Russia has forced the West to ramp up production of older weapons — even gear it wasn’t making any more. Nations want to aid Ukraine and grow their own arsenals, but experts say too little is being made

3 comments

1. >Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a surge in demand, orders, and manufacturing of Western weaponry, including decades-old equipment and even gear that had gone out of production.

   >The invasion has sparked concern across the West that its militaries do not have enough ammunition and equipment if a major power like Russia decides to attack them, and also that some particularly key types of weaponry are in worryingly short supply.

   >Manufacturing has increased, but experts warn it’s not enough for Western countries’ needs — both for themselves and for what they want to give to Ukraine.

   >Jan Kallberg, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and a fellow at the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, describes weapons orders as having been relatively low.

   >”And suddenly they see a surge in sales, a need, a demand that I would say hasn’t been seen since the forties or at least the fifties when the Cold War really took off,” he told BI.

   >Western defense budgets are surging, while countries in the Middle East are also increasing their spending amid conflicts in the region.

   >The result is more orders and manufacturing, even of Western equipment where production had stopped.

2. Ramping up production of western weapons isn’t a trivial task. The supply chains are extremely complex. Even if you ramp up production on basically everything, there might be one crucial component that can’t ramp up and no production increase is possible. I’ve been a tiny part of supply chains of things like night vision goggles and a major fighter plane program. In both instances the ramp ups could not proceed because of small things like a sensor chip or an actuator that could not be supplied any faster. The actual Components in question were not particularly expensive, but for various reasons increasing supply was extremely difficult.

3. One thought I have had if countries were willing could Ukrainian refugees in other countries set up enterprises to manufacture weapon components for some of the Ukrainian weapons companies. Let’s say build the drones bodies and other components in safe supporting countries and ship them to Ukraine for final assembly or weapon installation. Those land drones could be fully built in any western country and shipped to Ukraine for weapon installation. The sea drone bodies and engine assemblies are another item that could be built outside Ukraine by Ukrainians.

   This would allow Ukrainian refugees to support the home country with the means to wage war and in turn give them income in the host country relieving it of some of the need to support the refugee’s. It would also help the host country with ecconomic activity in that basic materials and supplies would be purchased there.

   Just a thought but to me it could be a win win situation.