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Suzanimal
04-13-2016, 01:00 PM
Ongoing air wars in Middle East have caused an unexpected dip in the Pentagon’s stockpile of air-to-ground munitions — and Washington has been slow to address the supply problem.

The Pentagon has had months to deal with it.

“We're expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” USA Today quoted Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh as saying in December.

Since then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has asked Congress to include funding for 45,000 smart bombs in the Defense Department’s 2017 budget. But it could take a while to rebuild the stockpile.

“The US maintains a pretty steady inventory of bombs and missiles for full-on war scenarios,” says Roman Schweizer, aerospace and defense policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities in Washington. “But 2 1/2 years of fighting ISIS and continued bombing in Afghanistan have exceeded weapons-use projections.”

Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant flies bombing missions in Syria and Iraq. The United States, which flies a majority of the missions, strikes ISIS targets with laser- and GPS-guided bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs, Joint Standoff Weapons, and air-to-ground missiles, such as the Hellfire. Per unit pricetags on these munitions range from around $25,000 to close to $400,000.

"In the early days of the [Syria] campaign the Navy fired a bunch of Tomahawk cruise missiles," notes Schweizer, "and those are in the $1 million cost range — but they're really the higher end of what you might use if you have a contested airspace and you don't want to put aircraft over targets."

In the war against ISIS, the United States and its allies control the airspace, allowing their planes to fly low and close to targets. "Pilots are able to get close because you are not fighting a very sophisticated — albeit a brutal — enemy, and you're able to use shorter range- but more precision-guided munitions."

There is good reason for precision, notes Schweizer.

"Because these are obviously some congested environments, and the enemy adapts and puts himself in positions where he's hard to target without collateral damage or civilian casualties." Estimates of the numbers of civilian deaths in the air war against ISIS vary, but the independent watchdog group Airwars.org estimates more than 1,000 civilians killed, mostly by Russian or Syrian air strikes.

The United States dropped more than 20,000 guided bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria in 2015. In recent months the US has transferred additional quantities of bombs to allies in the region. "There are also NATO and Gulf Cooperation Council allies participating in these strikes as well, and in some cases they're drawing off of US stockpiles because their own domestic inventories may not be sufficient."

The Gulf countries — primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have been less active in the war against ISIS, instead focusing their military efforts since March 2015 on defeating a rebel group that controls much of the territory in their neighbor Arab country, Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition, with American support, has been bombing Yemen with munitions made by US companies including Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Lockheed-Martin. They have purchased American smart bombs and missiles through US State Department-brokered deals for more than a decade.

Following a Camp David summit in May 2015, the US approved a new sale of $1.29 billion in munitions to the Saudis intended to replace bombs already used in the Yemen War. It also approved a $380 million sale of guided bombs to the UAE.

While the US does not routinely report when weapons are delivered to its foreign customers, State Department spokesman David McKeeby did say in US Defense News in January this year that “the US government and industry … delivered 4,500 precision-guided munitions to the GCC countries in 2015, including 1,500 taken directly from US military stocks — a significant action given our military’s own needs.”

So is the US in danger of running out of bombs?

Roman Schweizer says US bombmakers have the capacity for producing enough weapons to meet military demands. “If we were in a state of war we’d be running three 8-hour shifts, 24 hours a day” to supply the war effort.

He adds, "Lockheed-Martin has said they've been asked to increase their Hellfire missile production facilities. As well, Boeing, which makes the Joint Direct Attack Munition, [is] also ramping up production. There are a few categories of munitions that are sort of the preferred, or most widely used, and I think they are definitely busy." In December CNN reported an unidentified US official saying it could take "up to four years" to rebuild the Hellfire missile inventory.

“What the Pentagon wants to do now is an unresolved question,” Schweizer observes. "We’re using munitions at a rate we didn’t expect, and we don’t yet know how long the current rate of use will continue.”

http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-04-10/us-dropping-bombs-quicker-it-can-make-them

tod evans
04-13-2016, 01:02 PM
http://www.ameshistory.org/exhibits/events/rationing_book1.jpg

luctor-et-emergo
04-13-2016, 01:08 PM
The United States dropped more than 20,000 guided bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria in 2015.

