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As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

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Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#181

Post by dageshi »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #84
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be a hopeless optimist, but I don't think a USN/USAF/USMC vs PLAAF in SCS/Taiwan situation would escalate to nukes. At least, I don't think it's likely . Definitely a nonzero chance, maybe a coin toss, but Taiwan isn't core territory for either Power. Invasion, now . . well, there's the magic power that comes with having 'em. No one invades you, ever. Also,outside factors could change the math here, like a me…

But that only means that the US would give up on Taiwan before the fight would get any serious (from USA's point of view). I also kind of doubt that China is going to try, at least in the next decade or so, because those so far irreplaceable chip factories are almost certainly booby trapped and are a critical piece of the global economy, so China would be sabotaging itself first. (And Xi has probably a long way to go…

I don't really understand why people get so caught up on the fabs in Taiwan, as if their presence is the actual goal or the important thing.

An invasion of Taiwan would probably effectively destroy globalisation, China exports would be sanctioned, China imports of energy and raw materials would be heavily disrupted (China's supply of fossil fuels is very vulnerable). It would be the most disruptive event to the world order since WW2.

The chip fabs are a line item among thousands on that bill.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#182

Post by hef19898 »

Log_out_ wrote: post #126
XorNot wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to parse this comment. Why would the US give up on Taiwan "before it gets serious". If the US is involved in a shooting conflict in the Taiwanese strait, they either win or lose it conventionally but if it happens at all then nukes aren't getting involved unless mainland territorial invasions go on the table - and they're not going to. The reality is the US would very much like to avoid having to neg…

The US is currently loosing to Russia in Europe, it's all talk no walk, similar to west - europe.

Loosing? How exactly so? NATO is expanding, Russia isn't gaining anything currently in Ukraine, in fact Russia is becoming dependent on China, India and North Korea.

And so far, NATO has to actively participate in the fighting in Ukraine. Since this would be a major escalation, one that is extremely hard to sell to NATO country citizens, that will obviously not happen anytime soon.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#183

Post by hef19898 »

roenxi wrote: post #154
somenameforme wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That piece is not well thought out in my opinion. The "magical shield" that's been protecting people in developed nations is simple - nukes. Countries with nukes don't get invaded. Countries without nukes, do. It doesn't matter if you're a democracy (which Iran was until they dared question our control over their oil, and so naturally had to be have... monarchy... brought to them), or a little dictatorship with an af…

The US is a fairly aggressive power that gets involved in a lot of overseas wars. If you backcast the same logic to WWII; the US could have had a nuclear shield then and been perfectly safe from invasion, but what it actually wanted was the ability to get involved in Europe and the Pacific. Having an impenetrable defence is nice, but the US hasn't fought a defensive war in ... I don't know how long. Maybe a century f…

The US are perfectly shielded from invasion by two oceans so. Canada is an ally, as is Mexico (less close, but still). And neither would be able to launch an invasion with any chance of success anyway (in reality, movies are different).

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#184

Post by 14u2c »

pas wrote: post #108
XorNot wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to parse this comment. Why would the US give up on Taiwan "before it gets serious". If the US is involved in a shooting conflict in the Taiwanese strait, they either win or lose it conventionally but if it happens at all then nukes aren't getting involved unless mainland territorial invasions go on the table - and they're not going to. The reality is the US would very much like to avoid having to neg…

Are those missiles getting to Taiwan any time soon though? It seems current politics on the island is still uber polite oh we are China, no need for drastic measures, etc. or is that changing fast?

They been sending arn for 50 years now.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#185

Post by hef19898 »

jmyeet wrote: post #6

This reminds me of the excellent series "Blueprint for Armageddon" in Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast [1]. It's about the First World War. WWI tends to get less attention than WW2 and while there are good reasons why we focus on the atrocities of WW2, in some ways WWI was far more devastating. The artillery production mentioned here reminds me of how scales changed from the beginning to the end of the war. At t…

The sheer scale of WW1 in terms of material and people expended is something very hard to grasp.

As is the Eastern front during WW2, same thing, the sheer numbers are mind boggling.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#186

Post by morsch »

Animats wrote: post #83

The US government-owned facilities are not the only US source of 155mm rounds. NAMMO [1] is a major manufacturer, and they have a facility in Mesa, AZ. Here's their marketing video for 155mm rounds.[2] Nammo's management complains that they are being offered 3-4 year contracts, and they need 10-15 year contracts to build new factories. Peacetime demand for large-caliber ammo is very low, so when there's not a war on,…

> Here's a modern 155mm shell forging plant in Germany.[3]

> [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNtmrYeBwWQ

That appears to be a Serbian company, though?

