4 ms·
I agree that the procurement system is dysfunctional, because of dynamics unrelated to suitability, but there are (at least) another two things in play: 1. Nob
by jacques_chester 9y ago
I agree that the procurement system is dysfunctional, because of dynamics unrelated to suitability, but there are (at least) another two things in play:
1. Nobody really knows what you'll need until the fighting starts.
2. Once the fighting starts, the necessities of wartime production begin to dominate the necessities of peacetime politics.
But frankly, I hope never to find out whether the USA's carriers are necessary, sufficient or useful in a roughly-equal bunfight.
(edited for wording)
- nradov 9y agoAny potential future naval conflict will be over one way or another long before any new ships are built. The construction lead time on those vessels is years.
- jacques_chester 9y agoGranted, but as WW2 demonstrated, there are industrial learning curves and economies of scale that can take you from months per ship to ships per month. Not a perfect analogy in the details, but I think reasonable in the dynamics.
- nradov 9y agoNo this is impossible. Ships today are an order of magnitude more complex than in WW2. And there is very little spare industrial capacity capable of doing the specialized work necessary.
- jacques_chester 9y agoYou're assuming that when total industrial wars begin, everyone decides to fight with only and exactly what they started with. That capacity never increases, that there are no learning curves. From our sample set of n=1, this isn't realistic. Production would rise, by hook or by crook. If it ran long enough, you'd see carriers coming off the docks every month or two, with their battle groups completely filled. Again, I hope we never find out.
- nradov 9y agoYou simply don't understand how shipbuilding works. Regardless of urgency or funding it takes years to scale up production. By the time that happened, any possible large-scale conflict between advanced near-peer adversaries would be long over. Modern weapons are just too accurate and destructive to make long wars of attrition possible any more. Within a few months one side or the other would suffer crippling losses and then have to decide between surrendering or going out in a blaze of nukes.
- jacques_chester 9y agoI agree with the long lead times, I don't agree that the length of lead and breadth of capacity would grow very slowly. > Modern weapons are just too accurate and destructive to make long wars of attrition possible any more. I think this I agree with and it renders the rest of the argument moot.