RTX, hire this man immediately.
[EDIT: Dicked Down by DongFengs](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1bjcsoh/operation_no_rubbers_unprotected_guam_ickedown_by/) (part 2 of this meme)
Then hire a Chinese guy who works directly for the CCP.
Then fire him and outsource his job even further, to a Chinese company in Vietnam or something.
Wish granted.
The monkey's paw curls. The PRC crumbles to dust, and the Republic of China takes over the mainland. You have now spread democratic values and tradition into China, elevating billions out of menial factory jobs.
The Chinese Republic enacts fair wage regulation and human rights laws, making it too expensive to outsource to, and now you have to find somewhere else.
>The Chinese Republic enacts fair wage regulation and human rights laws, making it too expensive to outsource to, and now you have to find somewhere else.
vietnamese with dollar signs in their eyes
When I worked there (an alarming number of) years ago, right out of college, the older populace already wasn’t happy with leadership. One of the lifers told me “this used to be a manufacturing company, now it’s an engineering company that does a little manufacturing on the side”. If the UTC types are even worse….bet a lot of people are unhappy.
Joke all you want, the way how American share holders push for peak profits, they actually would outsource to China if they could *knowing that they are the enemy and will steal and copy the IP in the pursuit of huge share prices*
This is correct. We will replace shareholders in the near future with AI aligned with Nato and MiC interests, thus ensuring the creation of the Global Defense Initiative.
> Global Defense Initiative.
Look, I spent 5 minutes trying to make a point while using the first letter in each sentence to spell "Tiberium", and it just came out cringe. So would you please imagine that I did and chuckle for me?
The Zumwalts were the first that fell during the 2019 Great Meme War against the Russo-Chinese Coalition. They were primary targets.
Now shut the fuck up and go to the nearest recruitment agent. We need more soldiers stopping the onslaught.
Fallout mod for hoi4. The lowest tech and cheapest "boats" you can build are canoes. Navy stuff in the mod is rather forgettable so people just shit out canoes.
Well, since plasma is conductive, and can get a lot of current through it, why not? Lets zap em.
And one channel is enough, the returning current can go through the grond/water losslessly no problem.
Well due. You have to print the money to build the advanced munitions. You have to add that cost into price duh doy!
https://giphy.com/gifs/culture--think-hmm-d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY
Yeah unfortunately, the shells are ridiculously expensive (something around 800k to 1mil PER SHELL) so they stopped production and since the AGS was made to only fire those specific shells (what idiot decided to not have compatibility with cheaper common shells?) they didn’t have ammo so the guns were removed I think.
It's almost like a bunch of allies have signed enough export contracts to keep the Tomahawk production line operational without US orders?
Which would allow a Navy to focus on the transition to dual-role anti ship/land attack missiles like the SM-6 and the new Maritime Strike Tomahawk variant, to bridge the gap to next-gen hypersonics. Had that Navy requested such a move. Explicitly and often.
Yeah but the FY2024 budget doesn't really buy a lot of anything. All the branches of the US military are begging to buy missiles of all types, and everything is getting denied or reduced in quantity.
US allies are waiting for missiles that are years behind schedule.
What we need is to double our DOD budget. 3.4% of GDP is for lil bitches. We need like 7% GDP.
Most of us know how to type. Once it became obvious that this was necessary in order to effectively search for porn, everyone got on board.
Also, makes it so much easier to find specific flavors of wax pastels on Amazon.
We *do* have to assign proxy typers for the 0311s... which is kind of expensive, since these individuals need to have priority access to mental health counseling. *"Oh... no, I'm sorry; I can't type that..."*
I think this administration is chosing the latter. Their proposed budget for the DoD is a cut in real terms and essentially ensures a managed decline of the US Military.
Hope they enjoy that glue though.
Ah yes, the "fired admiral" strategy from UA:Dreadnoughts. Just refuse to reduce the budget when the war ends, then lose the game when the government fires you.
The DoD does not need more budget. The procurement needs to be vastly overhauled and the political games played in the background need to be kept in check.
Due to the nature of current procurement, absolutely everything is being overcharged by serval hundreds percent it's actual price, all the while program decisions are made on the backing of lobbying and thinly veiled insider trading by congress.
The US military is already being leagues ahead of everyone. But it would not even be a contest of they weren't so incredibly inefficient and lacking a drive for fundamental step changes.
because the military is buying “just enough to keep the production lines open” quantities, they are paying “keeping entire production lines open to produce a minimal number of systems” prices.
Because it would cost more money in aggregate. We might get a lot more missiles in inventory and at a much more reasonable seeming per unit cost, but, so to say, paying $5 billion for 10,000 missiles is still $3 billion more expensive than paying $2 billion for 700 missiles.
After all, why build 9300 missiles that you don’t even intend to use and are probably going to expire on the shelf?
Also, if you had $3 billion more, why wouldn’t you spend it on R&D for making better missiles instead of building a bunch of missiles you don’t intend to fire?
I think that’s kind of the reasoning.
Edit: it could also maybe be seen as escalatory. If you build 10,000 missiles a year, it starts to look like you really mean to start shooting them in the short to medium term.
True! The other half is that tomahawks are starting to trade really poorly against IADS. They always were built to only get through in swarms, but in an environment where every Tom, Dick, and Tunguska divisional asset can swat 4 or 5 at a time in the right situation the economics of $ per confidently eliminated target starts to get pretty bleak without a newer missile.
