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Ballpoint pen TIPS. Which BTW USA _still_ DOESN'T produce - not can't (distinction important) just like PRC didn't want (again, not can't) to produce tips unti

Ballpoint pen TIPS. Which BTW USA _still_ DOESN'T produce - not can't (distinction important) just like PRC didn't want (again, not can't) to produce tips until 2017. Prior to 2017, only Switzerland, Japan made ballpoint tips. Reason PRC ended up making ballpoint tips was premiere used tips as proxy for scaling up precision manufacturing of tungsten carbide for advanced munitions. Which they did in about a year, because PRC focusing state capacity pretty good at demonlishing moats. In this case they got state metallurgical factory (TISCO) with revenue with $15 billion to divert (waste) their massive resources to make some ballpoint pen tips, which had a global addressable market of 20M, aka rounding error for PRC state owed metal industry. Meme/rumor is TISCO made one batch of ballpoint pen tip metal and that's enough to supply domestic tip maker for decades. The _real_ story behind the pen tips is building up machines to make advanced munitions at scale, few years later, i.e. now - we have stories of PRC cruise missile gigafactory that can churni out components for 1000 missiles per day. A few days is sum US+partner production per year. For reference JP acquiring 400 tomahawks for 1.7B.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> The _real_ story behind the pen tips is building up machines to make advanced munitions at scale, few years later, i.e. now - we have stories of PRC cruise missile gigafactory that can churni out components for 1000 missiles per day. Woah. Who are they arming themselves up to fight with that many missiles? Trisolarians?!
- maxglute 3y ago
  IMO entire US security architecture within 1st island chain, aka japan, south korea, philippines, taiwan, anything within 1500-2000km. The math/economics behind cruise missile gigafactory flex is hinting they can make more commodity cruise missile per 1-2 weeks to bleed entire US inventory of missile defense, aka they can spam so much smart munitions, from purely ground launched platforms on mainland PRC (as in capability independant of airforce/navy), that any fixed targets, where fixed is anything that stays stationary for more than 2-3 hours, in 1IC is simply not defensible. Broader TLDR is telegraphed/public US strategy last few years for the next decade+ to deter PRC is to preposition more hardware, in distributed manner, make more survivable (agile basing, marine MLRS) etc. PRC retort is saying, they're going to make so much advanced munitions, that they can hit essentially any hardware US+co can possibly preposition in theatre that has to sit still for more than a couple hours, with 100,000s to spare to degrade other strategic targets. It's basically conventional MAD for any US partners in region, who are mostly import dependant islands, significantly more so than PRC who is still a continental sized land power with associated resources land connections. PRC hinting they can degrade their critical/energy infra, lock down their ports from importing energy/calories, basically turn them into cuba/gaza, indefinitely, from purely PRC domestic inputs. So think twice about allowing US to operate from their territory in 1st island chain in TW scenario. They're probably onto something since this development is almost 6 month old and non of US/western strategic writing is openly discussing it, because there simply isn't a viable counter, short of assuming China can't make 100,000s of a thing, or Made in China things must be duds. As many are relearning, having industrial capacity to make magnitude more commodity fires > wunderwaffles. West loves to mention about US ship building prowess during WW2, and how US simply outproduced adversaries. Now we have stats like PRC having 230x advantage in military ship building. Just military, PRC peacetime shipbuilding just passed 160 million dead weight tons, which is more than ENTIRE US ship building program in WW2. Extrapolate that to cruise missiles. IMO the biggest strategic development in region in a long time.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    Great post, thanks. This contrasts with the American inability to ramp up artillery shell production recently. Not enough money in artillery shells so the defense industry doesn't have capacity, they've been focusing on more profitable weapons.
    - DeathArrow 3y ago
      I doubt China has much more money, but they are certainly able to produce at lower costs.
      - woooooo 3y ago
        I was more pointing at the different priorities and cultural biases. The western MBA ideology biases them against wanting to make boring, reliable low-margin goods.
        DeathArrow 3y ago
        >The western MBA ideology biases them against wanting to make boring, reliable low-margin goods. Does any MBA care if they sell 100 x thing for $1000/thing or they sell 1000 x thing for $100/thing?
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        They don't, which is worse, because they may also not care whether they'll sell 100x $1000 weapon that works, vs. 100x $1000 weapon that doesn't, but checks all the contract checkboxes.
    - maxglute 3y ago
      Yeah, current asymmetry is US wages/labour costs biases towards expensive defense. Add multiplier for expeditionary model. US has like 1:10 "tooth to tail" logistics ratio operating on opposite side of the globe, it's expensive to operate far from shores so force composition oriented towards spending extra money on expensive platforms to deliver high end weapons with low dud rates since it cost so much just to bring ordnances in theatre. VS PRC fighting in her backyard can value engineer the shit out of their cruise missiles, like they do EVs, as long as they perform adequately, they come out ahead massive in total bandwidth of fires they can deliver in theatre. Even duds that fail, if they fail within missile defense engagement envelope can still bleed expensive interceptors assembled/delivered from some pork barrel jobs program factory in CONUS that could be better automated.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  It's not about fighting, it's about forcing US investing resources in a race they can't win because of economic factors. Similar to how US did that to Soviet Union with Strategic Defense Initiative and arms race, which led to the demise of Soviet economy and Soviet Union itself.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

