Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
Lots of ‘things’ going out there in the world… too much happening. To the point that there’s so much spin out there that even -I’m- getting Dizzy AF. A ‘Proper Analysis’ is just going by the wayside in favor of the usual Propaganda from “the Usual Suspects” i.e. The Ministries of Lies and (of course) Propaganda to the point the no one seems to know what’s REALLY going on at any given point.
I mean we know know for certain that there’s always been a ‘certain amount of bullshit’ out there. The JFK shewtin’, The MLK shewtin’, UFOs, MK-Ultra and a shitload from the column marked ‘other’ have always been the subject of Obfuscation by the Powers That Be or whatever the ‘name/flavor of the week’ that “they” keep being referred to. “Knowledge is Power” and by keeping the truth away from folks, that in particular keeps the “POWER” in the hands of a certain select few, namely the aforementioned Powers That Be.
Truth of the matter is, ‘They’ like it that way, and the majority of ‘normies’ out there like it that way too, as in many instances “Ignorance is Bliss”. Hell, even me, myself, and I enjoy a certain amount of ignorance on some subjects… in particular lately having seen Twinkie-the-Kid getting assblasted in the Hearing Room? File that under ‘things I wish I’d really not looked at’…
Now, having said that, there are some subjects that’ve become come up as of late. Some of which that are Incontrovertible Facts that while unpleasant, well, truthfully a fact doesn’t care… it just is.
One of them is that the MAJORITY of the West, the West being defined as NATO and the US/GAE, is almost completely out of ammunition due to the gross expenditures in the Krain over the past two years of ‘teh stoopid.’ And owing to the greed, lack of foresight, and general malaise that Leviathan allowed to happen, there’s damned near no way in hell to replace nor produce the amount of ammunition that’s needed now for what has become a two-front war, meaning the Krain and the ¡Genociding! of the Palestinians by the Israelis.
It’s so bad that 20,000 shells earmarked for Krainfeld and his Koterie of Kocaine Snorting Klowns were re-routed to the IDF to assist in the wonton slaughter of lil kids and women. Can’t have them running out of ammo before they finish the job donchaknow?
Now… a BIG part of the reason for the lack of manufacturing capacity is besides the downsizing, offshoring and selling off the mechanisms and means of production (the tooling, presses and whatnot) there’s a relatively unmentioned issue about the ability to expand the production at the preexisting facilities. That being that the arsenals themselves?
Well according to a paper done by 1st LT (of the Turkish DotMil no less!) “Optimizing the Capacity and Operation of US Army Ammunition Production Facilities” written back in 2002, (link HERE) there are currently 16 Arsenals in the US that provide ALL of the primary manufacturing for the DotMil Kaboomie-Boom.
The names and production are in figure 2:
Now, the acronyms above for ‘Management’ of the Plants:
GOCO: Government Owned Contractor Operated
GOGO: Government Owned Government Operated
then, under ‘Mission’
LAP: Load Assemble and Pack (meaning where all the ‘stuff’ gets put together for shipment to the various locations, like the Krain and/or storage stateside.
Per an extract from the paper: “In summary, of the 16 facilities under review (See Table 2), two are GOGO “hard iron” arsenals that manufacture ordnance items, three are GOGO AAPs, and 11 are GOCO AAPs.” (AAP = Army Ammunition Plant(s)
The paper is TBH fascinating. A great breakdown of how even back in 2002, a Turk LT was pointing out how fucked up the situation was then vis-à-vis ammunition and production for the GAE. Lots of good info in there, but I’ll leave it for you to go over it if you want…
Sorry, tangent… anyways, back to the point:
One point NOT mentioned but I’ve seen in a few places is the age of a LOT, in fact almost ALL of our Arsenals.
Just as an Example? Our Oldest? That’s Watervliet Arsenal where we have like the only arsenal that makes High-Caliber Cannon barrels? It started in 1813. That’s 210 years ago. And for that reason, there’s a problem. A HUGE number of the buildings and whatnot on the facility itself are on the National Historic Register which means they’re (theoretically) INVIOLATE.