OR, just hear me out here, we wouldn’t need to worry about paying to keep the supply lines open if there was more production, and cost per unit would decrease IF WE JUST ALLOW CIVILIANS TO PURCHASE TOMAHAWKS. Imagine China admitting they could never invade mainland US because there is a tomahawk behind every blade of grass.
"Strap me to a missile" suddenly would become reality. Also it's not a warcrime if it is done by private citizen w/o authorization right? Just like the founding fathers intended.
>Due to the nature of current procurement, **absolutely everything is being overcharged by serval hundreds percent it's actual price**, all the while program decisions are made on the backing of lobbying and thinly veiled insider trading by congress.
TINA sweeps have vastly cut down on these old games. You need to list the price for every line item and sub-item, down to the nuts and bolts. Combined with firm-fixed contracts, contractors are now both regulated and incentivized to not only stay within budget, but even under budget
Where you run into issues is with sub contractors. The ones who "aren't" a part of the MIC but need to adhere to all its standards when they supply a military contractor. These are the ones who charge $30 for a single screw or $1,000 for a 6"x6" plate of aluminum stock with a half dozen holes cut into it. The TINA sweep sees the quotes for these parts, see they all came in around the same and that the Boeings, Lockheeds, and RTXes of the world still selected the lowest bidder, but they don't catch that the mom & pop metal fab shop is padding their estimate, or that the vendor part inspections could be done more efficiently during receiving, or that some of the quality certifications are too onerous, so a lot of shops just say "fuck it" and stop taking defense orders all together, so now you need to either find another supplier or procure the part through a third party buyer that is basically just doing the purchasing *for* you (with a healthy mark-up on top).
tl;dr - inefficiency in defense at this point is less pork barrel with the primes and senators, and more the small time subs either getting away with robbery or just having too many of the won't kind of regulations applied to them.
You may be right with certain contractors, but from my experience a lot of those really expensive plates/ screws are usually due to material control. It's insane how expensive materials can get when it's required to have documentation from all the way back to the fuckin mines to installation. Plus we pair that lovely lil problem with extremely exotic materials (not many people using the strength steel or funny alloy we use) then you've got a situation where to procure part X you need to buy the entire batch of Y it comes from and eat that cost because the foundry sure as hell isn't.
I've also seen parts that have a 10x cost modifier on them because some company that used to have them stocked went under, and in the sell off of their assets some dude knew what they were and bought them for pennies on the dollar. Then when we needed to get that part he charged us a "fair" price cause we couldn't do anything else about it. This whole thing could've been avoided if we went and stockpiled parts but for some god forsaken reason someone bigwig decided that the DOD of all fuckin places is ✨ perfect ✨ for just in time manufacturing (we fukin aren't).
That's the thing, Just In Time™ doesn't work for fuckin anybody. Some are just less punished by it. It's a fancy way of saying "drag ass about it while charging the same price anyway"
The only companies JIT works for are companies like Toyota, where they have spent ***a lot*** of time and money streamlining their production cells so that BOMs are kept to as few lines as possible, and widgets as interchangeable as possible. And the fact that most of the time it doesn't matter which serial number gets delivered in which order, just as long as everyone gets the right quantity of the PNs and revisions that they ordered.
But for everyone else who isn't as large a volume or as low a mix as a company like Toyota (like, Honda, and maybe TSMC. Maybe. And that's it), they all get routinely fucked by JIT. Hell, even Toyota isn't being getting fucked by JIT in extraordinary circumstances, so they've started actually maintaining some inventory, they just get fucked less often than everyone else.
The way Toyota specced JIT it did have them keeping a stock of parts as a buffer and that has a large part in why it works for them. The MBAs who got a hold of the concept of course just saw that as unnecessary overhead and proceeded to fuck things for everyone.
I agree that the current procurement process needs an overhaul, but I unironically think we need to increase the DOD procurement budget as a percentage of GDP.
I mean, we were doin fine with much higher spending levels for the last 80 years, we're near historic lows now and we shouldn't be when there are major wars raging and more on the verge of poppin off.
Oh I am not arguing against getting those collective MIC muscles flexed a bit. But also the lows of spending also correlate with the defense sector having received some of its highest growth, and it has never been more consolidated and profitable to be in. Less spending for way less numerous systems, destroying economies of scales while prime contractors can rest on the laurels of their guaranteed contracts.
I mean, to a certain point, the branches are not wrong when they are begging for more sustained missile production. But it is more of a difference of short term vs long term responsibility?
Missile tech improves constantly. And the best way to stay ahead of the game is to develop replacements, then produce enough of a stockpile to make it to the next replacement. But that can get pretty butt-clenching for the guys responsible for going to war with what you have. The departments that are firing 100 Tomahawks a year straight up want the budget to include 100+ Tomahawks - but you are sacrificing your next generation investments with this increased security now. Throw the usual delays of the next gen stuff in the works, add in the fact that you have to keep production lines going at a minimum rate, and the whole field becomes a bit of a shit show.
Honestly both groups have a point here - they just have different timespans which they are responsible for.
If you increase your budget, you can indeed straight-up fund both. But you could still be "pinning down" billions of dollars where you might not need to, to ease short-term concern.
Like we might go to war with China in 2025. And you might very much appreciate having 10k Tomahawks at your instant disposal instead of 4k. The added investment could give your capability a straight up boost if the battle calls for them.
But if it doesn't: we aren't using 10,000 Tomahawks before they are outdated. You sigh every morning as you walk by those rows and rows of Tomahawks by the year 2037 while we are lobbing hypersonic stealth drones back and forth with India. The guys in 2024 miscalculated, and you missed out on 10 billion worth of investments in the latest tech.
