Military Hardware: Tanks, Bombers, Submarines and More The U.S. Military’s Biggest Problem: It Can’t Build New Weapons

National Security Journal Corp. ^ | 12-2-2026 | Jack Buckby

[rbg81]

I’ve seen contractors propose unworkable schedules. Everyone knows the schedule is BS. Then, when they blow the schedule, they propose another one that is arguably just as aggressive and its approved. They make a fortune on ECPs that way.

One problem is that the Defense contractors have gotten so big & powerful, they can push the Government PMs around. They are a defacto monopoly.

[LambSlave]

Anyone who’s done this knows the problem after two weeks... I spent over twenty years. Until Trump there has been no will to eliminate the bureacracy. Since most of this is statutory, it will require laws to change, but the “Alternatie Acquisition Strategies” have been used to effect for small stuff but can’t be used on major end items.

[Snowybear]

> Maybe we should copy Chinese designs?

Dear lord, no. Every single Chinese weapons system has failed in the field. Just ask Pakistan and Iran how well they performed.

The industry needs to be reformed for sure. As someone else said, contracts get extended endlessly, the contractors milk the government like an ATM.

It should be noted however that many other military systems have been built and work very well. F-22 anyone?

-SB

[daniel1212]

That is the ‘drumbeat to action’, where congress and money interests drive the sheeple to allow them to raid their grandchildren’s future. This sort of thing really begs the question - “What are we defending?”

To answer that i can add to fiscal decline, "The United States of Sodom? A nation in which about a third of pregnancies are terminated via abortion, 63% expelled as sewage, while fostering children that question gender, and bodily mutilation thereby, besides raising them as addicted to smartphones and gaming, and food over indulgence, thus 77% do not qualify for the armed forces?

But also an expansionist China, Islam, allied with Russia, which all lust to diminish the US as it grows weaker and weaker as the past culture transitions in slow suicide.

[Mr. Blond]

Not sure why we need big bore guns when you can put a couple of box launchers on a modular turret.

[Nachoman]

We’re holding ET technology we captured in our back pocket. We’ll whip it out when its needed.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[sauropod]

Gotta love JCIDS.

[CodeToad]

More like Military Industrial Complex.

[Redleg Duke]

My own personal experience as an employee of a government contractor. The acquisition corps can’t write an operational requirements document…doesn’t listen to the end user. The contractors, prime and subordinate push their personal toys, regardless of applicability, and underbid with the assumption the the federal ATM will spew whatever overruns demand.

The Tracer/Future Scout was a glaring example.

[Thrownatbirth]

The USS Columbia Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN-826) will be launched in 2028. First new SSBN in 30 years.

[bert]

The main problem is who will control the drones?

Army or air force?

[Tallguy]

M7A1 Infantry Rifle. Reading the specifications it sounds like the army is recreating the M14 in the sense that it’s designed to replace everything.

I watch an smallish army vet shooting one on full-auto on a youtube video. The recoil was pushing him out of his shooting stance despite him really “leaning into it.” One of the virtues of the .556 M4 carbine is the relatively light recoil.