Yeah yeah, I know, ‘true emergency’ and all that, but if there’s one thing we know is that once something like that happens, it takes an Act of God to reverse it… which means the majority of our Arsenals, while yes, they can keep doing what they’re doing, at the same rate that they’ve always been doing it (too slow for todays lesson) but it means that they’re never going to be able to ramp up for all the Wars that Leviathan seems to be salivating over/provoking.
And building entirely new facilities?
Who’s going to ‘front’ the ducats for that? I mean the majority of companies out there are hesitant AF to build for-sure profitable ‘stuff’ however, the “amount invested versus time to become profitable” means most companies won’t risk the $$$. Add on also, that depending on the opponent and type of war initiated, whomever builds this sort of business has to know that eventually, it’ll be a target. Be it of terrorism or flat-out bombing/nuke/NBC or what have you… the “Bad Guys” sure as hell don’t want their opponents to be able to make the means to blow them up.
Just like Rheinmetall talking about building a Tank Manufacturing plant in the Krain… Yeeeeeeeah… best of luck there Herman… Ivan’ll blow that fucking place to pieces-parts no matter -who- it theoretically built it/owns it… We blew the ever-loving shit out of Germany, the Ruhr River Valley in particular to cripple the German War Manufacturing capacity.
So, the Logistics and Expense make it Prohibitive for us to realistically build new Kaboomie-Boom Manufacturing Plants. No one seems to want to invest in it, which is a huge thing, nevr mind that IF they were to actually build a new plant?
Who are they going to get to work there?
Skilled machinists and guys who work at places like that for the most part have aged the fuck out. Wirecutter used to work at one of the plants back in the day… guys like Phil are also in the “Fuck you, going fishing” part of their careers… in fact the majority of High Schools no longer even offer a shop class which is where a lot of the mechanically inclined kids got their introduction to that sort of work… Hell, even me, I’m now 54. Ain’t no fucking way no fucking how am I willing to start working in some Arsenal, despite having some ability to run a lathe… badly mind you, but I -do- know how, which the majority of kids now have zero fucking clue as to what a Lathe IS never mind how to run one.
The logisitics to do -any- of these plans at this point? Not seeing it coming to fruition anytime soon. Which then brings me to another thing I saw the other day. Now, this’s a bit long, but RTWT:
Now, as you scroll down, he point out something:
And right there, that’s the crux of the matter
The Navy, since October has been shooting down, almost on the daily Houthi cruise missiles, drones and what have you. Simplicius put a few fantastic charts of what seems to have been ‘shakin’ in the Area of Operations as of late, one being the ships in the Area, as well as the state of affairs regarding actions taken on the defense.
This pic here shows about three weeks worth of incidents, from November 27th, to December 15th:
The next one shows the current (approximate) number of boats (to include Chinese) operating in the area since December 17th:
According to this, there’s only 4 DDG Arleigh Burke class ships in the area. One the aforementioned Carney, the other three being the Mason, Gravely and Stethem. That means that in total, there’s 360 Vertically Launched SM-2 missiles available…
Leastways there was 360 available.
Now?
Tough call.
And even tougher? According to Sal (the Twitter Dood who’s poast I have above) He states “…the ability to reload VLS cells, the nature of the tubes require the ships to be in calm water at anchor or pierside and it is time consuming. As of yet, no method has been developed to reload VLS at sea.” as there’s no other way to do it available.
Used to be that they had a ship called a destroyer tender that could do the job, but as Sal also states in the thread:
Is there anything that our DotGov and DotMil haven’t fucked up in the past 30+ years!?! I suppose “Not having gotten us nuked by someone who’s pissed off at us” –might– count on the plus side, but judging from past actions, both in the WAAAAY past and even current past, I’d chalk that up to “Dumb Fucking Luck” at this point.