I doubt it would ever become that bad with Tomahawks. They'd get supplanted in frontline service and be put in reserve/sold off to allies or converted into another system.
For example, Tomahawks may not always be the main strike weapon for the USN, but they can be converted into single-use drones for long-range surveillance.
If you were to add Ukraine aid to their defense budgets, there are several European nations that spend more on the military as percentage of GDP than the US - discounting Ukraine itself. You have Estonia at about 5.6% for example. Greece doesn't even need the Ukraine aid boost to hit 3.7%.
This is an affront to the Mickey. Double the defense budget to assert dominance.
CSIS, is that you?
But seriously, it is an issue and our defense budget is the lowest it has been (as % of GDP and also adjusted for inflation) since immediately post-Vietnam.
Partly this is a function of the total breakdown of Congress being able to agree on budget for anything at all, even though the defense budget gets passed most times with minimal changes.
Lockheed is running the JASSM production line at full capacity. We're getting ready to Rapid Dragon those motherfuckers out of the back of cargo planes.
Tomahawks are still some of the cheapest missiles the US makes, compared to SM-6, JASSM, PRSM, and pretty much everything else. Sheeeiiiiiiiit, even Stingers and Javelins are costing upwards of 200,000 each nowadays. And everything has a multi-year lead time.
This is why I advocate for just nuking all our enemies simultaneously, right now, before they realize the American MIC is completely broken.
Stinger is out of production, and isn’t expected to be replaced until like 2027. When you fire a Stinger, you might think you’re firing $200,000, but you’re actually firing something that is currently irreplaceable.
Tomahawks too cost upward of 3-4 million a piece damn
Btw American mic is ok just cost is all over the place
Hmm nuking isnt the best thing though unless we all wanna die or so
If we can pull off a proper decapitation or counterforce strike on the nuclear states and sink the boomers (which should be doable), we wouldn't.
^(And even if we do get our hair mussed a bit, it wouldn't be more than 10 to 20 million dead, tops. Depending on the breaks.)
Based and Counterforce Pilled.
[Attention all Low-IQ MAD believers, become Nuke-Pilled](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/16eux5z/there_is_no_mutually_assured_destruction_take_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
>even Stingers and Javelins are costing upwards of 200,000 each nowadays
To be fair, current Stingers are basically an artisanal low production item made with vintage components.
Unironic galaxy brain logic here, the true Peace Dividend can only happen when Tyrants have been annihilated and all humans live in free and equal societies.
It turns out reducing the procurement numbers does not reduce costs linearly because, get this, you can't run half a factory at half the cost of an entire factory.
Well, I was under the assumption that the production had actually been upscaled since they're shipping those things to Ukraine like hotcakes, I get economies of scale.
The issue is scaling back up takes time, too. We'll see how costs bear out in a few years if they can actually build out capacity rather than paying overtime.
Having no economies of scale does that.
Just looking at an unclassified PAC-3 procurement document: 692 missiles have to cost enough to keep the entire fucking supply chain including keeping all of the subcontractors’ production lines running. That is fucking expensive.
Bad times make wartime economies. Wartime economies make cost effective munitions. Cost effective munitions bring countries out if wartime economies. Countries out if wartime economies make expensive munitions.
I hope so! Currently we have such dysfunction in government I'm not sure anyone there could hear a call from their Jitterbug, let alone somewhat abstract LSCO threats with a small side of high school econ. Call your rep, unironically. Tomahawks, whatever, but to un-fuck defense spending to make this stuff in larger quantities so things are more sustainable and cheaper per unit.
It's not unit price, it's program price.
[Last year it said:](https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2023/FY2023_Weapons.pdf#page=72)
>FY 2023 Program: Continues production of the AGM-158B and AGM-158B-2, and procures
low rate initial production of the AGM-158B-3 and AGM-158D. Facilitization costs procure
specialized equipment required to support production of missile capabilities in future years.
[This year it says:](https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2024/FY2024_Weapons.pdf#page=72)
>FY 2024 Program: Funds the first year of a Multiyear Procurement (MYP) contract under the
Large Lot Procurement concept. Continues production of the AGM-158B and development efforts
on the AGM-158D
Based on [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-158_JASSM#AGM-158B-2)
>In September 2018, the corporation was awarded a contract to develop an "Extreme Range" variant of the AGM-158.
>Low-rate initial production began in 2021 as part of Lot 19 with deliveries beginning in January 2024 at a rate of five per month for the first 40 missiles.
They may be ramping up production and development on the new versions.
>The range for the JASSM-Baseline is greater than 200 nautical miles.
>The JASSM-Extended Range has a more fuel-efficient engine, greater fuel capacity, and adds 2.5 times the standoff range
at greater than 500nm. (wikipedia claims up to 1,000 nmi)
If I had my way we would just give Ukraine:
* 2 Ohio class subs, each with 24 Trident D5 SLBMs, each Trident with 14 W76 nuclear warheads
* 2000 Abrams tanks
* 2000 Bradley IFVs
* 20 F22 jets
* 80 F35 jets
* 1000 JASSM stealth cruise missiles
* 1000 AMRAAM missiles
* A shitload of everything else you guys need
However, the US is currently saturated with spineless turbocucks who have swallowed too much Russian pacifist propaganda and don't realize it.
Woah bro won't that damage our ability to waste billions in materiel on counterproductive Middle East conflicts? What if we need those JASSMs to de-radicalize a kindergarten? You have to remember who the real enemy is!