> The _real_ story behind the pen tips is building up machines to make advanced munitions at scale, few years later, i.e. now - we have stories of PRC cruise missile gigafactory that can churni out components for 1000 missiles per day. Woah. Who are they arming themselves up to fight with that many missiles? Trisolarians?!

maxglute 3y ago
IMO entire US security architecture within 1st island chain, aka japan, south korea, philippines, taiwan, anything within 1500-2000km. The math/economics behind cruise missile gigafactory flex is hinting they can make more commodity cruise missile per 1-2 weeks to bleed entire US inventory of missile defense, aka they can spam so much smart munitions, from purely ground launched platforms on mainland PRC (as in capability independant of airforce/navy), that any fixed targets, where fixed is anything that stays stationary for more than 2-3 hours, in 1IC is simply not defensible. Broader TLDR is telegraphed/public US strategy last few years for the next decade+ to deter PRC is to preposition more hardware, in distributed manner, make more survivable (agile basing, marine MLRS) etc. PRC retort is saying, they're going to make so much advanced munitions, that they can hit essentially any hardware US+co can possibly preposition in theatre that has to sit still for more than a couple hours, with 100,000s to spare to degrade other strategic targets. It's basically conventional MAD for any US partners in region, who are mostly import dependant islands, significantly more so than PRC who is still a continental sized land power with associated resources land connections. PRC hinting they can degrade their critical/energy infra, lock down their ports from importing energy/calories, basically turn them into cuba/gaza, indefinitely, from purely PRC domestic inputs. So think twice about allowing US to operate from their territory in 1st island chain in TW scenario. They're probably onto something since this development is almost 6 month old and non of US/western strategic writing is openly discussing it, because there simply isn't a viable counter, short of assuming China can't make 100,000s of a thing, or Made in China things must be duds. As many are relearning, having industrial capacity to make magnitude more commodity fires > wunderwaffles. West loves to mention about US ship building prowess during WW2, and how US simply outproduced adversaries. Now we have stats like PRC having 230x advantage in military ship building. Just military, PRC peacetime shipbuilding just passed 160 million dead weight tons, which is more than ENTIRE US ship building program in WW2. Extrapolate that to cruise missiles. IMO the biggest strategic development in region in a long time.
- woooooo 3y ago
  Great post, thanks. This contrasts with the American inability to ramp up artillery shell production recently. Not enough money in artillery shells so the defense industry doesn't have capacity, they've been focusing on more profitable weapons.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    I doubt China has much more money, but they are certainly able to produce at lower costs.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      I was more pointing at the different priorities and cultural biases. The western MBA ideology biases them against wanting to make boring, reliable low-margin goods.
      - DeathArrow 3y ago
        >The western MBA ideology biases them against wanting to make boring, reliable low-margin goods. Does any MBA care if they sell 100 x thing for $1000/thing or they sell 1000 x thing for $100/thing?
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        They don't, which is worse, because they may also not care whether they'll sell 100x $1000 weapon that works, vs. 100x $1000 weapon that doesn't, but checks all the contract checkboxes.
  - maxglute 3y ago
    Yeah, current asymmetry is US wages/labour costs biases towards expensive defense. Add multiplier for expeditionary model. US has like 1:10 "tooth to tail" logistics ratio operating on opposite side of the globe, it's expensive to operate far from shores so force composition oriented towards spending extra money on expensive platforms to deliver high end weapons with low dud rates since it cost so much just to bring ordnances in theatre. VS PRC fighting in her backyard can value engineer the shit out of their cruise missiles, like they do EVs, as long as they perform adequately, they come out ahead massive in total bandwidth of fires they can deliver in theatre. Even duds that fail, if they fail within missile defense engagement envelope can still bleed expensive interceptors assembled/delivered from some pork barrel jobs program factory in CONUS that could be better automated.
DeathArrow 3y ago
It's not about fighting, it's about forcing US investing resources in a race they can't win because of economic factors. Similar to how US did that to Soviet Union with Strategic Defense Initiative and arms race, which led to the demise of Soviet economy and Soviet Union itself.