Conventional Weaponry Shortages

Extracted Attributes

• Root Causes

  Industrial atrophy, aging Cold War-era infrastructure, and supply chain constraints

• Critical Munition Type

  155mm artillery shells

• Primary Strategic Risk

  Increased likelihood of nuclear escalation due to conventional parity loss

• Actual Production (Mid-2025)

  40,000 rounds per month

• Historical/Fictional Reference

  Red Storm Rising (1986) by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond

• US Production Target (October 2025)

  100,000 rounds per month

Timeline

• Release of the novel 'Red Storm Rising', which explores a conventional-only Third World War scenario. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1986-08-07

• Operation Unified Protector in Libya reveals that European allies lack sufficient precision-guided munitions, requiring US resupply. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2011-03-19

• The US discovers a lack of precision-guided missiles during the campaign against ISIS. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2014-01-01

• Hamas attacks on Israel lead to increased demand for conventional munitions, further straining global supplies. (Source: Document e56e229d-0037-4cf0-acf6-e8b3670587e1)

  2023-10-07

• All-In Podcast Episode 151 discusses the risk of World War III and the specific danger of conventional weaponry shortages. (Source: Document e56e229d-0037-4cf0-acf6-e8b3670587e1)

  2023-10-27

• The US Army sets a ramp-up plan to reach 60,000 shells per month by October 2024. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2024-01-01

• US artillery shell production is reported to have stalled at approximately 40,000 rounds per month, missing interim targets. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2025-06-01

• Projected date for the US Army to finally reach the target of 100,000 rounds per month. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2026-06-01

Red Storm Rising

Red Storm Rising is a war novel, written by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond, and released on August 7, 1986. Set in the mid-1980s, it features a Third World War between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact forces, and is notable for depicting the conflict as being fought exclusively with conventional weapons, rather than escalating to the use of weapons of mass destruction or nuclear warfare. It is one of two Clancy novels, along with SSN (1996), that are not set in the Ryanverse. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. It eventually lent its name to game development company Red Storm Entertainment, which Clancy co-founded in 1997.

Web Search Results

• Explaining the ammunition shortage: the show vs. have military ...

  ### The budget constraint For any state , the conventional weapon budget can be used to buy howitzers () and shells (). Let us denote by the military budget of the state, and let be the price of howitzers and the price of shells. The budget constraint of a state can be written as: (5) (5) If we assume that the cost and price of a shell, which requires relatively basic technology to be produced, does not vary from one country to another, we can use it as numeraire and set .Footnote13 We denote the relative price of howitzers to shells by . Then the budget constraint of the state can be written as: (6) (6) [...] Many weapon systems are made up of relatively expensive devices capable of launching lethal projectiles toward enemy targets and various incoming threats. In this category of weapons, we find traditional guns and their ammunition (bullets), howitzers and their artillery rounds, and more modern launchers and their rockets or missiles, such as those fired by the man-portable, fire-and-forget Stinger and Javelin, or the more sophisticated HIMARS and ATACMS, which have proven their large effectiveness in Ukraine (Petraeus and Roberts Citation2023). In these examples, launchers and ammunition complement each other in the projection of force. A similar complementarity logic applies to any type of weapon, since ultimately, all weapons require a significant amount of ammunition to be effective, [...] would conceal the amount of expenses dedicated to the procurement of conventional weapons, which is considered as strategic information. This intrinsic opacity creates a typical asymmetric information environment.Footnote15

• America's Scale Problem - Foreign Policy Research Institute

  America’s military is built for the wrong kind of war. The United States has optimized its defense industry for short, high-tech conflicts using precision weapons, but current global wars require sustained, large-scale production of conventional munitions. This has resulted in a dangerous industrial shortfall where America cannot produce enough basic ammunition like artillery shells and missiles to meet the demands of even two simultaneous regional wars.

