Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

New Thinking Needed on National Defense
Imprimis ^ | MARCH/APRIL 2025 | Stephen Bryen

Posted on 05/25/2025 3:29:52 PM PDT by Retain Mike

A key lesson of the Ukraine War is that when we deploy certain types of precision guided munitions (PGMs), such as anti-tank missiles or man-portable air-defense systems like Stinger missiles, it takes years to manufacture new ones. We have also learned that the tooling needed to produce various types of PGMs no longer exists—indeed, in some cases entire factories have been dismantled. This means that if we want more PGMs, we will have to start from scratch.

Another weakness of our defense manufacturing capability is that we depend heavily on global supply chains. Specialized parts may be produced in the U.S., but sometimes they come from other countries, including China. The U.S. must reverse this trend quickly if we are to remain dominant.

Consider the fact that most of the first person view (FPV) drones—drones controlled by a remote pilot using video cameras—that are being used on the battlefield in Ukraine and elsewhere are built with parts made primarily in China. This supply chain dependence is a direct result of the globalization of industry and the offshoring of America’s manufacturing—mostly to Asia and especially to China.

An important thing we learned very early on in the Ukraine War was that the incredibly expensive tanks we gave to the Ukrainians were defenseless against very inexpensive FPV drones. A thoughtful national defense establishment would have drawn the conclusion from this that we should launch a crash project to develop an effective and inexpensive answer to drones. But no such project was launched. So when the Iranian-backed Houthis started firing drones at ships in the Red Sea, what was the U.S. response? For each $30,000 Iranian drone we shot down, we employed two $2 million missiles.

(Excerpt) Read more at imprimis.hillsdale.edu ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: defense; national; pgm
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last
"it takes years to manufacture new ones. We have also learned that the tooling needed to produce various types of PGMs no longer exists—indeed"

I have a hard time imagining an initial inventory of a munition is placed in a warehouse, never expended in exercises, and never upgraded.

1 posted on 05/25/2025 3:29:52 PM PDT by Retain Mike
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

Retain Mike wrote: “I have a hard time imagining an initial inventory of a munition is placed in a warehouse, never expended in exercises, and never upgraded.”

DoD has various computer models that are used to calculate how many munitions we need in the inventory. Usually, these models also calculate how many will be used for training. We produce to those amounts. Sometimes some are withdrawn from storage for reliability testing. Sometimes as munitions are expended they might be replaced with upgraded versions. The oldest in the inventory are the ones usually withdrawn for testing, etc.


2 posted on 05/25/2025 3:51:37 PM PDT by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

We should be spoiling up long range drone factories - the small attack drones, not ISR stuff.


3 posted on 05/25/2025 4:03:19 PM PDT by grobdriver (The CDC can KMA!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike
This supply chain dependence is a direct result of the globalization of industry and the offshoring of America’s manufacturing

The American elite chose to offshore its industry and dis-employ its citizenry. It further worked to inundate its high tech workers with a massive influx of foreigners starting with the Immigration Act of 1990.

It is difficult to believe that the American elite would suddenly change course and have a massive expansion in jobs for citizens. On the other hand, having trouble keeping up with the Russians during the artillary war portion of the conflict in Ukraine, the Amercian elites might realize that their internal policies threaten the ability to project power.

4 posted on 05/25/2025 4:13:17 PM PDT by magooey (The Mandate of Heaven resides in the hearts of men.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

George Patton brilliantly wrote a lengthy poem in 1917 that documented this kind of stupidity...


5 posted on 05/25/2025 4:27:21 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that we need him? Is his name Trump, now?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: magooey
I call them Free Traitors™
6 posted on 05/25/2025 4:29:02 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

It’s not just manufacturing new items, it’s maintaining existing hardware. Electronic components become obsolete. I’ve been to a facility where these components are stored in climate controlled bins in a circulating nitrogen environment.


7 posted on 05/25/2025 4:33:05 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DugwayDuke

He said the factories no longer existed. But that doesn’t make sense. I would keep the people and equipment in place, produce for our allies and use profits for innovation.


8 posted on 05/25/2025 4:34:06 PM PDT by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

That is a reason that foreign sales are so important, it keeps the factories in production while helping to cement cooperation and interaction from friends, in some cases it can even be an emergency source for additional weapon supplies and ammo if we run low and have to ask friends for ammo or equipment.

