Comment by themafia
3 months ago
> but rather massive layers of bureaucracy and committees that paralyzed the development pipeline.
They decided to make one airframe in three variants for three different branches. They were trying to spend money they didn't have and thought this corner cutting would save it.
> Something is very wrong if it takes 20+ years to field next-generation military technologies.
It's the funding. The American appetite for new "war fighters" is exceptionally low when there's no exigent conflict facing us. They're simply building the _wrong thing_.
The problem clearly is, once a need is identified - it can be costly or ruinous to wait 20+ years to realize the solution. The DoW is clearly signaling they want the "Need -> Solution" loop tightened, significantly, sacrificing cost for timeliness.
That puts the US on good footing, ready to face peer and near-peer, next-generation warfare.
If Ukraine has taught us anything, it's off-the-shelf - ready today - weapons are needed in significant quantity. Drone warfare has changed almost everything - we're seeing $300 off-the-shelf drones kill millions of dollars of equipment and personnel. If the military needs anti-drone capabilities, it can't wait 20+ years to field them.
We don't just need to pick on new/next-generation military technologies either. The US currently produces between 30,000-40,000 155mm artillery shells a month, but Ukraine (at peak) expended 10,000 per day[1]. The loop is far too long...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-...
> The US currently produces between 30,000-40,000 155mm artillery shells a month, but Ukraine (at peak) expended 10,000 per day[1].
Wars are incredibly expensive, and the US should not be producing weapons, in peacetime, at the rate they would be expended during an active war. What we should have the ability to rapidly scale production.
Weapons need to be replaced, even ones never used. To be capable of scaling production you need at least some degree of production constantly simmering in the background. Yet even then, there is a limit to how much you can scale up on demand.
The best and cheapest weapons are the ones never used, but making no weapons at all is the most expensive choice in the end.
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> What we should have the ability to rapidly scale production.
How should the US make the manufacture of, say, the primers for artillery shells "rapidly scalable" in a way that is different from building a large stockpile? Be specific. Would you nationalize factories but leave them idle? You certainly won't have time to build or retool factories and staff them during a peer conflict. How would you present this to Congress vs. running those factories in peacetime as a jobs program?
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Sure because we decided to gut manufacturing in this country. It was deliberate decision made not by DoD following Federal Acquisition rules but by beancounters who didn't want to spend money on keeping manufacturing alive. Since we don't have civilian manufacturing base in this country and military does not want to buy a ton of artillery shells just for them to go idle, here we are.
Manufacturing in western countries was gutted by treasonous politicians bribed by corporations to do an end-run around the environmental laws, workplace regulations, and human rights that had been hard-won by the people over the previous 50-100 years, by allowing these abuses to continue elsewhere without even being required to pay commensurate tariffs or penalties.
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$300 drones are not doing much of anything in Ukraine. Maybe some light weight ISR, but they don't even go-to the front line before having several grand of hardened radio equipment put on them - at which point they're not $300 anymore...
The flippant commentaries about drones help no one: they're a significant change in the intel environment, but nobody carefully inspects assumptions about cost efficiency or on the ground conditions.
Expensive drones are being used to fulfill roles which artillery fires could fulfill far more effectively, except both sides of the conflict don't have enough artillery but for vastly different reasons (whereas significant amounts of supplies are coming from a party which is more or less arming both of them: China's factories).
It should be noted that Ukraine has invested significant effort attempting to acquire US spec long range weapons like ATACMS and Tomahawk, and F-16 and HIMARS were both a big deal which took significant effort to get. Drones have created a new warfare dimension, but I find the way they're often discussed lacks of a lot of rigor or bearing on how they're actually being used.
> The American appetite for new "war fighters" is exceptionally low when there's no exigent conflict facing us.
That’s a problem easily solved.
We have the menace of the Red Maple Leaf people to the north, and perhaps a buffer zone south of the Rio Grand would stave off the caravans, give Texans some breathing room, and make more room for real Americans. Remember, the anti-Christ may show up at any time.
The American people have no appetite for war with Canada. Half the country think it's a deranged threat and the other half think it's a hilarious joke. There's no genuine support for it from the public.
Mexico is another story, but even then I don't think there's much in the way of public support for a ground invasion.
More than half the country was against the wars in Vietnam or in Iraq (2003), but they still happened. And if the current administration decides they want to invade Canada, Canada will be invaded no matter what the country thinks. Same goes for Mexico. How it ends, it is a completely different story and another administration's problem.
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> There's no genuine support for it from the public.
90% of the genuine public couldn't find Iraq on the map on September 12 of 2001, but that didn't stop half of them from becoming utterly convinced that going on an imperial adventure on the other side of the world was integral to preserving their freedumbs.
Media literacy in the US is a complete and utter shitshow, and public support for inflicting incredible violence on other people is trivial to manufacture.
Hell, half the country is currently cheer-leading soldiers and goon squads deployed against it's own cities. They don't even think their own neighbours are entitled to be treated as human beings.
Don't forget Belarus just today mentioning they have nukes in warm standby mode.
> The American appetite for new "war fighters" is exceptionally low when there's no exigent conflict facing us.
Isn’t this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who would want to get into a conflict with someone who has guaranteed air supremacy?
Lack of funding? My impression is that the F-35 program is the most expensive in history.
That's not surprising. If you allocate 1500 billion USD to building the Death Star, it will simultaneously be
1. the most expensive space station program in history, and
2. severely underfunded compared to the desired deliverable.
The original estimate was $250b. They undershot that by 10x. The expense is all "overages."