After 2.5 years the US has reached the lofty production goal of 40,000 shells a month (potentially 480,000 a year) while Russia has surpassed 110,000 a month (1,325,000 a year) with well under 1/12th the economy.
Per the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Russia will procure 4 million 152mm shells from North Korea, China, Iran and Venezuela to add to the 1.325 million 152mm shells domestically produced in 2024. No word on how many gun barrels....
Meanwhile the recent US military aid package of $250m will, if exclusively artillery ammo at around $4200 per US made 155 shell, provide Ukraine with only 60,000 shells. Enough to last MAYBE 10 days if they are parsimonious with them (Russia fires about 50,000 a day in Dombas alone)
$250m is essentially couch change when talking high intensity LSCO. Is it a lot of money? Yes. Unbudgeted for? Yes (but it should not have been by this point) Might it be hurting US military readiness by reducing available monies for training and operations? Probably. Again, that is entirely a result of political fear of returning taxes to pre Trump cut levels - or heaven forbid, even to Regan levels.
$250m is the same amount given by the US to support Ukraine in a month as 18 HOURS of Russian support of their troops in Ukraine. Russia may be the second army in Ukraine but it is sad to see the US afraid to walk its talk and not be anywhere close to being the second economy in Ukraine.
Does anybody think that if war spreads into (or returns in a few years to) Europe somehow it will not be many MANY MANY times more expensive to the average taxpayer than a mild increase now? It is literally in our best financial (and security) interest to stop dribbling piss into the wind to see where it lands like a feeble old man and to start acting like a boomer on nitrates.
And the west, NATO especially, needs to SEVERELY enforce secondary sanctions and STOP BUYING RUSSIAN GAS/OIL/PETROLEUM PRODUCTS. We are, paraphrasing Stalin (?), giving them the rope to hang us with. We are sending hundreds of millions of hard currency into Russia where it funds the war effort we then send more money into Ukraine to halt.
Why are our leaders (!) so deaf, dumb, blind, parochial and shortsighted? I guess we truly do get the government we deserve (elect).
Rant off
Links to the RUSI report and several other sources are available and when I walk off this 'mad' I will try to remember to attach them if requested.