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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

#261

Post by rob_lh »

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,…

Just waking up to find this on HN. The points you make are completely correct. I tried to keep the focus on just US production, as I was specifically interested if there was anything I could do to help. Splitting up the process was something I considered, but didn't have the bandwidth to put into knowing when/how you split it. In a crunch, I'm still not sure if it would be best to split it or to just do what's usually best and co-locate all the machines (or some combination of both). Similarly, I couldn't get good answers about how many shifts the existing facility runs. I expect it's 2, and in a war, it's easier to staff the 3rd shift (or automate it in a new facility).

The contract length part I covered, and I'm convinced that's the main issue.

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

#262

Post by rob_lh »

jltsiren wrote: post #59
balderdash wrote: post #50

In the commodities business there’s an old saw that long-term contracts solve supply problems, and spot prices solve inventory problems And this seems like a perfect example of the first part of that. The thing I didn’t see was how much it would cost to build a facility that produces x/k rounds a month. I find it hard to imagine these facilities are that expensive (in the context of US defense spending) so it makes m…

Artillery had become a niche branch in the Western doctrine, and people didn't see a point in investing in large-scale shell production. Air forces and guided missiles had replaced artillery in many of its traditional roles. In the Soviet doctrine, artillery had a much larger role. Both Russia and Ukraine inherited that doctrine, and they went on to fight the war they were prepared for.

I am skeptical the US would really need it in a war, but our allies certainly will. The US has air superiority and integrated combat arms. Ukraine shows how essential artillery is without at least air superiority, and they have just a few years of integrating tanks and other vehicles into actions with their infantry.

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

#263

Post by rob_lh »

somat wrote: post #109

The author appeared surprised that 3d printing would not help. Is this a common misconception? I always figured it was common knowledge that 3d printing is a great prototyping tool. tolerable in some low-rate processes, and terrible in a high volume process.

Author here. In short, no, I wasn't surprised, I just wanted to cover it. I worked in 3D printing, albeit on the polymer side. On the metal side, there's been a lot of progress and 3D printed thruster nozzle assemblies are one of the key advancements SpaceX has made. It would never be a high volume process, but I was curious if you could get the kind of steel you needed for "surge" demand when the price matters less than total throughput.

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

#264

Post by andrewflnr »

denton-scratch wrote: post #226
JohnBooty wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I think the burden of proof is on anybody who thinks a serious saturation attack on a carrier group (hundreds of missiles and/or decoys per wave, multiplied by multiple waves) from a peer adversary wouldn't work. If a conflict with Russia or China breaks out, I think the first thing that happens is aircraft carriers are going to immediately become obsoleted by antiship missiles as quickly as battleship…

Russia's Black Sea Fleet has been largely confined to port in Novorossiysk by Ukrainian "naval drones", having previously been used to bombard Ukrainian cities with cruise missiles. So what are these naval drones? I assumed they were fancy, expensive sea-skimming cruise missiles; nope. Apparently they're modified jet-skis with cheap FPV navigation equipment. So I don't think you're wrong, and I think we've already fo…

Anti submarine warfare is already a huge discipline. Submarines are still not obsolete, nor is it trivial for them to sink an entire carrier group. IIRC in exercises a submarine usually gets one shot before it has to run from the ASW attacks.

For any technological advance, the counter technology adapts, so it's not very common for something to actually become obsolete.

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

#265

Post by rob_lh »

peeters wrote: post #89

Typo in original and submission: 155mm, not 155M (which could be interpreted as 155 million something--dollars?) as in the submission, nor 155m (metres) as in the original.

Arghhhh super embarrassing. Corrected now, I stared at this for way too long and was eager to just get it published.

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

#266

Post by rob_lh »

c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #121
seo-speedwagon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand? The problem isn’t that 155mm shells are inferior tech or not fit for purpose; it’s the US let it’s capacity to manufacture them wither.

To summarize the author, no one wants to invest in ammo plants because of upfront costs and economics of dealing with .gov Author suggests applying a new manufacturing technology, 3d printing, to help alleviate a supply shortage, but then says new mfg tech probably wont work (I'm inferring that it will not work with the existing design). I'm proposing an alternative - make a 3d printer friendly design (OK, it may not…

This was an idea I considered, but I'm not enough of a metallurgist to know how feasible it is. In a crisis, I imagine we would try lots of things, but it's easiest to start by just getting out of our own way with proven tools and processes. After all, they're co-designed with weapons systems that are well understood and highly effective, and we'd be replacing all that with entirely new systems in a conflict. It's messy.

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

#267

Post by ComputerGuru »

yywwbbn wrote: post #149
lmm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Israelis are from Eastern European backgrounds, and it's plausible that they may have inherited some military culture from there.

I’m not sure it has much to do with culture but almost everything with cost. Missiles are extremely expensive and you’ll soon run out of them during a long war of attrition (especially in a symmetrical conflict like in Ukraine)

The “cute” gotcha here is that Israel doesn’t have to foot the bill, the USA is happily paying.

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

#268

Post by euroderf »

missedthecue wrote: post #257
euroderf wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars seem to come and go in 50-ish year cycles. The experiences of the grandfathers are forgotten.

Not so sure. The WW2 generation plowed millions of men and billions of dollars into Vietnam.

Only a rough guide.

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

#269

Post by oneshtein »

missedthecue wrote: post #255
yywwbbn wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine wasn’t real a nuclear power though. They some of Soviet arsenal and some facilities required to maintain but it would have required significant investment to make it actually usable longterm. That was totally unfeasible during the economic collapse of the early 90s

To add, the keys, targeting coordinates, orders, and control of the weapons was with the Russians in the Kremlin. Kazakhstan and Turkey also housed nuclear weapons. No one argues they were a nuclear power stripped of their defense.

Missiles were built by Ukraine.

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

#270

Post by mikewarot »

maxglute wrote: post #207
sbierwagen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMO people behind the scenes also sees the writing on the wall for large surface ships. Considering this and Taiwan, it's funny that Congress isn't pushing for more SSGNs and accelerating the SSN(X) program.

IMO when seriously consider the math, the firepower:acquisition cost ratio doesn't make much sense, especially against PRC. SSGN with ~150 tomahawks, subsonic, easier to intercept, will likely never be reloadable at sea, and may not be able to operate permissively around PRC in due time. PRC ASW is improving rapidly, and they're deploying subsea ASW infra within 1st island chain. Not much info on projected upgrade of…

Which is why, if we decide we need to take out China, we'll sail over to the coast off Yemen, and stop any oil headed their way. They'll collapse within 6 months. (Or so sayeth Peter Zeihan)
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