Narrator: America has sent
over $175 billion to Ukraine since Russia invaded. That’s more than the cost
of the first four years of keeping US troops in Afghanistan. That includes military aid in the form of shells, tanks, rockets, cannons, anti-tank launchers, drones, and, most recently, air support, and missile defense systems
worth $1 billion each. So, which weapons have
proven most critical on the battlefield? And will the latest round
of aid really help Ukraine in a war some have called
a stalemate? Early in the war, infantry
arms were easy to ship in anticipation of
widespread urban warfare. The shoulder-mounted Javelin
uses automated guidance to shatter tank armor
with a top-down impact. Since the war started, the US has sent at least
10,000 of them to Ukraine. Just one Javelin system
can cost over $200,000. I'm Sam Fellman. I'm a defense
editor with Business Insider.

and I'm a US Navy veteran. An anti-tank guided missile is designed to penetrate tank armor. A soldier who is trained on one doesn't take a lot of
training to fire one of these. The soldier who's carrying one has to leave cover for
maybe two or three seconds for the missile to acquire an enemy armor, and then can fire it and
can go back to hiding, and the missile's guidance system will take care of the rest. Narrator: The NLAW became
another popular option at $40,000 each, but it can only be used once. In addition to infantry arms, the US has sent at least 100,000 sets of body armor and helmets. Combat gear like this runs for about $1,000 on the open market. The US has also sent
more serious chemical, biological, and nuclear protective gear along with bomb-disposal equipment. During the first months of the conflict, manufacturers around the
world struggled to keep up

with Ukrainian demand. Ukrainian soldiers also
received night-vision devices, thermal-imagery systems,
and range finders. By the spring of 2022, Russian forces faced fierce
resistance in key cities and pulled back east to resupply. That gave Ukraine some breathing room. But it's also when the reality of an extended conflict set in. Both armies turned to longer-range weapons that have remained in heavy use today: artillery. Before the war, most Ukrainian artillery
guns were Soviet-made. Ukraine tried to produce
cannons domestically, but it can take more than
six months to make just one. So American factories stepped in. This facility in Watervliet, New York, is one of the only places in the US capable of making large-caliber
cannons like the M777. It's supplied the military
since the War of 1812. Every barrel starts as a preformed
hollow cylinder of steel.

The gas-powered induction furnace heats these preforms to 2,000 degrees. All the materials that we use right now are resourced within the United States.

Narrator: This machine, called a rotary forge, starts to shape the outer dimensions of the cannon tube. Then barrels go through a series of treatments that toughen them to handle firing thousands of rounds. A compressor applies thousands of pounds of pressure, bending barrels like pool noodles to remove any imperfections. We have one of our skilled machinists going through and pressing that tube back into shape.

Narrator: Workers use a bench grinder to round any sharp edges off the barrel. This part has to be done by hand. We call it the Rolls-Royce treatment. It really puts that final finishing touch, that craftsmanship to that barrel.

Narrator: As part of the inspection process, a technician uses a borescope to look straight down the barrel. Now it's ready for paint.

William Tharp: Most military equipment has what they call CARC paint. It's an acronym that stands for chemical-agent-resistant coating. So it's specialized to withstand all different types of conditions and potential for chemical
attacks or biological attacks.

Narrator: In another part of the factory, workers test every firing mechanism. This is when the crew would insert an actual round. This is a simulated round, obviously. Seat it into the bore and then close the block, which would be ready for firing at this point. So, they would fire the weapon, then they would go and open the block, and then remove the cartridge.

Narrator: Each barrel is engraved with key information.

Alain Fisher: The details of the tube, where it was manufactured, the year, and the serial number. Every cannon tube produced here at Watervliet always has a commander's initials stamped on the cannon tube, so you know when that cannon tube was used.

during that commander's tenure. That tradition goes back all the way since the first time we
produced cannon tubes, in early World War I, 1917. The best part. AGF.

