The UK will spend £245 million throughout the next year to procure and invigorate supply chains to produce urgently needed artillery ammunition for Ukraine.
All these packages. The defense industry has said dozens of time now, in the form of various companies… give them long term contracts and the shells will be made.
No company will invest for one of order except at insane prices. It’s not like they can sell them to someone else if you don’t buy their product.
So either pony up the investment money and buy the capacity. Or give them a 10 year order for a million shells a year. God knows Europe needs them anyway.
This is the simplest of simple things to do as the EU. Write out a tender for 3x 1 million 155 shells a year for the next 10 years (possibly with a share produced as non-filled, just the steel husks for easy storage). All EU countries buy in for thsir respective size. Done.
Finland has already invested in expanded shell production. As have some other nations.
But it takes time to ramp up production. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect shells to appear.
That being said, some other nations should contribute more.
Absolutely the EU should do more. I was happy when the Dutch and Danes spearheaded the F16’s. Same as the Britt’s with their storm shadow.
And in terms of shells… the casings are apparently the most resource intensive so making the casings and other components so they can be stored practically indefinitely and filled for usage if required.
Als here you see that a conflict in a scale like this will easily require 10k shells a day. 50k during peak times So if you want to have reserves… Let’s average that to 25k per day that means the EU should have a stock of approximately 10 million shells for a years supply. Spread across the EU that should not be difficult I imagine.
Add another 20 million unfilled casings vacuüm wrapped in pallets, combined with “a few” barrels warehoused as strategic reserves.
All these packages. The defense industry has said dozens of time now, in the form of various companies… give them long term contracts and the shells will be made.
No company will invest for one of order except at insane prices. It’s not like they can sell them to someone else if you don’t buy their product.
So either pony up the investment money and buy the capacity. Or give them a 10 year order for a million shells a year. God knows Europe needs them anyway.
This is the simplest of simple things to do as the EU. Write out a tender for 3x 1 million 155 shells a year for the next 10 years (possibly with a share produced as non-filled, just the steel husks for easy storage). All EU countries buy in for thsir respective size. Done.
Finland has already invested in expanded shell production. As have some other nations. But it takes time to ramp up production. You can’t just snap your fingers and expect shells to appear. That being said, some other nations should contribute more.
Absolutely the EU should do more. I was happy when the Dutch and Danes spearheaded the F16’s. Same as the Britt’s with their storm shadow.
And in terms of shells… the casings are apparently the most resource intensive so making the casings and other components so they can be stored practically indefinitely and filled for usage if required.
Als here you see that a conflict in a scale like this will easily require 10k shells a day. 50k during peak times So if you want to have reserves… Let’s average that to 25k per day that means the EU should have a stock of approximately 10 million shells for a years supply. Spread across the EU that should not be difficult I imagine.
Add another 20 million unfilled casings vacuüm wrapped in pallets, combined with “a few” barrels warehoused as strategic reserves.