8 ms·
The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up
- pinewurst 3y agohttps://archive.ph/5FTdB https://archive.ph/5FTdB
- bell-cot 3y agoAh, the [cough] wisdom of [gag] outsourcing mission-critical military activities to private enterprise. If you look at history - the British Crown started making their own gunpowder at the Tower of London, in the middle of the 13th Century. The British Board of Ordnance was formally constituted in 1683, by HRM King Charles the Second. And if you look at the more-recent era, when the US started shutting down most of its own government armories, arsenals, etc. - that happened fairly shortly after the old tradition of leading American families having their sons (at least the ones who wanted to becomes notable leaders themselves) serve in the military faded away. If you no longer have any skin in the game...
- diegoholiveira 3y agoI’m not convinced that outsourcing it to private enterprise is bad. Outsourcing it overseas, that’s a really big issue.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nordsieck 3y ago> I’m not convinced that outsourcing it to private enterprise is bad. Counterpoint: In every war that involves a substantial conventional component, there has been a huge ammunition shortage. Even though people know this, the phenomenon still exists. Private industry isn't going to maintain huge "burst" capacity. It's simply completely uneconomical. It's possible that a sort of public-private partnership could exist where the government pays companies to maintain huge excess capacity, but I don't really see a substantial difference between that and the government just owning everything. And it's important that this excess capacity gets used often, otherwise there's a big risk that it won't work when it's eventually called upon. Which isn't to say that there's no place for private enterprise to supply ammunition to the government. Just that it probably shouldn't be the only source.
- diegoholiveira 3y ago> Private industry isn't going to maintain huge "burst" capacity. IMO, private industry produces, the government buys and store it. I'm thinking wrongly here?
- 0zemp2c 3y ago> Private industry isn't going to maintain huge "burst" capacity. It's simply completely uneconomical. not in the US, many ammo providers have substantially expanded production in response to civilian demand, and only recently have prices come down so if you limit your worldview to 9mm and .556, the US is far more capable of producing in volume than anywhere, perhaps well beyond the rest-of-the-world
- akiselev 3y agoBased on what happened with the Strategic National Stockpile [1] right before COVID hit, I don’t have much confidence in government run capacity either: > From 2017 to 2019, the Trump administration failed to replace masks and other supplies used in earlier disasters. In May 2020, in a House subcommittee meeting, whistle-blower Dr. Rick Bright, previous director of Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, explained that the Trump administration had ignored his early warnings to stock up on masks and other supplies to combat the coronavirus. I’d like to think that we’ve learned our lesson with COVID and we can blame it all on the-administration-that-must-not-be-named but that’s naive. The supply problem has been growing in magnitude for decades and is likely caused in part by the same policies that lead to anticonsumer consolidation in the rest of the market. Bring back trust busting! [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_National_Stockpile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_National_Stockpile
- jacquesm 3y agoOne problem with masks is that they are statically charged and that charge depletes pretty rapidly. So it's not as if you can create a bunch of stock for 'some unspecified time in the future', you'll have to continuously renew it at that level every couple of months. This is certainly going to raise eyebrows if there isn't a demand for a longer period of time and someone figures they can cut that cost without impacting safety. Which works. Right up until the next pandemic and then you're back where you were before. This sort of vigilance is very costly and it is hard to get everybody to agree on the appropriate level over time.
- sologoub 3y agoCost cutting combined with mismanagement at work here. As the saying goes - two is one, one is none… It would make sense to pay for at least 3 or more of these to be open (privately or military operated) at any given time. Hopefully the military have a plan for a rapid buildup in case of an acute need.
- pjc50 3y agoPrivate companies will no longer discriminate against overseas staffing or, perhaps more importantly, ownership.
- biohax2015 3y agoNo way. Military contractors are barred from hiring overseas, or giving up ownership stakes to overseas entities. It's why they're great places to work if job security is your thing.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoThe US doesn't allow critical military production infrastructure to be foreign owned.
- slowhand09 3y agoLook at every computer monitor on every military desk. I bet it says "Made in ____".
- throwaway52407 3y agothe military computers I've seen are typically from Dell, an american company. Manuafacturing is probably foreign, though.
- slowhand09 3y ago4 Dell monitors on my desk were made in China.
- Bran_son 3y agoA different perspective: This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address, 1961 https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwigh...
- slowhand09 3y agoThat should also be weighed when decisions highly dependent on products such as petroleum, lithium, cobalt...
- FpUser 3y agoI see the following problem here. When the war starts citizens are forced to tighten the belts. Military industry meanwhile gets rich so they're inherently supportive of wars.
- rjsw 3y agoRoyal Ordnance was privatized in 1987, most of the factories have closed now. The UK had problems sourcing enough ammunition for Iraq and Afghanistan.
- simonh 3y agoIn the west almost all but a small fraction of military procurement is satisfied by private industry. That was just as true in WW2 as it is today. The question is how you manage that.
- SnaggyJoker 3y agoThat's one of the major unspoken reasons of why "too big to fail" corporations are bailed out. They're also often used to supply things the government wants such as n95 masks during the pandemic.