Well, last I heard ISIS had some 60,000 members or so ? So if these are smart bombs there should be at least 20,000 less now ? Something tells me these smart bombs were not aimed at smart targets. :rolleyes:

And btw, damn those things are expensive for a one use only item.

I know we don't really want to motivate them to start more wars but eh, shouldn't we start a kickstarter or something for cheaper guided bombs ? Deficit and stuff.

Suzanimal
04-13-2016, 01:13 PM
Maybe we could drop less bombs? Sounds crazy, I know, with all the freedom haters running amok.

luctor-et-emergo
04-13-2016, 01:17 PM
Maybe we could drop less bombs? Sounds crazy, I know, with all the freedom haters running amok.

Can't we build a wall around there and have Donald Trump pay for it ? ;)

Ronin Truth
04-13-2016, 01:37 PM
How does that work? Are they now just dropping IOU bombs? :confused:

idiom
04-13-2016, 06:43 PM
How much can a bomb fucking cost?!?

ZENemy
04-13-2016, 06:45 PM
so what, we have roads.

AZJoe
04-13-2016, 08:38 PM
http://unitedstill.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/military-industrial-complex-2.0.jpg http://write-on-book-club.webs.com/WAR-DEBT.jpg




http://th02.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/185/e/7/military_industrial_complex_by_party9999999-d55z8r1.png


http://chrisinmaryville.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130802-140011.jpg https://spfaust.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/us-has-accumulated-a-total-debt-burden-of-over-14-trillion-even-though-it-was-running-a-budget-surplus-just-10-years-ago.jpg

Cleaner44
04-13-2016, 08:39 PM
Think about how these dipshits are actually hurting our national security because they insist on wasting money, equipment and people on little countries in the middle east.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 08:45 PM
The "greatest generation" cut their chops on munitions building. I'm sure the "latest generation" could do just as well.

Danke
04-13-2016, 08:47 PM
How much can a bomb fucking cost?!?

Just a bomb? Not so much, but the guidance hardware, quite a bit. We don't much drop "dumb" bombs anymore.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 09:25 PM
Just a bomb? Not so much, but the guidance hardware, quite a bit. We don't much drop "dumb" bombs anymore.

No shit! They're "smart" bombs. That makes them better. By far.

Danke
04-13-2016, 09:31 PM
No shit! They're "smart" bombs. That makes them better. By far.

Actually it does. Eliminates massive bombing to take out a target. And one could argue less collateral damage.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 09:39 PM
Actually it does. Eliminates massive bombing to take out a target. And one could argue less collateral damage.

America certainly holds the record of "less" collateral damage. Iraq proved we are the best. It was mostly all military that we killed, and are still, killing there.

Danke
04-13-2016, 09:46 PM
America certainly holds the record of "less" collateral damage. Iraq proved we are the best. It was mostly all military that we killed, and are still, killing there.

I know faulty targeting can share the blame, but can you imagine the civilian deaths of the past and what the numbers would be? And the people we are targeting also using civilians as "shields."

A lot higher. Shit, we use to be so inaccurate that we carpet bombed targets.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 09:47 PM
I know faulty targeting can share the blame, but can you imagine the civilian deaths of the past and what the numbers would be? And the people we are targeting also using civilians as "shields."

A lot higher.

Death should always be kept to better more acceptable levels.

Danke
04-13-2016, 09:52 PM
Death should always be kept to better more acceptable levels.

I'm not getting into a philosophical argument about war. We obviously shouldn't be there in the first place. But we now have the capability to be more precise in targeting strictly military targets.

TheTexan
04-13-2016, 09:55 PM
Actually it does. Eliminates massive bombing to take out a target. And one could argue less collateral damage.

Or we could have the best of both worlds, a smart bomb that is guided accurately AND delivers the huge explosions we have come to expect.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:02 PM
Or we could have the best of both worlds, a smart bomb that is guided accurately AND delivers the huge explosions we have come to expect.

