Turning the Tide in Ukraine (maybe) or at least helping them a bunch. What President Biden could do while Michael Johnson tries to reconcile his consience to Putin Fanboyism. Part One

Ukraine needs help, right now.

And here's how could, and should, do it.

Part One, the easy part:

Artillery has become a big deal in the war in Ukraine.

This seemingly comes as a surprise to the U.S. As an old artilleryman who has followed artillery maters since I hung up the M2 Transit, I'm not.  We forgot that artillery is the King of Battle because we've been fighting the classic small, if savage, wars of peace.  We didn't use a lot of artillery in the Indian Wars, or the Spanish American War, or the Banana Wars, either.  On the Eastern plains and steppes of the Bloodlands, in a big war, they use a lot of artillery.  Because of our recent experiences, however, we were actually beginning to think that the King of Battle had been deposed.

Turns out not, not at all. The branch that's having real trouble is armor.

Ukraine is consuming artillery shells faster than the West can make them, but . . .we've got a lot of old ones lying around.

As Forbes has noted:

Joe Biden Could Send Millions Of Artillery Shells To Ukraine, For Free, Tomorrow. And It’s Perfectly Legal.

‘Excess defense articles’ remains a powerful authority.

Yes, some of this stuff is pretty old, but most of it is perfectly serviceable.  We are not going to use it, ever.

As Forbes notes:

Generally speaking, most artillery ammunition in U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps stockpiles clearly isn’t excess. Indeed, the Army and Marines need all the modern shells they can get as they prepare for Ukraine-style wars.

But there’s an important exception. There are potentially four million 155-millimeter dual-purpose improved cluster munitions in storage in the United States. M483A1 and M864 DPICM rounds respectively scatter 88 or 72 grenade-size submunitions, each of which can kill or maim a soldier.

All of these shells are obvious candidates for the “excess” label. The U.S. Army years ago determined that these DPICMs—produced in large quantities between the 1970s and 1990s—are unreliable and unsafe, as any particular submunition has up to a 14-percent chance of being a dud.

A 14% chance of being a dud isn't great, but most of these rounds aren't duds.  Most will work.

But that's not all we could send.

Part two, M60 tanks.

If it isn't obvious by now, it should be, that the age of armor, is not yet over, but armor isn't what it used to be.  Nonetheless, the US is stockpiling a lot of serviceable armor that we are not going to use, in the form of M60 tanks.  How many?  I have no idea.

The M60 isn't being used by the US anymore, but it's still used by a lot of countries, including US client states, which is partially why we keep so many around.  Taiwan, for example, is a big user of M60s, and we have to keep that in mind.

But we can spare some.

And frankly, if anything, this war has proven what people who already looked at it objectively knew, Russian armor is crap.  The M60 can probably take on about anything the Russians have, or at least any of the older armor the Russians are continually fielding.

In regard to M60s, M60s are a product improved M48.  We have quite a few of those still around. We should product improve them, all of them, and send over.  If that sounds like a bad idea, there are countries still fielding them as well.  I read an article this past week that some country, I forget which ones, just launched an M48 upgrade program.

Part Three, small arms and ammunition

This is a little trickier, as I don't have any kind of detailed information on what the US retains on obsolescent small arms.  It does retain it, however.

Right now, the US is disposing of M1911 pistols.  I think we should keep the M1911 in service, frankly, and while I support the sales through the CMP, disposing of these to Ukraine or Taiwan makes more sense.  Canada, I'd note, is replacing its Hi Powers, foolishly, but it should do the same with its surplus stocks, which it isn't going to sell to civilians.

I know that the US actually retains stocks of M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles.  No, I'm not proposing to send those, they're too old (although some automatic weapons being used in the current war are just as old).  But, if we retain BARs, we retain M60s. 

The M60 was a good machine gun. We're not going to ever use it again.  Send them overseas.

And, we likely have stocks of M16s, M16A1s, and the various other non-optical site using M16s.  Send them.  We aren't going back, and we've just started to issue the rifle that's supposed to replace the M4 in actual combat units.

Now, no, I wouldn't want to go into combat with a M16A1. But then, I didn't want to go into combat with an M16A1 when I was issued a M16A1, because I don't think they were ever a good rifle. But apparently others did, and we used them forever.  We must have more than a few.

Canada probably has extra FALs, which are a good rifle.  They should send them.  Germany probably has a lot of G3s, they sent some to the Kurds after all, and can probably spare a few.

In short, we can help a lot, just by disposing of what we don't need.

Now on to a more radical idea.