Businesses also need long term contracts to keep the factories open, short term contracts of a limited run don’t help much, all of this has been improving in the West since Putin’s invasion, while his weapon sales have suffered because of the bad results his weapons displayed on the battlefield, without foreign sales his government has to fully fund Russia’s weapon manufacturing.


9 posted on 05/25/2025 5:06:31 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

We shouldn’t be deploying anything to proxy wars, not weapons, not money, not troops...nothing.


10 posted on 05/25/2025 5:13:48 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

Retain Mike wrote: “He said the factories no longer existed. But that doesn’t make sense. I would keep the people and equipment in place, produce for our allies and use profits for innovation.”

Some one has to pay to maintain those factors and equipment used to make munitions. We do produce some munitions for our allies and the funds are used to maintain the production lines.

We do need to modernize much of our production base. For example, much of our explosives, propellants are produced at Ammunition Plants first built in WWII. They are expensive to maintain and inefficient in production. Some of the propellants are identical to those in civilian ammunition.

BTW, democrats are trying to prevent ammunition production from being sold in the civilian market as part of their gun control efforts. See Lake City Ammunition plant. The brass cartridge cases can be used for civilian ammunition.

Some of our precision munitions were designed years ago and use components that are obsolete and no longer produced.

I spent about forty years in the ammunition and missile business.


11 posted on 05/25/2025 5:17:30 PM PDT by DugwayDuke (Most pick the expert who says the things they agree with.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike
Hegseth orders consolidation and transformation of the Army

Drone swarm integration, a right to repair and increased forward logistical capacity are all on the table in the new proposals.

12 posted on 05/25/2025 5:50:34 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

AS someone who started in defense manufacturing in the 70’s , I watched the number of machine shops dwindle as work was offshored , foundries close due to EPA regulation changes, the government cancel programs left and right due to stupidity from the procurement officers. In WW2 the government bypassed the Army Arsenals and Navy Shipyards and went straight to Chrysler and Kaiser to get things produced. The Pentagon never saw a project that it couldn’t kill just before production was about to start. Patriot production rate is 550 missiles per year, going to increase to 650 this year. That’s about 2 per day. Hey China, Iran, and Russia, can you limit your total attacks to 2 planes or missiles per day. As my dad would say, bullshit.


13 posted on 05/25/2025 6:00:34 PM PDT by Waverunner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike
For each $30,000 Iranian drone we shot down, we employed two $2 million missiles.

What's wrong with Gatling guns? An oversized radar-directed shotgun would probably work too.

14 posted on 05/25/2025 6:41:15 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Waverunner
AS someone who started in defense manufacturing in the 70’s , I watched the number of machine shops dwindle as work was offshored

Virtually everything is CNC now. Yet it's the people who used to run manual equipment that become really valuable for design and fabrication of tooling and fixtures.

What was worse was using bogus environmental laws to kill plating and coating businesses.

15 posted on 05/25/2025 6:48:28 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie

Most of my career was making jet engine, rocket engine, wings, and medical devices. We had our own coating shop because all of the outside ones went out of business or were bought by the prime contractors. Every blade root or vane foot was coated with exotic no stick coatings, tips were coated with cbn, and the material combinations later on used electron beam or plasma to deposit high temp coatings. crazy world. I’m amazed my lungs didn’t coated as well.


16 posted on 05/25/2025 6:57:19 PM PDT by Waverunner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

The main bottleneck in producing ‘PGMs’ is the lack of secure computer chips. We ran off most of the chip foundries.

Raytheon is on record as saying, repeatedly, that they have everything else ready to go in reasonable peacetime volume *except* the chips. No chips, no guidance and no flight controls.


17 posted on 05/25/2025 8:11:09 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: grobdriver

They aren’t hard to spin up.. except for the chips needed to make them work. Which we don’t make.


18 posted on 05/25/2025 8:11:58 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

The factories and the companies are gone. Even where the company survives, they closed down their military production. We were even stupid enough to have Congress mandate the destruction of tooling and knowledge bases.


19 posted on 05/25/2025 8:13:44 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie

Very short range - and we took them off of most our ships because we decided SeaRAM was better, even though the ship can only fire 8-12 of them per launcher and then it has to go back to port to reload. The Navy has been hastily putting them back on in some cases, but a lot of them got scrapped, there’s a production backlog and new production ships didn’t have provision for the mounts the old ones of the same model did.


20 posted on 05/25/2025 8:23:33 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson