this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Image is sourced from this People's Dispatch article, depicting communists attending the 2023 funeral of Communist Party President Guillermo Teillier, who was tortured for years under Pinochet's regime and helped rebuild the Communist Party while under a fascist dictatorship.


We had the Six Day War in 1967, we had the Nineteen Day War (Yom Kippur) in 1973, and now we've had the Twelve Day War. I wonder how many more very short wars will plague the region until Palestine is freed?

However, moving on from Western Asia from a little while, we have some interesting news from Chile - the former labor minister and communist, Jeannette Jara, has won the primary election for the left-wing bloc in a landslide (~60% of the vote), as the current President, Gabriel Boric, is term-limited. Her achievements include a minimum wage increase and a reduction of the work week to 40 hours.

In November, Jara will face down the contenders from other parties, including José Antonio Kast, who is analogous to Brazil's Bolsonaro. Unfortunately, Jara is now the lead figure of a party that has been taking quite a few Ls under Boric's leadership. Ostensibly a Democratic Socialist, he ruled as - you guessed it - a neoliberal, bending the knee to the US and EU. He not only failed to overthrow the Pinochet-era constitution, he actually allowed the right-wing to turn the proposed new constitution into something worse, and had to settle for campaigning against the new one and keeping the old one. And he had very little solidarity with other left-leaning leaders on the continent, like Maduro, Lula, Petro, or Castillo.

With this in mind, I cannot help but look at Argentina's very recent history and feel a little dread - but if anybody can save Chile at this point, it can only be a communist.


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[–] Tervell@hexbear.net 60 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (14 children)

in US procurement news, U.S. is Falling Short on 155mm Artillery Shell Production: Current Output and 1 Million Goal Timeline

Although significant efforts to ramp up artillery ammunition production — efforts that have cost billions of dollars — the U.S. has still not reached its planned output targets. As of June 2025, the total monthly production volume of 155mm artillery rounds stands at 40,000 units. This was reported by John Reim, head of the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Ammunition and Armaments, in an interview with Defense One. According to the Pentagon’s plans announced in February 2024, the target for April 2025 was set at 75,000 rounds per month, with a goal of reaching 100,000 by October 2025. However, despite the current rate of 40,000 155mm rounds per month, the U.S. Army remains confident it will reach the target in early 2026. This means the U.S. will be able to produce more than 1 million 155mm artillery rounds only in 2026.

As Defense Express notes, it is crucial not to confuse a round with a projectile. The figure of 40,000 refers to the number of 155mm projectiles, a level the U.S. reached back in September 2024, according to a Pentagon report. However, a complete round also includes a propellant charge and a fuze. According to that report, while 40,000 projectiles were produced, only 18,000 charges (likely meaning full sets) were made. In other words, as of September 2024, the U.S. was effectively producing just 18,000 complete 155mm artillery rounds per month. In the eight months since then, the U.S. defense industry has managed to double complete round production — a notable achievement. Still, the major gap in charge production compared to projectiles is due to a shortage of propellant and the fact that the U.S. had no domestic production.

Currently, all U.S. artillery charges are manufactured at the Valleyfield facility near Montreal, Canada, which is owned by General Dynamics. However, production is being relocated to the U.S. at new American Ordnance plants in Middletown, Iowa, and Camden, Arkansas, where another General Dynamics facility will also be built. In parallel with expanding shell body production and increasing the capacity for filling them with explosives — which remains a challenge, as 100,000 shells per month would require 66,000 tons of explosives, much of which is currently imported — these developments will enable the U.S. to eventually reach the target of producing 100,000 complete 155mm rounds per month.

So, it's up to 40,000 projectiles - that's from 14,400 at in 2022, which is not even an extra 30,000 in 3-and-a-half years, and they're supposed to get to 100,000 by next year stonks-up. For comparison, the daily usage by Russia is 10-20k, with a peak of 60k some time ago.

But wait, it gets better - it seems like production may have actually gone down from last year

spoiler

The Army recently told Congress that 155mm production currently stands at 40,000/month. This is of course a decrease from the 50,000/m LaPlante stated last year.

We now have a likely explanation for why it fell. The new shell body production facility in Mesquite, TX is massively behind schedule. The first two of three production lines are still not fully completed, and the third is likely to miss its due date. The Army has formally notified General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems that their management of the facility is being reviewed for breach of contract. They have until July 10 to detail how they might be able to get things back on track.

As a result, the Army's Load, Assemble and Pack capacity exceeds their ability to produce the metal parts of the projectiles. Previously there was a stockpile of shell bodies that were being drawn on by the LAP facilities, but those must have been exhausted, so projectile production has now fallen to 40,000 which is what the other metal parts plants can produce. Mesquite's 3 lines are supposed to produce 10,000 shell bodies each.

Once again, the West's mockery of the Russians for relying on old stockpiles is projection. It's Cold War era stockpiles all the way down!

