Comment by yesco
3 months ago
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.
The problem is you have these hugely expensive facilities like the tank plant in Lima that's pretty much only good for making tanks. Transitioning manufacturing to production lines that can be economically kept online because they make non-tank products when we're not fighting anyone is the way to go.
There's a ton of work going on in this area, and has been for a while (check out DARPA's AVM project for some of it).
Or, simply open up the sales of tanks to the civilian market.
That's a joke, of course, but even if they were demilitarised variants there'd probably still be a market for it.
There definitely is a market for such vehicles:
http://www.exarmyvehicles.com/offer/tracked-vehicles/tanks
https://mortarinvestments.eu/ArmouredVehicles
https://miltrade.com/pages/military-vehicles-for-sale-in-eur...
https://tanksales.co.uk/sales/
Ten or fifteen years back, I had an ambition to buy such a vehicle and drive it around at Burning Man. I eventually settled for a deuce-and-a-half, which caused enough struggle and frustration that I'm glad I never actually bought a tank.
4 replies →
I’ve never really understood how the logic of the second amendment doesn’t extend to tanks and nukes.
6 replies →
What is more critical as Ukraine has shown is ammunition, ie artillery shells, and of course any anti-drone ammunition (missiles are extremely expensive solution that should be reserved for ballistic missiles and not cheap drones).
More tanks on Ukraine's side wouldn't change current battlefield massively, drones limit how much use from tanks you can get. If you can scale your production to 10-50x within weeks then all is fine but thats almost impossible practically.
If anybody thinks we are heading for a peaceful stable decade without need of such items in massive numbers must have had head buried in the sand pretty deep.
[dead]
A related article https://archive.is/2024.12.17-161126/https://www.theatlantic...
Our scaling is human oriented - add more shifts. Maybe we can adapt new manufacturing methods like screw extrusion mentioned in the article
> The best and cheapest weapons are the ones never used, but making no weapons at all is the most expensive choice in the end.
As a big part of Europe is learning at great cost.