Now, I know I’ve been going a while here, and yeah, I made the point that we appear to be well on our way to “one serious incident away” from a major war due to our own inability to have prepared due to our “Lords and Masters” avarice and shortsightedness. Thing of it is the ‘how’ and ‘when’ of it.
My own theory is that there is a plan.
Lots of folks have been plainly wondering just why the other Arab nations haven’t joined in the ‘fun and games’ in defending the Palestinians. The ¡Genociding Games! have been rolling full speed for a while now, and yet even Hezbollah, the Lunatic Lebanese Based Fringe of the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Cult of Kaboom hasn’t really started any shit yet. My thought are that there is one, and we’re actively seeing it unfold now.
The trick is the same play that Putin has been doing in the Krain. He set his guys up via tactical retreats to Hard Points and Defensive Belts that had the Krainians literally smashing themselves up on for the past 8-10 months, without any sort of real gains. The Krainaians despite ALL the Ministry of Propaganda and Lies best attempts to tell the Opposite a’la BizzarroWorld, have been smashing themselves retarded in minefields, firebags and generally losing a lot more than they’re taking. Even the Washington Post has been questioning the intelligence of them beating their metaphoric heads against the wall bloody without any meaningful gains.
In the case here?
OK… lets say the plan is to have the Houthis, as disorganized and well, pathetically small ‘Militia’ as they are, they’ve been supplied very well by the Iranians for their ongoing fight with the Saudis. The very fact that the Saudis, even with alllll the whizz-bang neet-o US supplied Tanks, Gadgets and Wunderwaffen haven’t been able to crush them (the Houthi) in a conflict that dates back to 2015.
So these jokers start by launching allll sorts of shit towards Israel. This in turn has /ourguys, specifically the Navy, start shooting down all that gear. They keep doing it until
Oops.
No more ‘bullets’
Now, taken to an extreme, can you imagine what happens when the Navy is now incapable of stopping any cruise missiles or drones no matter who fires them or where they’re fired from?
Lets say for fantasy league here that Iran, now knowing that the Navy ain’t got shit to use, decides that it can start by lighting up one of the Carriers that’s floating around in the Gulf… say the Eisenhower… while at the same time, Hezbollah goes ‘heavy’ in from the North, and the Egyptians say “Fuck It!” and roll in from the South…
It’ll go from “Dumb” to “Stupid” in a few seconds.
Considering how feckless and dumb our current group running the show with the Puppet known as The Pretender to the Glorious and Harmonious P&PBUH (Plus 10%) Orifice of The (p)Resident, The Dementor-in-Chief, Emperor Poopypants the First, Chief Executive of the Kidsmeller Pursuivant, Good Ole Slo Xi-Den, I’d say the odds would be 50-50 that we’d cut and run, rather than get fully engaged, as we don’t have anything to engage them with at this point.
Hell, the icing on the cake and the reason I think there might be a slim possibility that this’ll happen is that the ‘signaling’ coming from ole Poopypants has been less-than-supportive of the current ¡Genocidal Jews! killing anything and anyone that moves in Gaza. Them brazenly shooting the Catholic mother and daughter seeking shelter at that Monastery was a corpse too far for a lot of people…
We’ll have to see.
Thoughts in the comments?
More Later
Big Country
RE: Lack of skilled machinists
I’ve got an uncle who is 78 years old, and a brilliant machinist and gunsmith. Works part-time for a custom rifle manufacturer in Canada. Big-dollar hunting rifles. We’re talking a 5-figure entry fee ($$,$$$).
He says they would work him 80 hours a week if they could, but they’re damn happy to have him for 20.
The Bloodline Elite Ruling Class may think they Run the World but it is the skilled Tradesmen (I was an industrial Electrician for a Major Railroad for nearly 40 years. If it had wire, I installed it AND kept it running.) and people willing to get smelly and dirty to climb into the sewers to unclog the messes to keep Their World running.
When the Skilled tradesmen in Unity decide to “Stop”, the World of the self appointed Rulers collapses.
