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They refer to titanium metal, not the ore, as being an expensive and rare metal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium

• pfdietz 5y ago
  If they meant not much is produced, that can hardly be an objection to its use, as it's always possible to scale up production.
  • redis_mlc 5y ago
    Not affordably. Titanium ore is expensive and slow to refine. More importantly, it's insanely expensive to machine, especially large parts. I would argue that the US military is at a disadvantage in using titanium and composite airframes, since the production rate is glacial compared to aluminum, which can be easily stamped.
  • kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    But then the production of something else would have had to suffer.
  • lazide 5y ago
    It is incredibly energy intensive to produce, as in makes Aluminum seem easy. There are many issues with the Russian economy around effective scaling of things, and while there was a time where massive amounts of electricity were easy to get and use, that time has passed and much of the infrastructure that produced it in the past is rotting and failing.