Tag: fighter aircraft

Rapidly Depleting Munitions Stockpiles Point to Necessary Changes in Policy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

SUMMARY

U.S. munitions stockpiles are rapidly being depleted as the Ukraine war continues. Sufficient stockpiles of munitions are vital to the U.S. defense. Once the stockpiles are expended, the Department of Defense cannot simply buy more munitions—manufacturing takes years. Congress and the Department of Defense must ensure that the U.S. has sufficient stockpiles to meet the challenges of the modern era while working with manufacturers to make the industry as responsive as possible.

Rapidly Depleting Munitions Stockpiles Point to Necessary Changes in Policy

How Much it Actually Costs to Fly U.S. Military Aircraft

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How Much it Actually Costs to Fly U.S. Military Aircraft

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter costs $41,986 an hour across all models, including the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the F-35C for the Marine Corps and Navy. The Air Force in particular is stuck with the headache of replacing the F-16, which costs $26,927 an hour, with a plane that costs 25 percent more to operate, permanently raising costs. This is especially a problem as the F-35 was originally promised to cost the same to operate as the F-16. The Air Force must now either buy fewer F-35s or figure out how to foot a bigger annual bill.

War Industry Looking Forward to “Multiyear Authority” in Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently offered some matter-of-fact observations about the immense human suffering and death caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and placed the responsibility for ending the war squarely on Moscow’s shoulders. “There’s one guy that can stop it — and his name is Vladimir Putin,” Milley said. “He needs to stop it.”

But then Milley crossed what he most certainly never imagined to be a tripwire when he said, “And they need to get to the negotiating table.”

War Industry Looking Forward to “Multiyear Authority” in Ukraine

U.S. and NATO scramble to arm Ukraine and refill their own arsenals

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Either this narrative about weapon stockpiles, being depleted, is part of the information war or Russia is demilitarizing NATO!?!

U.S. and NATO scramble to arm Ukraine and refill their own arsenals

In Ukraine, the kind of European war thought inconceivable is chewing up the modest stockpiles of artillery, ammunition and air defenses of what some in NATO call Europe’s “bonsai armies,” after the tiny Japanese trees. Even the mighty United States has only limited stocks of the weapons the Ukrainians want and need, and Washington is unwilling to divert key weapons from delicate regions like Taiwan and Korea, where China and North Korea are constantly testing the limits.

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So the West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells

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There are even discussions about NATO investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of Soviet-caliber 152-mm and 122-mm shells for Ukraine’s still largely Soviet-era artillery armory.

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The European Union has approved €3.1 billion ($3.2 billion) to repay member states for what they provide to Ukraine, but that fund, the [ironically-named] European Peace Facility, is nearly 90 percent depleted.

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Smaller countries have exhausted their potential, another NATO official said, with 20 of its 30 members “pretty tapped out.” But the remaining 10 can still provide more, he suggested, especially larger allies. That would include France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has advised the alliance — including, pointedly, Germany — that NATO guidelines requiring members to keep stockpiles should not be a pretext to limit arms exports to Ukraine. But it is also true that Germany and France, like the United States, want to calibrate the weapons Ukraine gets, to prevent escalation and direct attacks on Russia.

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Washington is also looking at older, cheaper alternatives like giving Ukraine anti-tank TOW missiles, which are in plentiful supply, instead of Javelins, and Hawk surface-to-air missiles instead of newer versions. But officials are increasingly pushing Ukraine to be more efficient and not, for example, fire a missile that costs $150,000 at a drone that costs $20,000.