Turns out China controls production of the vast majority of inputs needed for any sort of high tech manufacturing. The west is completely cooked having wasted the resources they had on a proxy war they lost.
Not just hi-tech but low-tech basic war materials too. Every single 155mm artillery shell currently fired by howitzers in Ukraine? All of them contain tungsten. Every single nato AP 7.62x51mm bullet? Tungsten cores.
Tungsten is the backbone of most frontline ammunitions the west relies on, not just their hi-tech stuff but basic frontline logistics.
vanishingly little, it’s small amounts sprinkled over a massive area
would likely be cheaper to prospect a new mine and start up extraction than going door to door in Ukraine with a cup asking if people have seen any bullets
Turns out China controls production of the vast majority of inputs needed for any sort of high tech manufacturing. The west is completely cooked having wasted the resources they had on a proxy war they lost.
Not just hi-tech but low-tech basic war materials too. Every single 155mm artillery shell currently fired by howitzers in Ukraine? All of them contain tungsten. Every single nato AP 7.62x51mm bullet? Tungsten cores.
Tungsten is the backbone of most frontline ammunitions the west relies on, not just their hi-tech stuff but basic frontline logistics.
For sure, from military perspective this is an unmitigated disaster that has no solution in the near term.
How much of this tungsten might be recoverable post-war from Ukrainian battefields?
vanishingly little, it’s small amounts sprinkled over a massive area
would likely be cheaper to prospect a new mine and start up extraction than going door to door in Ukraine with a cup asking if people have seen any bullets
Also, it will be Russia doing the recovering.