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The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
91–100 of 527 posts
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
The F-35 was Lockheed's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter program. The JSF has roots going back to 1996. The X-35 first flew in 2000. The F-35 first flew in 2006, and didn't enter service until 2015(!!). That's nearly 20 years to develop a single airframe. Yes, it's the most sophisticated airframe to date, but 20 years is not trivial. The F-35 had many issues during trials and early deployment - some are excusable fo…
> 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…
Lack of funding? My impression is that the F-35 program is the most expensive in history.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
The F-35 was Lockheed's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter program. The JSF has roots going back to 1996. The X-35 first flew in 2000. The F-35 first flew in 2006, and didn't enter service until 2015(!!). That's nearly 20 years to develop a single airframe. Yes, it's the most sophisticated airframe to date, but 20 years is not trivial. The F-35 had many issues during trials and early deployment - some are excusable fo…
> 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…
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-...
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#94As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…
The F-35 was Lockheed's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter program. The JSF has roots going back to 1996. The X-35 first flew in 2000. The F-35 first flew in 2006, and didn't enter service until 2015(!!). That's nearly 20 years to develop a single airframe. Yes, it's the most sophisticated airframe to date, but 20 years is not trivial. The F-35 had many issues during trials and early deployment - some are excusable fo…
It didn’t take 20 years to make an airframe it took 20 years to do lots of research which eventually resulted in a wide range of systems and multiple very distinct airframes.
Hell F-35B does vertical takeoff and still mostly uses the same systems as the other designs, that should tell you something.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody uses statutory titles for anything to be honest; when’s the last time you referred to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act instead of “Obamacare”? When’s the last time you referred to the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program instead of “Social Security”? I’ve never heard anyone say Title XIX of the Social Security Act instead of “Medicaid,” or Title XVIII of the Social Security Act in…
> when’s the last time you referred to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act instead of “Obamacare” I refer to it as "the ACA", which is short and avoids an unofficial moniker first introduced as an insult. It's not just a personal preference, it's civically important : There are still morons out there who have spent the last 15 years simultaneously gushing about how the ACA is awesome while demonizing "Obam…
ACA is still technically incorrect; as it’s actually statutorily the PPACA. Accuracy, am I right?
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#96I feel uneasy about the govt taking the "move fast and break things" approach.
It's what Ukraine was forced to do, because the more traditional approaches failed them. It's wiser to enact change before the next big war happens and the same exact failures pop up in the US MIC too.
But what's the limit, especially when there is no sign "the next big war" is imminent or big?
If we assume that we'll have a Ukraine-like scenario, then we might as well start with nationalizing industries like US steel, snatching "untrustworthy" residents to put them into internment camps, start rationing how much food people can eat, and... Heyyyyy waitaminute...
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#97So fast forward five years and 50% of our war materials are produced in foreign countries? I can't help but believe this is going to weaken our war footing because the dumbest people in the room are behind it. Thirsty Pete does not inspire confidence in the Department of War Thunder. I mean on the surface it sounds good, but LEAN is why we had no PPE on hand during covid. In order to have off the shelf supplies we ar…
from the reading I have done, something along the lines of 'bump up 155mm production' is more what is needed not as sexy as drones, but ask the ukranians if they'd rather have drones or artillery
Uh it's definitely drones right now. Artillery is They're using what they have but the remaining pieces will clearly be mostly irrelevant by next year.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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.