War in Ukraine: Europe runs out of ammunition

The European Union and NATO note that Ukraine consumes more ammunition than Western industry is able to produce with its current means. While European governments announce new shipments of heavy weapons, such as the first German tanks or French light armored vehicles, weapons they refused to deliver to Kyiv a few months ago, their ammunition depots are starting to run low.

The most realistic calculations that the Community sources have speak of the fact that the European industry is able to produce per year about 300,000 shells of 155mm artillery (the most common weapon in NATO countries) while the Armed Forces of Ukraine consume about 40,000 a month, which would be equivalent to 480,000 a year if the war continued at its present pace.

Every day Ukraine fires more than 6,000 artillery shells of all kinds. There is no military industry in Europe that can keep up with this pace.

The reasons are varied, but the biggest one is the reduction in military industry capacity after the end of the Cold War. In the absence of the military threat posed by the Warsaw Pact, Europe has continually stopped replenishing its arsenals of munitions and the industry has shrunk in size. Now there is a lack of that production capacity of times of global geopolitical tensions, but also specialized workers or raw materials.

Russia, with the same problem

The good news for Westerners is this Russia has the same or worse problems to supply its Armed Forces and that the sanctions further damage its industrial capacity.

How come Russia also spends ammunition as if there were no tomorrow. A report by the British Royal United Services Institute estimated that British ammunition stockpiles would last a week of warfare at the rate consumed by Russia and the Ukraine.

The United States has announced a $1.8 billion package that for the first time includes shipments of Patriot anti-missile launch batteries, as well as precision munitions and long-range rockets.

The aid, added to the latest announcements from Paris and Berlin, is good news for President Volodimir Zelensky earlier this year, but those weapons they need thousands of pieces of ammunition everyday.

And the whole burden can’t fall on American industry either, unable to keep up. Therefore, the European countries with the most powerful military-industrial capacity are designated by the European Union and NATO in such a way increase this capacity as fast as possible.

Europe’s ammunition production capacity needs to increase, EU sources estimate. Even if another bullet has not been sent to Ukraine, at the current rate it would take at least 15 years to replenish the deposits. NATO requires its member states to have ammunition to sustain 30 days of fighting in a major war. No European country today has this capability.

Strengthen the infrastructure

The European Commission identified months ago another of the problems European military. The infrastructures in many cases are not prepared for the transit of heavy military material.

Brussels has thus approved a plan of 60 million euros so that Belgium adapt the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge for the arrival of American heavy weapons which would then circulate in Eastern Europe.

European transport commissioner Adina Valean told the Flemish newspaper ‘De Standaard’ that “given the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the problem of military mobility in Europe is now at the top of the agenda”.

The reforms to be carried out in Belgian ports will allow heavy military material to be loaded directly on the trains of goods to Germany much faster than now. The roads between the ports of Flanders will also be arranged to support the weight of the military vehicles. Belgium has also set its sights on old bridgesto strengthen them.

Brussels, especially for clarion

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