[Goose]

Good article on GMLRS missile stocks and production. 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ar...war-demand

While it is unknown how many rockets the Ukrainians have fired from the HIMARS it already has, Hertling estimated that 16 such systems - which are pre-loaded with six-round pods - each firing a full volley just twice a day would burn through about 5,800 rockets a month
.......
Prior to Fiscal Year 2021, the Pentagon had purchased slightly more than 50,000 GMLRS of all variants, according to the Fiscal Year 2023 U.S. Army Presidential Budget Justification Book.
.....
So in essence, at a pace suggested by Hertling, Ukraine’s GMLRS monthly burn rate would equal about 29% of the entire planned U.S. procurement for the next five years, not withstanding production rates of the ER GMLRS which have yet to be set.
......
The maximum annual production rate of GMLRS is about 10,000 or about twice what is currently being called for in the current budget proposal.

A data point to consider is that in Desert Storm 89 M270 launchers were deployed and they fired a total of 6000 rounds of MLRS plus 32 ATACMS. In one case 3 M270s fired 287 rockets at 5 targets in under 5 minutes. This is from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M270_Multi...ket_System
The important point is that in a target-rich environment HIMARS can fire a prodigious number of rounds very quickly. This is one of it's major advantages. On the other hand, many of those 89 launchers obviously didn't fire much if at all. It is probable that Ukraine is doing the best they can to use the few HIMARS they have to the greatest effect possible. That would tend to increase their usage of ordinance over the "average" (whatever that is). Ukraine is clearly using HIMARS in situations where the US would use another weapon. The bridge near Kherson is an example of that. Bridges are JDAM targets, not HIMARS targets. But Ukraine doesn't have JDAMS or a way to drop them, so HIMARS has to do the job.

All that said, since we don't know how many rounds per day they are actually using, it is difficult to speculate to what degree there is a problem. If Ukraine isn't "wasting" rounds on inappropriate targets, it seems reasonable to me that we have 10 or 11 months to increase production to meet those needs. If there is an alternative weapon they should be using instead, I suspect we don't have it. If we did, we would have sent that instead.

The 10K a year production limit is undoubtedly based on what was previously ordered. Increasing production is clearly possible if it is really required and the money is provided. These are not crazy high-tech items. It is also true that four European countries plus Turkey and Israel can and have manufactured these rockets. The US Army has 5 active duty and 12 Army National Guard HIMARS battalions. Each battalion has 3 batteries of 6 launchers each. This is a total of 302 launchers. The US Marines have a maximum of about 50 launchers spread around in different units. There are also  at least 225 M270A1 launchers in Army inventory. Using the projected rate suggested by Hertling, the 302 HIMARS alone would fire 108,720 rockets a month. Nobody is panicking about that, so I think that means consumption is not expected to be that extreme on average.

It is worthy of note that we have not yet transferred even one battalion's worth of HIMARS to Ukraine. 12 of our battalions are ANG units, which are not generally the first to deploy in a crisis. Ready to fight tonight they generally aren't. While nobody wants to lose assets, shutting down an ANG unit temporarily hardly seems a great threat to national security. Also, current units account for about 350 HIMARS. 540 were built. Some of the remaining 190 have to be around somewhere. Not only that, there is an active order list from several users, including Poland. If we have to divert some and give the job a DX rating, we can do so.

[Goose]

Good article on GMLRS missile stocks and production. 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ar...war-demand

While it is unknown how many rockets the Ukrainians have fired from the HIMARS it already has, Hertling estimated that 16 such systems - which are pre-loaded with six-round pods - each firing a full volley just twice a day would burn through about 5,800 rockets a month
.......
Prior to Fiscal Year 2021, the Pentagon had purchased slightly more than 50,000 GMLRS of all variants, according to the Fiscal Year 2023 U.S. Army Presidential Budget Justification Book.
.....
So in essence, at a pace suggested by Hertling, Ukraine’s GMLRS monthly burn rate would equal about 29% of the entire planned U.S. procurement for the next five years, not withstanding production rates of the ER GMLRS which have yet to be set.
......
The maximum annual production rate of GMLRS is about 10,000 or about twice what is currently being called for in the current budget proposal.

A data point to consider is that in Desert Storm 89 M270 launchers were deployed and they fired a total of 6000 rounds of MLRS plus 32 ATACMS. In one case 3 M270s fired 287 rockets at 5 targets in under 5 minutes. This is from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M270_Multi...ket_System
The important point is that in a target-rich environment HIMARS can fire a prodigious number of rounds very quickly. This is one of it's major advantages. On the other hand, many of those 89 launchers obviously didn't fire much if at all. It is probable that Ukraine is doing the best they can to use the few HIMARS they have to the greatest effect possible. That would tend to increase their usage of ordinance over the "average" (whatever that is). Ukraine is clearly using HIMARS in situations where the US would use another weapon. The bridge near Kherson is an example of that. Bridges are JDAM targets, not HIMARS targets. But Ukraine doesn't have JDAMS or a way to drop them, so HIMARS has to do the job.

All that said, since we don't know how many rounds per day they are actually using, it is difficult to speculate to what degree there is a problem. If Ukraine isn't "wasting" rounds on inappropriate targets, it seems reasonable to me that we have 10 or 11 months to increase production to meet those needs. If there is an alternative weapon they should be using instead, I suspect we don't have it. If we did, we would have sent that instead.

The 10K a year production limit is undoubtedly based on what was previously ordered. Increasing production is clearly possible if it is really required and the money is provided. These are not crazy high-tech items. It is also true that four European countries plus Turkey and Israel can and have manufactured these rockets. The US Army has 5 active duty and 12 Army National Guard HIMARS battalions. Each battalion has 3 batteries of 6 launchers each. This is a total of 302 launchers. The US Marines have a maximum of about 50 launchers spread around in different units. There are also  at least 225 M270A1 launchers in Army inventory. Using the projected rate suggested by Hertling, the 302 HIMARS alone would fire 108,720 rockets a month. Nobody is panicking about that, so I think that means consumption is not expected to be that extreme on average.

It is worthy of note that we have not yet transferred even one battalion's worth of HIMARS to Ukraine. 12 of our battalions are ANG units, which are not generally the first to deploy in a crisis. Ready to fight tonight they generally aren't. While nobody wants to lose assets, shutting down an ANG unit temporarily hardly seems a great threat to national security. Also, current units account for about 350 HIMARS. 540 were built. Some of the remaining 190 have to be around somewhere. Not only that, there is an active order list from several users, including Poland. If we have to divert some and give the job a DX rating, we can do so.