There IS a lot to be learned from “Atlas Shrugged”.
None of their “Rules” apply to those that just Stop their work and do not comply.
But we won’t.
We want government benefits more than we want our Liberty back.
B, that’s not sounding too far fetched. Although considering how dumb everyone appears to be these days (can’t be just our leadershits) I’m not convinced anyone in a place to do any of this has the power/smarts/balls etc. Although I cannot completely discount this.
Let the games begin. Head on a swivel. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball!
We employ millwrights at our plant. Trying to find ones who are under 55 and actually know how to fix things is nearly impossible.
^^^ THIS – especially when expanded to include all skilled professions in the manufacturing trade.
My sweetheart works at a machine shop renowned high-precision, low volume, short turn-around work (i.e. – largely work subcontracted from larger .mil manufacturers), and they are having a devil of a time trying to fill skilled machinist positions – as in: either the candidates are incompetent and/or unreliable, or they’re priced WAY out of range. The company is going to have to face reality and deal with the fact that they’re going to have to pony up the $ to get skilled folks off the street, or invest the money and time to ‘grow their own’ – scaling pay as they grow so they don’t leave. And FWIW – with Biden-flation, it’s only going to get worse.
Yep – glad I’m not having to (directly) deal with that kind of problem anymore!
Let’s hope it happens Brother…
HARPOON An old online game and a supposed inspiration for Tom Clancy. You don’t need hypersonic missiles, all you need is more to shoot at us than we have SM-2’s for defense. Want a preview? USS Laffey.
Harpoon was absolutely inspiring for Clancy. But it was not the computer version it was the tabletop version that the computer game was designed from. Harpoon was written by fellow author and Naval Officer, Larry Bond and he assisted Clancy in wargaming out the scenario for Red Storm Rising.
Cool stuff and its still around today in both computer as well as table top versions. Very useful for playing out potential situations.
Logisitics is the critical factor for everything.
My dad was a boilerman on the Laffey, and stop-lossed him for 6 months when spinning-up for Nam.
Bolshevik REV 2.0 has a set us up to lose WWIII feature?
It is a feature to the Long March homegrown commie rat POS vermin.
The FEW want depopulation by any means necessary so that only twink rumprangers remain as servants.
The last rat standing, this is the way.
Setting up Pearl Harbor 2.0 (or Gulf of Tonkin 2.0)?
Good article BCE but you asked;
“Who’s going to ‘front’ the ducats for that? I mean the majority of companies out there are hesitant AF to build for-sure profitable ‘stuff’ however, the “amount invested versus time to become profitable” means most companies won’t risk the $$$.”
Now as a US taxpayer, I have to ask that since we blow more than a TRILLION dollars a year (and have for the last 25 years at least) on the .mil, one would think the Defense Department could upgrade and expand our ammunition factories?
This lack of ammo tells me that the grifting and outright THEFT of most of that money is far beyond our worst nightmares. We spent all of this money and most it was STOLEN and the old ammo we had in warehouses was either used up in Afghanistan or Iraq and the remainder has all been sent to the Kraine.
We are so F*****D if we get into a conflict with anyone.
This is just another. “Dusting a camel/tent with a cruise missile.”
The missile the Brits used the other day has a classified cost of millions. The drone they shot down, runs maybe 30k.
The same hold true for Men and Bullets.
The Cartridge load for the average soldier is just a little over 200 round.
In the past I read that it takes well in excess of 10,000 rounds to kill one enemy soldier.
A skilled marksman can kill an enemy soldier with “One” well aimed stray shot.
I am relieved our soldiers are carrying Eco-Friendly bullets.
Even small arms munitions are soon to be in short supply…..Except “They”will have enough rounds to force compliance on their own Peasant Class.
