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You have only very vague understanding of how our government works. First, they will not contract this to some startup or anything, but instead the company that

by 0xbear 9y ago

You have only very vague understanding of how our government works. First, they will not contract this to some startup or anything, but instead the company that does the periscope will do it. Then there are reams of regulations to follow, an everything the contractor does will be the most expensive option available because they charge percentage of “cost”, and the higher the cost, the more money they make. I would be stunned if in the end this ends up being cheaper than just manufacturing the designs that already exist.

microcolonel 9y ago
> First, they will not contract this to some startup or anything, but instead the company that does the periscope will do it. Wouldn't they contract Microsoft to do it, since it's their own design? Even by DoD standards, Microsoft is not a "startup". I know that there are 360 controllers used in the field already (not sure about Navy). Even if they have different standards, what you're describing probably couldn't be done anyway; the periscope controller company is probably not equipped to do the beautiful consumer goods injection moldings and precision joystick assembly (and calibration). If they tried to do this, it would likely end up costing more, and as diabolical as I think the military procurement contracting process is, I don't think they would do this specific thing unless it saved money or appeared to save money. What exactly is stopping them from working with Microsoft (who they already contract with all the time!); at most having a U.S. PCB run, and a U.S. IC tapeout (IBM, Intel, ...), and calling it a day?
- 0xbear 9y ago
  The periscope company will just CNC it out of a solid block of titanium then. Microsoft wouldn’t want their business. It’s a relatively small amount of money for very large amount of pain in the rear. And even if they did want DoDs business, DoD wouldn’t deal with them directly, instead they’d subcontract them through one of those giant contracting companies with “Federal” in their name.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > DoD wouldn’t deal with them directly Why wouldn't they deal with them directly? They already do! I understand being cynical, but you have to admit you're making a satire of this system, no matter how ridiculous it is in reality.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      I’m not being cynical, I’m speaking from direct experience. Satire, as it turns out, is not quite as inventive as government bureaucrats.
    - amigoingtodie 9y ago
      I waa not aware the DoD directly purchases hardware from Microsoft.
- azernik 9y ago
  The article specifically mentions that Lockheed is handling the integration.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
matt4077 9y ago
Military procurement is indeed not the most perfect process ever invented, but it's not quite the insane caricature this and other comments make it out to be. The costs-plus accounting scheme is meant to save money. It can just as well be described as "the manufacturer charges the costs plus a fixed (single-digit) percentage of costs. This limits the contractor's margins to the agreed-upon percentage." And of course the contractors' accounting is routinely scrutinised and all costs need justification. Remember the famous quote from the Apollo Program: "300,000 moving parts, all supplied by the cheapest bidder". NASA procurement, especially back then, was closely modelled on the military–and the contractors were largely the same as well.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Explain then why our f35 program costs $1.5 trillion and counting.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    Because it's a massive program that required several technologies that were never used in production aircraft be made production ready with expensive state of the art technology and deliver a result that has acceptable performance for a wide range of users with a wide range of use cases. It was pretty obvious from day 1 that this would be expensive af. Being cutting edge is always expensive af.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      There’s nobody more cutting edge than NASA, and its budget _since inception_ is still less than this. There’s expensive and then there’s wiping my ass with hundred dollar bills expensive.

by 0xbear 9y ago

microcolonel 9y ago

> First, they will not contract this to some startup or anything, but instead the company that does the periscope will do it. Wouldn't they contract Microsoft to do it, since it's their own design? Even by DoD standards, Microsoft is not a "startup". I know that there are 360 controllers used in the field already (not sure about Navy). Even if they have different standards, what you're describing probably couldn't be done anyway; the periscope controller company is probably not equipped to do the beautiful consumer goods injection moldings and precision joystick assembly (and calibration). If they tried to do this, it would likely end up costing more, and as diabolical as I think the military procurement contracting process is, I don't think they would do this specific thing unless it saved money or appeared to save money. What exactly is stopping them from working with Microsoft (who they already contract with all the time!); at most having a U.S. PCB run, and a U.S. IC tapeout (IBM, Intel, ...), and calling it a day?

0xbear 9y ago
The periscope company will just CNC it out of a solid block of titanium then. Microsoft wouldn’t want their business. It’s a relatively small amount of money for very large amount of pain in the rear. And even if they did want DoDs business, DoD wouldn’t deal with them directly, instead they’d subcontract them through one of those giant contracting companies with “Federal” in their name.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > DoD wouldn’t deal with them directly Why wouldn't they deal with them directly? They already do! I understand being cynical, but you have to admit you're making a satire of this system, no matter how ridiculous it is in reality.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    I’m not being cynical, I’m speaking from direct experience. Satire, as it turns out, is not quite as inventive as government bureaucrats.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    I waa not aware the DoD directly purchases hardware from Microsoft.
azernik 9y ago
The article specifically mentions that Lockheed is handling the integration.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

matt4077 9y ago

Military procurement is indeed not the most perfect process ever invented, but it's not quite the insane caricature this and other comments make it out to be. The costs-plus accounting scheme is meant to save money. It can just as well be described as "the manufacturer charges the costs plus a fixed (single-digit) percentage of costs. This limits the contractor's margins to the agreed-upon percentage." And of course the contractors' accounting is routinely scrutinised and all costs need justification. Remember the famous quote from the Apollo Program: "300,000 moving parts, all supplied by the cheapest bidder". NASA procurement, especially back then, was closely modelled on the military–and the contractors were largely the same as well.

0xbear 9y ago
Explain then why our f35 program costs $1.5 trillion and counting.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Because it's a massive program that required several technologies that were never used in production aircraft be made production ready with expensive state of the art technology and deliver a result that has acceptable performance for a wide range of users with a wide range of use cases. It was pretty obvious from day 1 that this would be expensive af. Being cutting edge is always expensive af.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    There’s nobody more cutting edge than NASA, and its budget _since inception_ is still less than this. There’s expensive and then there’s wiping my ass with hundred dollar bills expensive.