why would any US company shift from high end 155 to basic bitch 155 if they get paid anyway and high end 155 has a much better margin?
there are 3 countries that could fill any supply issues, china, inda and north korea. China and India with fresh production and north korea with endless stockpiles.
Tl;dr: They never shifted from Basic Bitch 155, they just contracted out the production to overseas-based entities that I super promise are completely different companies and
definitely not wholly owned cayman shells so they can side-step arms sanctions. It been like 10 years since I cared (the post surge stockpile numbers on the backs of civie ammo shooting up) but the main ammo supplier runs like two basic-bitch lines just so they can say "We produce it domestically and could scale up if required" and the rest is high precision/guided.
They send overseas production to overseas bases, checking the box that says "We could produce this domestically, but we're using overseas purchases so its cheaper. Here is the state department signing off them being a reliable ally as long as they get paid."
You would switch because the order is for basic-bitch 155 and you might have supply issues with the high-speed components. Also security clearances take time and its easier to get someone cleared to work with WWII-era technology than WWIII-era technology.
Your list also left off South Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, and I want to say Indonesia - maybe Malaysia or Phillipines, one of those Archipeligos. IIRC Myanmar's junta also runs their ammo factories 24x7 because no one else will sell weapons (openly) to them.
Argentina & South Africa also have a deceptively large arms industry - though they are too far (and too interested in remaining unaligned) to directly to contribute, but that's how you have fun shell games (HA!) like where Canada ships their 155 & 105s to Ukraine and South Korea, completely unrelated, sells a few thousand rounds to Canada. Australia doesn't make many shells but quietly produces a shit load of propellant.
I was trying to find a country-by-country breakdown I saw last year but can't find it now. Fortune has a good by-region breakdown.
I mean no one matches China, but unless you are just buying the housings.... chinese quality control (or lack there of). India has production CAPABILITY but also has quality control issues as well as infrastructure (both getting raw supplies to the factory, as well as moving finished product out) and corruption problems - but enough money could make those problems go away. India also has yuge stockpiles they probably could be made willing to part with. While the US is using this as an opportunity to fully turn over their stockpiles well before expiration date (and the Eurocucks are using it as an opportunity to discover their stockpiles are rotted & useless. kek.) India cares significantly less about the sell-by date of their ammo and from what everyone has been saying is missing an opportunity.
With the festivities in Syria, most of the middle east's coldwar stockpiles have already been tapped, so they aren't a big factor. Africa has a massive potential for scaling up production fairly quickly, but.... well, Africa.
tl;dr: You'd switch because of issues assembling the guided shells, and the order might be for a certain number of dumb rounds.
China and india have the potential to meet the supply both sides of the conflict, but may not be able to (or may chose to not to) realize that potential.