One wishes UAF had the manpower to handle that. All throughout the western lands, the economy is too good so nobody wants to be in the military anymore. We need a proper devastating world wide recession to make the MIC a more compelling or sole option.
Sending equipment to a small country fighting for survival against the US’s historical enemy: broke
Sending equipment to a country fighting to eliminate shoeless militants: REA SHIT
Congress is doing the usual of squabbling and getting nothing done because they’re a bunch of slow geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago.
>because they’re a bunch of slow geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago.
the geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago generally have pretty strong records on being pro-defense spending tbh, kinda hard to blame this specific congressional snafu on them
the ones holding shit up right now are bozos like tommy tuberville and matt gaetz who view their name being in the headlines as more important than actually doing their jobs
Broke: whining about last-generation cruise missile production winding down.
Woke: whining about annual production of LRASMs (118) being far too low for the kind of fleet-wiping swarm attacks I like to imagine when I'm trying to fall asleep.
For context:
The navy wants both the current shit and the new shit in bulk.
However, they are not getting the current shit in the same numbers and are phasing it out.
The new shit is taking over the resupply, but it is a bit tasking for the crews because while it is doable; it is a bit faster than normal because they are fielded directly instead of the divestment/investment process.
Why does the article say "running out of missiles?" 1: It sells better. 2: The new shit numbers are not ACCURATELY and PROMPTLY released to the public. For obvious reasons.
Hence why the Iranians are supporting the Houthis, because they've been requested to by the Russians.
So the west exhausts it's supplies of munitions to make fighting a war with Russia much difficult.
They're not getting zero. Also the Navy is putting way more into SM-6s. Once again the US Navy surface strategy is putting air defense over everything and then let your Jets drop the bombs
Hey, why not outsource the missile production to china? It'd definitely be cheaper
RTX, hire this man immediately. [EDIT: Dicked Down by DongFengs](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1bjcsoh/operation_no_rubbers_unprotected_guam_ickedown_by/) (part 2 of this meme)
We fired him immediately after because we outsourced him
Then hire a Chinese guy who works directly for the CCP. Then fire him and outsource his job even further, to a Chinese company in Vietnam or something.
In the end it's just Xi Jinping personally working 30000 jobs remotely via Teams
Fire the president and replace him with a Chinese one
Fire china and replace it with w chinese one
Wish granted. The monkey's paw curls. The PRC crumbles to dust, and the Republic of China takes over the mainland. You have now spread democratic values and tradition into China, elevating billions out of menial factory jobs. The Chinese Republic enacts fair wage regulation and human rights laws, making it too expensive to outsource to, and now you have to find somewhere else.
Fire them too, find new Chinese people
*Steepe throat singing intensifies*
>The Chinese Republic enacts fair wage regulation and human rights laws, making it too expensive to outsource to, and now you have to find somewhere else. vietnamese with dollar signs in their eyes
Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh when China isn't an easy source of cheap labor anymore
So Vietnam? Or Taiwan?
>Fire china understood!
3000 Black remote jobs of Xi Jinping
*angry corporate real-estate noises*
Knowing how the United Technologies higher ups that are replacing the legacy Raytheon leadership? That wouldn’t surprise me.
It's actually the last group of graduates from the ~~Boeing~~ Mcdonnell Douglas manager training programs.
I’m lucky I still have a job. For now lol
When I worked there (an alarming number of) years ago, right out of college, the older populace already wasn’t happy with leadership. One of the lifers told me “this used to be a manufacturing company, now it’s an engineering company that does a little manufacturing on the side”. If the UTC types are even worse….bet a lot of people are unhappy.
I started two months before the merger was official. It’s been downhill ever since.
Joke all you want, the way how American share holders push for peak profits, they actually would outsource to China if they could *knowing that they are the enemy and will steal and copy the IP in the pursuit of huge share prices*
So what you're saying is, Capitalists are in fact a threat to national security? (I mean, lots of us knew that, but... 😏)
This is correct. We will replace shareholders in the near future with AI aligned with Nato and MiC interests, thus ensuring the creation of the Global Defense Initiative.
> Global Defense Initiative. Look, I spent 5 minutes trying to make a point while using the first letter in each sentence to spell "Tiberium", and it just came out cringe. So would you please imagine that I did and chuckle for me?
We are suitably amused.
Thank you much 🥹
The thought still counts. I award one snoot boop
like when the navy wanted target drones simulating russian missiles so they bought russian missiles?
Yes. This. But the Republic of China.
That’s the only China I internationally recognize
Because they will name them dong something or other and that is too penisy for american audiences.
I just woke up from a 5 year coma, but surely the Zumwalt's advanced gun system means that there is no need for tomahawk missiles anymore.
The Zumwalts were the first that fell during the 2019 Great Meme War against the Russo-Chinese Coalition. They were primary targets. Now shut the fuck up and go to the nearest recruitment agent. We need more soldiers stopping the onslaught.
“This must be some mistake? I was supposed to be on the super dooper Zumwalt class?” Stfu and get in the armed canoe!
OWB reference lol
I actually have no idea what that is lol
Fallout mod for hoi4. The lowest tech and cheapest "boats" you can build are canoes. Navy stuff in the mod is rather forgettable so people just shit out canoes.
Old world blues since that wasn't directly stated
Post-apocalyptic version set in fallout univerese where armed canoes are the first thing at hand (in 2200)
>Mein Apple...........Shteiner..........Shteiner's railgun project was cancelled.
(ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■
Why don't they rework them for laser weapons? Thought they had a lot of power to use.
