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> where people "dream" of how advanced the military is If you've ever worked on "advanced military grade" equipment, you'd know better. It tends to be what yo

> where people "dream" of how advanced the military is If you've ever worked on "advanced military grade" equipment, you'd know better. It tends to be what you'd euphemistically call "well-proven technology", built down to a price by the lowest bidder, by comparatively unskilled labour. The most shocking thing about the "captured" Russian drones is they use name-brand Raspberry Pis inside. I'm prepared to bet the American versions use whatever AliExpress crap is on special this week. The UK stuff definitely does.

embedding-shape 1y ago
Isn't that exactly the point parent was trying to make? Maybe I misunderstood their comment, but it seems like you're repeating what they said.
- ErroneousBosh 1y ago
  Post cup-of-tea (not NATO-spec, just black thanks, tea with just tea in it) I realise you're correct.
- utopiah 1y ago
  You read it right, I think they agree. Maybe when I wrote "dream" in quotes the irony was lost.
esseph 1y ago
I mean, these things do exist. There are always tons of big and small tech projects floating around in the special operations community. Cutting-edge sets of hybrid night/thermal vision. Classified helicopters. Hand-built rifled with custom cartridges. Classified medical tech. Advanced fixed wing aircraft with unique capabilities. Advanced dive gear. So on. "Big Army" doesn't see that stuff for decades, if ever, and mostly never due to cost. And I'm not even getting into classified submarine and nuclear tech, fixed wing drones and aircraft flying at night out of known test facilities, etc. There's tons of actually advance tech out there in military circles.
- compiler-guy 1y ago
  Yeah. The DOD is enormous and definitely has your boring every day stuff, but tons of skunk works as r&d. just not very public. An organization that big has all kinds of nooks and crannies, so isn’t really that monolithic.

embedding-shape 1y ago

Isn't that exactly the point parent was trying to make? Maybe I misunderstood their comment, but it seems like you're repeating what they said.

ErroneousBosh 1y ago
Post cup-of-tea (not NATO-spec, just black thanks, tea with just tea in it) I realise you're correct.
utopiah 1y ago
You read it right, I think they agree. Maybe when I wrote "dream" in quotes the irony was lost.

esseph 1y ago

I mean, these things do exist. There are always tons of big and small tech projects floating around in the special operations community. Cutting-edge sets of hybrid night/thermal vision. Classified helicopters. Hand-built rifled with custom cartridges. Classified medical tech. Advanced fixed wing aircraft with unique capabilities. Advanced dive gear. So on. "Big Army" doesn't see that stuff for decades, if ever, and mostly never due to cost. And I'm not even getting into classified submarine and nuclear tech, fixed wing drones and aircraft flying at night out of known test facilities, etc. There's tons of actually advance tech out there in military circles.

compiler-guy 1y ago
Yeah. The DOD is enormous and definitely has your boring every day stuff, but tons of skunk works as r&d. just not very public. An organization that big has all kinds of nooks and crannies, so isn’t really that monolithic.