Krieg in der Ukraine

[muck]

Der britische Premierminister Sunak hat angekündigt, dass er aufgrund der verschlechterten Sicherheitslage in Europa im Falle seiner Wiederwahl eine allgemeine Wehrpflicht für alle Briten ab dem 18. Lebensjahr einführen wird. (Quelle)

[theoderich]

Future Artillery 2024: Ukraine is most interoperable country in Europe

It also emerged at Future Artillery 2024 that the European Union (EU) does not have the capability to supply Ukraine with enough 155 mm artillery shells. The European Commission announced in a press release on 15 March that European production capacity for 155 mm rounds had reached one million per year by January 2024, and that will rise to two million by the end of 2025. However, the one million rounds have not yet been fully delivered and Europe does not have enough explosives for two million, Janes learnt at the conference.

In comparison, US Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, DougBush, told Janes at Defence iQ's International Armoured Vehicles 2024 conference held in London in January that US 155 mm artillery shell production for the US Army and Ukraine was 28,000 a month, rising to 36,000 during the first quarter of 2024, and would reach 70,000 at the end of 2024 and 100,000 in 2025. The US is on track to produce 100,000 155 mm shells a month, compared with 14,000 before the Ukraine conflict, Janes learnt at Future Artillery 2024.

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/weap ... -in-europe

[Phoenix]

Ist eigentlich schon bekannt welche Waffen die F16 der Ukrainer bekommen werden? Sidewinder und AMRAAM sind eigentlich klar für mich. HARM und JDAM bzw. SDB sind ja auch im Arsenal bzw. ggf. auch lasergelenkte Bomben. Aber kommt sonst noch was?

[theoderich]

Ein Kommentar des Generalstabschefs des französischen Heeres zur Rüstungsproduktion in Europa:

https://fr.linkedin.com/posts/section-t ... 88416-eATr

[theoderich]

Sweden to acquire additional GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft, accelerate entry into service

Sweden is to add to its order of two Saab S 106 GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, at the same time as fast-tracking the type's entry into service.

The Swedish government made the disclosures as part of a wider announcement of military aid to Ukraine published on 29 May. In the announcement, the government said that its commitment to donate one of the Swedish Air Force's (SwAF's) two Saab ASC 890 AEW&C airframes would be backfilled by an increased and accelerated order of the GlobalEye.

“The donation [of a Saab ASC 890 AEW&C aircraft] will entail a temporary decrease of Sweden's defence capability, which will be addressed by procuring additional S 106 GlobalEye aircraft and advancing previous orders for two new GlobalEye aircraft,” the government announcement on the military aid package to Ukraine said.

The Swedish government contracted Saab in June 2022 to deliver two GlobalEye aircraft, with the option for two more.

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defe ... to-service




Neben dem SAAB ASC 90 AEW&C werden auch die komplette Flotte der noch vorhandenen veralteten Mannschaftstransportpanzer Pbv 302, Artilleriemunition und Unterstützungsleistungen für frühere Waffenlieferungen der Ukraine zur Verfügung gestellt. Darüber hinaus liefert Schweden Luft-Luft-Lenkwaffen AIM-120 AMRAAM:

Militärt stödpaket 16 till Ukraina – Ny förmåga som stärker Ukrainas luftförsvar och stöd som möter Ukrainas prioriterade behov

https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelan ... ade-behov/

• https://www.regeringen.se/globalassets/ ... j-2024.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/armeledningen/ ... cale=de_DE


Pentagon Opens Ammunition Factory to Keep Arms Flowing to Ukraine

In a warehouse off Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in an industrial area outside Dallas, the future of American military ammunition production is coming online.

Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes.

The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155-millimeter howitzers that have become crucial to Kyiv’s war effort.

Ukraine fired between 4,000 and 7,000 such shells daily for several months in 2023, according to NATO’s secretary-general, before infighting among House Republicans held up further funding for Pentagon arms shipments. Large shipments of American artillery ammunition resumed in April after Congress passed an aid package that included $61 billion to Ukraine.

The gap led to a drastic ammunition shortage for Kyiv, with Ukrainian troops able to fire only a fraction of the shells shot at them by Russian forces.

