China has near global monopolies on these exports, accounting for 98% of global gallium production, 93% of germanium production, and 49% of antimony production.
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I just posted this. Antimony is not extracted in any real significant numbers outside of Russia, South Africa, Bolvia, and China. China alone produces over 90% of it. Hunan province is the jackpot on the stuff. Bolivia is the second biggest producer at just under 5%. Russia and South Africa produce about 1-2%. That's it. Some countries have strategic stores of it and some have a small mine here or there that is used purely for themselves because it is all they have. The US has 0 antimony mines currently. The US could waive environmental concerns and heavily subsidize a mine or two but it won't meet the needs of the military to produce the munitions which require it, like artillery shells.
and beyond that, as far as I know it takes several years to get a mine up and running. so even then you are looking at a few years of the empire not producing any shells or at least producing them at insane cost markups
Propably not as much a problem as one would think. The US is aiming for China next, that will be mostly a sea and air war. No conventional artillery needed.
Sounds like they'll have to give up on Ukraine though.
That's where the European vassals come in. Western Ukraine will propably get de-facto occupied by them while the east is dropped. Keeps the conflict frozen, the euros paying, Russia occupied and the US free for fresh warcrimes.
True, but the puppets will hold anything they can.
not doubting you, but for the sake of sourcing can i get some links for this
What do you need sources for exactly? Who produces what? That the US has no antimony mines of it's own? All this information comes from disparate sources but is easily verifiable through simple searches.
i know you're right i just wanted to find something to read about it
A good video primer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwWur61HV-Q
His source for antimony production is different from sources I found, but then again I'm not saying his are more or less correct. It is possible they use different metrics or that the numbers are estimated in different ways - or both.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: