Cheap and available are some reasons for Ukraine buying them, but also the donations and color of money used for them are very important. It also doesn’t mean that any other nation that isn’t in the same boat should follow suit.
They are backwards compatible based off a NATO standard. The plan is to leverage the existing supply in depot and if they run low use the standing offer to buy more.
You bought less masks than you need for the military.
We have, presumably, a whole bunch of canisters for the old gas masks. They fit on the new gas masks. In addition to all the canisters we already have we bought two more canisters for each mask, so they can each be immediately issued with two canisters.
Every time I see RCD I read it as Royal Canadian Dragoons not River Class Destroyers. It always takes me a second to parse what someone is talking about. Internal monologue: "Wait, the Dragoons are getting tank destroyers with missiles?! Ohhh...the Navy's new ships will have missiles. Well, good for them but not as cool as I first imagined"
we usually call Chicken destroyers KFCRCD be like....
What about maintenance facilities for those missiles. Sure I've sand blasted 105mm sitting in a triwall, and remarked them in mod tent, but I think modern missiles need a bit more TLC.
It can be both.
Not for liquid fueled missiles made in Europe. Nor for liquid fueled ones made in the US, but it's easy to truck Harpoons to the manufacturer. I guess as they are wooden rounds we can just chuck them in the Atlantic and they will float back to Norway when the sea lanes are contested.
JUST IN: Army Has Little to Show for its Efforts to Boost Air and Missile Defense, GAO Finds
6/17/2025
By Tabitha Reeves
A 2016 test of the Integrated Fire Protection Capability at White Sand Missile Range in New Mexico.
Army photo
The Army has little to show for its recent efforts to upgrade its air and missile defense systems despite putting them on the development fast track and spending billions of dollars in funding, the Government Accountability Office reported June 17.
"The Army chose accelerated acquisition pathways and flexible agreement types to develop and field systems to address required capabilities — and submitted increased funding requests through the budget process to support them — but has not yet fielded most of the air and missile defense modernization efforts," said the report, "Army Modernization: Air and Missile Defense Efforts Would Benefit from Modern Practices."
“The Army is spending billions of dollars to modernize its systems to address identified capability needs,” the report said. “Yet, even with the use of accelerated acquisition approaches and increases in funding, the Army, outside of [Counter-small Unmanned Aerial Systems], has fielded limited capabilities,” the report added.
The Army has renewed its focus on updating its air and missile defense systems in recent years to keep pace with potential adversaries such as China and Russia. The Ukraine war has also seen inventive and increased use of drones as flying munitions although the service's efforts began before the beginning of that conflict, GAO noted.
In 2021, the Army requested roughly $8.8 billion for these air and missile systems for the fiscal years 2021 through 2025. By 2025, the Army had requested about $11.8 billion for the systems — a $3 billion increase, which was due to “the inclusion of systems that did not appear in the fiscal year 2021 budget request, … as well as changes in funding needed,” said the report.
We can maintain TOW and most solid fuel land missiles until the cows come home. We also regularly build AIMs of various types. Given the material handling even SMx maintenance could be done (big cannisters, sealed, etc).