To keep Ukraine’s artillery crews supplied, the Pentagon set a production target last year of 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025. Factories in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., together make about 36,000 shells per month. The new General Dynamics facility in Mesquite, Texas, will make 30,000 each month once it reaches its full capacity.

The 100,000-per-month goal represents a nearly tenfold increase in production from a few years ago. An Ohio-based defense firm called IMT is expected to make up the difference.

Less than a year ago, the surrounding area here in North Texas was just a dirt field. But with millions of dollars from Congress and help from Repkon, the American defense firm General Dynamics was able to open the factory about 10 months after breaking ground.

"Despite all our starts and stops with the government, the continuing resolutions and getting the last supplemental, the industrial base responds when you fund it and it’s done right,” William A. LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, said in an interview with his Army counterpart, Douglas R. Bush.

According to Mr. LaPlante, the United States has provided more than three million 155-millimeter shells to Kyiv since the war began in February 2022. “When government and industry work together and Congress gives us sufficient latitude, we can still do great things in this country really fast,” Mr. Bush added.

Whether the increase in artillery ammunition production alone will be enough to change outcomes on the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor is, however, unknown.

“The steady increase of artillery ammunition production is significant for long-term U.S. and Ukrainian needs,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “but even in the best case scenario, I would say those late-2025 output targets will arrive late in this war, and it is likely that Russian artillery output will still be higher than the U.S. and Europe combined at that point.”

“Let’s say a year and a half from now both the U.S. and Europe are making, or buying, over a million shells each,” he added. “That’s still probably less than Russia is going to produce this year.”

The Mesquite factory will consist of three production lines in different buildings — one of which will share space with a distribution center for Frito-Lay that had a Cheetos-branded truck parked outside. When all three lines are completed, most of the Turkish workers will go home.

Half of the on-site American work force came from another General Dynamics plant about 10 miles north in Garland, where the company forges steel casings for aerial bombs. The Mesquite factory will add about 350 jobs to the local economy when it reaches its full production capacity next year, company officials said.

It can take days to forge shells at the military’s current factories in Pennsylvania, which use a combination of new and nearly century-old technologies to heat and press steel billets into tapered projectiles. But the new plant in Mesquite spins rounds out much faster. The shorter turnaround comes from the use of something called "flow forming" — a machine inside an enclosure roughly the size of a city bus rotates a 130-pound steel cup at high speed while simultaneously squeezing it until it becomes a long gleaming cylinder. From there, robots do much of the remaining work.

A series of identical orange-colored robot arms throughout the factory grab the metal projectile parts from one machine and place them on small automated carts that drive them to the next station, where another robot gripper that slides along a track begins the next stage of the process.

Each robot’s work area is fenced in, and its openings are flanked by an “air gate” — a strip of sensors that allow Roomba-like carts to enter but shut machines down if they detect a human.

Humans are needed in a few steps to lift things along the way, often with a large yellow device bolted to the floor called a manipulator that allows them to move shells to other machines.

Laser scanners have replaced human eyes and hand tools for inspecting shells inside and out, quickly verifying that the projectiles are within their desired specifications.

Once complete, the empty shells made in Mesquite will be shipped to the Army’s sole facility for filling them with explosives — a World War II-era plant in Burlington, Iowa. Next year, however, many of the shells will be sent to another new General Dynamics factory that is under construction in Camden, Ark.

The Pentagon’s drive to reinvest in ammunition production will also result in the Army’s Iowa plant opening a second line for filling shells with explosives, and the partial reopening of a plant in Parsons, Kan., for packing artillery propellant charges that was largely shuttered in a round of base closures in the 2000s.

Once complete, an unguided shell will be just under three feet long and weigh roughly 100 pounds — 24 pounds of which will be its explosive fill. That is enough to kill people within 150 feet of impact and cause injuries more than 400 feet away.

Mr. LaPlante and Mr. Bush both indicated that European countries were also ramping up their artillery ammunition production, and U.S. defense contractors are in talks with the Ukrainian government to find ways to help Ukraine bolster its own domestic defense industry. "The United States has transferred sensitive manufacturing plans for more than 1,000 American weapons to Kyiv, and translated an equal number of technical manuals from English to Ukrainian, the two officials said."

