How Ukraine War Is Reshaping US Military

The Ukraine war is the biggest conflict Europe has seen since World War II, and it's the first to feature some of the newest weapons of the 21st century. But it's also made the United States military realize that it might not be up to the task of fighting a modern conventional conflict. Lessons learned from Ukraine are changing everything from the way America fights, to even redesigning some of its most well-known combat systems. Check out how the Ukraine-Russia War has changed the US military's approach to war.

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[bobbaird]

I am a retired logistics officer. During the late 80s we tried to tell Congress not to get rid of the ammo plants, we had 85 plants.

[bfg]

The Ukraine/Russian conflict is basically R&D for American defense companies.

[TwentyFour]

"Everyone has a plan till you get hit in the face."- Mike Tyson

[VikingCoffie]

In Northern Norway, close to the Russian border, we often experience GPS disruptions and its amazing how many systems are affected. Some very serious, like planes, doctor helicopters, ships, etc. Others hilarious: Coming home from a 30-minute run and the systems states you have been run 25km, car navigation systems way off or robot mowers just living a life of their own.

[nicholasmaude]

The reason why Ukraine isn't getting the number of shells it needs from the West is that since the end of the Cold War in 1992 the West has allowed its Cold War era stockpiles to draw down and its production capacity to shrink, the West now finding itself having to retool for Cold War era levels of production and that will take time.

[jamescameron]

What Winston Churchill said about wartime production still applies. The first year, nothing. The second year, a trickle. The third year, all you want.

[jlv]

That "first lesson" is one that every single military has had to learn in every single major conventional war anyone has ever been in. Ammunition consumption is always enormously greater than peacetime planners and budgets allow for. We learned this same lesson in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Israel learned it in the 1973 war, and so on.

On cluster munitions, the latest US cluster munitions have a dud rate of less than 1%.

[GoniaShekunchik]

Lets just not forget, that those soldiers, who are staying on the front line no matter what are the real heroes

[AaronCMounts]

It should also be noted that the Congressional legislation of funding for Ukraine is not pallets of cash being sent to Ukraine. It's funding to buy replenishments for aging American stockpiles of consumable hardware sent to (and used in) Ukraine before it expires. For every missile the funding buys, it's actually a brand new missile going into American storage as an older one (close to the end of its shelf-life) gets shipped out.

[JohnJ]

It shows how times change. Ukraine needs 1.5 million rounds every year. In the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915 which lasted around 3 weeks, (According to Guderian) the Allies fired 5, 457, 000 shells (not including the shells fired by the British during the actual battle and the Germans fired 3, 395, 000 shells. Nearly 9 million artillery shells in 3 weeks.

[davidcolin]

I would say that a far more important lesson to learn is to support friendly nations right from the outset. Letting a war bog down ends up being far more costly than simply supplying quickly in the first place.

[theminerwithin]

The amount of roasts towards Russia is hilarious...

[johnw]

The war in Ukraine allowed us to field test our equipment and tactics in an old-school war against another country. It also allowed us to clear out stale inventory and it gave us a true sense of Russian capabilities. The bonus was learning new things like drone warfare and how much impact it has. Overall, the US gained greatly from this tragedy.

[GregoryAlanGaskill]

Being so strong that no one dares to even try to invade is the best strategy.

[benvaun]

2 years? This has been a conflict since 2014.

[NeeSut]

War turned into WWI-like not because of "Ukraine had no experience providing combined arms operations" but because Air superiority is on russian side and because of vast amount of drones that see everything.

[michaelbraxton]

It may seem an unimportant observation but three traditions that always impressed me with our military colleagues was how seriously they approached the hot wash, the table top exercises and reviews of lessons learned. The best take a very professional approach to these common sense efforts.

[Goatcha_M]

With the rise of drone warfare, I can see the return of tried and true AA measures like the 20mm Oerlikon making a comeback. They were rendered obsolete by Jets, but drones are slower and fly lower.
Although its more likely they will simply deploy and adapt more Phalanx systems.

[voodoo]

US also needs to improve its ability to fight political battles and defend against foreign adversary manipulation of fickle US civilian opinion. Military might can be undermined by politicians giving in to public pressure.

[markadal]

Think of how the allies were at the beginning of ww2 and how they change and adapted with lessons learned. Yes, it suffered during a depression and it was a do or die global conflict but fear of a replication of that conflict is a great motivator. American industry might benefit. Covid has taught us the value of home grown industry.