“In The Spirit Of Russian ‘Total War’
An exploration of how Russia’s warfighting doctrine differs from the West.”
That is a massively interesting article.
It does make one wonder how much simpler we could make things to increase production and ease of use, while still maintaining a high level of performance.
That was a good and interesting read.
With larger items, we could break out subcomponent acquisition over multiple in country suppliers with the origination manufacturer focusing more on final device assembly.
This would give smaller companies a leg up on getting back in the precision manufacturing of “things” here and provide redundancy in acquisitions and spare part lots.
Additionally, some sort of incentive should be crafted that encourages the production of low cost items that also have long lifespans and stuff like no electric demand. Personally thinking of items like coffee grinders. I have a grinder that still works as made from the 1890’s. Sure, it’s hand cranked but you’re not really “labor saving” anything with an electric one, and those wear out/get replaced every few years. We REALLY need to wring out as much as possible the “Planned obsolescence/wear out” of consumer items.
On that angle I’m looking at stuff like Briggs and Stratton’s temporary insanity a few years back of putting cams in small engines with plastic lobes. That stuff just won’t cut it over the next few years. You should be able to get a small engine now, based on older designs with modern materials, and a case with several carburetor jets that would go 5000 hours plus between overhauls with good care and be able to be run (the extra jets) on multiple fuels (alcohol, gasoline, kerosene, diesel/biodiesel). The heavier fuel(s) would probably involve making a compression adjustment via either shim removal or chamber volume change through an adjustable portion of the head.
This is stuff we used to be wildly good at. We probably need some regulatory tweaking and reductions.
Recall from article a few thread cycles back, on the AR platform outselling the F-150 last year by 3-1 when it comes to us being good at making fighting equipment 🤠