Skilled machinists and tool & die guys?? The kids of today could NOT even begin to compete with grandpa. Kids are being turned into Nancy-Boys or Sexed Up Mini Wimmen by their Karen mothers and ever compliant dads. I see it every day in the BigBox. We hired an 18 yro guy; long mane of hair down to his ass, torn jeans, and the necessary T-shirt of Che. He came in and was supposed to go upstairs for to see a manager, after he clocked in. The guy literally disappeared for 4 hours-no one knows what he was doing or where he was-and then he walked out. Oh…..Daddy drove him to his hiring interview, and his first day of “work”. And this is normal for most of these idiots. We are in a world of hurt with these imbeciles hitting adulthood. 100 years ago, 18 yro “boys” were married, making babies, supporting a family, and working 40+ hours a week. Somebody bring back the paddle at school!
I have it on good authority that some of the drone kills by USS Carney were done by 5″/45 gun mount, primarily the low and slow intel drones. Also, a point of order on Mk 41 VLS is that Enhanced Sea Sparrow fits 4 birds to 1 VLS cell these days, and Arleigh Burkes are perfectly capable of using ESSM vice Standard for surface to air engagements.
This is all to say that the VLS missile load situation is likely not as bad as assumed here.
I do have to say that the Ammo Accountant I used to be back in the day is curious what the war reserve stock levels are in the deep storage magazines like Umatilla and Long Beach. When I was doing my ammo accountant thing at NAS Whidbey 2000-2003 we had stocks in the magazines designated as War Reserve which we could not issue short of no shit shooting war. These were primarily HARM missiles, quantity on hand count which I will never reveal.
I can also say that my last Japan tour on Okinawa was at Navy Munitions Command Okinawa, and as I was leaving in 2010 there were preliminary plans in the works to place VLS reloads in the magazines, and use the local explosive handing pier (Okinawa has one, Tengan pier, look it up on Google Maps) to do VLS reloads on cruisers/destroyers. I don’t know if that ever was fully put in place, but to me it indicates that someone is at least thinking about moving that capability further forward, and spreading it out.
LCAAP had a major equipment modernization and upgrade around 15 years ago. I was working for another contractor that leased surplus building on plant for making DoD ammo (40mm M781, M91 Igniter, 20mm Dummy rounds). I had occasion to be in various manufacturing areas at LCAAP as the company I worked for did some sorting and packing work for the LCAAP managing contractor for the civilian side of the market, Olin at the time. I also saw the PR handouts for the media showing the new equipment and knew all of the people that performed the testing since they also performed some testing for us. They unsurplused the buildings that were being leased by the contractor I worked for, causing them to have to relocate off plant. That was for a major expansion of the 20mm manufacturing around 10 or 11 years ago. I had already changed jobs before that occurred, but am still friends with the CEO of my past employer.
If you have done the math, you can sure as hell bet the Russians and the Chinese have done the math in spades and like their odds. NATO really is a toothless tiger.
Yesterday I was driving through the “bad schools” part of town and there was an old, old factory with boarded up windows, but brand spanking new fence with razor wire. 1890 factory with 2023 wire. Why don’t we all just gather up all the weapons inside it? They’re ours anyway. This is actually a thing in that they are simply putting the 1917 tools right where we need them. Lulz?
The VLS system has 96 tubes and there is one fore and aft. The guy is clueless
Are you muslim? if not you should play one on tv, or move to MN
Maybe Lary Finkelstein and BlackRock or Beel Gaytes will build some of the ammo making facilities instead of gain if function badd juju virus facilities.
Maybe Lary Finkelstein and BlackRock or Beel Gaytes will build some of the ammo making facilities instead of gain of function badd juju virus facilities.
A smart adversary would make the cheapest drones and middles possible, maybe has a warhead maybe not, and let the western forces use all their ammo.
One (1) propellant manufacturer.
Stands out like a sore thumb.
I worked at the Riverbank (CA) ammo plant in the 80s, manufacturing 81mm and 60mm mortars, as well as CBUs and 40mm cannon casings.
The plant was shut down in 1991 and the huge majority of the presses and lathes needed for manufacturing was sold as scrap, then the floor space was rented out to different businesses and small non-military manufacturers.