Narrator: And this factory in Pennsylvania is making Ukraine's most important ammo: the 155-millimeter shells
used in artillery guns. The US Army is producing about 35,000 rounds of them every month, more than double what it
was making before the war.

Narrator: 155s are the perfect balance between power and weight. They're shot from howitzers, which are basically a
cannon and mortar combined. These massive guns fire
shells high up into the air so that they drop down onto their targets. 155-millimeter shells are small enough to fire up to 20 miles but can still do serious damage. They're packed with 24 pounds of TNT and explode on impact, sending deadly shrapnel in all directions. Everything starts in the billet yard.

Workers move steel rods to the next phase: the forge shop. Four robotic saws slice the rods into 14-inch-long chunks, called billets. Efficiency is key to speed. Narrator: Then they heat them for an hour at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This softens them up so they're easy to shape. Narrator: Then machines stretch and shape the billets into their final form. Another one adds a nose, which makes it aerodynamic. Comes into the press, it's still a tube. As it leaves the press, it's now a projectile. Narrator: They're inspected and then fed to the production shop. Then the grand finale. Workers reheat the billets, then cool them in a 6,000-gallon oil bath. After some final lathing and polishing, workers hang the shells on hooks. Then they get a fresh paint job. The entire process takes about three days. After the shells are done, they take a truck ride to another factory that adds TNT.

Then they're ready for the battlefield. It's there that soldiers will add the fuse and turn it into a lethal bomb. Even with a brand-new 155-millimeter factory built in just 10 months in Texas, Russia continues to produce three times more artillery shells than the United States. And despite high demand, towed howitzers have major drawbacks. In Ukraine, they take a long time to move after they're fired, putting crews at risk. But when it comes to ground warfare, tanks remain the apex predators. For the first year of the conflict, Western officials hesitated to supply tanks to Ukraine, saying it would take too long to train soldiers how to use them. US Army tankers must complete 22 weeks of training before deploying with an M1 Abrams. Keith Holladay: These things can happen to you. You can get crushed. Your arms, legs, whatever it is. There's a lot of things that can go wrong in a tank.

Narrator: Nicknamed The Beast, Dracula, and Whispering Death, the M1 Abrams packs a 120-millimeter cannon and mounted machine guns. It's considered one of the best tanks ever made. People who like big guns and loud noises, 1,500-horsepower engines and fire, I mean, that's how it drawed me in. Narrator: With a cost of up to $9 million each, it debuted in combat during the Gulf War and remains the US Army's main battle tank. A four-person crew operates the M1: the tank commander, the gunner, the loader, and the driver, usually the smallest member of the team. Narrator: As part of the training, soldiers also learn how to maintain and repair the tanks. The M1's 120-millimeter smoothbore gun fires a variety of rounds that can destroy other tanks up to 3,000 meters away.

Matt Zimmerman: So, this is a M865 training sabot round. This is what we use to simulate our service sabot ammunition for training. Weighs approximately 35 pounds. The tank can hold 42 rounds total. Our service ammunition is designed to penetrate through enemy armor, and then it has a devastating effect on the inside of the vehicle. 

Narrator: Back in Ukraine, with a limited supply of tanks, soldiers resorted to trickery to bait Russia to fire on decoys. But by early 2023, following mounting international pressure and weeks of negotiations, the tanks rolled in. 

Fellman: Ukraine doesn't have extensive tank production needed by this war, and so Ukraine is very dependent on its Western partners for the supports to repair tanks and for new tanks. The US has given 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. If you factor in the ammunition and part support for the M1 Abrams, it's likely north of $200 million in support.

that the US has provided
in the M1 Abrams tanks. Narrator: Including German Leopard 2s and British Challengers, that's a tank ground force
worth well over $1 billion. So, how does it compare to Russia's fleet? Fellman: Russia has one
of the largest tank forces in the world, and Russia's using pretty much everything it's got. Ukraine has received donated
tanks from Western partners. Those are all very modern tanks. The M1 Abrams is a premier tank designed to destroy Soviet-
and Russian-made tanks, and my guess would be the
Ukrainians wish they had more. They could certainly use them. It has computerized fire-control software. It has depleted-uranium rounds that are designed to shatter enemy armor, and it was built specifically
for tank-on-tank battles. The M1 Abrams has a high top speed. It has a gas-turbine engine
that creates a lot of power.