- bell-cot 3y agoAt the height of a massive modern war, yes. But look at (say) the histories of most of the weapons used in WWII. How many of the major small arms, artillery pieces, guns, tanks, warships, etc. of WWII were developed directly by the government, in-house, and then produced at scale during the war at government armories?
- 0zemp2c 3y agohttps://www.jmc.army.mil/About.aspx?id=About https://www.jmc.army.mil/About.aspx?id=About lists the DoD munitions sites
- bell-cot 3y agoYes...but at the bottom of that web page - "JMC employs 21 military personnel, more than 5,000 Army civilian personnel and more than 6,000 contractors nationwide throughout the organic industrial base." So more contractors (head count of corporations) than army folks (head count of humans)? Sounds like the Army's side of it amounts to little more than "Purchasing Dept." and "Warehouse". :(
- jerf 3y agoThe problem here would not seem to be the outsourcing, but the single-sourcing. That's entirely on the purchaser; whether they single-source it from a single private contractor or a single-source internal government provider isn't going to change anything, the problem is you need multiple sources. A large purchaser may well have to go out of their way to ensure that too. No good having three sources for your gunpowder if they're all pulling the raw materials from the same single point of failure.
- ericmay 3y ago> American families having their sons (at least the ones who wanted to becomes notable leaders themselves) serve in the military faded away. If you no longer have any skin in the game... I think we can see this expressed in the decline of architecture and new, grand, important public works projects. Why build everlasting institutions and monuments to mankind's glory when you can buy a second yacht? Really disappointing.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoYou are cherry-picking. By the end of WWII, Ford motor company was making 650 B-24 Liberators every month. https://www.thehenryford.org/artifact/229817/ https://www.thehenryford.org/artifact/229817/
- Ancapistani 3y ago> If you look at history - the British Crown started making their own gunpowder at the Tower of London, in the middle of the 13th Century. The British Board of Ordnance was formally constituted in 1683, by HRM King Charles the Second. This is true, but is far more about the scarcity of saltpeter at the time than anything else.
- bell-cot 3y agoSo if gunpowder is 75% saltpeter, and His Royal Majesty wished to have a plentiful & reliable supply of gunpowder, then ... (I don't know about the sulfur situation back then, but charcoal - the 3rd ingredient in gunpowder - could hardly be in short supply.)
- sachdevs 3y agoKinda shocking the lack of redundancy here
- Clubber 3y ago>Today, it is a specialty commodity with few commercial applications—mostly for rocket hobbyists—but it’s still used in more than 300 munitions, from cruise missiles, to bullets for M16 rifles, to the vital 155mm shells. I don't know about the others, but M16 rifle rounds don't use black powder, they use modern smokeless powder. By modern, I mean invented in 1884. I would be surprised if any of those other things mentioned use black powder. The author seems to think black powder is all gunpowder but it isn't. Black powder is reserved for old guns that can't handle modern powder that were made before the late 1800s, early 1900s. There is a classification of hunting rifle called muzzle loaders that also use it, but they are niche. It's also used in fireworks, that's why they are so smokey. When you see a movie where they depict an old battle where there are huge plumes of smoke coming out of the rifles or muskets, that's black powder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder Here's what black powder looks like when used in a firearm. https://www.saobserver.net/community/in-photos-monashee-mountain-men-black-powder-shoot/ https://www.saobserver.net/community/in-photos-monashee-moun...
- berkle4455 3y agoNow if St Marks Powder in Tallahassee blew up, we’d have an actual problem.
- dsfyu404ed 3y agoI assume they're talking about trace amounts being used in primers and detonators.
- Clubber 3y agoI thought that might be it, but primers use lead styphnate. https://www.virtusammo.com/primers-101-how-are-ammunition-primers-are-made/#:~:text=A%20primer%20is%20constructed%20of,the%20anvil%2C%20is%20set%20in https://www.virtusammo.com/primers-101-how-are-ammunition-pr....
- Chrontius 3y agoLead-free primers are a thing. The US military prefers to minimize lead wherever reasonably feasible, because the VA is expensive, and when they have to pay to clean up their ranges during routine maintenance, extremely high amounts of lead dramatically increases the price of this scheduled maintenance. Their primary objective is still to close with and destroy the enemy, so if they still need to use lead or uranium to get the job done, the mission comes first. But if they can save money by using lead-free training ammo, that's more money they can spend on training the troops and ammo for them to practice with. And more money to issue everybody a bazooka of some flavor or another, as Ukraine is demonstrating is a really useful idea right about now. Remember: Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics!
- jschveibinz 3y agoIf your job includes risk management-i.e. you could be terminated over it-then please make sure to look through every thread of the operation and identify all of the single points of failure. Then, find a redundant solution for each.
