“We’ve continued to support the needs of the warfighter even without pulling our installations into the modern era,” said Stephanie Hoaglin.
How the Army goes about modernizing its crucial but aging organic industrial base
Tag: production
Israel requests another THAAD system
THAAD transfer to ‘Israel’ points to crisis in defense systems: Report
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 on Friday reported that “Israel” has requested the US to deploy a second THAAD battery to bolster its defenses against a potential Iranian retaliation to its planned upcoming attack.
Related:
U.S. Missile Defense Is Under Strain
Read More »America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.
To understand how America is preparing for its nuclear future, follow Melissa Durkee’s fifth-grade students as they shuffle into Room 38 at Preston Veterans’ Memorial School in Preston, Conn. One by one, the children settle in for a six-week course taught by an atypical educator, the defense contractor General Dynamics.
“Does anyone know why we’re here?” a company representative asks. Adalie, 10, shoots her hand into the air. “Um, because you’re building submarines and you, like, need people, and you’re teaching us about it in case we’re interested in working there when we get older,” she ventures.
Adalie is correct. The U.S. Navy has put in an order for General Dynamics to produce 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines by 2042 — a job that’s projected to cost $130 billion. The industry is struggling to find the tens of thousands of new workers it needs. For the past 18 months, the company has traveled to elementary schools across New England to educate children in the basics of submarine manufacturing and perhaps inspire a student or two to consider one day joining its shipyards.
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Though the new Columbia-class subs are primarily being built in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Virginia, the Navy is going to tremendous lengths to recruit talent across the country. Over the past year, a blitz of ads has appeared at various sports events — including major league baseball games, WNBA games and even atop a NASCAR hood — steering fans to buildsubmarines.com. The website connects job seekers with hiring defense contractors as part of a nearly $1 billion campaign. Some of that money will go toward helping restore the network of companies that can supply the more than three million parts that go into a Columbia sub. Like so much of the nation’s nuclear infrastructure, those supplier numbers have plummeted since the 1990s.
America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.
Now this is grooming!
Recommended Reading:
Israel races to supply anti-missile shield
Israel races to supply anti-missile shield
“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” said Dana Stroul, a former senior US defence official with responsibility for the Middle East.
“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and Hizbollah joins in too, Israel air defences will be stretched,” she said, adding that US stockpiles were not limitless. “The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”
Boaz Levy, chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned company which makes the Arrow interceptors used to shoot down ballistic missiles, said he was running triple shifts to keep production lines running.
“Some of our lines are working 24 hours, seven days a week. Our goal is to meet all our obligations,” Levy said, adding that the time required to produce interceptor missiles was “not a matter of days”. While Israel does not disclose the size of its stockpiles, he added: “It is no secret that we need to replenish stocks.”
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The Israeli military claimed in April that, with the help of the US and other allies, it achieved a 99 per cent interception rate against an Iranian salvo of 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.
But Israel had less success fending off a second Iranian barrage of over 180 ballistic missiles fired on October 1. Almost three dozen missiles hit Israel’s Nevatim air base, according to open source intelligence analysts, while one missile exploded 700 metres away from the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.
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“We are not seeing Hizbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” said Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israel Defense Forces.
“Some of that gap is a choice by Hizbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF. . . But Hizbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added. “Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”
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“During the October 1 attack, there was a sense the IDF reserved some Arrow interceptors in case Iran fired its next salvo at Tel Aviv,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s Ministry of Defence. “It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritise how they are deployed.”
Dana Stroul wrote the article that I previously posted back on September 28th.
Previously:
Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe (it’s not looking good for the IOF)
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel + More Updates
Army races to widen the bottlenecks of artillery shell production
Army races to widen the bottlenecks of artillery shell production
The U.S. Army has started diversifying its supplier base for 155mm artillery shells, moving away from the bottleneck of a single source that has endangered the flow of fresh ammo, according to a top service official.
The service is racing toward a goal of shoring up all major single sources that provide parts or materials for 155mm munitions by the end of 2025.
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The Pentagon is investing billions of dollars to increase the capacity of 155mm munition production as it races to replenish stock sent to support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, which began in early 2022, and to ensure the U.S. has what it might need should conflict erupt across multiple theaters at once. The Army planned to spend $3.1 billion in FY24 supplemental funding alone to ramp up production.
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Prior to the war in Ukraine, the U.S. could build about 14,400 of the artillery shells per month. But as Ukrainian forces burn through the ammunition for howitzers sent to the country, the U.S. recognized quickly that replenishment could not be done with the current infrastructure.
The service has set a target of producing 100,000 artillery shells per month, but Army officials have shared it has fallen slightly behind schedule. Even so, the Army is now producing 40,000 shells a month, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at the Defense News Conference last month, adding that the plan is to reach 55,000 shells a month by the end of the year.
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The Army had been making 155mm shells at a single plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a privately operated facility nearby. All of the shells were transported to one place – Iowa Army Ammunition Plant – where they are packed with explosives.
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The Army is planning to design and construct a domestic TNT production facility, which will likely be at Radford, Bush has said in the past. Once a contract is awarded, the plan is to build it in 48 months. Currently, the U.S. relies entirely on TNT from allies.