That plant will never come back.
Good post. But worse than you think. Milan TN plant has been closed for about 10 years. Assets sold.
Growing up in sixties and early 70s West TN had the sound of freedom hearing and feeling the crump from testing explosions at the arsenal and sonic booms from jets out of Millington on training flights.
“ The Navy, since October has been shooting down, almost on the daily Houthi cruise missiles, drones and what have you”.
My first thought after this before I continued reading was when this stops we get the false flag.
Side note, years ago driving north on the hwy by the Macalester plant I got to observe the extremely tall black smoke stacks of what I guessed was detonation of expired munitions. Would like to have known the method as they were concentrated tall columns of kaboomy boom.
There is the old saying:
Beginners talk tactics, Experts talk strategy, but the really, really real guys talk logistics.
I wonder, why ships or tanks etc are designed to be so unwildy, you know, why do you need calm waters or a port to reload?
Can the brains not come up with something thats easy and works even in wartime situations?
And by the way: In german news it was said that Russia cant loose because nukes.
Guess, that goes both ways.
Just imagine the US looses a carrier to Iran and the US sends some canned sunshine to Teheran.
So if the other side is good (what I presume) they will push some buttons to tell the West that it is Game Over – without using nukes.
The problem: Are our leaders intelligent enough to understand such a message?
I doubt it.
If Nukes really work as advertised, the repercussions would destroy most Human life but also permently destroy most of the farmland and livestock.
IF Nukes really work as advertised, I highly doubt they will be used.
There is too much money to be made with with making more conventional armaments.
It is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.
“Fundamental Change.” Barry said. Our military is gutted and hollowed out. Our war stocks depleted. We don’t have the machinery to build basic war supplies nor the means to remake them anymore. Our youth are increasingly fragile and think that that life involves tik tok instead of machine shop. We barely make gunpowder here. We don’t make lead or guncotton here anymore. We have a shadow of our steel industry. Our oil reserve is depleted and our homeland oil drilling is hobbled. Our ships and front line planes are too complicated and fragile. The Chinese have spent the last 10 years building a military designed to cheaply sink our carrier forces, especially when the ship defenses are low after blowing up goats and empty tents. The Russians can lob artillery all day at whomever we can convince to fuck with them. Our political class is corrupt and our economy is going down folks. This was all by design.
Sir, you nailed it. I often refer to that Obammy line. It was not just he to make this happen, but his fellow travelers in the government workforce at all the levels. And now on his third term too!! Gee what a guy!
https://sonar21.com/the-u-s-navy-is-unprepared-for-a-prolonged-war-with-yemen/
The indent part, last paragraph describes how modern US Navy ships have become like the manual transmission cars that the millennials try to steal – they don’t know how to fix them if they break and probably much less how to operate them.
What human rights are being violated in Palestine?
Deprivation of the right to self-determination, extrajudicial killings, restrictions on freedom of movement and assembly and illegal settlements were some of glaring manifestations of human rights violations of the Palestinian people
see why Israel can kill innocent children with American taxpayer at
https://www.tiktok.com/@dominic_dad/video/7308590602898246955?lang=en&q=why%20dont%20Americans%20knowl%20what%20you%20have%20seen%20&t=1701880206555
See how innocent children are killed by the most poufel American arms at
Al Jazeera English Live
at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCNeDWCI0vo
if you do not do something then you do not have a HART
I retired last May after 48 years as a machinist in US Navy shipbuilding, submarines & aircraft carriers.
About 8 years ago execs from Electric Boat came to our shop for an audit and called everyone together for a all hands meeting. They noted that there was a lot of “Grey Hair” in the room and told us that recruiting quality young people was an industry wide problem. I’ve seen it first hand in my shop. Out of every ten new hires there might be 2 or 3 who actually stick around for a while and try to learn something. Machining is a difficult trade to learn and takes at least 10 years to get comfortable with close tolerance work. Lots of guys I worked with will be retiring over the next few years and there is no one to replace them . We’re Doomed.