When asked, they stopped short of saying which weapons. “What are they using the most?” Mr. Bush replied.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/us/p ... ussia.html

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1557892151437385










https://www.facebook.com/MinistryofDefe ... KeWxztPNFl

[muck]

Die Vorsitzende des Verteidigungsausschusses im Deutschen Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), ist mit der Ukraine-Politik von Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (SPD) hart ins Gericht gegangen. In einer für Koalitionäre beispiellosen Tirade nannte sie Scholz unfähig, mit Politiker-Kollegen sozial zu interagieren und den Bürgern seine Politik zu erklären. Man dringe nicht zu ihm durch, er habe "geradezu autistische Züge" und sei "ein krasser Rechthaber". Dies hätten ihr auch Scholz’ Parteifreunde bestätigt. Politische Entscheidungen treffe er "ausschließlich nach Umfragen". Er messe immer nur Stimmungen, dann setze er sich gegebenenfalls "an die Spitze der Bewegung". (Quelle)

Harte Worte, aber sie erklären Scholz’ ständige Kehrtwenden.

[theoderich]

[theoderich]

[theoderich]

Thales to supply Ukraine with a second air defence system to help protect its territory

Following the supply of a first air defence system to Ukraine in 2023, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has decided to acquire a second system, due to its proven efficiency on the battlefield.

The CM200 detects and tracks simultaneously low to high-altitude targets in all types of environments. It provides air defence weapon coordination for Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) up to Extended Short Range Air Defence (E-SHORAD).

The Ground Master 200 radar establishes tracks faster and keeps them locked for longer, thus maximising situational awareness. This gives time to the ControlView command and control system to evaluate the threat, while allocating the appropriate firing units for air target engagement through each weapon terminal.

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwid ... ystem-help

Ukraine-Unterstützung: Deutschland beschafft Artilleriemunition

Deutschland kann der Ukraine für ihren Verteidigungskampf gegen die russische Aggression weitere 155-Millimeter-Munition liefern. Der Haushaltsausschuss des Deutschen Bundestages hat der Rahmenvereinbarung über die Herstellung der Artilleriegeschosse zugestimmt.

Für 278 Millionen Euro produziert ein französisches Rüstungsunternehmen 68.000 Sprenggeschosse für die ukrainischen Streitkräfte. Finanziert wird das Vorhaben über den Ertüchtigungstitel im Einzelplan 60.

Die Rahmenvereinbarung mit dem Hersteller bietet die Option, bis zu 350.000 Geschosse produzieren und liefern zu lassen. Auch andere Staaten können sich an dem Projekt beteiligen, denn es ist Teil der EU-Munitionsinitiative zur beschleunigten Lieferung, Beschaffung und Produktion von Munition für die Ukraine. Außerdem geht es dabei um die langfristige Steigerung der europäischen Munitionsproduktion, damit die EU-Mitgliedstaaten ihre Munitionsbestände wieder auffüllen können.

https://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/ukrain ... on-5717012

Bundeswehr beschafft noch mehr Artilleriegeschosse

Der Haushaltsausschuss des Deutschen Bundestags hat am 5. Juni den Kauf weiterer Artilleriemunition im Kaliber 155 Millimeter genehmigt. Mit dem Beschaffungsprojekt kann zum einen die Unterstützung der Ukraine mit der so dringend benötigten Munition fortgesetzt werden, aber auch die eigenen Bestände können weiter aufgefüllt werden.

Mit einem deutschen Rüstungsunternehmen wurde nun zur weiteren Unterstützung der Ukraine und zum Auffüllen der eigenen Munitionsbestände die Produktion und Lieferung tausender Geschosse vereinbart. Der Finanzierungsbedarf in Höhe von knapp 880 Millionen Euro wird sowohl aus dem Sondervermögen Bundeswehr als auch aus dem regulären Verteidigungsetat gedeckt.

Rahmenvereinbarung für mehrere Millionen Schuss

Der Haushaltsausschuss hat darüber hinaus die Änderung einer Rahmenvereinbarung mit dem Rüstungsunternehmen gebilligt. Mit der neuen Rahmenvereinbarung wurde die mögliche Abrufmenge um ein Mehrfaches vervielfacht. Zu betonen ist dabei, dass die Geschosse zukünftig in Deutschland produziert werden.

https://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/bundes ... se-5788634

[theoderich]

Und KNDS wird eine Tochterfirma in der Ukraine gründen: