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Yeah I know that this is the narrative that is being pushed (especially) by the Washington post.
I am fully aware of the strategy applied, where we send them our old stuff in exchange for new stock for us, and also the time it takes to ramp up production.
However, there very large stocks sitting in the US desert. The marines for example turned in 400 abrams that didn’t have the upgraded armor and could be sent immediately.
There are also hundreds of m113 that are written off and are being scrapped because it was cheaper than to store. But they would cost next to nothing to send.There’s the logistics and fuel blah blah but we could have been training soldiers for more than a year by now.
Simba
Velocio
You over-estimate (by far) the US and Western manufacturing capability.
For decades the US has sought the best weapons, not the cheapest or quickest to manufacture... there's multiple articles dating back since the start of the invasion that detail this , i.e. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/08/us-weapons-manufacturing-ukraine/
The reality is that most of what has been sent is old stock, and there was a fair amount of that... but at some point the old is gone, and countries aren't giving up their new/recent stock.
Things like the US aid to Ukraine predominantly stays in the US as spend on manufacturing new, which allows old stock to then be sent to Ukraine... but manufacturing new is far slower than you can imagine.
And now with the Israeli-led genocide underway and threatening to destabilise the entire Middle-East, many of the countries that were looked to for donations are being very cautious about what they commit.
This running dry of reserves whilst new situations develop leads to fewer commitments for hardware and ammo.