You don't need a smart bomb for most of those targets. They have developed those for super hardened underground targets since my training for the most Part, I was on a quasi suicide mission to deliver them in a non precision fashion back in the day.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 10:04 PM
I'm not getting into a philosophical argument about war. We obviously shouldn't be there in the first place. But we now have the capability to be more precise in targeting strictly military targets.

Lol. "Surgical", amirite? No one ever dies except terrorists. It's played out well in Afghanistan. Iran. "Precise." "Strictly military targets." It's all bullshit.

The point stated in the OP was that we we're dropping them more than we are making them. That's honestly my one and only objective. It doesn't matter how "precise" they are.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:13 PM
Lol. "Surgical", amirite? No one ever dies except terrorists. It's played out well in Afghanistan. Iran. "Precise." "Strictly military targets." It's all bullshit.

The point stated in the OP was that we we're dropping them more than we are making them. That's honestly my one and only objective. It doesn't matter how "precise" they are.

How we are currently deploying them, I have no argument. But if you understand the evolution in bombing, if it was done now compared to days gone bye, it is night and day.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:16 PM
Just to be clear I do not support what our government has done for a long time. But the collateral damage in bombing targets is vastly reduced with precision munitions that we now have. We can now take out a bridge , With one bomb. That would've taken many bombs and a lot of collateral damage in the past. Same as taking out a building, in the past you would have to take out the whole neighborhood.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 10:18 PM
How we are currently deploying them, I have no argument. But if you understand the evolution in bombing, if it was done now compared to days gone bye, it is night and day.

I have no idea about the evolution of bombing. I'm an Air Force brat and an ex-Naval air traffic controller. No idea.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:24 PM
I have no idea about the evolution of bombing. I'm an Air Force brat and an ex-Naval air traffic controller. No idea.

When I first starting to practice bombing we use many methods. Most of it was internal to the aircraft using various radar for predetermined targets and the "9 line"during close air support. Marking targets with smoke or positions from smoke, or cooordinces , ect. Now a lot of it is done by troops on the ground up front with Special equipment, designating targets by laser or using GPS. Even other aircraft can do this. Satellites can do this. Bombing has become so Precise, you can put a bomb though a specific window, etc. from miles away.

TheTexan
04-13-2016, 10:26 PM
in the past you would have to take out the whole neighborhood.

Its good to still have that option though.

phill4paul
04-13-2016, 10:35 PM
When I first starting to practice bombing we use many methods. Most of it was internal to the aircraft using radar. Now a lot of it is done by troops on the ground up front and close designating targets by laser or using GPS.

I'm not a dumbass. I'm well aware of how things work these days. As to the OP point, which was what I was on about, munitions are being burned quicker than made. It was your thread that lead me to remark about burning up old shit to make room for new.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?493801-U-S-deploys-B-52-bombers-to-Middle-East-for-the-first-time-in-25-years

As far as I know B-52's aren't notable for their "precision/surgical" capabilities.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:39 PM
Its good to still have that option though.

This is what I had to certify to deliver twice, once when I was station in Korea, and then again in Germany:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb

It packs a big Texass type yield.

Danke
04-13-2016, 10:42 PM
I'm not a dumbass. I'm well aware of how things work these days. As to the OP point, which was what I was on about, munitions are being burned quicker than made. It was your thread that lead me to remark about burning up old shit to make room for new.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?493801-U-S-deploys-B-52-bombers-to-Middle-East-for-the-first-time-in-25-years

As far as I know B-52's aren't notable for their "precision/surgical" capabilities.

In the past, but now they too can be delivering precision weapons.

otherone
04-14-2016, 05:25 AM
Well, last I heard ISIS had some 60,000 members or so ? So if these are smart bombs there should be at least 20,000 less now ?

But that's the BEAUTY part...for every terrorist blown up, TWO are created. It's a variation of the "broken window" fallacy, but this one actually works!
I call it the "burnt tent" theory of economics.

enhanced_deficit
04-16-2016, 01:57 AM
Well they didn't DGP this award for nothing.

http://www.returnofkings.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Nobel-peace-drone-Obama11.jpg