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The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

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Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#341

Post by lm28469 »

rpmisms wrote: post #152
netsharc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how we can tell now whether the other person is a Kool-Aid drinker by how they refer to things. Gulf of Mexico, or Gulf of America?

Department of War is far more honest. The Gulf name doesn't mean anything, it's a joke and we all know it.

> it's a joke and we all know it.

"grab them by the pussy" -> just a joke

selling cans of beans from the oval office -> just a joke

shilling a pillow company from the white house -> just a joke

"let's march to the capitol" -> just a joke

doge -> just a joke

"give me the peace nobel price" -> just a joke

"Ukraine started it" -> just a joke

"6 gazillion percent tariff on china" -> just a joke

I rug pulled my supporters with a meme coin -> just a joke

I do obvious market manipulation to help inside traders -> just a joke

It's all so convenient...

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#342

Post by mlnj »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #280
thaunatos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. https://www.war.gov/

Departments are created by acts of Congress. Not because a wannabe dictator registered a domain name.

I don't see any impeachment proceedings from Congress. Looks like the wannabe dictator has their blessings.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#343

Post by potato3732842 »

mmooss wrote: post #246
potato3732842 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As everyone with functioning eyeballs and more memory than a goldfish who has hung around a large organization more than a year knows, you quickly run out of blood to write in and start writing in "well that could've been worse if the starts had aligned, let's write a rule about it". I used to work for a defense contractor. My former coworkers are probably cheering right now.

The contractors cheer because there are fewer limitations on poor quality products, project management, and fraud.

I'm talking engineering teams supporting already fielded equipment.

They just "know things" like which basically free tweaks ought to be made as a result of knowledge gained from the assembly being in the field. They don't stand to gain from the product being crap. Most of the fixes are basically free BOM tweaks that don't really matter but provide incremental improvements/refinements if made and the cumulative nickels and dimes really do add up.

The paper pushers on both sides that will do many rounds in order to make that happen are the only people benefitting from the make-work here as does anyone who skims their existence off of the paper pushers.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#344

Post by Y-bar »

scandox wrote: post #298
pmyteh wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His personal philosophy was very Catholic. My reading of LotR is that it is consistent with that, valorising faithfulness, the personal in place of the modern, and avoiding the temptation to sin for power. I agree it's centre-right (though idiosyncratically) but not about military capability: the orcs are the most modern military capability and they are decidedly not valorised. The central heros are a member of the r…

> The Shire is defiantly non-military and pre-industrial. The Shire stands as a symbol for a rural and peaceful life but their protected way of life is only possible because of the the military might of others and this is explicitly alluded to several times...for example in a conversation between Merry and Pippin (which I just happened to read to my kid yesterday!): "Still there are things deeper and higher; and not…

This is not entirely correct. The hobbits were very good with slings and spears and bows according to Tolkien.

Before the events of The Lord of the Rings, hobbits maintained a tradition of archery and other martial skills, partly due to past conflicts such as the Battle of Greenfields (1). By the time of the Scouring off the Shire, Merry, Pippin, and other veterans of the War of the Ring organized quickly taking up arms. According to the appendices, they managed to eliminate nearly two-thirds of Saruman’s invading force , displaying both tactical coordination and surprising courage. (Treebeard also notes this in The two towers) It’s a powerful reminder that, in Tolkien’s world, even the humblest people are capable of heroism when defending their home.

1. https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Green_Fields

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#345

Post by ap99 »

Hizonner wrote: post #80
thaunatos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. https://www.war.gov/

Bad news. Trump and Hegseth do not have the authority to rename the Department of Defense, no matter what they put on a Web site. That requires an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. And probably won't, because even if they could convince Congress to do it, that would require them to ask ... and their whole modus operandi is based around pretending to have authority they don't have. Calling it the Department of W…

They can add a secondary title. And they're drafting legislation to change the primary title.

