The United States faces a shortage of energetics and propellants for munitions

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The original was posted on /r/ukrainianconflict by /u/Mil_in_ua on 2024-06-01 14:38:27+00:00.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Been that way for a while, over the course of the war -- as things ramped up, we had more shell-manufacturing capacity than filler capacity. We'd been shipping some of the shells we manufactured to be filled in Poland, as I recall, because they had some excess filler capacity.

EDIT: Yeah, went to some other countries as well, schlorped up some of their filler output too:

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/02/06/us-army-hunts-for-explosives-to-meet-increased-munitions-output-goals/

The Army awarded $1.5 billion in contracts to nine companies in the fall of 2023 to companies in the U.S., Canada, India and Poland to boost global production of 155mm artillery rounds. The contracts included procuring 14.2 million pounds of bulk energetics, consisting of TNT and IMX-104 explosive.

[–] CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The cynic in me says these articles are all about fear mongering to permanently increase spend baselines in the MIC. Another part of me is saying that the industrial shortcomings are great to highlight and beef up now to ensure a deterrence and capacity for any conflict where the US is obligated to participate in (such as Taiwan).

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I mean, the article is from the Ukrainian military. I don't think that Ukraine cares much about whether-or-not the US has capacity to defend Taiwan. I think that the Ukrainian military cares a lot about whether there might be some additional, unknown delay in supply to Ukraine due to slowdowns in the production pipeline. Like, they had the EU promise artillery shells by a date, and they got delays and got half that much at the expected date. I'm pretty sure that they had plans predicated on getting that ammunition, had set burn rates, etc. Then there was the fight in Congress in the US over aid supply that caused a delay. I bet that they don't want more of those. If I were gonna guess, they're aiming to look ahead and say "what might become a delay" and then highlight that as soon as possible to people who might iron it out. The guy from the US says "there might be a month or two delay due to obtaining filler", they want that to be minimized and have a cap put on it.

[–] Dendr0@fedia.io 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Welp, looks like we'll just have to focus on the fun stuff... like railguns and plasma weapons. Hopefully we all live long enough to see the future sci-fi keeps telling us about...

Minus the dystopian part, preferably.

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 7 points 5 months ago

Best I can do is superstorms and a ten-foot ocean rise.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hmph. Might explain why gunpowder prices and availability is poor right now. I can only find Accurate 2230 in 1# canisters instead of 8# jugs, and other powders just aren't available at all. Vihtavouri--made in Finland--seems to have the same issues. Primers are pretty easy to find now; they were out of stock everywhere for the first two years of the pandemic.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gunpowder ? I'm a complete layman but wasn't gunpowder used in old guns that the user had to refill manually ? I understand it is sold in detail nowadays ? For what usage ?

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gunpowder is used in all ammunition. You're probably thinking of black powder, which was used with percussion caps, flintlocks, and matchlock rifles. But commercial ammunition, artillery shells, and even the big guns on naval vessel still use gunpowder.

But yes, you can still load your own ammunition. You generally have to buy the primer (you could make them, but lead styphnate is really dangerous to fuck around with; mercury (III) fulminate is even worse), but you can re-use the bass casings. You can mold your own bullets if you want to, and there are ways of swaging on a brass or copper jacket, but most people buy the projectiles. Then you buy the gunpowder, and combine them to get the desired chamber pressure and muzzle velocity to get the ballistic characteristics you want.

As for the why - Well, the excuse I tell myself is that, generally speaking, the components individually cost less than the complete ammunition will cost at retail. If you load 9mm ammunition, you might save $.01-.02/bullet, which really only matters at higher shooting volumes, but you have much more control over the exact ballistic characteristics. For rifle ammunition, the savings can be pretty significant. IIRC, cost for 6.5CM ammunition starts at about $1.25/bullet, but I can get brass for about $.20/ea, a primer for $.10, and appropriate powder for about $.15, and a Hornady ELD-M 147gr bullet for about $.50 (or a bit less); that saves me a minimum of $.35 each bullet.

(But really? I enjoy it.)

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

That's so cool, thanks for the primer (😉). I didn't know any of that !