It is a top tank, and yet it is also facing the same threats that have bogged down Russian
and other Western-made tanks. The challenges with the M1 Abrams is that it requires a lot of maintenance. Russian tanks are less survivable
than Western-made tanks. Western-made tanks are better
designed to protect the crew, and when they sustain a direct hit, it's more frequent that a Western tank will be able to be
towed and then repaired. You would not find me in any Russian tank. The risks of all Soviet-designed vehicles to the crew are really high. The Soviet-made tanks
often become total losses and crew killers when they're hit. A good example that's indicative of this is the jack-in-the-box effect. The T-72 has a design flaw where the crew essentially sits on top of ammunition storage
for the tank's shells, and that means that a
blast into this space is going to potentially cook off the stored ammunition inside the tank.

The top turret will basically blow off from this massive explosion
of all the tank's ammunition. That'll make the tank a total loss. Both sides are adapting
their armored vehicles for the pretty pervasive threat of drones. And so one way this is manifesting itself are these cope cages. It's like a welded netting
that goes around the tank. This is designed to make it more tricky to land an exploding drone
right on the tank's shell and blast inwards. These cages, if you will, kind
of look like mosquito nets that try to keep the explosion a little bit further from the tank's hull. The other side of that
is that drone pilots are becoming more skilled
at getting around these and attacking vulnerable points. Narrator: And the drones themselves are getting smaller and cheaper. But they're actually
more dangerous than ever. In March 2024, the US Army asked for an
additional $500 million for counter-drone technology. One US company has sent
thousands of drones

to Ukraine since 2022, including its most successful product. Three, two, one. Narrator: These are what's
known as loitering munitions. They can fly around waiting
for a target to be identified before crashing to the
ground to destroy it. So, it's really a combination
of an artillery and a drone that has got the capabilities of both. Narrator: John Aldana manages the loitering-munitions program at AeroVironment on the West
Coast of the United States. The company has been
producing missiles like this, the Switchblade 300 and the larger 600, for over two decades. They actually fold up like so and are inside a launch tube that's just a little bit larger than this. It launches the Switchblade out. The wings open up like that, which is why we call it a Switchblade. The propeller is here because
the air will start to spin, and the battery, which
is inside, kicks in.

and it's off. Narrator: The 300 can
loiter for about 15 minutes and is designed to take out small targets like enemy soldiers and trucks, while the larger 600 can wait
around for up to 40 minutes and attack armored vehicles. Operators can control the Switchblades from as far as 40 kilometers away. Aldana: You have the ability to wave off. So you can cancel the mission
all the way till the very end, go back to loitering, find
another target of interest, and engage a different target of interest that you may not have even known about. Narrator: The United States
sent 700 of these to Ukraine in early 2022. Videos shared by Ukrainian forces claimed to be Switchblade
attacks on the ground. Each Switchblade 300 is
reported to cost around $6,000. That's more than an off-the-shelf drone rigged to carry a grenade, but far less than the cost
of an unmanned aircraft

like the MQ-9 Reaper that can fly back to base
once it's fired on a target. And the Switchblades are being designed to think more and more for themselves. Autonomous or semi-autonomous drones are going to be used to conduct
these kinds of conflicts. Narrator: That means tracking
and recognizing a target, even one that's on the move. When Russia invaded Ukraine, many experts predicted an easy
victory for Putin's forces, but Russia miscalculated the
level of Ukrainian resistance. Paul Scharre: Drones have
given Ukrainian forces the ability to fuel cheap
and persistent air power that brings pretty significant threats to Russian ground forces. Narrator: And for a while,
its ill-prepared troops were caught in a 40-mile-long
convoy to the north of Kyiv. They were sitting ducks for
Ukrainian guns and drones. The Ukrainian government
launched an appeal to fund an army of drones.

