US Artillery Ammunition Production

[Ries]

Be forewarned- this is a link to the dreaded New York Times, so take precautions that you dont get woke.
But its almost all pictures and videos, so the danger of contamination is small.
It shows the main two plants responsible for pretty much all the large caliber artillery shell production in the USA.
And its kind of scary how old, funky, and relatively irreplaceable these facilities are.
The war in Ukraine is changing how we think about what we should have in reserve, in terms of military supplies and weapons- many Pentagon bigwigs assumed the age of Artillery was over, and instead we should be buying lots of 3/4 Billion dollar B-21 bombers.
But the Ukrainians and the Russians are kind of showing how small cheap weapons can defeat big expensive ones- as evidenced by the enormous losses by the Russians of tanks, armor, and aircraft to manpads and javelins and drones.
The article shows a factory that dates to 1951, and from the look of it, hasnt been swept since then. The technology is simple, to say the least, but most of the equipment is not exactly available at Harbor Freight.
Kinda makes me worry, I gotta say. I believe in backups, myself, in my shop, and in my life...
Anyway, check it, very interesting to see the 2023 state of the art.

How to Forge Shells for Ukraine's Artillery

At factories in Pennsylvania and Iowa, steel shells are formed in 2,000-degree furnaces and filled with explosives — offering Kyiv a lifeline of ammunition.

www.nytimes.com

 

[standardparts]

Be forewarned- this is a link to the dreaded New York Times, so take precautions that you dont get woke.
But its almost all pictures and videos, so the danger of contamination is small.
It shows the main two plants responsible for pretty much all the large caliber artillery shell production in the USA.
And its kind of scary how old, funky, and relatively irreplaceable these facilities are.
The war in Ukraine is changing how we think about what we should have in reserve, in terms of military supplies and weapons- many Pentagon bigwigs assumed the age of Artillery was over, and instead we should be buying lots of 3/4 Billion dollar B-21 bombers.
But the Ukrainians and the Russians are kind of showing how small cheap weapons can defeat big expensive ones- as evidenced by the enormous losses by the Russians of tanks, armor, and aircraft to manpads and javelins and drones.
The article shows a factory that dates to 1951, and from the look of it, hasnt been swept since then. The technology is simple, to say the least, but most of the equipment is not exactly available at Harbor Freight.
Kinda makes me worry, I gotta say. I believe in backups, myself, in my shop, and in my life...
Anyway, check it, very interesting to see the 2023 state of the art.

How to Forge Shells for Ukraine's Artillery

At factories in Pennsylvania and Iowa, steel shells are formed in 2,000-degree furnaces and filled with explosives — offering Kyiv a lifeline of ammunition.

www.nytimes.com

"Be forewarned- this is a link to the dreaded New York Times, so take precautions that you dont get woke."

Oh gosh...Ries woke up and put his bests snarky comment game hat on.
Where are we posting from today Ries?

BTW---The U.S. and NATO contract for artillery rounds in other places than the U.S. --- But I'm sure everyone is getting some good size contracts. One report says 100,000 rounds from South Korea are contracted and as expected from EU/NATO countries.

According to the 'net the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is operated by General Dynamics so no doubt contracts for ammunition is a real boon to employment in Scranton. General Dynamics also operates the Lima Tank Plant where the Abrams is manufactured along with the F16 fighter both of which the current Administration wants to send to Ukraine.
As far as the equipment goes it's a good thing that they kept the old stuff operational as it's unlikely any U.S. companies have survived to produce the machinery.
Russians have been reported as firing as many as 30,000 rounds a day and I'm sure Ukraine's usage is up there as well so no doubt it's good to be in the artillery ammo business---or most any defense related business for that matter. "War Is A Racket" (Smedley Butler)

 

[rons]

US military gives up Abrams tanks with Chobham armor plates.
Russians capture a tank and figure out how the armor works.
Thank you.

 

[Milland]

US military gives up Abrams tanks with Chobham armor plates.
Russians capture a tank and figure out how the armor works.
Thank you.

Chobham is old-hat (obsolete) at this point, but the US Abrams will likely be "de-contented" a tiny bit before handover. I'd like to think there's methods and means for a scuttling charge if the tank is damaged and the crew is able to abandon it first.

BTW, the issue of ammunition production will likely be very different in any new, major hot war the US gets involved in. We're going to need the means to produce millions (literally, multiples) of relatively simple (and not so simple) drones, swarmable.
This is the modern "Missile Gap", and unlike the 1960's, is real...

 

[moonlight machine]

US military gives up Abrams tanks with Chobham armor plates.
Russians capture a tank and figure out how the armor works.
Thank you.

Ukraine does not get the good armor.

 

[Milland]

Ukraine does not get the good armor.

It'll be curious to see what they do get. I hope they get the reactive armor, it's not that revolutionary by now (but explosive coniguration and sensors may be, like I said, it'll be interesting to see what they get).

 

[Trueturning]

Good focus on the manufacturing of these shells. I do believe that Time Magazine was the one to write the main piece on this though.

here;https://time.com/6252541/inside-the-us-army-plant-making-artillery-shells-for-ukraine/

It is a very good article and the factory is run by private company/‘s. Not just left for the government to run which tends to be less than ideal.

 

[dkmc]

Great info. Where can we read an article about China's artiliery plants, locations, details, etc?

