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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

#61

Post by FpUser »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #12
bell-cot wrote: post #3

Ah, 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 o…

I’m not convinced that outsourcing it to private enterprise is bad. Outsourcing it overseas, that’s a really big issue.

I see the following problem here. When the war starts citizens are forced to tighten the belts. Military industry meanwhile gets rich so they're inherently supportive of wars.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#62

Post by syngrog66 »

related to a bigger risk I see for the US. if the US gets into a war with China its going to hurt us massively. We're heavily dependent on them now during peace time as it is -- and all those two-way flows can stop in war. and they have much greater ship building capacity.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#63

Post by zmgsabst »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #54
bell-cot wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess: Most folks on HN realize that "the military", in the sense of "the current general and admirals", have damn little influence over these outsourcing, single-sourcing, etc. decisions. That is mostly controlled by Congress, via the budget purse-strings. And Congress in term is mostly controlled by...

>Most folks on HN realize that "the military", in the sense of "the current general and admirals", have damn little influence over these outsourcing, single-sourcing, etc. decisions. That is mostly controlled by Congress, I think your claim is way to optimistic in light of the fact there are other people claiming that the LCS boondoggle is the fault of faulty procurement and not Congress.

And yet, you don’t have the stomach to reply to me about it — or to discuss the procurement failure regarding munitions outlined by CSIS.

The LCS is the fault of the Navy in at least three ways:

- they didn’t bother to make sure the gearbox worked

- they didn’t bother to make sure the structural framing was sufficient, leading to shoulder cracks

- they didn’t design it to have sufficient arms or ability to perform ASW roles

None of which has to do with Congress, and every bit of which has to do with military design, procurement, and contract management.

Congress doesn’t design ships for the fleet: the Navy proposes what they want and Congress funds (or doesn’t) the project. The only role Congress played was forcing the Navy to keep them after it became clear they were such a total failure, the Navy scrapped the class while still in production.

But keep making excuses for abject failure — that’s sure to fix the problem.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#64

Post by masfuerte »

akiselev wrote: post #38
nordsieck wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not convinced that outsourcing it to private enterprise is bad. Counterpoint: In every war that involves a substantial conventional component, there has been a huge ammunition shortage. Even though people know this, the phenomenon still exists. Private industry isn't going to maintain huge "burst" capacity. It's simply completely uneconomical. It's possible that a sort of public-private partnership could exist…

Based on what happened with the Strategic National Stockpile [1] right before COVID hit, I don’t have much confidence in government run capacity either: > From 2017 to 2019, the Trump administration failed to replace masks and other supplies used in earlier disasters. In May 2020, in a House subcommittee meeting, whistle-blower Dr. Rick Bright, previous director of Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical…

We had a similar situation in the UK where most of the emergency supply of masks, etc. had expired when covid started. The obvious way to handle this seems to be to make a deal with a big wholesaler or wholesalers where the government pays them to maintain a much larger buffer than they normally would. This would ensure the stock was always being rotated. The pre-covid scheme of paying some randoms to keep a warehouse full of mouldering stock seemed doomed to failure.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#65

Post by dsfyu404ed »

zmgsabst wrote: post #63
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most folks on HN realize that "the military", in the sense of "the current general and admirals", have damn little influence over these outsourcing, single-sourcing, etc. decisions. That is mostly controlled by Congress, I think your claim is way to optimistic in light of the fact there are other people claiming that the LCS boondoggle is the fault of faulty procurement and not Congress.

And yet, you don’t have the stomach to reply to me about it — or to discuss the procurement failure regarding munitions outlined by CSIS. The LCS is the fault of the Navy in at least three ways: - they didn’t bother to make sure the gearbox worked - they didn’t bother to make sure the structural framing was sufficient, leading to shoulder cracks - they didn’t design it to have sufficient arms or ability to perform AS…

I'm rate limited for not towing the line so I wasn't gonna burn a reply on it. The LCS is basically the Navy's Orion but worse. Like Orion it's congressionally mandated garbage. Unlike Orion the Navy DGAF about it, put no effort into making it workable. So of course it's spec'd out poorly (no ASW) and has a ton of teething problems (gearbox, hull structure). It was a B rate project nobody really cared about from the get go. No wonder it flopped. Nobody cared to make sure it didn't.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#66

Post by throwaway52407 »

slowhand09 wrote: post #44
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't allow critical military production infrastructure to be foreign owned.

Look at every computer monitor on every military desk. I bet it says "Made in ____".

the military computers I've seen are typically from Dell, an american company. Manuafacturing is probably foreign, though.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#67

Post by throwaway52407 »

slowhand09 wrote: post #45
SubiculumCode wrote: post #14

This is frustrating to square with the large military expenditures we make in this country. What is the use of the most advanced weaponry if you cannot produce them yourself when shit hits the fan?

If only we had some sort of national leader saying "Made in America" is good...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/management/made-in-america/

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#68

Post by vinaypai »

slowhand09 wrote: post #45
SubiculumCode wrote: post #14

This is frustrating to square with the large military expenditures we make in this country. What is the use of the most advanced weaponry if you cannot produce them yourself when shit hits the fan?

If only we had some sort of national leader saying "Made in America" is good...

If only we had some sort of national leader ACTING ON THE PRINCIPAL THAT "Made in America" is good...

fixed that for you

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#69

Post by zmgsabst »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #65
zmgsabst wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, you don’t have the stomach to reply to me about it — or to discuss the procurement failure regarding munitions outlined by CSIS. The LCS is the fault of the Navy in at least three ways: - they didn’t bother to make sure the gearbox worked - they didn’t bother to make sure the structural framing was sufficient, leading to shoulder cracks - they didn’t design it to have sufficient arms or ability to perform AS…

I'm rate limited for not towing the line so I wasn't gonna burn a reply on it. The LCS is basically the Navy's Orion but worse. Like Orion it's congressionally mandated garbage. Unlike Orion the Navy DGAF about it, put no effort into making it workable. So of course it's spec'd out poorly (no ASW) and has a ton of teething problems (gearbox, hull structure). It was a B rate project nobody really cared about from the…

> Nobody cared to make sure it didn't.

That’s my point:

The Navy didn’t perform at the level of making the gearbox work, because despite getting their admirals’ request for a modular super ship, they’re not ninja problem fixers but in on the MIC grift.

Re: The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up

#70

Post by heywoodlh »

phpisthebest wrote: post #31
brightball wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has always been my understanding as well. The DoD would insist production be spread across multiple companies. Additionally, why in the world is this even public knowledge?

>>Additionally, why in the world is this even public knowledge? Why would it not be. Government Secrecy should be opposed by anyone that wants a free society You can not have a "Government for the people by the people" if the government is allowed to keep secrets from the people. Nor can voters properly select and hold representatives accountable if those people do not know what the government is doing We have a MASS…

Not that I disagree, but I'm curious, what benefit to the public is provided by this information being known? It seems to me like this information being public does not really lend to (or take away from) a free society.

> Why would it not be [public knowledge]?

I can think of multiple ways in which this information could be useful in the hands of enemies of the United States. An example: this publicizes weaknesses in the US military's supply chain.

Is there a reason this particular piece of information (a Louisiana factory blew up and is causing supply chain issues for the US Military) should be public -- or was this more of a general commentary on more transparency?

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