Comments by "Arthur Mosel" (@arthurmosel808) on "Not What You Think"
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@whitescar2 You seem to belong to the group who think all people should think like you and have the same end process, exactly what "Progressives" attack Europeans over. Yes, at a macro level everyone wants food, to be happy, etc.; however, happiness for example isn't the same for everyone. An extreme example would be what would make a headhunter happy will hardly make a non-headhunter happy. Yes, I know there are few headhunters in this world; but, there are different cultures with different beliefs than yours. That a major enemy has ceased to be an immediate threat that doesn't mean other threats cease to exist. Major powers have stopped controlling large parts of Africa. What has replaced them, Somali pirates and civil war, Libyan civil war and slave markets, genecide between tribal enemies. You need to wake up not be "woke".
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@whitescar2 First and foremost your comments prove that you can't get beyond certain beliefs. One, that a biased assessment of future risk based on a biased set of factors is wrong. I notice you ignored the 600 pound guerilla, the canceling of a program that would mitigate Iran's and North Korea's nuclear missile ambitions, which were already clear. The blindness to the PRC ambitions and those were made clear by the manmade islands which former President Obama and then VP Biden ignored. Putin was already developing new nuclear weapons before former President Trump took office and the Obama Administration did nothing. Former President Obama shifted NASA's attention from space to diversity and climate, leaving Russia and the CCP to move into the void. So flawed or biased politically motivated threat analysis controlled military policy, and generals and admirals supporting those analysis were promoted.
As to upgrading existing systems and not developing new ones; sometimes their are clear advantages to buying the more expensive spread. A railgun doesn't need explosive propellants or a bursting charge, the effect is kinetic energy. This reduces, the need to protect magazines and the danger of accidental or combat explosions and fires; thereby making the ship safer. Additionally the range would have given a significant advantage. The cannon that was used to replace it had a good range, but at the expense of higher cost per round (which limited procurement of the shells), was less than the range of a railgun and required explosive propellants and shells. Then, the question of upgrading a 30 year old hull, electronis and propulsion system has to be considered. Even with upgrades, a 30 year old hull is 30 years old. For upgrades to work, often completely new parts are needed, for an aircraft an easier task. The A10 upgrade has new wing spars included, which means a great deal of the aircraft is literally new. The idea of buying new F15s sound weird, but again, even though the design is old a newly completed or completely rebuilt airframe (since stealth only air fleets are over rated since new tech has limited its effectiveness against peer forces) makes sense with standoff weapons and drone swarms. Rebuilding a ship's hull is a larger commitment in terms of available resources. The ship will be out of use for several years at least, and in the meantime the operational forces will be reduced further.
I do agree that the Zumwalt's have significant issues because of assumptions made when designed; I would agree a more conventional design probably would have been better. The railgun could have still been included, and a more effective vessel resulted. Slightly changing the subject, the LCS was a popular because it required less crew, thereby reducing operating costs at the expense of personnel but decreasing the ship's ability to deal with damage. This wasn't a factor if you weren't dealing with non-peer adversaries, but quite significant with peers.
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The usual issue, as the units are canceled the per unit cost rises. Why? It costs X to develop the technology and Y to establish any special production facilities, and final Z which is the cost of producing special items for the design. The unit cost than is cost of X+Y+Z divided by the number of units added to the profit. As t he number of units purchase drop, the cost per unit rises. For argument sake let's say we are building something where development is 100,000 you chose a currency). It will cost 50,000 to modify the production facility; and another 50,000 to produce specialized equipment. I have left off the actual cost of production (man hours × pay per hour) lets say this is 100,000 per unit; and we say that the profit will be 10,000 per finished unit. Again for this case, we will use 50 units as the original target. This means that the unit would cost 200,000÷50 + 100,000 (actual production cost per unit)+ 10,000 ( profit per unit). When the math is said and done, will be 114,000. Now let's say we cut back the order to 25 units. Now the cost per finished unit will be 200,000÷25 + production cost + profit, or 118,000. Not a horrible increase so far, but remember if a new system is added, it could require a reworking of plans, cancelation of existing parts orders, and other cascading changes. Since I am keeping it simple (unlike what was done to the F-35 which has evolved into three different designs plus modification for air superiority ops for which it was never originally intended). Lets say the bean counters decide to reduce the production to 10 units. Now without changes, the cost of fixed expenses is 20,000 per unit, and a finished unit is now 130,000 or 26,000 more than the original costs; or an increase of a very little over 14%. Now the bean counters have a fit, and reduce the buy to three units too advanced to cancel and say we will now want the work completed over several years. We can now add inflation in materials and wage increases (again ignored for this example). The per unit cost of the fixed 200,000 expenses in the original development is now divided by three, making development costs now 66,700 per unit (I rounded it to the nearest hundred). This makes the unit cost, as completed, 176,700, or an increase of something over 61%. Now remember these ships cost much more than 100,000 to design, their building facilities cost more than 50,000 and the subcontractors probably had expenses and profit much higher than 50,000. I have no doubt inflation. In material and labor increased cost, and their armament was modified meaning design changes and delays, plus the profit was probably a percentage not a fixed amount. So drastic increases (overruns) aren't just the developers issue. From funding, design changes and work schedule changes; everyone in the purchasing system add costs. What was the real costs in dollars adjusted for inflation is never mentioned, just as design change costs are mentioned. It might anger the public at the Government, not just the contractors.
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