- dsfyu404ed 3y agoI get that this sort of headline makes for a great circle jerk but let's be real here, the military isn't as stupid as HN likes to imply. Rife with perverse incentives that keep things from being done ideally? Yes, but not stupid. The military is also rife with ass-covering careerists so if some nobody on HN can think of a way they can do it better then someone in the system has almost certainly thought about it and looked into it and sent out an email letting everybody know about it. The fact that they're only buying something from one of their suppliers doesn't mean they can't get it from another with less lead time than their stockpile. This goes for a whole class of products. Typically if you are a contractor or a sub contractor and you are the only source for a unique product that can't easily be substituted you're required to provide a sufficient technical data package such that someone else could make the same stuff. If this factory was really a serious priority it would a) be redundant b) be fixed already. Because some careerist would have sniffed out the brownie points and then made sure it got done and that they got credit. It's also possible that there's internal politics involved and letting it turn into a dumpster fire is being done on purpose in order to make the situation get remediated in a specific way.
- throwaway1492 3y ago> The military is also rife with ass-covering careerists This is true, and I believe it's nigh impossible for a normal person to understand the level of politics and fuckery that goes on at all levels of the military; hence the down votes!
- bell-cot 3y agoGuess: Most folks on HN realize that "the military", in the sense of "the current general and admirals", have damn little influence over these outsourcing, single-sourcing, etc. decisions. That is mostly controlled by Congress, via the budget purse-strings. And Congress in term is mostly controlled by...
- dsfyu404ed 3y ago>Most folks on HN realize that "the military", in the sense of "the current general and admirals", have damn little influence over these outsourcing, single-sourcing, etc. decisions. That is mostly controlled by Congress, I think your claim is way to optimistic in light of the fact there are other people claiming that the LCS boondoggle is the fault of faulty procurement and not Congress.
- SubiculumCode 3y agoThis is frustrating to square with the large military expenditures we make in this country. What is the use of the most advanced weaponry if you cannot produce them yourself when shit hits the fan?
- slowhand09 3y agoIf only we had some sort of national leader saying "Made in America" is good...
- mrguyorama 3y agoYou mean the one selling hats and other memorabilia made in china?
- slowhand09 3y agoIncorrect information. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/08/fact-check-trump-campaigns-official-maga-hats-made-america/5658106002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/08/fac...
- SubiculumCode 3y agoYou mean both the current and last president? Our military strategic leaders well know the predicament, and have been pulling back outsourcing of strategic necessities. Look at their actions, not the bluster. And for factual information, try The Truth of the Matter podcast by CSIS.
- slowhand09 3y agoThanks, I just semi-retired from DoD.
- throwaway52407 3y agohttps://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/management/made-in-america/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/management/made-in-america/
- ARandomerDude 3y ago> The U.S. Military Relies on One Louisiana Factory. It Blew Up In June of 2021. That doesn't invalidate some of the concerns expressed here about redundancy but it also isn't the "oh f!" moment you may have gathered from the headline.
- phpisthebest 3y agoWhen it comes to defense spending this is abnormal Most of the time they want to put the supply chain across as many congressional districts as possible to make it politically hard to close any program as it would "cut jobs" in more districts much hard to cut spending if 10,000 jobs across 250 districts are impacted, then if 10,000 job across 5 districts are impacted
- wmf 3y agoThis factory isn't the supply chain; it's one small part. It's probably in Louisiana in the first place to satisfy that district's rep.
- Chrontius 3y agoFrom the article, they moved to Louisiana for the humid climate, which prevents static electricity buildup and reduces the risk of the whole plant blowing itself sky-high.
- brightball 3y agoThat has always been my understanding as well. The DoD would insist production be spread across multiple companies. Additionally, why in the world is this even public knowledge?
- phpisthebest 3y ago>>Additionally, why in the world is this even public knowledge? Why would it not be. Government Secrecy should be opposed by anyone that wants a free society You can not have a "Government for the people by the people" if the government is allowed to keep secrets from the people. Nor can voters properly select and hold representatives accountable if those people do not know what the government is doing We have a MASSIVE problem with government secrecy right now, too much of what the government does, especially in military and "intelligence" is deemed to be "secret" for "national security". We need to be clawing back the power to hid things, and making more and more activity transparent, not hiding more
- ESQBOJaguar 3y agoAs someone who was in the military, in this exact field, we are trained on the importance, nay, necessity of redundancies. Interesting how those at the top never follow the directives/lessons they put out.
- boringg 3y agoFeels like factorio after a successful biter raid.
- more_corn 3y agoI think we can all agree that single-sourcing critical materials is bad.
- syngrog66 3y agorelated to a bigger risk I see for the US. if the US gets into a war with China its going to hurt us massively. We're heavily dependent on them now during peace time as it is -- and all those two-way flows can stop in war. and they have much greater ship building capacity.
- Chrontius 3y agoWe have much greater ship sinking capacity. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children have even practiced putting truck-mounted launchers on the decks of under-armed ships and using them from that platform; in tests, I believe it worked well. I'm not the only one who has doubts about Chinese missiles, both their numbers and their performance. I think it's probable that only the high end of their systems will work, and of that, the precision components will all have to be made in Russia because the extreme precision and insensitivity required of missile guidance systems is silly hard to get right. Low-tier systems don't need precision parts to work acceptably, so they'll have plenty of that. But all the medium-tier stuff like Harpoon equivalents will be hamstrung by a lack of Russian parts because they're a little … ah, distracted right now by current events.