth noting that many other nations are likewise producing artillery shells to send to Ukraine. The limitation on western aide to Ukraine has been political will, not insufficient materiel.