Thanks. What a contrast. It seems like today we must rely on China just for protective clothing. And more:
Trump Wants Chinese Parts Out of American Weapons ...The report says China is the only producer of various chemicals needed in missiles and bombs, Japan and European nations are the only suppliers of certain carbon fibers used in missiles, satellites, and space rockets; Germany is the prime supplier of special vacuum tubes for night vision goggles, it says...
China is mentioned 232 times in the report, which has been been in the works for more than a year by a handful of government agencies. Much of the document’s findings and recommendations are classified because they describe areas of vulnerability in America’s supply chain. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/10/trump-wants-chinese-parts-out-american-weapons/151821
The US is running out of bombs — and it may soon struggle to make more The annual Industrial Capabilities report, put out by the Pentagon’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy, has concluded that the industrial base of the munitions sector is particularly strained...
Some suppliers have dropped out entirely, leaving no option for replacing vital materials. Other key suppliers are foreign-owned, with no indigenous capability to produce vital parts and materials ― setting up the risk that a conflict with China could rely on Chinese-made parts...
As to diversity in the industrial base, well ― there isn’t any, with the authors concluding that Raytheon and Lockheed Martin account for about 97 percent of the DoD’s munitions and missile procurement funding. Four industrial areas stand out as “high risk” areas of concern: Solid rocket motors. A military-only technology, SRMs are basically split between Orbital ATK and AerojetRocketdyne. However, Orbital is set to take on a broader section of this production, essentially leaving the U.S. with only one producer of this vital equipment...
Thermal batteries. Used in all DoD missiles and guided munitions, there is one (unnamed) manufacturer of these technologies who controls about 80 percent of the market...
Fuzes.
Small turbine engines. There are currently two companies involved in this sector, but one ― Teledyne Turbine Engines ― has announced it will be leaving the business in 2018, leaving only Williams International to supply this capability.
Overall, the authors found that of the 121 second-tier suppliers for munition capabilities, 98 percent of them were single/sole source. And of the 73 third-tier suppliers, 98 percent were also single/sole source.
There are also concerns about materials used in the systems. For example, the department is facing rising costs for ammonium perchlorate, used in almost all DoD missile programs.
Another example: Dechlorane Plus 25, a component in the insulation of weapons. “There is no domestic supplier for this material;... there is now no source for Dechlorane in the world.”
And the sole producer of dimeryl diisocyanate, a key propellant ingredient used in systems like the AIM-9X and AMRAAM missiles, has informed the Pentagon it will be leaving the business shortly,.. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/05/22/the-us-is-running-out-of-bombs-and-it-may-soon-struggle-to-make-more/
The Pentagon’s Seek-and-Destroy Mission for Counterfeit Electronics...
The military estimates that up to 15 percent of all spare and replacement parts for its weapons, vehicles and other equipment are counterfeit, making them vulnerable to dangerous malfunctions...
In December 2015 federal agents arrested three Chinese nationals for, among other things, selling 45 counterfeit Intel microchips to an undercover agent with the understanding the chips would be headed to the U.S. Navy for a project involving submarines. One of the men arrested—Jiang Guanghou Yan—had also asked the undercover agent to get him 22 military-grade Xilinx Corp. microchips—worth $37,00 apiece—for illegal export to China. “Military grade” means the electrical components are designed specifically to withstand prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures and radiation. When the agent advised Yan they would have to be stolen from a U.S. Navy base, Yan offered to cover up the crime by providing fakes to replace the stolen chips.
“If [those counterfeit chips had been] installed in a missile’s guidance system, such missile would either not function at all or would likely not proceed to its intended target, and would likely strike a completely unintended destination,” Keith Avery, a senior engineer at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, testified..
Integrated circuits are especially difficult to protect from counterfeiting because they might come from an overseas manufacturer and be resold by several subcontractors before a large military supplier like Lockheed Martin or Boeing embeds them in technology that it sells to the U.S. government. The global growth of the supply chain that lets electronics manufacturers tap less-expensive suppliers in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan has proved very difficult to police. Electronic waste from the U.S. is another key contributor to counterfeit integrated circuits, as trashed circuit boards from computers discarded in some countries are often taken apart, refurbished, relabeled, repackaged and resold as new to electronics manufacturers. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-pentagon-rsquo-s-seek-and-destroy-mission-for-counterfeit-electronics/
On its present spiritual, moral and political trajectory, the time will come when it is lamented of the US,
How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! (2 Samuel 1:27)