Seems pretty simple.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#346

Post by Y-bar »

dgunay wrote: post #222
Y-bar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s up with Maga people using LotR names for their military/panopticon companies? Anduril, Palantir, Lembas have I seen so far.

Is it a MAGA thing, or is it just a Palmer Luckey thing?

JD Vance has a company named after the ring Narya.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#347

Post by potato3732842 »

mmooss wrote: post #286
p_l wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For very special meaning of operational that could be summarized as "USMC could not allow it to fail". And the delays were on the whole project due to forced commonality (in addition to L-M being L-M)

Can you provide any evidence? What I'm stating are public facts. We can always come up with reasons , but we need evidence of what actually happened.

You'll never find evidince hard enough to fashion the sort of club people who ask such questions ought to be bludgeoned with.

Do you really think anyone would be so stupid as to leave hard evidince? That's the magic of the whole process, they can do those things fully within the bounds of the process. They decide (or don't), often at the urging of lobbyists, or non-lobbyists parties who themselves typically aren't completely impartial, what they want. And often they have a specific product in mind that they want, but they can't say that so they write the requirement to all but say it.

Often times this is very reasonable and comes as the result of the end user having used multiple products or having used multiple contractors and knowing from experience with near certainty what or who they want.

In the alternate case where it's pork, this is often how upstarts get their start. Whoever the prime is doesn't wanna pay out the ass for someone else's pork that's been inserted into the requirements so connections get leveraged and several dominoes later a subcontractor to someone is under contract + NDA to buy a controlling stake in an idling paper mill and refit as necessary the small town's wastewater plant it dumps into because that is how they are going to provide the filter media meeting the performance specified in the requirements without being forced to pay out the ass for the product the lobbyists ghost wrote into it. The prime has basically entered into contract to create a company making a competing product out of thin air. There are many funny stories like this kicking around the beltway.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#348

Post by tdeck »

sciencesama wrote: post #306

Make more weapons faster !! Kill more people faster !!

You're only allowed to be mad because he called it the "department of war". The premise that the US always needs more weapons and should be fighting constant wars must go unchallenged.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#349

Post by Retric »

eggsome wrote: post #219
Retric wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SR-71 had a strait forward mission well suited to a specialized airframe, and again you’re focusing on the airframe. Just the software for the helmet alone provides a huge technical advantage that has little to do with how the aircraft is manufactured other than having the appropriate sensors, communication systems, and computing power. Yet through all that bureaucracy what would normally be 3 different airframes…

To be fair the F22 would have been closer to the F35 in price if the number produced were larger so that the R&D was spread over a larger number of airframes. Such a pretty plane.

I agree that the F-22 is gorgeous, but it is also extremely expensive to operate, couldn’t be exported, can’t do carrier launch or VTOL so the demand was inherently lower.

That said, we could have made more than 195 of the them, but even at 750 it would have still been significantly more expensive per aircraft than the F-35 and it wouldn’t have let us cancel the F-35 program.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#350

Post by ben_w »

SpicyUme wrote: post #223
mauvehaus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you nationalize factories but leave them idle? Yes. Historically, these would be the national armories, Navy Yards, and Air Force plants. You know, Springfield Armory (of .30-06 Springfield fame, now a museum), Watertown Arsenal (now a fucking Home Depot, among other things), Charlestown Navy Yard(Boston, now largely a museum), Philadelphia Navy Yard (redeveloped? not my area), Air Force Plant 42 (near LA, st…

Better to keep things running at a low level than fully idle I'd think. Even if the outputs are consumed by testing, development, or even just stockpiled. Lots of things can get lost by not making parts for a while, including the knowledge involved in troubleshooting or replacing parts. Of course then people would complain about all the money wasted not utilizing the equipment/space enough.

> Of course then people would complain about all the money wasted not utilizing the equipment/space enough.

I think this is why the USA, UK and France are all big exporters in the defence sector.

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