Its political willpower

The US alone could hand over enough equipment to transition the entire UAF into a NATO standardized army.

To fully equip these slotted bridges with what would normally be a US ABCT the US has more than enough equipment to not seriously diminish its own fighting capacity.

It just comes down to handing over the equipment without removing the DU armor, delaying allied armor sales, cannabilize national guard units [30th Armored BCT (NC), 1st Armored BCT (MN), 155th Armored BCT (MS), 278th Armored Cav (TN), 81st Stryker BCT (WA), equipment (it already is doing that for the Bradley's)

Its theorized the reason ATACMS or cluster munitions hasn't been sent to the UAF is because the army never ordered new ones post Iraq War so the inventory is 'low' in the eyes of the army. ~1000 missiles is what it theorized to be. The other theory is they want to dangle it so the Russians don't get Iranian SRBMs. Either way, its political willpower on why they haven't been provided with it.

There are other arms that could be transferred that would severely assist the UAF in the coming offense like breaching equipment and lots of it. But the army doesn't want to part ways with it to again diminish its own warfighting capacity.

If Biden wanted to hand over enough equipment to the Ukrainians to fill out 5 bridges worth of equipment, the US military could realistically do it in less than 6 months if ordered. The only realistic hurdle would be having to have Congress authorize the transfer due to the valued amount of equipment and waive the DU armor being removed.

They aren't. They're conscripts. The new brigades are being made up of replacements and reserve officers.

They are mobilized non contract soldiers otherwise known as ... conscripts.

And again 30 tanks is just 30 tanks. It won't make a difference at a strategic level. Its a conventional war. You need sheer numbers. Its not some magic bullet that the media acts when it comes to 'western weapons'.

With the Lynx, the Redback, and the Griffin II modified variants apart of the proposed submissions for the replacement… its pretty likely it goes into production fast since all 3 variants are in production. Only the BAE / Front Point submittals will be truly new vehicles that would have teething issues.

The army has realized its mistakes in the 2000-2014 era of DoD procurement. Both the army and the navy are showing a preference for modifications to proven systems from other partners (MPF, Constellation-class )

For the AMPV they chose to lower the numbers per year so the initial order of 3000 full production vehicles kept the factory line going for a decade in case they wanted to acquire more later on because it would be easier and cheaper to just increase production or keep the line going for longer. So they decided on doing 300 vehicles / year for full production with every year the option to increase production numbers if a new order was done.

With this OMFV program until the prototypes are selected we cannot say. If one of the existing vehicles wins it can obviously go into production much quicker than a fully brand new prototype can. Those details won’t be announced until whoever wins the prototyping stage

With the MPF, the army expects its first unit to be equipped by 2025 (2 years after the winner being announced) from Low rate initial production.

Edit: the army has decided to get its shit together when it comes to procurement. MPF went from bids to prototype to production in 3 years and should realistically be used as the framework for how omfv is going to go.

They already have 300 vehicles. They want 3,000. First 3 years of procurement was slated for low rate production

Edit: 3 years of low production followed by 10 years of full rate production with a target of 300 vehicles / year and the option to scale / increase production at will.

The army specifically chose this procurement timeline so the production facility didn’t end immediately if the army decided it needed more 5+ years for now so they specifically slowed down production to be steady over a period of time so the option to scale it to a larger procurement was available.

M113 replacement is literally in service right now.

Its the AMPV.

How do you get a decade out of prototyping next year and low rate production in 26 to full rate in 28?

OMFV final three to be announced this year for prototype submission.

Based on the MPF turnaround that means selection will be late 2024 / early 2025 with low rate production in 2026 before it enters service in 2028

There is likely pressure to get it to production this time after two failed programs in the FCV program and GCV program. With the MPF selection (GLDS) , and the AMPV (BAE) production in full swing. Its very likely the Army gets it selected this time.

Current teams for the program are:

GLDS with a variation of the Griffin II

Oskosh / Hanwha with the Redback

American Reinmetall with Lynx KF41

BAE with its successor bradley

Point defense which is new kid on the block

The M113 replacements are already entering service and is in production right now

Edit: with the Abrams, take what the Pentagon says with a grain of salt. They don’t want to see a reduction in capabilities and readiness and sending more Abrams will see that readiness plummet in their active units due to less availability of Abrams. Ukraine already fields turbine tanks, this is nothing new. However IFVs are more important than tanks are in the medium term.

It is not logistically feasible today to conduct an invasion. The navy is not configured to do it

The US does not have the type of ships or equipment in numbers to perform a naval landing that would have to make Normandy look small.

