We have reported in detail on the sorry state of the U.S. military’s weapons stockpile in light of the tens of billions of dollars of front-line munitions we have provided to Ukraine free of charge:
I also discussed this issue in detail on “The Rod Arquette Show,” based on 105.9 KNRS out of Salt Lake City, Utah:
Well, it turns out that the situation is even worse than we thought.
On Wednesday, in an article entitled “The U.S. Military Has an Explosive Problem,” the Wall Street Journal reported that “the sole domestic source of an explosive the Department of Defense relies on to produce bullets, mortar shells, artillery rounds and Tomahawk missiles” was completely destroyed in a massive explosion:
Nearly two years ago, an errant spark inside a mill caused an explosion so big it destroyed all the building’s equipment and blew a corrugated fiberglass wall 100 feet.The ramshackle facility makes the original form of gunpowder, known today as black powder, a highly combustible material with hundreds of military applications. The product, for which there is no substitute, is used in small quantities in munitions to ignite more powerful explosives.No one was hurt in the June 2021 blast. But the factory remains offline, unable to deliver its single vital component to either commercial or Pentagon customers.
The article then reinforces our earlier reporting:
After months of supplying Ukraine with Stingers, howitzers, anti-armor systems and artillery ammunition, stocks are low in both the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially in 155mm howitzer shells, an ammunition that has been crucial to pushing back Russian forces.
You may recall from our earlier reporting that we have provided over 1 million rounds of 155mm howitzer ammunition to Ukraine as well as 1,300 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. And, importantly, the Center of Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) report we cited in support of these numbers indicates that even if the U.S. was to “surge” production of these munitions it would take at least five years to rebuild our 155mm howitzer ammo stockpile, and at least six and 1/2 years to rebuild our stockpile of Stinger missiles.
Every 155mm artillery shell uses half an ounce of the now unproduceable black powder, which is used to ignite the 26 pounds of propellant the artillery shell uses to reach its target.
The scary thing is that it is unclear whether the CSIS report, published three months ago, took the devastation at the black powder factory into account when it generated its estimates for how long it will take to rebuild our stockpile of munitions.
In any case, “U.S. military contractors who use black powder have been drawing on [existing] stockpiles,” and the good news is that Estes Energetics, the new owner of the black powder factory, has refurbished it and “is scheduled to relaunch production and restart supplies to military contractors by this summer.”
Unfortunately, that is not the only problem plaguing the U.S. military’s munitions stockpile. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “[o]nly one foundry in the U.S. makes the titanium castings used in howitzers, and only one company makes the rocket motor used in the Javelin antitank weapon widely used in Ukraine.” In addition, there are “a number of weaknesses in the U.S. military’s supply chains[, including] a lack of skilled workers in casting and forging, shortages of infrastructure for battery technology and periodic shortages of advanced microchips.” And, to top it off, “[l]ate last year, the Defense Department identified 27 critical chemicals that have no U.S. production and are sourced from places, including Russia and China, considered adversaries of the U.S.”
In our earlier reporting, we cited a Department of Defense official who “explained that the only reason the issue isn’t ‘critical’ is because ‘the U.S. isn’t engaged in any major military conflict’ at the moment.”
The current Wall Street Journal article similarly cites Jeff Rhoads, executive director of the Purdue Institute for National Security, a defense-research institute at Purdue University, who asked “Can you imagine what would happen to these supply chains if the U.S. were in an actual state of active war, or NATO was?” Then he answered his own question: “They could be in trouble very quickly.”
We will continue to update the status of the U.S. military’s munitions stockpile as the picture becomes clearer going forward.
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