Global military buildup

[Threviel]

War is expensive when it comes to materiel, this is quite clear from Ukraine where a medium size war costs thousands of armoured vehicles per month.

We talked about it in the Ukraine thread, currently the UK, Germany, Italy and France together has some one thousand main battle tanks and a few thousand other assorted armoured vehicles and some tens of thousand lorries and trucks. France, since I won't bother going over them all so I'll use France as example, has about 100 artillery pieces. Going by the example that Ukraine sets that's about one month of war on the scale of Ukraine, a few weeks perhaps if it's a larger conflict.

Now, the west will always have air superiority, but light AT and AA weapons might make that costly in a peer conflict and it will most definitely be costly in armoured vehicles. Also, we saw in Libya that the western nations do not have any logistical depth when it comes to robots and air plane armaments, they couldn't even do that operation without US logistical support. Presumably western interdiction will be out of weapons after a week or so of serious conflict.

Right now this is not much of a problem, Russia is spent and not a real threat and we still have the US watching over us, but in the years to come this will change. The US will be mainly pre-occupied in the pacific (or on internal affairs perhaps, but this is not the place for that discussion). So the assumption needs to be that Europe, in 20-30 years or so, will have to carry its own weight and pick up the slack in Africa and the Middle east.

This is a short time away, we need to hurry. Russia can be rebuilt and a vassal to China by then, supplied by factories on gigantic scale. What do you guys think needs to be done?

[Josquius]

The war in Ukraine has shown us investing in large numbers of tanks may not be the smartest idea.

[grumbler]

The war in Ukraine has shown us investing in large numbers of tanks may not be the smartest idea.

That's not true, except in the sense that investing in more tanks than you can use in combined arms is a bad idea (just as over-investing in anything is a bad idea).

Investing in large numbers of Russian tanks would be a bad idea, if you have Russians using them.

[Jacob]

Exactly. Ukraine could probably use a couple of hundred extra tanks - Russian or otherwise - at the moment, for example.

[Berkut]

It is an interesting question though.

For a lot of countries that have let their military deteriorate to nearly nothing, what is the right way to build it back up?

What should they spend on, assuming they are starting from nearly scratch?

[Grey Fox]

For Canada. I think we should start by buying some AA capabilities, a nuclear powered submarine and develop the necessary logistical capabilities to have the ability to field 2 different kind of fighter jet.

[Admiral Yi]

I think the tank no longer belongs on the modern battlefield.

[grumbler]

I think the tank no longer belongs on the modern battlefield.

Thanks for sharing.

[Jacob]

I think the tank no longer belongs on the modern battlefield.

Why do you think Ukraine is requesting tanks then?

[Admiral Yi]

Why do you think Ukraine is requesting tanks then?

They think differently.

[Razgovory]

Judging from the current war I'd say it's a good idea to invest heavily in training and logistical equipment.

[Zoupa]

Why do you think Ukraine is requesting tanks then?

They think differently.

Seems pretty clear Ukrainians are the subject matter experts when it comes to fighting Russians.

If they say "we need more tanks", we should probably listen.

[Zanza]

Military procurement seems to lead to over-engineered, very expensive, but also extremely capable systems that have very long lead times in production and training.

I wonder if in an all-out war, quantity is not more important than quality. So maybe military design in the future should not emphasize getting the last bit of capability out of small numbers of equipment, but rather focus on simple production and logistics so that it is possible to make and use a lot of it?

Maybe not for the US with its huge budget as they can actually afford the super-duper solutions in sufficient quantities, but for the rest of the world.

Think Bayraktar versus the more advanced US drones.

[Admiral Yi]

Seems pretty clear Ukrainians are the subject matter experts when it comes to fighting Russians.

If they say "we need more tanks", we should probably listen.

What a wonderful idea. 

[Josquius]

Why do you think Ukraine is requesting tanks then?

They think differently.

Seems pretty clear Ukrainians are the subject matter experts when it comes to fighting Russians.

If they say "we need more tanks", we should probably listen.

They know asking for a air force capable of conclusively beating the Russians isn't an option likely to see much success for them however.
The west does have that option.