That quote got me, too. Our published #s admit we are way behind the curve on production & plans to increase bring us up in years to a larger fraction of what Russia produces today.
And our "quality" goes up in smoke every day in Ukr.
That quote got me, too. Our published #s admit we are way behind the curve on production & plans to increase bring us up in years to a larger fraction of what Russia produces today.
And our "quality" goes up in smoke every day in Ukr.
Agreed. The West can't compete now in either quantity or quality. Russia's (and no doubt China's) weapons are built for effectiveness in a real war environment. The West's are built to maximize MIC profits and payoffs to government officials, and, to add insult to injury, are designed by legislative and government committees with zero personal knowledge of real war and war environments.
I happened to read recently of an attempt to take out of "mothballs" some of the magnificent WWII US battleships. I don't know whether the plan was good or not, but the salient point is that they needed some refurbishment and refitting and it turned out that no one in the US any longer knows how to make the special, superior steels used in those battleships.
Similarly, Russia has been able to devise and produce the advanced materials necessary for hypersonic missiles, while the US has not.
Oooh, the old "refurbish the Iowa's because we like BIG guns" idea rearing its ugly mug again. It's not just the metallurgy that confounds, you'd literally need to gut them open to the boiler rooms and rebuild from nearly the keel up to make anything of them.
And all to fire ammunition that's been in storage for over 50 years (guess what ELSE they don't make any more...)
As for MIC profits, they realised years ago, the real money to be made was in the maintenance contracts (after all, you only got profit for MAKING a tank or plane once, the profits for maintaining them are endless...)
Side note, There's a hugely profitable market in pre WW2 (or up to 1945 actually) manufactured steel... because it was made using oxygen not yet irradiated by atomic bombs. Whole WW2 warships have gone missing from their resting places near Indonesia in recent years...
That quote got me, too. Our published #s admit we are way behind the curve on production & plans to increase bring us up in years to a larger fraction of what Russia produces today.
And our "quality" goes up in smoke every day in Ukr.
Agreed. The West can't compete now in either quantity or quality. Russia's (and no doubt China's) weapons are built for effectiveness in a real war environment. The West's are built to maximize MIC profits and payoffs to government officials, and, to add insult to injury, are designed by legislative and government committees with zero personal knowledge of real war and war environments.
I happened to read recently of an attempt to take out of "mothballs" some of the magnificent WWII US battleships. I don't know whether the plan was good or not, but the salient point is that they needed some refurbishment and refitting and it turned out that no one in the US any longer knows how to make the special, superior steels used in those battleships.
Similarly, Russia has been able to devise and produce the advanced materials necessary for hypersonic missiles, while the US has not.
"Similarly, Russia has been able to devise and produce the advanced materials necessary for hypersonic missiles, while the US has not."
Not only the materials, but the communications systems to enable precision targeting & maneuverability at hypersonic speeds.
Oooh, the old "refurbish the Iowa's because we like BIG guns" idea rearing its ugly mug again. It's not just the metallurgy that confounds, you'd literally need to gut them open to the boiler rooms and rebuild from nearly the keel up to make anything of them.
And all to fire ammunition that's been in storage for over 50 years (guess what ELSE they don't make any more...)
As for MIC profits, they realised years ago, the real money to be made was in the maintenance contracts (after all, you only got profit for MAKING a tank or plane once, the profits for maintaining them are endless...)
Side note, There's a hugely profitable market in pre WW2 (or up to 1945 actually) manufactured steel... because it was made using oxygen not yet irradiated by atomic bombs. Whole WW2 warships have gone missing from their resting places near Indonesia in recent years...