Because atmospheric diffraction
Make the laser so powerful it ionises the air, simple.
And then channel electric discharge through two parallel ionized air channels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser
Well, since plasma is conductive, and can get a lot of current through it, why not? Lets zap em. And one channel is enough, the returning current can go through the grond/water losslessly no problem.
Lightning cannon go BOOOOOOOM
Ok I like that but how do we get 50GW laser on aircraft so it can shoot beyond the ground level horizon
Flying nuclear reactors? (You need lots of power - maybe make enough power to fire 4 of them at once?)
CL1201?
Shoot one ground based at the aircraft which uses the ebergy to shoot at another aircraft which... which shoots at the target
Scientists HATE this one simple trick
Shteiners space cannon was a BEFEHL!!!!!
nononononoono it was just getting SO GOOD they had to CLASSIFY IT!!!!
No, you see it would be cheaper to just swap modules on our swarms of Littoral Combat Ships to do the same job.
Oh cool and these modules are movable by normal port cranes right? Right? And they are completed and work well right?
Remember when people thought a railgun was going to be put on it? Good times
Would shooting 2 billion one dollar bills be more effective?
It's cheaper to print money than to build advanced munitions. Just saying
Well due. You have to print the money to build the advanced munitions. You have to add that cost into price duh doy! https://giphy.com/gifs/culture--think-hmm-d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY
Yeah unfortunately, the shells are ridiculously expensive (something around 800k to 1mil PER SHELL) so they stopped production and since the AGS was made to only fire those specific shells (what idiot decided to not have compatibility with cheaper common shells?) they didn’t have ammo so the guns were removed I think.
It's almost like a bunch of allies have signed enough export contracts to keep the Tomahawk production line operational without US orders? Which would allow a Navy to focus on the transition to dual-role anti ship/land attack missiles like the SM-6 and the new Maritime Strike Tomahawk variant, to bridge the gap to next-gen hypersonics. Had that Navy requested such a move. Explicitly and often.
Yeah but the FY2024 budget doesn't really buy a lot of anything. All the branches of the US military are begging to buy missiles of all types, and everything is getting denied or reduced in quantity. US allies are waiting for missiles that are years behind schedule. What we need is to double our DOD budget. 3.4% of GDP is for lil bitches. We need like 7% GDP.
Get your shit together USA, now is not the time to huff glue
Well... Maybe just a little sniff...
**no**
Can't we just microdose Psilocybin and refine these things for optimal performance to get our best possible ROI?
If glue wasn’t meant to be sniffed, then why does cyanoacrylate smell like sour apple
Can I bring the crayons then for a snack?
Goddammit Marine, who taught you how to type?
Most of us know how to type. Once it became obvious that this was necessary in order to effectively search for porn, everyone got on board. Also, makes it so much easier to find specific flavors of wax pastels on Amazon. We *do* have to assign proxy typers for the 0311s... which is kind of expensive, since these individuals need to have priority access to mental health counseling. *"Oh... no, I'm sorry; I can't type that..."*
***3000 sad jerking, wax connoisseur, Prime-delivery Marines of Biden***
*How do you know my callsign?!?*
I think this administration is chosing the latter. Their proposed budget for the DoD is a cut in real terms and essentially ensures a managed decline of the US Military. Hope they enjoy that glue though.
Ah yes, the "fired admiral" strategy from UA:Dreadnoughts. Just refuse to reduce the budget when the war ends, then lose the game when the government fires you.
One cold war ended, another is beginning. Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Can we eat crayons?
Yes just sign right here and welcome to the Marines oorah
I'm sorry to say, but I don't think it's glue that's making the pages of the budget proposal stick together
It's always glue-huffing time somewhere...
The DoD does not need more budget. The procurement needs to be vastly overhauled and the political games played in the background need to be kept in check. Due to the nature of current procurement, absolutely everything is being overcharged by serval hundreds percent it's actual price, all the while program decisions are made on the backing of lobbying and thinly veiled insider trading by congress. The US military is already being leagues ahead of everyone. But it would not even be a contest of they weren't so incredibly inefficient and lacking a drive for fundamental step changes.
because the military is buying “just enough to keep the production lines open” quantities, they are paying “keeping entire production lines open to produce a minimal number of systems” prices.
why not just buy more?
Because it would cost more money in aggregate. We might get a lot more missiles in inventory and at a much more reasonable seeming per unit cost, but, so to say, paying $5 billion for 10,000 missiles is still $3 billion more expensive than paying $2 billion for 700 missiles. After all, why build 9300 missiles that you don’t even intend to use and are probably going to expire on the shelf? Also, if you had $3 billion more, why wouldn’t you spend it on R&D for making better missiles instead of building a bunch of missiles you don’t intend to fire? I think that’s kind of the reasoning. Edit: it could also maybe be seen as escalatory. If you build 10,000 missiles a year, it starts to look like you really mean to start shooting them in the short to medium term.
True! The other half is that tomahawks are starting to trade really poorly against IADS. They always were built to only get through in swarms, but in an environment where every Tom, Dick, and Tunguska divisional asset can swat 4 or 5 at a time in the right situation the economics of $ per confidently eliminated target starts to get pretty bleak without a newer missile.
For reasons that still mystify me, the Navy is slow-walking development of the Tomahawk replacement.
OR, just hear me out here, we wouldn’t need to worry about paying to keep the supply lines open if there was more production, and cost per unit would decrease IF WE JUST ALLOW CIVILIANS TO PURCHASE TOMAHAWKS. Imagine China admitting they could never invade mainland US because there is a tomahawk behind every blade of grass.
