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Raytheon Calls in Retirees to Help Restart Stinger Missile Production
Defense One ^ | 6/28/23 | Marcus Weisgerber

Posted on 07/09/2023 8:38:15 PM PDT by Duke C.

Raytheon has called in retired engineers to teach its employees how to build the Stinger missiles heavily used by Ukraine’s military—using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration.

It’s the latest example of a private company working to ramp up production of a now-in-demand weapon that the Pentagon hasn’t purchased in decades.

“Stinger's been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it's the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of RTX’s Raytheon division, said during an interview last week at the Paris Air Show.

(Excerpt) Read more at defenseone.com ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: raytheon; ukraine
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1 posted on 07/09/2023 8:38:15 PM PDT by Duke C.
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To: Duke C.

That’s going to cost them.

It would if I were one of the retirees who was likely forced out.


2 posted on 07/09/2023 8:40:11 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Procrastination is just a form of defiance.)
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To: Duke C.

No good deed goes unpunished.

They’d have to at least link my pension to my personal Inflation rate.

Plus pay my Federal, State and Property taxes forevermore.


3 posted on 07/09/2023 8:42:26 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Sequoyah101

I would want payment in advance and a huge bonus to start.


4 posted on 07/09/2023 8:42:51 PM PDT by CatOwner (Don't expect anyone, even conservatives, to have your back when the SHTF in 2021 and beyond.)
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To: Duke C.

.....and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and learn of war no more”

“And they gathered to a place called, Armageddon.”


5 posted on 07/09/2023 8:46:54 PM PDT by Varsity Flight ( "War by🙏🙏 the prophesies set before you." I Timothy 1:18. Nazarite prayer warriors. 10.5.6.5)
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To: Duke C.

So, this is a good time to pre-order!?


6 posted on 07/09/2023 8:46:59 PM PDT by TigersEye (Woke is a cancer of the mind and humanity)
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To: Duke C.

oh no...not those awful 50yro white males....please tell it ain’t so...


7 posted on 07/09/2023 8:47:53 PM PDT by cherry
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To: Duke C.

This can’t succeed. Slide Rules are extinct and that era’s TI calculators have atrophied!


8 posted on 07/09/2023 8:53:09 PM PDT by Pox (Eff You China. Buy American!)
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To: cherry
oh no...not those awful 50yro white males.

Raytheon has to bring back the awful 50-year-old white males. The newer, younger, more diversified workforce doesn't know how to make Stinger missiles.

9 posted on 07/09/2023 8:55:49 PM PDT by Right_Wing_Madman
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To: Duke C.
Wait, what? The Pentagon didn’t think that there would be any more wars in the future? Isn’t that their entire raison d’être.
10 posted on 07/09/2023 8:56:30 PM PDT by Salohcin
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To: Duke C.

Twenty years is not that long ago. Is everyone from that era with the knowledge now retired?

This is what happens when institutional knowledge is not passed down because companies insist on hiring those that think their degree in gender students and grievance posturing is sufficient to power the world.

Did no one in our military think it might be important to make sure those companies had a plan to pass on this knowledge to a few of the younger generation?

This is the type of thing I fear happening to our infrastructure such as the power grid after all that can actually “do” are pushed out and gone and those in charge know nothing regarding the systems they are left to maintain.

It’s much like when the tech guy who builds your company’s computer system leaves to go elsewhere. If no one else knows where the bailing wire and chewing gum connections are located then you are in a deep spot when the system crashes.


11 posted on 07/09/2023 9:00:11 PM PDT by CFW (old and retired)
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To: Duke C.

Make sure to build more cluster bombs for the libtards to kill civilians with


12 posted on 07/09/2023 9:05:29 PM PDT by NWFree (Sigma male 🤪)
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To: Duke C.

“Raytheon Calls in Retirees to Help Restart Stinger Missile Production”

Take that Putin!!!! We make sure to keep our production capability intact so well that we have to go to nursing homes to restart it.


13 posted on 07/09/2023 9:10:46 PM PDT by BobL (Trump has all the right Enemies; DeSantis has all the wrong Friends)
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To: cherry

“oh no...not those awful 50yro white males....please tell it ain’t so...”

LOL, but more like 80 year old white males.


14 posted on 07/09/2023 9:11:54 PM PDT by BobL (Trump has all the right Enemies; DeSantis has all the wrong Friends)
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To: cherry

Right - they have to call back a bunch of old white guys to get the job done. Probably some of whom were put out to pasture to allow for lots of diverse millennials and zoomers.

Old white guys - 1
Woke crap - 0


15 posted on 07/09/2023 9:16:16 PM PDT by Allegra (Stop the Zeepers from Censoring FReepers)
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To: CFW

“Did no one in our military think it might be important to make sure those companies had a plan to pass on this knowledge to a few of the younger generation?”

The problem is that there aren’t really any incentives for people to stay with a company, as pensions and retirement medical care have been wiped out, at least based on what my cousin tells me. So people simply come, work a few years, then go once a better offer is secured. I suspect the Nursing Home generation was the last bunch to have a ‘traditional’ retirement package, so they stayed long enough to know the ropes.

We should be THANKING Putin, for if he didn’t invade Ukraine, most of the people in the Nursing Homes would have ‘checked out’ before the TOTAL IDIOTS in DC figured out just how exposed we are.


16 posted on 07/09/2023 9:17:40 PM PDT by BobL (Trump has all the right Enemies; DeSantis has all the wrong Friends)
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To: Paladin2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0vy33Br_3s

And a four week Emperors Package at Caesar’s Palace.....and some women you want made into American citizens, no questions asked...


17 posted on 07/09/2023 9:22:27 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: Duke C.

This all begs the question: is the Stinger the best portable AA missile that we have? If so, we should have tens of thousands in storage, and if not then why build them instead of the more modern one. This doesn’t make much sense.

That said, I hope that the retirees drive a hard bargain and get their pensions bumped up a bunch, in addition to a bunch of salary. Maybe , in addition to teaching the newer generation how to make Stingers, they can also toughen them up. Oh, and maybe Raytheon and the other contractors will start putting away blueprints and procedure books so that this doesn’t happen again.


18 posted on 07/09/2023 9:27:43 PM PDT by Ancesthntr (“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.” ― A.E. Van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Ancesthntr

Blue prints don’t tell the whole story. It’s probably like not being able to build a Saturn V now


19 posted on 07/09/2023 10:07:35 PM PDT by newzjunkey (We need a better Trump than Trump in 2024)
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To: Ancesthntr
Raytheon and the other contractors will start putting away blueprints and procedure books so that this doesn’t happen again.

This isn't the problem. Raytheon has all the Stinger books and outlines, but its workers don't have the "know how."

20 posted on 07/09/2023 10:07:53 PM PDT by Right_Wing_Madman
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