• America Must Remedy Its Dangerous Lack of Munitions Planning

  There is clearly a gap between what Congress and the President have been asking of the Pentagon and the means they have provided. America’s own munition problem is compounded by U.S. allies’ munitions shortages. During Operation Unified ProtectorREF—the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya—allied countries lacked enough precision-guided munitions to sustain operations and had to rely on the U.S. for resupply. The French and British ran short on precision-guided munitions less than a month into the conflict, and the U.S. stepped in to fill the capability gap (something the U.S. would be even harder pressed to do in a comparable situation today). [...] Comparing U.S. munitions inventory with the target set that the U.S. would need in order to engage in a future armed conflict exposes this deficiency. The U.S. has suffered from munitions shortages because of limited operations against non-state actors and would be even less equipped to deal with a state actor with a substantial military. ### Munitions and the Chinese Fleet [...] Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has not bought and built enough munitions to keep pace with the military operations the President and Congress have tasked the Department of Defense (DOD) with conducting. In 2014, the U.S. discovered that it lacked enough precision-guided missiles to take on a non-state actor, ISIS, in a limited campaign. Less than a decade later, it has become apparent that the problem persists, as the effort to arm Ukraine has dangerously depleted America’s stores of artillery shells. This deficiency in munitions planning harms America’s warfighting capability, endangering its ability to fight future wars. It is vital that the U.S. remedy this deficiency by increasing munitions spending, coordinating with allies, shoring up industry, and doing a better job of

• U S Weapons Shortages Deepen Amid War And Strikes - Evrim Ağacı

  deep into enemy territory, including Moscow, which is just 500 miles from Kiev. [...] Russian President Vladimir Putin and his advisors could retaliate against NATO, perhaps by bombing military bases in Ukraine and neighboring NATO nations such as Poland. They might begin with conventional weapons while holding tactical nuclear weapons in reserve, or they could escalate directly to battlefield nuclear arms like the Iskander short-range ballistic missile or Kalibr cruise missile, with yields from 1 to 50 kilotons of TNT equivalent. For context, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 kilotons. [...] a single Ukrainian artillery battery can burn through more U.S.-made 155mm shells in a single day than some American units used during the entire Iraq War.

• Why U.S. Artillery Shells Remain in Short Supply in 2025

  SUBSCRIBE NEWSLETTERS Copyright 2025-30 - All Right Reserved Home » Why U.S. Artillery Shells Remain in Short Supply in 2025 Artillery & Missile SystemsMilitary & Ordnance # Why U.S. Artillery Shells Remain in Short Supply in 2025 by Daniel written by Daniel 5 comments 4 minutes read 271 The United States continues to grapple with a persistent shortfall in artillery shell production, especially of 155mm rounds, well into 2025. Despite massive investments and aggressive expansion plans, the Pentagon remains unable to meet its own replenishment targets, leaving both U.S. and allied stockpiles vulnerable. ### Production Goals vs. Reality [...] […] Dome (Israel) – Highly effective against short-range rockets and artillery shells, with an interception rate exceeding 90% in recent […] Reply U.S. Weapon Manufacturers Confront Supply Chain Strains Amid Rising Global Demand September 25, 2025 - 7:03 am […] and Propellants: The U.S. Army and industry partners are expanding facilities to produce artillery shells and rockets, but shortages of energetics and aging infrastructure continue to slow […] Reply U.S. Declines to Supply Tomahawk Missiles to Ukraine Amid Strategic and Inventory Constraints October 23, 2025 - 11:34 pm […] Cloud… Dean-of-Defense Strategy 2025: U.S. Shifts Focus to Homeland and Indo-Pacific Amid… Why U.S. Artillery Shells Remain in Short Supply in 2025 SUBSCRIBE […] Reply [...] ### Production Goals vs. Reality In early 2024, the Army laid out an ambitious ramp-up plan: from 60,000 shells per month in October 2024, to 75,000 by April 2025, and ultimately reaching 100,000 per month by October 2025. But by mid-2025, production stalled at approximately 40,000 rounds per month. The Army now expects to hit the 100,000-round target only by mid-2026. ### Underlying Causes of the Shortfall #### Industrial Atrophy and Infrastructure Gaps Much of the U.S. artillery industrial base is rooted in Cold War-era plants—many have not been modernized or expanded, leaving fragile production chains unable to surge quickly. #### Supply Chain Constraints