Germany is producing weapons to fight the last war.
WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this.
Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the money was allocated today, we might see it distributed differently.
Both China and the US have moved on to drones. China has purchased 1 million kamikaze strike drones to hit targets across Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan [0]; and the US is trying to invest $55 billion into drone procurement [1].
I always wonder about these production numbers in the military. The US has a large military complex and Germany is an industrial power and North Korea is a small military autocracy suffering from raw material shortages, but Googling around I see[0]:
> The expert also said that the North’s annual production estimate of 2 million 152-millimeter artillery shells is premised on peacetime manufacturing rates.
But here Germany is the largest ammunition producer and they're making 1.1 million (presumably both are per-year rates).
This link[1] says the US makes 672k/year (I'm annualizing their per-month number) so definitely Germany is making more than the US.
I get the impression a lot of these things need some contextualization. Are the rates per month or per year, is production dispatchable, do some countries have stockpiles or refurbish shells? Because just looking at raw numbers here results in strange results like North Korea being way larger than Germany at this.
German industry is changing a lot loosing against China, so they have been moving to war related stuff for the past years. Personally, I know a bunch of people who were offered get transferred from VW to a military drone company.
On one side I understand that manufacturing a lot of weapons could be somehow a protection for the future, but also Germany provides a lot of ammunition to Israel that is killing thousands of innocents in Gaza and Lebanon. Germany is friend of Israel despite many people disliking it in Germany (they are still waving Israeli flags in many official places).
Also, weapons will lead to more weapons, more violence and more war, specially if you have investors behind willing to see their shares going up...
> Provides a lot of ammunition to Israel that is killing thousands of innocents in Gaza and Lebanon
I love how you just casually throw this out there as if it's an accepted fact. Casualty figures in Gaza/Lebanon are heavily disputed and have been from the get go. Hamas health ministry numbers don't distinguish combatants from civilians, ignore Hamas's use of human shields and embedding in civilian areas, or account for misfires/own goals. "Innocents" is subjective in urban warfare against groups like Hamas and Hezbollah (both designated terror orgs by many countries), whose charters and actions explicitly target Israeli civilians.
> weapons will lead to more weapons, more violence and more war
This is naive at best, dangerous at worst - western, white savior thinking. Weakness invites aggression. Example Russia's invasions or Hamas's Oct 7 attack. Deterrence matters and has mattered since day immemorial (cold war, for instance).
Arms races don't automatically lead to wars - they have deeper roots like ideology, territory, resources, etc... One-sided restraint has sometimes led to worse outcomes. Example here would be 1930s appeasement.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 31.7 ms ] threadGermany Overtakes US in Ammunition Production Capacity
141 points, 163 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944924
WWIII will be fought with drones, not artillery. They should invest part of this money into becoming the leader in drone manufacturing, not this.
Since it's Germany, the money for this manufacturing ramp-up was probably allocated around 2023-2024, when older artillery was needed and before drone superiority was obvious. So maybe this is the expected outcome. If the money was allocated today, we might see it distributed differently.
Both China and the US have moved on to drones. China has purchased 1 million kamikaze strike drones to hit targets across Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan [0]; and the US is trying to invest $55 billion into drone procurement [1].
[0] https://www.warquants.com/p/one-million-suicide-drones-with-...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953787
> The expert also said that the North’s annual production estimate of 2 million 152-millimeter artillery shells is premised on peacetime manufacturing rates.
But here Germany is the largest ammunition producer and they're making 1.1 million (presumably both are per-year rates).
This link[1] says the US makes 672k/year (I'm annualizing their per-month number) so definitely Germany is making more than the US.
I get the impression a lot of these things need some contextualization. Are the rates per month or per year, is production dispatchable, do some countries have stockpiles or refurbish shells? Because just looking at raw numbers here results in strange results like North Korea being way larger than Germany at this.
0: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-11-06/nationa...
1: https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/army-official-not-happy-...
On one side I understand that manufacturing a lot of weapons could be somehow a protection for the future, but also Germany provides a lot of ammunition to Israel that is killing thousands of innocents in Gaza and Lebanon. Germany is friend of Israel despite many people disliking it in Germany (they are still waving Israeli flags in many official places).
Also, weapons will lead to more weapons, more violence and more war, specially if you have investors behind willing to see their shares going up...
I love how you just casually throw this out there as if it's an accepted fact. Casualty figures in Gaza/Lebanon are heavily disputed and have been from the get go. Hamas health ministry numbers don't distinguish combatants from civilians, ignore Hamas's use of human shields and embedding in civilian areas, or account for misfires/own goals. "Innocents" is subjective in urban warfare against groups like Hamas and Hezbollah (both designated terror orgs by many countries), whose charters and actions explicitly target Israeli civilians.
> weapons will lead to more weapons, more violence and more war
This is naive at best, dangerous at worst - western, white savior thinking. Weakness invites aggression. Example Russia's invasions or Hamas's Oct 7 attack. Deterrence matters and has mattered since day immemorial (cold war, for instance).
Arms races don't automatically lead to wars - they have deeper roots like ideology, territory, resources, etc... One-sided restraint has sometimes led to worse outcomes. Example here would be 1930s appeasement.