calculon000
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Making a prototype is one thing, developing the infrastructure to manufacture it cheaply takes time.
PhredBean said:Which is why the air force and the army are starting to buy civie equiptment rather than military-specific contractor-developed equiptment.Atomic Cowboy said:...I still don't understand why they can build a civie radio that works anywhere, but the $20 000 radios the army has break down as soon as you go over a hill.
PhredBean said:386: Peace is like marriage, while it takes the continued desire and effort of both parties to last, only one of those parties has to decide they don't want it anymore to go sour. One country alone can't account for peace, it is the effort of all nations involved, as history has shown time and time again. No matter how much one party wants peace, or how many parties want peace, just one nation or government can destroy all that.
A nation can, however, account for their own security by making it undesirable for any other nation to break the peace. Again, this is called security, it is the one aspect of peace a single nation can account for, granting for themselves to an extent. In that article you will find the mention of security many more times than that of wars or battles, or even peace.
Wars and warfighting capabilties as mentioned there are but a means of accounting for your security. Preparedness is key, as always. The United States military has the purpose of making it undesirable for any country to attack our security, or to defeat foes in an efficient manner should they be foolish enough to threaten our security.
Unfortunately, those forces can also be misused for gain by certain administrations as we're finding now.
PhredBean said:Back on subject, I'm getting tired of watching perfectly good technologies go to waste. You read them over and over in Popular Science or Mechanics, but nothing ever seems implimented.
Like I said about the cards, a $500 Dell could handle everything those multimillion dollar 1970s computer racks are doing and more, plus be more reliable and easier to fix.Makdaam said:I wouldn't laugh at the tubes. I'd laugh at not getting/designing new equipment with them and not maintaining them properly.
Really? I've gotten the impression present military development was all about spending billions of dollars developing stealth helicopters and high-rate-of-fire artillery batteries, then scrapping them at the last minute. But there's probably some of what you said too.Back to the topic, present military development is no rocket science (rocket science is so 60's ) It's more about using non-typical weaponry (not restricted by any acts yet, like the sonic emitter from USA and chem lasers from UK). Hi-tech civilian stuff is restricted mostly by the economical reasons (prototype bluray players were huge and required a quite fast controller for those days).
please refrain from using the word Dell, in the same sentence as reliable & easy to fix. the sysadmins thank you.PhredBean said:cards, a $500 Dell could handle everything those multimillion dollar 1970s computer racks are doing and more, plus be more reliable and easier to fix.
No, it probably wouldn't be more reliable.PhredBean said:Like I said about the cards, a $500 Dell could handle everything those multimillion dollar 1970s computer racks are doing and more, plus be more reliable and easier to fix.
SuAside said:please refrain from using the word Dell, in the same sentence as reliable & easy to fix. the sysadmins thank you.
I used to be a combat comm radar technician, I know of what I speak. SuAcide, you'll notice the word "more" there, I'm not saying Dells are even halfway decent, just that they work better than the shit being used now. It was to drive home a point.Sander said:No, it probably wouldn't be more reliable.
The entire reason why people stay with the old stuff is because it works *and keeps on working*.
Now that's just ridiculous.PhredBean said:I used to be a combat comm radar technician, I know of what I speak. SuAcide, you'll notice the word "more" there, I'm not saying Dells are even halfway decent, just that they work better than the shit being used now. It was to drive home a point.
Sander, the cards being used need to be realigned daily or else every voltage, frequency, and everything else will drift out of reqs and fuck the whole thing straight to hell. Those cards also come in from the depot or manufacturer dead 2/3s of the damn time. They lose all alignments when bumped, if they survive. For a transportable system, that just blows. Those radars cost $250k a year to maintain per radar due to those fucking cards more than anything.
Usually, old stuff works far longer than new stuff. But trust me when I say military electronics are an exception.
Taxpayers are better off with the govt buying civie electronics, I heard all the same laments from the radio and metnav techs that I had as radar.