Re “in many instances “Ignorance is Bliss”.”
Ignorance of lies and deceptions (=most mainstream news and establishment decrees) is bliss because exposing yourself to that is self-propagandization.
Ignorance of truths is not, or only temporarily or rarely, bliss because it is ultimately self-defeating …. https://johnmichaeldemarco.com/15-reasons-why-ignorance-is-not-bliss
The FALSE mantra of “ignorance is bliss”, promoted in the latter sense, is a product of a fake sick culture that has indoctrinated its “dumbed down” (therefore TRULY ignorant, therefore easy to control) people with many such manipulative slogans. Eg…
““We’re all in this together” is a tribal maxim. Even there, it’s a con, because the tribal leaders use it to enforce loyalty and submission. … The unity of compliance.” — Jon Rappoport, Investigative Journalist
You can find the proof that ignorance is hardly ever bliss (and if so only superficial temporary fake bliss), and how you get to buy into this lie (and other self-defeating lies), in the article “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room –The Holocaustal Covid-19 Coronavirus Madness: A Sociological Perspective & Historical Assessment Of The Covid “Phenomenon”” …. http://www.CovidTruthBeKnown.com (or https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html)
“Separate what you know from what you THINK you know.” — Unknown
“If ‘ignorance is bliss’ –there should be more happy people.” — Unknown
Machinist here. I’m the kid at most jobs I’ve worked and I’m 42. The even bigger problem than losing the old guys? A modern machine shop requires a man with not only machinist skills but also enough computer programming knowledge to not destroy a $250000 mill by putting in a wrong number. All the younger guys think the computer model will spit out all the needed numbers and then wonder why their machines won’t assemble. But don’t worry, we can import illiterate 3rd world subhuman to get do all the factory work……
About that needing computer knowledge for a shop… about 20 years ago, I was shooting the bull in our engineering shop and asked about one of the jobs being run on one such $$$ mill. Job was taking over an hour to run one part that could have been done on a Bridgeport and a rotary table in about 15 minutes including tool changes. Reason was the machinists were no longer allowed to make changes to any program sent down from “I r n engineer, I have a degree and u don’t” . I said that me, a dum fkn fireman with a shop background, could see that there was a better way, but why was it this way, hogging out 4 inches of 5/8 thick 6061 aluminum with a ball nosed end mill from the 1 inch center hole. Answer: it was do to the radius needed on the outer edge of the inside diameter of the part and the programmer did what the CADCAM on the computer told him to and that this was only the second pass with one more pass to go. This guy also said that a new programmer was being given a tour of the shop, picked up an end mill and after asking what it was said “So that’s what one looks like”. God help us because those coming up behind are so dependent on what the magic box says that I doubt that they could think their way out of a wet cardboard box when it all goes away.
Well it all starts at the top. When you tolerate leftists in charge… things stop working. There never should have been a war in the Kraine. If we had adults in charge we’d be doing business with the Russians rather than fighting with them.
Nor should the US be in the Middle East or dozens of other hot spots peopled by violent and stupid human trash, with no benefit to show for being there.
But whadda I know…?
A related question I’d like to know the answer to is: when does Israel run out of iron dome missiles?
An article I saw on a Russian Website, back in May or so, was about how the MOD had re-opened an Artillery Shell Plant from “The Great Patriotic War” and that the process involved Cleaning the Grease that had been sprayed on the Machines back in the 1950’s, and starting right up. Once the Plant had 3 Shifts running, they produced 11,000 Rounds a Day. About what the entire capacity of the one Plant in the FUSSA makes in a Month.
The interesting part of the Article was the Interview with a 50-ish Woman, whose Grandmother had worked at that Ammo Plant in WWII…
Chum this up…why aren’t the billionaire class creating new production facilities when the writing on the wall was there years ago? Buffet, Gates and Bezos should be all over this…hmmmmm!