Its not possible. Even if some idiot ordered it, it is not possible.

A conventional war between China and the US would look like the Falklands war which would be almost exclusively a naval and air campaign

I wanna see a turret on a speed boat now

Piecemeal deliveries does not permit for brigade wide training. 30 tanks is not even a single tank battalion.

How can you expect Ukraine to train new units when they do not have the equipment to learn how to operate together intermixed with IFVs, APCs and other motorized equipment.

Conventional war is combined arms. To do combined arms the staff has to know what equipment is available to assign and fill out their organizational structure.

Providing small amounts of equipment in packages does not permit these new brigades (which contain 3-7 battalion of various types [armor, mechanized infantry, light infantry, motorized infantry, artillery detachments etc]) to properly train for maneuvering together which is what you have to do on the offensive.

The Ukrainian army has degraded. Its original NATO trained forces do not exist anymore due to casualties and the activation of reserve officers.

Also training someone on how to operate a tank is different than training a tank company on how to operate together on its own and that’s different than training a tank company to detach and support a mechanized infantry battalion to conduct an offensive.

Its not something thats like here is a rifle, we trained you how to clean and shoot. here if your bradley, the crew knows how to operate it. Go take that trench. Thats fucking suicide. Because the infantry do not know how to dismount while under fire, the other bradleys don’t know how to cover the others, do they know how to suppress the trench line? Do they have a reconnaissance element? Is there artillery observers embedded in the Commanders bradley? How does he correct mortar fire if thats available? What if they need to withdraw, how do you conduct that properly and not loose vehicles?

Ukraine is building 3 brand new brigades. It needs equipment. It needs tanks, it needs IFVs, it needs APCs, it needs fuel trucks, it needs logistics vehicles, it needs reconnaissance vehicles and it needs the equipment earlier so those troops can train and become familiarized before they begin training on how to conduct a combined arms offensive

Ground mechanized units are not important to an Indo-Pacific confrontation. There will not be ground battles in Taiwan and the US surely wouldn’t invade China.

Sending Bradleys and tanks to Ukraine does not take away from the Navy and Marines strategy in the Pacific. There is a reason why the Marines have divested from tanks and artillery there

If the USSR didn’t do anything about Israel arms supplies during 1967 / 73 or arms supplies in Afghanistan. The Russians aren’t going to go nuclear over Ukraine. The US likewise did nothing over USSR involvement in Korea and in Vietnam.

Putin is terrified of COVID why would he risk nuclear annihilation? Even China has told Russia its a red line.

The analysts and experts who are worried about nuclear war are the same ones who didn’t think the Russians were going to invade imo

I do not and will not understand why the US is doing this piecemeal aid.

30 tanks will not make a difference in a conventional landwar. The USA has the ability to send large quantities of mechanized vehicles because its slotted to begin replacement this year. Sending 30 vehicles every 2 weeks is just… mind numbing short sighted.

The training that NATO is doing is too short and too little. 3 months? That’s ridiculous, how can they expect those units to perform combined arms when their fresh conscripts.

Why have long term munitions contracts not been signed? Why is the DPA not invoked? Why is the army so resistant of taking Bradleys out of its reserve units and stockpiles? They are getting replaced.

I just do not comprehend the administration’s position of “not escalating”. Is this just some cold war trauma mentality of nuclear armageddon? The USA literally fought the Soviet air force and air defense forces in Korea and Vietnam. If war didn’t break out from Able Archer and from Cuba why would war break out by sending arms? Why are we so scared?

Why is it considered “acceptable” for Russia to commit war crimes daily by targeting hospitals and residential blocks but unacceptable for Ukraine to target legitimate military targets inside Russia like the airfields where the cruise missile carrying aircraft are coming from or the railways in which supplies are coming in from?

We need to start truly acting like this is a war because our mild response will only embolden future actors. We do not need to directly get involved but I just cannot comprehend why we arent sending ATACMs, more IFVs and tanks. Its a conventional ground war, they need the equipment and they need more comprehensive training.

These decisions shouldve been made last year. It makes me sick that they wait the last minute and then there is a 6-8 month delay. Thats easily another 60.000 dead Ukrainians when there are already serious manpower considerations.

We didn’t go “oh here are 30 planes” to the British and the Soviets in WW2 prior to our involvement. We opened the arsenal of democracy and provided huge quantities of arms, ammo and equipment.

The US ordered new units for Ukraine but has no reversed course and will be sending mothballed M1A1s that were originally slated for modernization in order to speed delivery from 3 years to this year

Especially when Reid consistently praises him and publicly questions why he isn't getting hired.