No.1436
>From 1914 to 1918, Germany and Austria-Hungary produced up to 680 million shells and the industries of the Allies France, Britain, Russia (to October 1917), Italy, the U.S. and Canada, produced up to 790 million shells (the statistics vary greatly). The U.S. produced between 30 million and 50 million of these shells.
<[2023] - European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton suggested that Europe could now make some 400,000 rounds annually. Estonia’s Pevkur, speaking at a November media roundtable, put the figure between 600,000 and 700,000—and said it would reach one million rounds in 2024.
So what happened? Were European countries in the early 20th century just built differently? Even France, who had much of its industrial regions occupied by the Germans, were producing 200,000 shells A DAY by the end of WWI. That's half of current European annual output in a single day.
Why are Europeans struggling to mass produce something as simple as the artillery shell, even though they managed it just fine 100+ years ago?
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No.1437
>>1436The Neo-liberals off-shored a lot of heavy industry to china. Basically they unbolted the smelters and accompanying industries, and shipped it away.
A technical factor might play a role as well. Metal production changed energy inputs from coal to electricity. That enabled more sophisticated metallurgy but also induced a decline in quantity, do to insufficient electricity production. The colossal error of refusing to build out nuclear power is on display once again.
>Why are Europeans struggling to mass produce something as simple as the artillery shell, even though they managed it just fine 100+ years ago?A big part is also that military industry was state-run in many places a 100 years ago. The privatized weapons industry has different goals, capitalists do not want to produce more shells, they want increased military spending to drive up prices for the existing shell production.
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No.1443
>>1437Interesting. If the West went to war with China I wonder how they would fair, considering all of China's military industry is state owned.
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No.1448
>>1443>If the West went to war with China I wonder how they would fair, considering all of China's military industry is state owned.It's not like the west couldn't set up a potent industrial system, it's neo-liberal ideological blinders, that prevents this. For some reason they don't want to do any kind of material accounting only money accounting. If a public servant in a public enterprise does a calculation with tonnes of iron-ore and how many labor-hours it requires to process it into tonnes of steal, that causes bad joojoo or something
Also privatized military industry is making a killing from ludicrously overpriced military supply
1986: US military buys toilet seat for 640 bucks
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-30-vw-18804-story.html2018: US military buys toilet seat for 10000 bucks
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-10000-toilet-seat-cover-doesnt-pass-smell-test-dod-flushing-taxpayerThe Chinese military probably doesn't pay more than 10 to 20 bucks for a toilet-seat.
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No.1450
>>1443They would probably just get shells from the US. If they wanted local production, they would simply use cheap Indian or US steel too.
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No.1451
>>1448this is largely correct. the idea behind a lot of neoliberal doctrine regarding this is the false bourgeois theory of "absolute and comparative advantage". It would support the idea that since the US handles shell production and steel, it would actually be negative to develop your own manufacturing. It is this same ideology driving globalists to keep Llatam an agrarian shithole. Read:
The Russian case
https://zenodo.org/records/4422709General historical critique
https://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/responses-to-readers-austrian-economics-versus-marxism/world-trade-and-the-false-theory-of-comparative-advantage/ >>
No.1453
>>1450>just get shells from the USUkraine tried that, didn't go so well.
>>1451I agree with this to an extend, but some parts of comparative advantage theory are not wrong. Like climate dependent crops for example.
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No.1455
>>1436That's because the West and NATO rely on air supremacy and not on heavy use of infantry and artillery. It's not a problem for the West. It's like complaining the West is not producing enough arrows.
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No.1456
>>1455>rely on air supremacyThat works until you pick a fight with an opponent that has competent air defenses
>It's like complaining the West is not producing enough arrows.<implying artillery compares to bows and arrowsnothing survives an artillery barrage, so that comparison doesn't work.
20th century industrial warfare is crude by modern standards but you can't say that it's not effective.