NATO’s War in Ukraine Lays Bear Lack of Logistics-in-Depth

Nov. 28, 2022 (EIRNS)—There have been a growing number of reports in recent days pointing to the lack of logistics-in-depth capabilities on the part of NATO, which have been exposed by the U.S.-led backing of the Kiev regime in its war with Russia. In the latest example of that, Reuters reports this morning that Boeing has proposed to the Pentagon the provision of precision-guided air-dropped bombs mounted to rocket motors which would give Ukrainian forces the capability to fire deep into Russian rear areas. The bomb, called the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, would be mounted to the M26 rocket motor, said to be both cheap and relatively abundant, and launched from the ground with a range of up to 150 km. Work on the new weapon, called the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb and produced by Boeing and SAAB, has actually been underway since 2019, and is expected to be available by the spring of 2023, though at a low rate of production.

The background for the Boeing proposal, however, is the depletion of inventories of existing weapons, as the Reuters report notes. The depletion was highlighted over the weekend by two stories that appeared in the New York Times. The first story, published on Nov. 26, reports that the gun barrels for the 155mm howitzers that the U.S. and many other countries have supplied to the Kiev regime are wearing out faster than they can be repaired. In fact, the barrels can’t be replaced in the field so U.S. European Command has set up a repair center in Poland to address the problem. The estimate is that about one-third of the roughly 350 155mm howitzers are out of service at any given time because they need new barrels. Not said is how many of those 350 howitzers have been destroyed beyond repair. The Russian Defense Ministry has published dozens of videos showing the destruction of howitzers, particularly U.S.-supplied M777’s.

The second story, published on Nov. 28, reports that “In Ukraine, the kind of European war thought inconceivable is chewing up the modest stockpiles of artillery, ammunition and air defenses of what some in NATO call Europe’s ‘bonsai armies,’ after the tiny Japanese trees. Even the mighty United States has only limited stocks of the weapons the Ukrainians want and need, and Washington is unwilling to divert key weapons from delicate regions like Taiwan and Korea....”

One example of the problem is artillery ammunition. The Times cites one NATO official saying last summer that Ukrainian forces were firing 6,000 to 7,000 rounds per day while the Russians were firing 40,000 to 50,000 rounds. The U.S., however, was producing only 15,000 rounds per month. “So the West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells,” the Times says. Soviet-era artillery shells are of 152mm and 122mm caliber, compared to the NATO standard of 155mm and 105mm.

As for weapons and other equipment, one NATO official told the Times that 20 of NATO’s 30 members are pretty much tapped out, but the other 10, mainly larger countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands, could still provide more.