More details on the potential breach of contract: Army ‘considering terminating’ General Dynamics’ oversight of new 155mm production lines

... the service is now “considering terminating” the GD deals for all three UPLA lines, according to a June 13 letter from Army Contracting Command (ACC) to the company. “GD-OTS has failed to complete the projects on time or make meaningful progress towards meeting the required completion dates of design and installation of the three (3) UAPLs,” the Army wrote in the letter. ... “Because GD-OTS has failed to meet significant milestones for UAPL 1, leading to six (6) missed First Article Test dates spanning April 2024 through June 2025, resultant schedule impacts have continued to extend [to] UAPL 2 and UAPL schedules,” the Army explained. “Specifically, for Line 3, since January 2025 alone GD-OTS’ estimate for equipment installation slipped three (3) months, thus extending total installation timeframe and subsequent line prove-out activities into 2027.”

Additionally, the service said that even after it was determined that Line 1 equipment did not meet “technical requirements of the contract,” the company continued shipping Line 3 equipment. As a result, there is a “significant risk” that similar Line 3 equipment will also not be up to snuff. Compounding the issue, on May 29 GD-OTS notified Army officials that it had halted work on UAPL 3 “on its own accord,” a decision taken without direction or concurrence from the service.

yeah that contract I signed up for? yeah I'm just not gonna do like a third of it man, I just don't feel like doing it doggirl-sleep

“Because GD-OTS has failed to perform the UAPL Task Orders… within the timeframe required by the contractual terms, the USG is considering terminating” the deals but a final decision has not been made, the Army added. The letter does not go into detail about what other companies could be tapped to replace GD-OTS.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The US doesn't care about traditional gun based artillery, and hasn't cared since the Gulf war, it's not a critical part of US/NATO/western aligned doctrine. They're only trying to up artillery production because of Ukraine. US doctrine is all about delivering air support with precision guided munitions. This doctrine was spurred on by its success during the Gulf war where 65 F-111s armed with 4x GBU-12 Paveway 500lb laser guided bombs destroyed over 1500 Iraqi tanks, with the relatively newer F-15Es destroying a couple hundred more with the same loadout (the performance of the A-10 aircraft and M1 Abrams tanks were vastly overstated). Artillery was mainly relegated to counter fire/battery missions with MLRS rockets with DPICM cluster munitions, and ATACMS missiles taking out static air defence sites. US/NATO gun based artillery was vastly outgunned, out ranged and outnumbered by Iraq, yet it had very little effect on the war.

This US doctrine has been refined since then, with the introduction of the 250lb class Small Diameter glide Bombs (SDBs) to replace the GBU-12. The laser guided GBU-39 SDB variant, and the GBU-53 SDB II with a multimode radar seeker, and Israeli SPICE 250 with TV guidance, can hit fast moving targets at distances of 75km, and stationary taegets at distances of over 100km, all independent of GNSS/GPS guidance, and pack a much bigger punch than your average 155mm artillery round. Modern EOTS systems, such as those on the F-35, can track targets at this range from medium to high altitude. A vast upgrade on the 15km range of the GBU-12 and 1990s era targeting pods. One F-35 carries 8x SDBs internally, an F-15E can carry 20 along with two external fuel tanks + two conformal fuel tanks, much more than the 4 GBU-12s per aircraft. Essentially, why have artillery when you have this:

Now this obviously relies on obtaining air superiority, but the US have invested heavily in this area and SEAD/DEAD (suppression/destruction of enemy air defences) capabilities. Stealth strike aircraft also allow for carrying out strikes in contested airspace. How many countries have the capability of stopping an F-35 from getting within 75km of a frontline target and dropping 8x SDBs? And if longer range air defence systems are suppressed, F-15s and F-16s can start doing the same outside of the range of short and medium range air defence systems. In other words, how many missile launchers (and other targets) did Israel take out in Iran, using this class of SDB/SPICE 250, along with UCAVs and Mossad assets with ATGMs and FPV drones, without firing a single artillery shell? Visually verified numbers on missile launchers alone, excluding duplicates and decoys, are around 60, actual numbers likely higher.

Further, I don't think Russia wants to fight an artillery and drone based attrition war, if they could get air superiority near Kyiv and bomb it every day with Su-34s they would, and they certainly tried at the beginning of the war, it's just that the Russian Air Force lacks the SEAD/DEAD capabilities to do this. Ukraine also don't want to fight this war where they're drip fed western weapons and slowly losing ground to Russia every day, if they could do a NATO style combined arms maneuver offensive they would, but they tried that in the summer of 2023 and failed, they don't have the air assets for that and will most likely never get them. Which is why the situation in Ukraine is like this. Ukraine is a unique situation and this does not apply to a hypothetical US-Russia conflict, or a NATO-Russia conflict, or even a US-China conflict, which would be primarily a naval conflict and not a land war. The lesson from Ukraine should be that, it's a unique situation and what's true of Ukraine is not true outside of it. For instance, Shahed/Geran one way attack drones: highly useful vs Ukraine, useless vs Israel.

[–] RedSailsFan@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're only trying to up artillery production because of Ukraine

and utterly failing to meet their production targets, i understand its not their literal upmost priority to build artillery vs air stuff but like you just wrote some massive paragraphs arguing about doctrine that misses the point, post some screed about the US being able to suddenly surge air asset production that would be a far more relevant to a discussion about the US military's ability to meet production targets.

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