We call on the service of Ukraine all the simplest drones,
which you use to shoot nature.

Narrator: And teams of
civilian engineers have adapted large numbers of off-the-shelf
drones for the battlefield. Some, like this one, can grip
and release small grenades.

Social media transformed the drone into a symbol of heroic
Ukrainian resistance. Aerial footage of strikes
on Russian targets are often accompanied by rock music. The impression is of a nimble David slaying the Russian Goliath. But the reality is more nuanced. Unmanned aircraft, drones, and loitering munitions certainly helped, but Russia quickly stepped up its defenses and used drones of its own. They weren't ready for
it, but they are now. The Russians, I think,
have really compensated and now developed their air defenses, shot down these TB2s, and really kind of rendered and almost neutralized that technology.

Narrator: Soldiers on the front lines

are trying to cope with
that new balance of power. They have the same drones;
we have the same drones. Like, now, even going on a recon mission
or as a sniper group, you always have to keep in
mind that someone sees you. At the daytime, the daily drones. At nighttime there are drones
with, like, thermal vision. Narrator: According to military experts, neither Ukraine nor Russia has
yet achieved air superiority. Since 2022, Ukraine has used 20
donated Mi-17 helicopters for troop transport and armed air support. Each one is worth about $18 million. The US originally purchased
these for Afghanistan, but once the country fell to the Taliban, the choppers were redirected to Ukraine. And these birds have a secret: They were manufactured by
Kazan, a Russian company. Until recently, NATO hesitated to supply
F-16 jets to Ukraine, fearing Russian escalation. That changed after the
defense alliance's summit.

in July 2024. Now, Ukraine is set to receive 85 F-16s from multiple countries. Made by Lockheed Martin, F-16s cost between $14 and $18 million each. They've proven their worth over decades of combat and will be a big upgrade from Ukraine's mainly Soviet-era planes. At least one Ukrainian pilot compared flying an F-16 to upgrading from a Nokia to an iPhone. But there are problems. Ukraine's air force has only 20 pilots trained to fly an F-16, and according to experts, the planes require a lot of maintenance. Back on the ground, several manned vehicles are going toe to toe with Russian forces. The Bradley infantry fighting vehicle is quick, highly maneuverable, and can carry up to a half a dozen fully equipped soldiers. Ukrainians highly rate the estimated 300 of them they've received so far. In this video released by Ukraine, a US-supplied M2 Bradley clashes head-on

with a Russian armored personnel carrier. Ukrainian troops have reported that Russian soldiers are afraid of facing US-supplied Bradleys. As of spring 2024, for the first time, the US is supplying Ukraine with ATACMS, long-range missile systems that could be used to strike inside Russia's borders. Antony Blinken: That went right to the president, and as you've heard, he's approved the use of our weapons for that purpose. Narrator: The exact number of ATACMS remains unknown, but the missiles cost about $1.4 million each. So, how could these change the war? And how have they been performing so far? Fellman: HIMARS is a very specific and advanced multiple launch rocket system. It is a MLRS that adds precision capability. So, Smerch is one of the top MLRS systems that Russia has developed. It is sort of closest comparable to HIMARS.

They're basically both
truck-mounted rocket launchers. There's important differences
in the way that they're used, and there's important differences
in their capabilities. HIMARS generally fires
three kinds of rockets, unitary warhead, and a
area-effects warhead. Those ranges are about 50 miles, and it's able to fire
six of those at a time. There is also a way
that instead of carrying six rockets, it carries one rocket. In this case, it's actually what's called tactical ballistic
missile, known as ATACMS. And ATACMS has a 190-mile range. ATACMS is a much more expensive system. It's roughly $1.4 million per ATACMS. The unitary warheads
are just much cheaper. They're about $100,000 for each rocket. The BM-30 Smerch, with
its unguided rockets, has a range, a very similar
range, of about 43 miles.