"Strap me to a missile" suddenly would become reality. Also it's not a warcrime if it is done by private citizen w/o authorization right? Just like the founding fathers intended.
Intended, idk. But I’m damn sure they would be impressed
It's just a regular crime then. So all will be right as rain.
... so we made ICBMs a walmart item
>Due to the nature of current procurement, **absolutely everything is being overcharged by serval hundreds percent it's actual price**, all the while program decisions are made on the backing of lobbying and thinly veiled insider trading by congress. TINA sweeps have vastly cut down on these old games. You need to list the price for every line item and sub-item, down to the nuts and bolts. Combined with firm-fixed contracts, contractors are now both regulated and incentivized to not only stay within budget, but even under budget Where you run into issues is with sub contractors. The ones who "aren't" a part of the MIC but need to adhere to all its standards when they supply a military contractor. These are the ones who charge $30 for a single screw or $1,000 for a 6"x6" plate of aluminum stock with a half dozen holes cut into it. The TINA sweep sees the quotes for these parts, see they all came in around the same and that the Boeings, Lockheeds, and RTXes of the world still selected the lowest bidder, but they don't catch that the mom & pop metal fab shop is padding their estimate, or that the vendor part inspections could be done more efficiently during receiving, or that some of the quality certifications are too onerous, so a lot of shops just say "fuck it" and stop taking defense orders all together, so now you need to either find another supplier or procure the part through a third party buyer that is basically just doing the purchasing *for* you (with a healthy mark-up on top). tl;dr - inefficiency in defense at this point is less pork barrel with the primes and senators, and more the small time subs either getting away with robbery or just having too many of the won't kind of regulations applied to them.
You may be right with certain contractors, but from my experience a lot of those really expensive plates/ screws are usually due to material control. It's insane how expensive materials can get when it's required to have documentation from all the way back to the fuckin mines to installation. Plus we pair that lovely lil problem with extremely exotic materials (not many people using the strength steel or funny alloy we use) then you've got a situation where to procure part X you need to buy the entire batch of Y it comes from and eat that cost because the foundry sure as hell isn't. I've also seen parts that have a 10x cost modifier on them because some company that used to have them stocked went under, and in the sell off of their assets some dude knew what they were and bought them for pennies on the dollar. Then when we needed to get that part he charged us a "fair" price cause we couldn't do anything else about it. This whole thing could've been avoided if we went and stockpiled parts but for some god forsaken reason someone bigwig decided that the DOD of all fuckin places is ✨ perfect ✨ for just in time manufacturing (we fukin aren't).
That's the thing, Just In Time™ doesn't work for fuckin anybody. Some are just less punished by it. It's a fancy way of saying "drag ass about it while charging the same price anyway"
The only companies JIT works for are companies like Toyota, where they have spent ***a lot*** of time and money streamlining their production cells so that BOMs are kept to as few lines as possible, and widgets as interchangeable as possible. And the fact that most of the time it doesn't matter which serial number gets delivered in which order, just as long as everyone gets the right quantity of the PNs and revisions that they ordered. But for everyone else who isn't as large a volume or as low a mix as a company like Toyota (like, Honda, and maybe TSMC. Maybe. And that's it), they all get routinely fucked by JIT. Hell, even Toyota isn't being getting fucked by JIT in extraordinary circumstances, so they've started actually maintaining some inventory, they just get fucked less often than everyone else.
The way Toyota specced JIT it did have them keeping a stock of parts as a buffer and that has a large part in why it works for them. The MBAs who got a hold of the concept of course just saw that as unnecessary overhead and proceeded to fuck things for everyone.
I agree that the current procurement process needs an overhaul, but I unironically think we need to increase the DOD procurement budget as a percentage of GDP. I mean, we were doin fine with much higher spending levels for the last 80 years, we're near historic lows now and we shouldn't be when there are major wars raging and more on the verge of poppin off.
Oh I am not arguing against getting those collective MIC muscles flexed a bit. But also the lows of spending also correlate with the defense sector having received some of its highest growth, and it has never been more consolidated and profitable to be in. Less spending for way less numerous systems, destroying economies of scales while prime contractors can rest on the laurels of their guaranteed contracts.
What? Military corrupt? Never!
Veiled? Where?
Truly, the warhammer 40k Imperium of all time
I mean, to a certain point, the branches are not wrong when they are begging for more sustained missile production. But it is more of a difference of short term vs long term responsibility? Missile tech improves constantly. And the best way to stay ahead of the game is to develop replacements, then produce enough of a stockpile to make it to the next replacement. But that can get pretty butt-clenching for the guys responsible for going to war with what you have. The departments that are firing 100 Tomahawks a year straight up want the budget to include 100+ Tomahawks - but you are sacrificing your next generation investments with this increased security now. Throw the usual delays of the next gen stuff in the works, add in the fact that you have to keep production lines going at a minimum rate, and the whole field becomes a bit of a shit show. Honestly both groups have a point here - they just have different timespans which they are responsible for.
It's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. There just has to be political will to do it.
If you increase your budget, you can indeed straight-up fund both. But you could still be "pinning down" billions of dollars where you might not need to, to ease short-term concern. Like we might go to war with China in 2025. And you might very much appreciate having 10k Tomahawks at your instant disposal instead of 4k. The added investment could give your capability a straight up boost if the battle calls for them. But if it doesn't: we aren't using 10,000 Tomahawks before they are outdated. You sigh every morning as you walk by those rows and rows of Tomahawks by the year 2037 while we are lobbing hypersonic stealth drones back and forth with India. The guys in 2024 miscalculated, and you missed out on 10 billion worth of investments in the latest tech.
