It’s very easy to throw rocks at the greedy contractors, but I think the military is almost completely responsible for these costs. The acquisitions and contracting offices create these unfavorable deals, usually because of risk aversion and ignorance.
It’s also not fair to buy a thing for a cheaper price because the IP rights aren’t included, then try to cut out the IP holder when things need fixing. The company bid a low initial price betting they would get additional revenue on spare parts and change orders later.
Finally, the military has incredible leverage at the start of a program that they could use better. Companies will include IP rights if the alternative is not getting a contract at all. Once the piece of equipment is fielded, leverage returns to the company.
> It’s very easy to throw rocks at the greedy contractors, but I think the military is almost completely responsible for these costs. The acquisitions and contracting offices create these unfavorable deals, usually because of risk aversion and ignorance.
And outsourcing. The military doesn't want to hold inventory on these things, either.
So, the military wants to offload everything and then is so very upset that they have no leverage and get overcharged.
The solution is straightforward: in-house manufacturing capacity. Suddenly you have leverage against the contractors. And, since this is the military, they can make that change by command fiat. But they won't.
Outsourcing is only useful when doing it internally is an alternative. Once the external companies know that you've lost that ability to do it yourself and can't threaten them anymore, they're going to squeeze you for every red cent they can.
Exactly. The dod was dumb enough to sign the restrictive contracts too. Simultaneously it's darn time the dod gets off their duff and either demands much higher customer satisfaction or tells the other side we'll handle selected repairs ourselves.
It's the enlisted men/women who ultimately have to bear up under their choices: does their equipment work in battle or not? And tax payers to pay. As soon as the dod discovers they have ultimately accountability whence ultimate control things will balance better
And an aside: it'd be awesome if every round didnt cost 500 million+ ... I have recently been depressed to hear we spent a large majority of missiles etc in Iran. Iran? Really? How in the hell are we gonna deal with something serious? (Iran/oil is serious of course .. but Iran isn't china)
Why don't we just have a captive, state-owned military-industrial complex?
The idea of having private firms try to build their interpretation of what the Army or Air Force wants seems redundant and inefficient. And then you have to bury the cost of failed designs in the contracts you do win, or sell them designs to other countries that end up using them against us after a couple coups.
I know at first blush these 10k for a hammer and 40k for a knob charges seem outrageous but what you don't see if you just look at these charges is the other side of the equation where you fix bid a project and then the three letter agency you are working with changes the requirements mid-project.
You have to make the change and they are bound by funds appropriated and you have to deliver. The way this works out a good number of times is on the back end when you work together in a next phase to bill a 10k custom hammer as part of a maintenance and support contract . The reality is not that the hammer costs 10k but as a contractor you are being compensated for 10k of out of scope work you had to do in a prior phase.
Again this is almost certainly not about right to repair and more about fix the way these projects are budgeted and scoped.
Just my two cents here.
The military doesn't pay for quality, they pay for compliance. When you wrap everything in rules about rules, you end up paying $5 for a part and $95 for paperwork.
surely there are some extra knobs at the original knob factory and 3d printers have nothing to do with it.