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Where have you seen this? I've not seen a single report of ARs and 5.56 being sent there. Why would anyone, and why would they want them? Ukraine as a former Sovbloc country has retained AK series rifles, Soviet designed machine guns and their 7.62X39 and 7.62X54R cartridges, plus 12.7mm etc. I've no doubt, some AR types and/or 7.62 DMR rifles have been sent for use by Ukraine's special forces, but not in numbers for the majority of forces.
Your own NT Times reports that Ukraine is desperately seeking AKs and ammunition for them. Finland (a user of an AK based rifle system) is helping out it's reported, and the US government and other Nato countries are trying to find surplus AKs in suitable quantities worldwide to buy and supply, but with considerable difficulty.
If Nammo Oy is supplying large amounts of 7.62X39 / X53R, which Lapua is tooled up to make in quantity, this may of course be the reason for the suspension of production of other types of case. It won't account in the slightest degree though for any shortages of 223/5.56 or any other cartridge in the US. After all, the great and ongoing shortages of both ammo and components long predate 24.02.2022 when Putin's 'special military operation' commenced.
Joe Biden’s so-called diplomacy with Russia to avert an invasion of Ukraine didn’t really work out. Not even a day after Kamala Harris flexed her diplomatic muscles, Russian troops rolled over the border. When Biden offered the Ukrainian president safe passage out of the country, he declined the...
Reports surfaced this week that the White House is leaning on the contractor operating the only government-owned small arms ammo plant to halt sales of surplus 5.56 rounds to the public.
I've seen scores of reports in responsible media re artillery and rocket artillery systems, 155mm shells, drones, Manpads and small unit anti-tank systems, comms equipment and more, but I repeat never once of large quantities of AR type rifles either being requested or supplied.
Again, I ask the question that why would Ukraine want such weapons? Putting the claims of superiority of the rival weapons systems by their advocates to one side, no sane military changes such horses in mid conflict - and Ukraine's leaders have not exactly shown themselves as lacking in sanity up to now.
Yes, it's a kinda weird story seeing as how even the blog's followers rubbished the report straight off in the comments section pointing out the obvious - Ukraine doesn't use 5.56X45mm firearms.
Yes, it's a kinda weird story seeing as how even the blog's followers rubbished the report straight off in the comments section pointing out the obvious - Ukraine doesn't use 5.56X45mm firearms.
Thank you for putting up the link - the best single listing I've seen to date. Going through it though doesn't support the contention of vast quantities of Nato smallarms and ammunition having been supplied. AFVs and heavy weapons yes by the shipload which isn't the issue here though. Many are listed on the lines of indeterminate numbers and types of assault rifle / MGs, and 500,000 or X million rounds of smallarms ammunition likewise unspecified. Because the supporting nation is a NATO member and employs AR, Colt, FN whatever smallarms in its own forces doesn't mean it neither holds nor can procure former Warsaw Pact designs. Your government sourced tens of thousands of AK variants and millions of rounds of 7.62X39mm to arm US-supported police and militia units in order to restore civil society and law & order in post Saddam Iraq for instance. (Many came from the scores of thousands of such rifles handed over to NATO peacekeeping forces at the end of the Balkan wars.) I worked on the margins of a small UK company's business in the international supply of surplus military weapons some years ago taking photos and sometimes cataloguing stock. The vast majority were AK variants, but Sovbloc satellite countries' clones of the Soviet PK series of 7.62X54R belt-fed MMGs such as the Zastava M84 made up some 90% + of the MGs this outfit handled. That's precisely what Ukraine is desperate for now. The end of the last century saw central and eastern Europe awash in Soviet era military weapons such was the massive degree of over-production across the bloc, and the US and Nato are no doubt seeking out survivors to supply here and now.
Taking one of the largest single smallarms weapons supplier listed in the Wiki piece, the Czech Republic, the piece lists:
Undisclosed number of CZ Bren2 assault rifles. This is a post Soviet 5.56 design, but 'undisclosed number'? That could be 5, 500, or 500,000 items.
