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Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)
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The article makes a few correct points, but misses a few things as well.
It is certainly not wrong that we have a procurement and manufacturing issue. Being a Western democracy, we have so many checks and balances in the system that I have long believed that we are better off accepting the risk of some corruption in order to save money and time. General Milley hit the headlines a few years ago when he complained that we were spending way too much time and money to select a pistol.
We want peacetime regulations, you get peacetime acquisitions timelines. Even during WW2, there was political controversy over the mechanism that the military used to develop and procure equipment. Interwar processes were thrown out, and issues like favouring big contractors over small businesses caused Congressmen to complain. The military didn't care. They needed equipment, they needed it now, and the economy had better figure itself out.
The process is being changed. From last week.
In terms of mass production of UAS for the US military, Army Futures Command held a panel last year specifically on point. Vertex is a recurring brainstorming session linking military and industry. Timestamped to about 2:35.
There are two parts to the problem. The first is simply that China can make the things cheaper than the US can. Though that applies for almost everything China makes. The second is the rate of generational change. To equip something the size of the US military will take time. Even once the decision to hit the 'manufacture this' button is made, every few months there seems to be a generational change in the unmanned sphere. It's not a problem for Ukraine or Russia, their drones are being expended as fast as they can be produced, but the US would end up with a stockpile of stuff which would be obsolete almost immediately upon completion of delivery. Believe it or not, even China has this problem. So another part of the problem is figuring out how to 'future-proof' a design.
Fortunately, to a point, this isn't much of a problem anyway. The article correctly observes that the funding is going to counter-UAS. The military has fielding well in hand of the first generation of air defense (See M-LIDS, MADIS, APKWS, Sgt Stout) with multiple additional capabilities coming in the relatively near future. They're better off than many countries. The US military does not really need drones on the same scale as Ukraine to accomplish its mission, there is likely no better conventional warfighting force on the planet and it has assets and capabilities do accomplish many of the same effects which neither Russia nor Ukraine has. What it does need to do is deny adversaries the ability to use their drones to asymmetrically address the conventional force imbalance. In the worst case scenario, if the US has no new drones, and the opposition's drones are mitigated, then it's back to being a 'traditional' war. Of course, the US does have an offensive drone program, both for ISR and offensive effects, but they are going to be an enhancement to US capabilities, not a primary force in and of themselves. As such, there is less of a priority on them, and there is only so much in the budget.
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Hang on a minute. The text says "NATO’s Rutte reveals Russia now churns out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, and 200 Iskanders in 3 months—"
But Rutte says 1500 tanks* etc, THIS YEAR. Ukraine says they are destroying 3000 tanks per year on average so they are easily destroying them as they come off the production line.
*and twice as many armored fighting vehicles.
Post edited by zv2 onIt looks like history is starting up again.
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