Because of intellectual property laws, military equipment repairs have to be done by the manufacturer now instead of in the field. Hilariously dumb. Even the global war machine is now being consumed by the vampires of capital.
This plus decades of essentially being a neocolonial gendarmerie plus other examples of naked profiteering anddisregard for their own troops makes me wonder how high the US desertion rate would soar in an actual peer conflict
Land and set up shop near Mongolian border
Whole FOB is immediately annihilated by hailstorm of Chinese hypersonic missiles that each individually cost less than the toilets in the bathroom
Entire company/battalion immediately goes AWOL
It’s a soft af force outside of the special ops death squads
Private why isn’t that fixed? What is your major malfunction numbnuts?!
This is now proprietary of the vendor, sir! Only the vendor is allowed to service it, sir. The next avalable representstive is at least 3 weeks out and we need to ship this [3 ton] equipment to a non hostile location in a 3rd party partner nation, sir!Then what the hell do you do technician 2nd class?
I mop the floor 20 times a day and send a single email which never gets responded to sir!
Carry on then!
Most legally bound force in the world.Imagine they’re out in Venezuela and one of their trucks breaks down. They have to wait 5 business days for a technician to arrive. This is such a logical political and economic system!
They can always buy a whole new one ready for delivery and interception.
ETA on build time: 2-4 years.
From page 20:
In Russia, where operations extended over great distances, the Germans experienced the need for closer control over the crews of disabled tanks. The tank crews usually remained at the field repair shop until the repairs to their vehicles had been completed. The unannounced arrival of replacements presented another personnel problem because tank company commanders were often unable to take charge of the new men while operations were under way. On such occasions these replacements were temporarily attached to the field repair shops, where they, as well as the crews of disabled tanks, constituted an administrative liability for the tank maintenance companies.
The number of tank personnel immobilized while awaiting repairs to their vehicles at the field repair shop averaged from 80 to 100 men. The commander of the maintenance company had to provide themwith quarters and rations, in addition to keeping them occupied. During the winter months the administrative problem was aggravated by the scarcity of heated billets. While the tank drivers were able to assist in minor repair work, an attempt was made to keep the other crew members busy with first echelon maintenance of their vehicle. As a rule, however, the crew members would stand around and interfere with the work of the shop personnel.
Page 24:
e. Supply Problems and Tentative Sollutions. During the first 3 months of the Russian campaign, the German armored units had sufficient spare parts. In the autumn of 1941, however, parts grew scarce in the Russian theater. The supply lines were overextended at the time when the muddy season set in. Most of the roads in Russia became impassaple and truck columns were therefore unable to move up supplies. At the same time the railroads proved incapable of carrying the entire supply load. Damaged tanks could not be repaired for lack of spare parts and could not be evacuated to the zone of interior because of the transportation bottleneck.
Throughout this period the Ministry of Armaments pushed the production of new tanks to the detriment of the manufacture of spare parts. With the increase in the number of tank models and the continuous changes in design, many parts became obsolete by the time they reached the maintenance units in the field. : This was primarily the result of excessive procurement lead time for parts.
In May 1942 the Ministry of Armaments decided to curtail new tank production and increa-se the output of spare parts. This change failed to remedy the situation because the total quantity of spare parts thus gained amounted to no more than the loss in new tank production, but in disassembled form. In other words, for each tank that was not a-ssembled, only 1 engine, 1 transmission, and 1 steering mechanism, etc., were made available as spare parts. This solution was very unsatisfactory and did little to alleviate the spare-parts problem. Urgently needed parts, such as engines and transmissions, were produced in equal number to hulls and other parts which were not in great demand.
From page 41:
b. Personnel. An efficient tank maintenance service must be organized before the outbreak of hostilities, otherwise it will not function properly during military operations. Failure to provide such a service in peacetime cost the Germans heavy losses in tanks and equipment. The training of tank maintenance personnel, for instance, had been neglected because of the generally accepted assumption that men who had worked as automobile mechanics and in related professions in civilian life would instantly qualify for work in a tank maintenance company. With regard to officer personnel, it was found that engineers and technicians were unsuitable for the command of tank maintenance units unless they were given thorough military training. The civilians who were given direct commissions were primarily concerned with the repair of equipment. If there was any change in the tactical situation, they lacked the ability to initiate independent action and relied too heavily on detailed orders from their immediate superiors. In fluid situations such procedures were impractical because unit commanders had to be capable of using their own initiative and of making the correct decision at the proper time.
The Germans also found that the 6-week specialized training course for tank maintenance personnel was much too short to be really effective. Both in the North African and in the Russian theaters the tank maintenance personnel had to opera~ independently and often without the support of major depot maintenance installations. Their performance under pressure failed to live up to expectation, and many a valuable tank had to be abandoned or destroyed on the battlefield because the maintenance crews were unable to recover or repair it.
No mechanic of a tank maintenance detachment or company adhered to fixed working hours when a deadline for the repair of a tank had to be met. On the other hand, tanks 'that were removed to depot maintenance installations in the rear were in transit for an indefinite period. Upon arrival at their destination they were handled like any other disabled vehicle, no one taking a personal interest in their repair. After a delay of many weeks the tanks would occasionally be returned to their original unit, but as a rule the tank regiment never saw its vehicles again.
