The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
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Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#2Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#3Ah, the [cough] wisdom of [gag] outsourcing mission-critical military activities to private enterprise.
If you look at history - the British Crown started making their own gunpowder at the Tower of London, in the middle of the 13th Century. The British Board of Ordnance was formally constituted in 1683, by HRM King Charles the Second.
And if you look at the more-recent era, when the US started shutting down most of its own government armories, arsenals, etc. - that happened fairly shortly after the old tradition of leading American families having their sons (at least the ones who wanted to becomes notable leaders themselves) serve in the military faded away. If you no longer have any skin in the game...
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#4Kinda shocking the lack of redundancy here
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#5>Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells.
I don't know about the others, but M16 rifle rounds don't use black powder, they use modern smokeless powder. By modern, I mean invented in 1884. I would be surprised if any of those other things mentioned use black powder. The author seems to think black powder is all gunpowder but it isn't. Black powder is reserved for old guns that can't handle modern powder that were made before the late 1800s, early 1900s. There is a classification of hunting rifle called muzzle loaders that also use it, but they are niche. It's also used in fireworks, that's why they are so smokey.
When you see a movie where they depict an old battle where there are huge plumes of smoke coming out of the rifles or muskets, that's black powder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder
Here's what black powder looks like when used in a firearm.
https://www.saobserver.net/community/in-photos-monashee-moun...
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#6If your job includes risk management-i.e. you could be terminated over it-then please make sure to look through every thread of the operation and identify all of the single points of failure. Then, find a redundant solution for each.
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#7I get that this sort of headline makes for a great circle jerk but let's be real here, the military isn't as stupid as HN likes to imply. Rife with perverse incentives that keep things from being done ideally? Yes, but not stupid. The military is also rife with ass-covering careerists so if some nobody on HN can think of a way they can do it better then someone in the system has almost certainly thought about it and looked into it and sent out an email letting everybody know about it. The fact that they're only buying something from one of their suppliers doesn't mean they can't get it from another with less lead time than their stockpile. This goes for a whole class of products. Typically if you are a contractor or a sub contractor and you are the only source for a unique product that can't easily be substituted you're required to provide a sufficient technical data package such that someone else could make the same stuff. If this factory was really a serious priority it would a) be redundant b) be fixed already. Because some careerist would have sniffed out the brownie points and then made sure it got done and that they got credit. It's also possible that there's internal politics involved and letting it turn into a dumpster fire is being done on purpose in order to make the situation get remediated in a specific way.
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#8>Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells. I don't know about the others, but M16 rifle rounds don't use black powder, they use modern smokeless powder. By modern, I mean invented in 1884. I would be surprised if any of those other things men…
Now if St Marks Powder in Tallahassee blew up, we’d have an actual problem.
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#9>Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells. I don't know about the others, but M16 rifle rounds don't use black powder, they use modern smokeless powder. By modern, I mean invented in 1884. I would be surprised if any of those other things men…
I assume they're talking about trace amounts being used in primers and detonators.
Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
#10>Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells. I don't know about the others, but M16 rifle rounds don't use black powder, they use modern smokeless powder. By modern, I mean invented in 1884. I would be surprised if any of those other things men…
I assume they're talking about trace amounts being used in primers and detonators.
I thought that might be it, but primers use lead styphnate.
https://www.virtusammo.com/primers-101-how-are-ammunition-pr....