That's a lot of artillery shells. You have to think China is watching this immense drawdown in capability thinking the U.S. will soon be in the position Russia is approaching: having to choose between using rocks or nukes, with not much in-between.
Canada has already run out of shells to provide Ukraine and are asking South Korea to help refill the armories. I believe the same is true for a couple of the other NATO members as well
From The Drive's The Warzone vertical. October 21:
Ukraine’s fight against Russia has gobbled up an incredible amount of artillery rounds, with over a million provided by the U.S. alone.
he U.S. has now provided Ukraine with over a million rounds of howitzer ammunition since it began shipping arms to the embattled nation to aid its fight against Russia, according to the latest figures from the Defense Department.
That includes up to 903,000 standard 155mm howitzer rounds as well as 3,000 M982 Excalibur guided rounds, 7,000 Remote Anti-Armor Mine System (RAAMS) projectiles, and 180,000 105mm howitzer shells.
All told, that’s more than 1.09 million rounds which weigh well in excess of 50,000 tons combined — close to twice as much as the Statue of Liberty.
The rounds are part of more than $18.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $17.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s full-on invasion on Feb. 24.
The M795 projectile is the standard round for the 155mm M777 towed howitzers used by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps.
It is a “103lb 155mm high fragmentation steel (HF1) body projectile filled with 23.8lbs of TNT or IMX-101 with a gilded metal rotating band for compatibility with all current and future towed and self-propelled 155mm howitzers,” according to its manufacturer, General Dynamics. ....
....MUCH MORE
GD started heading higher before Russia invaded on February 24, someone knew:
Although to be fair, it wasn't exactly a secret that something was coming. Additionally, there are a lot of armaments manufacturers whose charts I didn't check. BAE Systems manufactures a lot of stuff that goes boom as well as a half-dozen continental European companies.