–Historical Study: German Tank Maintenance During WWII
Department of the Army, 1954
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo81652/pdf/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo81652.pdf
Fascists can’t help themselves from thinking the Free Market^tm will solve all their problems lmao
While the tank drivers were able to assist in minor repair work, an attempt was made to keep the other crew members busy with first echelon maintenance of their vehicle. As a rule, however, the crew members would stand around and interfere with the work of the shop personnel.
As a rule, however, the crew members would stand around and interfere with the work of the shop personnel.
I wonder how much of that was incompetence and how much of that was “I’d rather this repair job take longer so I don’t have to go back out there and have people shooting at me.”
I want to imagine it as dumb guys standing around trying to tell the mechanic how to do their job, but you’re probably right - there were probably some people putting off the inevitable return to hell.
Lighting up a cig as you desperately claw for one more thing to talk about so you don’t have to go back out yet:
“So, uh…engines, huh?”
“What if you did an LS swap, man?”
“I don’t know how to interpret this, other than to say that industry prevailed in their influence over Congress,”
I don’t know how to interpret this other than to say that everything is working as intended.
Big defense companies have been stealing money from taxpayers for decades. Good thing is that at least some people get employment. It’s getting worse.
The purpose of a system is doing what it does.
The US military is not really a system that wins wars but it is a system that makes a couple of grifting arms manufacturers obscenely rich.
Critical support for rent-seekers degrading the warmaking capabilities of the American Empire.
Yeah this is a big
situationGlobal South vassals thought they were part of the ‘in’ crowd until we turned on them; Western European vassals thought THEY were part of the ‘in’ crowd, and still do, while we turn on them; the MILITARY think they’re part of the ‘in’ crowd, while the true in crowd turn on them.
Critical support.
i am sick of being treated as eccentric for not wanting to buy things i can’t repair, legally or due to how it was manufactured, materially.
i’m tired of adhesives, rivets, proprietary fasteners, vinyl-wrapped particle board, flimsy plastics, fast fashion’s razor thin synthetics. everything is always a piece of shit, and with prices ballooning, it no longer fits the ecologically destructive “just buy a new one” value proposition anymore.
i guess there is only so much capital can do to make something difficult to repair before they have to make it law that you can’t fix broken shit.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is this mantra that has been around since i was very short, but without REPAIR, wtf is the point.
Changed two phone batteries recently. One took a few seconds. The other one with adhesives took an hour of labor just to remove and reapply the adhesive, and I still need to redo it. They made it as shitty as possible to repair. Fuck Samsung.
TBF I think repair is included in reuse, it’s just that the propaganda machine co-opted the phrase and put all the focus on recycle
They did. They monetized the rot and we have like 3 decades of procrastination to show for it.
At a certain point, it will be a more worthwhile proposition to detach from the profit-driven economy at large and just make things independently from open-soutce blueprints.
There will come a time when we end up boycotting everything.
Already getting there. It’s hard.
This is the running theme of most of Cory Doctorow’s fiction
Yeah but you see…you’re violating poor porky’s PROPERTY RIGHTS if you repair! He wants you to buy another one and besides, it’s not like you actually own any….I mean, you have the right to tell porky how he can make his products! That’ll hurt the economy!”
Sobbing over my broken gun I’m not allowed to repair even though I have a fair idea how while a brown freedom fighter bayonets me multiple times in the back while saying “Damn dude, is it under warranty? I would NOT want to be you right now!”
Real “You’ll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company” hours.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Gun stop working on your tank? That sucks, buddy. Bill from Mobile, Alabama is being flown in to work on it. It’s gonna take a week. Whaddya mean the tank that disabled it is right over th-
For the f-35 program they already have to deal with scheduling maintenance crews more than a year out - this is also coincidentally why the Air Force often chooses to buy a whole new replacement part rather than repair the part they have. Efficiency!
Just like American household appliances.Getting flashbacks to being a dealer mechanic lmao. “Don’t bother fixing it, it’s already broke!”
i like how even in the case of a serious war, the military cant just say “right, this is a silly law” because they dont have the trained maintenance units ready to take over. what are they gonna do, hunt down the skeleton staff lockheed martin employs for maintenance and impress them? there wont be enough of them to keep up with breakdowns when it’s raining artillery and missiles 24/7
turns out waging war without copper on your walls is a bit of a pickle.
what are they gonna do, hunt down the skeleton staff lockheed martin employs for maintenance and impress them?
“Draft” would be the technical term, but yeah. This is definitely a bad idea if you want an effective, ready military, but I would be careful not to overestimate how bad it’ll actually be.
yeah sure, they can build back the capacity in a few months if they get serious about it. question is, is the US capable of being serious about it, or would any self-preservation impulse of the state get swallowed by capitalist grifting now?
I am more and more convinced that the US would lose in a war against venezuela everyday
lol, nothing like an extremely strong incentive to have your shit break to keep the quality/reliability of said shit high
I guess they keep talking about making the military “more lethal” they don’t, however, ever specify “for the enemy”
Rare W