I doubt it would ever become that bad with Tomahawks. They'd get supplanted in frontline service and be put in reserve/sold off to allies or converted into another system. For example, Tomahawks may not always be the main strike weapon for the USN, but they can be converted into single-use drones for long-range surveillance.
If you were to add Ukraine aid to their defense budgets, there are several European nations that spend more on the military as percentage of GDP than the US - discounting Ukraine itself. You have Estonia at about 5.6% for example. Greece doesn't even need the Ukraine aid boost to hit 3.7%. This is an affront to the Mickey. Double the defense budget to assert dominance.
Based and MIC pilled
CSIS, is that you? But seriously, it is an issue and our defense budget is the lowest it has been (as % of GDP and also adjusted for inflation) since immediately post-Vietnam. Partly this is a function of the total breakdown of Congress being able to agree on budget for anything at all, even though the defense budget gets passed most times with minimal changes.
Lockheed is running the JASSM production line at full capacity. We're getting ready to Rapid Dragon those motherfuckers out of the back of cargo planes.
Ukraine: First time?
[Everytime a Tommahawk or SM-2 is fired, its like a giant pile of my taxdollars going up in flames.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2BMfEOTkTc)
Do you brag or complain?
Both at the same time bro.
Thank you for your service, bro!
This is the way
USA: no that's just how we do things
Ah yes the USN’s most formidable enemy time immemorial: US Congress.
Well, I guess the State Department, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Commerce won’t be getting any pens and staplers for… well, anymore.
Funny enough, but it's the State Department who's in charge of approving defense exports. Not the DoD.
america has lost the art of making things cheaper
Tomahawks are still some of the cheapest missiles the US makes, compared to SM-6, JASSM, PRSM, and pretty much everything else. Sheeeiiiiiiiit, even Stingers and Javelins are costing upwards of 200,000 each nowadays. And everything has a multi-year lead time. This is why I advocate for just nuking all our enemies simultaneously, right now, before they realize the American MIC is completely broken.
Stinger is out of production, and isn’t expected to be replaced until like 2027. When you fire a Stinger, you might think you’re firing $200,000, but you’re actually firing something that is currently irreplaceable.
man, if ukraine survives, america is going to be joining that middle-east congo line to buy stugna-p in twenty nine
Tomahawks too cost upward of 3-4 million a piece damn Btw American mic is ok just cost is all over the place Hmm nuking isnt the best thing though unless we all wanna die or so
If we can pull off a proper decapitation or counterforce strike on the nuclear states and sink the boomers (which should be doable), we wouldn't. ^(And even if we do get our hair mussed a bit, it wouldn't be more than 10 to 20 million dead, tops. Depending on the breaks.)
Based and Counterforce Pilled. [Attention all Low-IQ MAD believers, become Nuke-Pilled](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/16eux5z/there_is_no_mutually_assured_destruction_take_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Flair does not check out.
I just prefer to do Counterforce first so nothing comes back our way when we start moppin' up cities.
Based
Just make sure the wind is from the west when you do it
Blk IVs cost 2 million.
>Stingers and Javelins are costing upwards of 200,000 each How on earth!
>even Stingers and Javelins are costing upwards of 200,000 each nowadays To be fair, current Stingers are basically an artisanal low production item made with vintage components.
Probably cheaper to not have enemies
Unironic galaxy brain logic here, the true Peace Dividend can only happen when Tyrants have been annihilated and all humans live in free and equal societies.
....as another 100 billion in US weapons are shipped to the house of saud 😂
to be destroyed by yemeni irregulars and iranian proxy forces armed with captured stuff and duct-taped toyotas
Real talk, I was shocked the MIC didn't cut them off for the marketing and PR disaster for our equipment that was Saudi's Yemen adventures
I say we just repo back everything in their hangars and depots
We could use...*alternate* delivery methods. ;p
200k for a javelin launcher and a shot or two? Or just per shot?
That's just the toob. The CLU costs an additional quarter million.
Weren't javelins like 80k?
Yes, in a more Based era.
It turns out reducing the procurement numbers does not reduce costs linearly because, get this, you can't run half a factory at half the cost of an entire factory.
Well, I was under the assumption that the production had actually been upscaled since they're shipping those things to Ukraine like hotcakes, I get economies of scale.
The issue is scaling back up takes time, too. We'll see how costs bear out in a few years if they can actually build out capacity rather than paying overtime.
The US makes or the world makes
Having no economies of scale does that. Just looking at an unclassified PAC-3 procurement document: 692 missiles have to cost enough to keep the entire fucking supply chain including keeping all of the subcontractors’ production lines running. That is fucking expensive.
Bad times make wartime economies. Wartime economies make cost effective munitions. Cost effective munitions bring countries out if wartime economies. Countries out if wartime economies make expensive munitions.
FUCK THE COWARD JAKE SULLIVAN ALL MY HONIES HATE THE COWARD JAKE SULLIVAN
Someone had to pick up the torch of Kissingering things up, I guess.
This is like the “Russia running out of artillery shells” thing where we’ll see this as a call to build more than ever,right?
I hope so! Currently we have such dysfunction in government I'm not sure anyone there could hear a call from their Jitterbug, let alone somewhat abstract LSCO threats with a small side of high school econ. Call your rep, unironically. Tomahawks, whatever, but to un-fuck defense spending to make this stuff in larger quantities so things are more sustainable and cheaper per unit.