30,000 odd VZ.82 pistols. A Soviet era weapon chambered in 9X18mm Makarov.
2,085 VZ.61 Skorpion SMGs. They could be chambered in either various Soviet cartridges or the 9X19mm Parabellum. Actual is unspecified. 9mm Para is so widely distributed across all of Europe west of Russia, it can almost be regarded as a local cartridge.
5,000 VZ.58 assault rifles plus at least 3.5 million rounds 7.62 mm ammunition. This is a first generation Czech assault rifle that looks like an AK design, but isn't. It is only chambered in 7.62X39mm, and that's undoubtedly what the 3.5 million rounds are.
3,200 UK VZ.59 machine guns plus at least 3.5 million rounds 7.62 ammunition. The VZ.59 is another 1950s Czech Soviet era design chambered for 7.62X54R and that's what the '7.62mm ammunition' will be.
12 Dragunov sniper rifles. 7.62X54R (again).
19 Falcon anti-materiel rifles. This is another Soviet era design and could be either 12.7X108mm Soviet or .50BMG depending on the variant. (As Canada has supplied C15A2 .50BMG anti-materiel rifles, one would hope the latter chambering - but these and the Falcons are limited-issue weapons for specialists and special forces units where the logistical and training problems caused by non-standard weapons and ammo aren't a problem.)
Lapua Oy is first and foremost an ammunition manufacturer whose primary customers are governments buying supplies for their armed forces. The speciality case and ammunition business is a significant, and I imagine profitable, subsidiary activity that has helped keep the company afloat during the hard times of recent years when governments cut back outside military ammunition procurement to near nil. Nevertheless, it is a secondary business to this large company, and when the Finnish government telephones and says helping Ukraine is a national priority, Lapua isn't going to refuse in order to keep recreational shooters going with small production run items. (Moreover, this is to help kick the whatsit out of the hated and feared neighbour, Russia and by hopefully weakening it improve Finland's future national security prospects, not at all an unpopular policy for most Finns including those working for Nammo.)
Lapua moreover is unusual in that whilst Finland is very much part of the West culturally and security-wise, it isn't a NATO member and its domestic armed forces have retained adaptations of Russian / Soviet based smallarms systems and continue to use the 7.62X39 and 7.62X53R cartridges. It is therefore well placed to produce very large quantities of both Russian and NATO spec cartridges as required. Whilst .220 Russian brass may be important to BR competitors and a few thousands are sold in a year, Lapua makes millions of its parent 7.62X39 M43, not to mention specialist subsonic etc variants, each and every year - cases, bullets and loaded ammunition. With powders from its sister Vihtavuori Oy member of the Nammo group, everything bar the primer in fact and that's being currently rectified. This ammunition and its 7.62X54R big brother are what Ukraine currently wants, and desperately needs more of.
I'd certainly agree with that. Not only could this war last a long time, but who knows what Lapua will reinstate from the suspended products list when normal production resumes.
However, with Ukraine the former largest global export supplier of wheat and a major international supplier of edible oils as well as other agricultural products, the loss of both Russia's and Ukraine's food exports are going to see people in many parts of the world starve, and the rest of us suffer staggering food inflation levels which are already causing hardship to many poorer families even in the affluent west. (Throw in the European / UK energy supply crisis and doubling or even trebling of gas and electricity prices, not helped by lunatic 'net-zero' commitments, and a lot of people are now in a lot of trouble and it won't ease for a long time, unless or until the Russian blockade of Ukraine's Odesa Black sea port is lifted.) We have to put loss of 220R and 6.5X47L brass into some context against this situation.
Thanks for the post Laurie....
Being from Finland I can understand and cant help but feel a bit uneasy as to the escalation of this whole afair....Not good at all and likely not to be resolved anytime soon....if ever.
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