 

[Bill D]

In the movie Schindler's list, based on a true story, the ammunition plant was in Czechoslovakia. He used Jewish slave labor to make ammunition for the nazi's.
Bill D

 

[standardparts]

In the movie Schindler's list, based on a true story, the ammunition plant was in Czechoslovakia. He used Jewish slave labor to make ammunition for the nazi's.
Bill D

It's also been said Schindler provided the uniforms for the false-flag radio station attack that kicked off WW2.
"After officially joining the Nazi party in 1939, Schindler was called upon to prepare a false-flag attack related to the Gleiwitz tower."
Good movie "based on a true story"---

 

[mhajicek]

In the movie Schindler's list, based on a true story, the ammunition plant was in Czechoslovakia. He used Jewish slave labor to make ammunition for the nazi's.
Bill D

As I understand it, he used Jewish slave labor, keeping them alive, to NOT make ammunition for the nazi's. Not one usable round was produced.

 

[bryan_machine]

Military history is full of terrible lessons. In essentially every war since WWI, and perhaps before that, ammunition consumption has been vastly beyond what anybody on any side planned for.

Those factories don't look soooo out of date to me - robots handling forges, marking machines, etc. Some other processes have the look of "yes this is more work but we've learned through rather bitter tragic experience that it must be done this way" - watch Ryan Mcbeth's video about artillery firing - there's a WHOLE LOT of people checking stuff over, and over.

Ryan Mcbeth's video:

As for armor, or sighting systems - such things have been captured or subjected to espionage forever. But sometimes the *process* for actually making the thing, or literally soft components (like software) are the impeding factors. There are skilled people in any advanced country, including China and the Russian Federation, who can pop the top off an Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc chip and reverse engineer the mask. Actually *fabbing* that chip is much more difficult.

Every commentor who appears to be informed (actual military analyst, former DOD officer or solider, etc) points out that to use the Bradley, the Abrams, the Patriot (let alone jet fighters) you need *whole squads* of people not just to run them (harder than you think), but to keep them running. It's been widely reportd and confirmed by DOD that the issue with the abrams isn't that it will be captured (though that is real) but rather that it's Gas Turbine engine is "special" and support would be very difficult for Ukraine. (The leopards are some more vanilla diesel.)

As for backups and future - beware of building weapons for a European land war when the next war you fight will be a pacific sea/island/air war. Both are horrible things, but they are different horrible things.

And yes, war is a racket, and one observer suggests that the racket may be part of what is driving Russia.

Anders Puck Nielsen (privatization of war in Russia - sort of a throw back to Medieval structures)

2022 has certainly shown that the tragic deep irrationality of human behavoir lives on in robust form. You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you. That doesn't make it less stupid.

 

[triumph406]

US military gives up Abrams tanks with Chobham armor plates.
Russians capture a tank and figure out how the armor works.
Thank you.

Chobham armor originated in the UK, I assume the Russians and the Chinese know all they need to know about Chobham armor. The Challengers have newer armor. I'm sure the opposition knows all about that too, with spies, malware etc stealing info

 

[FJsapper]

About running the plant, government owned contractor operated isn’t always a good thing. Sure, it can be vastly more efficient, but you also lose some flexibility. There is also the fact that a contractor is not necessarily incentivized to invest in the latest and greatest methods and tech because that comes out of the bottom line. I’m not advocating we own/operate all the depots and arsenals, but there is merit in having some capacity that can be turned on overnight.

 

[rons]

Ukraine does not get the good armor.

US has not produced a new one for over 20 years. They just get sand blasted and re-built.
Great way to off-load old stuff.

 

[FJsapper]

US has not produced a new one for over 20 years. They just get sand blasted and re-built.
Great way to off-load old stuff.

A lot more than sandblasting goes into it.

 

[rons]

A lot more than sandblasting goes into it.

Don't you have any imagination? I've seen movies of the Anniston Depot.

ANAD Home

 

[cyanidekid]

ok, so we are getting recent production RU cruse missiles, air defense systems, drones.

you'r worried they will get decades old reactive armor that has already been in their hands for years?
they probably got samples for the asking in the '90s, remember the "Cold War is over, the threat of a massive land war in Europe
is over". this stuff was considered nearly obsolete.

oh, and Abrams doesn't use Chobham. it has ERA, but its different, and one concern is that a lot of the ones in storage that were in US service have DU in the ERA. not so much a secrecy concern as a proper handling protocol concern from what I've read.
I think the big secret of Chobham was ceramic panels to resist high temp low kinetic energy shaped charges?

 

[Ries]

Two things I found interesting was the incredible amount of hand work, and the average age of the employees. Yes, there was one robot shown, in the same room with the white AT&T plastic landline phone from 1965.
But every single shell has a guy leanins over it and shining a flashlight down inside. Video bores scopes have been around 30 years or so now. using a brayer to hand ink the stencil for every single shell?

The russians often shoot 25,000 shells a day.
the ukrainians often shoot 4000 a day.
the us military likes to have capcity to fight 2 1/2 wars at a time.
I think we need a few more shell factories.
at least we use pallets for our ammunition. And the
ukrainians have forklifts. There is a huge pallet shortage in russia, and they traditionally hand load and unload each shell, once the crates get to the closest safe train siding, which gen is at least 40 km from the front lines.

 

[FJsapper]

Don't you have any imagination? I've seen movies of the Anniston Depot.

ANAD Home

Ohhhh yeah, been there many times.