With its upgraded rockets, which are called Tornado-S rockets, they are navigation-system-aided. Those have a range of about 74 miles. That exceeds the range of the comparable HIMARS, unitary, area-effects warheads. Precision is a major differentiator in evaluating these systems. HIMARS is a highly precise system. It essentially has an evaluated accuracy within about 2 meters. You could target it for the front of a Humvee, and it might hit the rear door. The BM-30 Smerch, with its upgraded rockets, which are called Tornado-S rockets, the Russian manufacturer Rostec says that it's much more accurate than previously inertial-navigation-system-guided rockets. Can we quantify that? No. We are only seeing some of the usage in Ukraine. It seems to be fairly limited usage. HIMARS has about a four- to five-minute reloading time. The way that crews typically operate.

once they fire the
rockets at a launch point, they are what's called
shooting and scooting. So they are getting out of that area, and they are likely going
to a resupply point. In the case of HIMARS, you can either carry one ATACMS, or it can carry one pod of six other rockets with shorter ranges. Those pods are basically
moved all together in one piece. It's like moving a pallet. That's done within about
four to five minutes. The BM-30 Smerch has, it relies on a servicing vehicle. That tends to take somewhere between 20 and 38 minutes to reload this. Part of the reason is
that the servicing vehicle is loading in rockets
one by one via crane. So instead of moving
one pallet like HIMARS, it's moving 12 individual rockets. The HIMARS system allows the crew to be much more efficient to be ready for that
next fire mission sooner. The BM-30 Smerch has a top speed

of about 37 miles per hour, and HIMARS has a speed of around 53 miles an hour. Part of the reason for that is that HIMARS is a lighter system. HIMARS only carries six rockets. The BM-30 carries 12 rockets, and so it's just a heavier truck. It carries a heavier load. These systems are not defined by ground speed. They're not tanks that are trying to shatter through lines of Bradley, of infantry fighting vehicles that are carrying troops. The speeds of the vehicles allow for more readiness, to be ready for more missions. We don't see direct video evidence that the HIMARS has come up directly against BM-30 MLRS. The US has supplied 39 HIMARS launchers and the artillery, the rocket artillery they need. They've been employed by Ukraine for 18 months. Russia's lost a huge number of MLRS, well over 300 different vehicles, and those include the BM-21.

There are two BM-30 Smerches that have been destroyed. About 80 BM-27 Uragans have been destroyed. It seems like there's two things going on. The first comes down to the Russian satellite navigation system, GLONASS. We know that GLONASS is not as accurate as GPS. That may be contributing to the lack of observed pinpoint accuracy. It also is likely a failure of intelligence. The system of Russian targeting seems not to range much deeper than the Ukrainian front lines. Instead, Russia's mainly used its rockets as area-attack weapons. Researchers have found evidence that the Russians fired them at volume into Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, and this kind of encapsulates the Russian employment of MLRS. They use it primarily as an unguided, brute-force weapon. The Ukrainians are getting targets for HIMARS, sending it on fire missions that, with the range, HIMARS can fire from a safe distance behind the front lines.

and then it relocates, and the Russians haven't figured out an effective way to deal with that yet. And so essentially, it's been operating with impunity. Don't expect HIMARS to be a wonder-weapon any longer. There's growing signs that the Russians are jamming the GPS signals, upon which HIMARS rounds depend for their pinpoint accuracy. The Ukrainians, with a much smaller artillery arsenal, depend on accuracy over the volume of fire that Russia can command. Narrator: The single most expensive weapon on this list is the MIM-104 Patriot air-defense system. The $1 billion Patriot is a ground-based mobile surface-to-air missile battery that can down crewed and uncrewed aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles. So far, the US has provided Ukraine with just one, but during its July 2024 summit, NATO announced it would be providing four more Patriot systems to Ukraine. Earlier in the year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

said Ukraine needs at least seven of them.

How America Spent $175 Billion Aiding Ukraine | Business Insider Marathon

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