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#187

Post by pastacacioepepe »

roca wrote: post #176
tehjoker wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also against the Ukraine war and believe a peaceful settlement is possible. NATO (the US) is using Ukraine to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, though having to fight two wars at once is causing them to rethink their position. ICJ did rule against Russia, and it makes sense since they invaded, but the roots of the conflict go back to attacks on Donetsk like you say since 2014 and various aggressive moves by NA…

> NATO (the US) is using Ukraine to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian So you believe that most Ukrainians actually want to surrender to Russia?

Maybe not 1/2 years ago, but look at the hundreds of videos of Ukrainian citizens being forcedly taken from the streets and thrown into the frontlines only to die shortly after. There were many voluntaries when the war started, now UA forced recruitment attempts are met with civilians filming and trying to stop them.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#188

Post by adrian_b »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #25
iso8859-1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? The first computer (the Antikythera mechanism) had nothing to do with the military.

Off the top of my head, in this space DOD invented: CPUs/registers, random access memory, packet switched networks, internetworking, TCP/IPv4. I’m sure there’s more.

DoD did not really invent anything, but they have financed the research required to invent things according to their requirements, without which the things enumerated by you might have been invented only decades later.

All the modern semiconductor industry, including the discovery of transistors and of solar cells, has its origin in the research done during WWII, mostly at Bell Laboratories, to make improved detectors for the military radars, which lead to the development of the technologies needed to make pure germanium and pure silicon and of semiconductor diodes made with them.

Without DoD money, an electronic computer of the complexity of ENIAC would have been built only many years later. Nevertheless, both ENIAC and the British cryptographic electronic machines (and the Atanasoff computer) have been enabled by the invention of various kinds of electronic digital counters during the decade that has preceded WWII (mostly in UK), all of which had been invented for the use in experiments for the study by physicists of radioactive substances and of cosmic radiation, so there are also decisive civilian contributions (like also the discovery of nuclear fission as a precondition for the nuclear bombs and reactors).

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#189

Post by maxglute »

hugryhoop wrote: post #168
maxglute wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's open secret ROCA is thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence, and Chinese missiles can hit anywhere in TW in 7 minutes. If anything, if PRC wants to unilaterally attack TW, you would expect PRC to manufacture casus belli that TW is pursuing nuclear program to preemptively strike TW before they even start assembling an invasion force. Most of the world would be left shrugging because nuclear proliferation of no…

Taiwan has underground facilities from it's previous attempt at building nuclear weapons. Even after a Chinese decimation attack, if the invasion force is not immediatly ready Taiwan will still have enough time to build the nukes.

And how would they deliver? By the time they get a device (untested), every entrance to underground facilities would have been destroyed with persistent aerial coverage for follow on strikes to make sure they stay destroyed. If TW was credibly trying to nuclearize, both US/PRC would be coordinating to try stop it because PRC would directly attribute TW nuclear use to US negligence.

Realistically if PRC seriously think they haven't eliminated TW nuke production, they'd throw their entire airlift capabilites and drop 50-100k troops a day into the grind and if that doesn't work, nuke TW first and send in NBC teams to an uncontested husk of an island to clean up. If US+co materially impacts that effort and PRC ends up eating a nuke, then we're in global MAD territory.

Also consider nukes has hasn't deterred PRC from security interests less important than TW, they fought US (really all of UN in Korea) /USSR/India, threatened UK over HK, supplied Vietcon against French. If risking nuclear war is what it takes, then they'll (if history is teacher) risk nuclear war.

Re: As much as you ever wanted to know about 155M artillery shell production

#190

Post by boffinAudio »

cameron_b wrote: post #62

It should probably be restated that instead of the conflict in Ukraine catching our production capacity off guard, that rather it was our production posture along with denuclearization and disarmament of Ukraine that set the stage for the conflict. I’m not a “team America world police” advocate, much more the opposite. Even as stated in the article, most production is more interested in a deterrent. Hate ‘em or hate…

> Hate ‘em or hate ‘em, nukes are a deterrent to open war.

This is demonstrably false. Nukes have allowed those who have them, to bully (wage asymmetric warfare on) those who don't.

Would the USA have been so cock-sure about murdering 5% of Iraqs population, if it didn't have nukes?

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