The only place that made combustible cartridge cases – Armtec Defense Technologies – was in Coachella, California, well-known for its music festival, but also for being located along the San Andreas Fault with a high risk of large earthquakes. Day & Zimmerman will produce the cases at another location in Texarkana, Texas.
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“There [is] still the occasional single point, if you go down far enough, I’m not sure we can ever eliminate them entirely,” Bush said. “But we can build in more redundancy than we had before, which was, frankly, a very fragile setup where I could give you grid coordinates for like, four buildings in America, and if one of those, something happened tomorrow, we weren’t making anything … it definitely isn’t acceptable now, and we’re trying to get away from it.”
*SMH*
US-Israel Inch Toward Wider, More Dangerous War
by Brian Berletic
Beginning in October 2023 a renewed cycle of violence began destabilizing the Middle East. Hamas’ October 7, 2023 military operation into Israeli-held territory served as a pretext for Israel, not to dismantle Hamas itself, but to conduct an indiscriminate punitive military operation against all of Gaza.
Related:
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel + More Updates
The U.S. Threatens a Drone War in the Taiwan Strait— Seriously?
The U.S. has long been preparing for a drone war with China in the Taiwan Strait, should conflict arise. The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command even declared that the U.S. would turn the strait into an ‘unmanned hellscape.’ Yet, China’s new generation of military equipment has already surpassed the U.S. in both cost and quantity.
The U.S. Threatens a Drone War in the Taiwan Strait— Seriously?
Previously:
Countering China with Chinese UAVs backfires, US military faces drone shortage
US Wants To Create ‘Hellscape’ of Drones If China Attacks Taiwan
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel + More Updates
The Pentagon announced it would send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and its crew as Israel considered retaliatory attacks against Iran.
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The United States sent a THAAD battery along with other air defense systems to the region weeks after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. It was not immediately clear how quickly the missile defense system and troops would arrive in Israel.
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel
Related:
How The US Navy, Coast Guard & USAF Work Together In A Theater Like Israel
The USAF provides ongoing ISR [Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] ops to help track rocket launches supporting missile defense. The Air Force also monitors militant activity in Gaza to assist with precision targeting to minimize collateral risk.
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Another strategic role of the US Navy and Coast Guard is protecting Israel’s offshore energy platforms.
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During conflicts, USAF aircraft often provide aerial refueling, logistical support, or electronic warfare capabilities in support of other US forces and any allied forces that may operating in the theater. Air Force bases are also frequently home to US pre-positioned military supplies or equipment, which other branches can quickly access if needed. USAF bases also provide airfield facilities used by all branches and allied forces. The hospitals on USAF bases are frequently the closest and best place for casualties or evacuees to be taken. This rapid deployment capability ensures that the US can provide timely support during a conflict.
Stock depletion, declining supply prompt ‘Israel’ to restrict arms use
The US is unprepared for the scale of war it is provoking around the globe
The US is unprepared for the scale of war it is provoking around the globe
The US is unprepared for the scale of war it is provoking around the globe
Saturday, 12 October 2024 — New Atlas
▪️Like many other US missile systems, production of THAAD missiles is low. Produced from 2008 to present, Lockheed Martin has produced 800 missiles, approximately 50 a year.
▪️It is likely not enough launchers exist to even launch the quantity of missiles required to defend against the type of missile barrage Iran launched in early October which easily overwhelmed Israel’s existing anti-ballistic missile systems.
▪️But even if they did, the 180 missiles Iran reportedly launched, requiring up to 2 interceptors each, would have exhausted nearly half of all THAAD missiles ever produced.
▪️The US is unprepared for the scale of war it is provoking around the globe.
This in in response to the following:
🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇷 US-operated THAAD anti-ballistic missile system reportedly to deploy to Israel…
▪️Israel’s response to Iranian missile strike may be on hold as US-Israel prepare for wider war Washington has long planned to provoke;
▪️US THAAD systems would be used in countering Iran’s missile capabilities as demonstrated in the early October missile strike;
▪️It is unlikely THAAD, other Western anti-missile systems will be capable of effectively stopping larger Iranian missile barrages;
▪️The risk of American troops dying “protecting” Israel will serve as a convincing pretext for the US to join a war it is using Israel to provoke;
▪️Continued provocations in the Middle East coupled with the US proxy war in Ukraine risks depleting essential military capabilities, especially anti-missile systems the US would need for the war it seeks to provoke with China;
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Sources:
US troops to reportedly operate THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in Israel
UAW Stellantis workers protest in the streets from coast to coast
WASHINGTON—Back in the days when Stellantis was Chrysler, there was a sense of camaraderie on the shop floor, veteran Auto Workers say. Not anymore. Not under Stellantis. All they perceive now is corporate greed, satisfying investors, and filling honchos’ pockets with workers’ dollars.
UAW Stellantis workers protest in the streets from coast to coast
02-2024: The UAW Strike Saved Their Shuttered Plant, But the Fight Is Just Beginning
Eight months ago, the idling of the Belvidere Assembly Plant had local United Auto Workers questioning their next steps.
2023: Stellantis commits nearly $5B to Belvidere with new UAW contract
The revival of the Stellantis plant is a stunning reversal of fortunes for Belvidere, Ill. But workers say they won’t rest until they see the concrete being poured.
2022: All Biden’s Green Job Losers
Climate industrial policy is costing 1,350 workers their jobs at a Stellantis plant in Illinois.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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