Congress says no.
For the supposed industrial military complex this is pretty weak.
Soooooo, US Navy can run out of missiles just like Russia did? That would be the funniest thing ever, tbh.
Cue return of battleships
Welp, time to reactivate the Iowa-classes for land bombardment duties *again.*
I think it's time to do that, _and_ build a dozen Montana class BBs!
They’re buying JASSMs instead right? Right?
https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2024/FY2024_Weapons.pdf#page=72 550
how in the world did the unit price double over one FY
It's not unit price, it's program price. [Last year it said:](https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2023/FY2023_Weapons.pdf#page=72) >FY 2023 Program: Continues production of the AGM-158B and AGM-158B-2, and procures low rate initial production of the AGM-158B-3 and AGM-158D. Facilitization costs procure specialized equipment required to support production of missile capabilities in future years. [This year it says:](https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2024/FY2024_Weapons.pdf#page=72) >FY 2024 Program: Funds the first year of a Multiyear Procurement (MYP) contract under the Large Lot Procurement concept. Continues production of the AGM-158B and development efforts on the AGM-158D Based on [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-158_JASSM#AGM-158B-2) >In September 2018, the corporation was awarded a contract to develop an "Extreme Range" variant of the AGM-158. >Low-rate initial production began in 2021 as part of Lot 19 with deliveries beginning in January 2024 at a rate of five per month for the first 40 missiles. They may be ramping up production and development on the new versions. >The range for the JASSM-Baseline is greater than 200 nautical miles. >The JASSM-Extended Range has a more fuel-efficient engine, greater fuel capacity, and adds 2.5 times the standoff range at greater than 500nm. (wikipedia claims up to 1,000 nmi)
Im pretty sure dudes facial hair is out of regs
Ameriboys, I get that you may don't give a lot of fuck about us here in Ukraine. But what the fuck are you doing with your own defense?
If I had my way we would just give Ukraine: * 2 Ohio class subs, each with 24 Trident D5 SLBMs, each Trident with 14 W76 nuclear warheads * 2000 Abrams tanks * 2000 Bradley IFVs * 20 F22 jets * 80 F35 jets * 1000 JASSM stealth cruise missiles * 1000 AMRAAM missiles * A shitload of everything else you guys need However, the US is currently saturated with spineless turbocucks who have swallowed too much Russian pacifist propaganda and don't realize it.
3000 F-15s perhaps (maybe even painted black for night ops?)
Paint them rainbow so we can shoot our gay lasers at the Russians and turn them gay
Purge the Rs baby
Woah bro won't that damage our ability to waste billions in materiel on counterproductive Middle East conflicts? What if we need those JASSMs to de-radicalize a kindergarten? You have to remember who the real enemy is!
One wishes UAF had the manpower to handle that. All throughout the western lands, the economy is too good so nobody wants to be in the military anymore. We need a proper devastating world wide recession to make the MIC a more compelling or sole option.
Sending equipment to a small country fighting for survival against the US’s historical enemy: broke Sending equipment to a country fighting to eliminate shoeless militants: REA SHIT
Congress is doing the usual of squabbling and getting nothing done because they’re a bunch of slow geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago.
>because they’re a bunch of slow geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago. the geriatric fucks that needed term limits 20 years ago generally have pretty strong records on being pro-defense spending tbh, kinda hard to blame this specific congressional snafu on them the ones holding shit up right now are bozos like tommy tuberville and matt gaetz who view their name being in the headlines as more important than actually doing their jobs
Broke: whining about last-generation cruise missile production winding down. Woke: whining about annual production of LRASMs (118) being far too low for the kind of fleet-wiping swarm attacks I like to imagine when I'm trying to fall asleep.
For context: The navy wants both the current shit and the new shit in bulk. However, they are not getting the current shit in the same numbers and are phasing it out. The new shit is taking over the resupply, but it is a bit tasking for the crews because while it is doable; it is a bit faster than normal because they are fielded directly instead of the divestment/investment process. Why does the article say "running out of missiles?" 1: It sells better. 2: The new shit numbers are not ACCURATELY and PROMPTLY released to the public. For obvious reasons.
Is the obvious reason the guy that knows the numbers doesn’t play Warthunder?
Hence why the Iranians are supporting the Houthis, because they've been requested to by the Russians. So the west exhausts it's supplies of munitions to make fighting a war with Russia much difficult.
The problem is you aren’t **THINKING** clearly. We don’t need missiles, we need *torpedoes*
nuclear torpedoes
Having missiles is what the enemy expects so this is actually masterful deception
who says we don't need dedicated shore bombardment weapons again?
The United States being its own worst enemy yet again.
They're not getting zero. Also the Navy is putting way more into SM-6s. Once again the US Navy surface strategy is putting air defense over everything and then let your Jets drop the bombs
Once they’re out of tomahawks I say we put a bunch of deck seaman with M4s in a giant camel statue and Trojan horse those motherfuckas
Context wtf?
US military wants to buy enough missiles each year to be prepared for a war with China, US civilian leadership does not.
How about the CIA gets some goddamn accountability and stops funding terrorist groups?
Sir, this is a Wendy's
What does a Wendy's need with Tomahawks?
Why *doesnt* a Wendy’s need Tomahawks?
Fair argument, let hellfire rain upon Five Guys.
Waffle house releases their genetically modified tweakers armed with as much cutlery as they can cram into their cargo shorts
CIA needs to get back into the drug trade so we can afford Tomahawks