DickParasite posted:

DickParasite posted:

Hatebag posted:

les budgets terribles?!

www.commerce.gov posted:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Commerce takes action to bolster the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and protect U.S. national security

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it will launch a new survey in January 2024 that will serve as a foundation for continued analysis of the capabilities and challenges of the broader U.S. semiconductor supply chain and national defense industrial base. The intent of the survey is to identify how U.S. companies are sourcing current-generation and mature-node semiconductors, also known as legacy chips. This analysis will inform U.S. policy to bolster the semiconductor supply chain, promote a level playing field for legacy chip production, and reduce national security risks posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

“Legacy chips are essential to supporting critical U.S. industries, like telecommunications, automotive and the defense industrial base. Addressing non-market actions by foreign governments that threaten the U.S. legacy chip supply chain is a matter of national security,”said Secretary Gina Raimondo. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen potential signs of concerning practices from the PRC to expand their firms’ legacy chip production and make it harder for U.S. companies to compete. To get ahead of these concerns, the Department of Commerce is taking proactive measures to assess the U.S. semiconductor supply chain by collecting data from U.S. companies on the sourcing of their legacy chips. Government alone cannot create and sustain a robust supply chain – we need industry at the table. This survey will empower the Department with the data we need to inform our next steps in building strong, diverse, and resilient semiconductor supply chains.”

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) within Commerce will launch the survey, which focuses on the use and sourcing of PRC-manufactured legacy chips in the supply chains of critical U.S. industries. The survey is a response to findings in a Congressionally-mandated report also released this week, which assesses the capabilities of the U.S. microelectronics industrial base to support U.S. national defense. That report was prepared pursuant to Section 9904 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021.

Companies headquartered in the U.S. account for approximately half of global semiconductor revenue but face intense competition supported by increasing subsidies from foreign governments. The 9904 report recommends that the United States promotes a level playing field for semiconductor manufacturing in the United States through support for domestic fabrication, assembly, test, and package capabilities, continued protection of U.S. technology through export controls, and further assessment of potential non-market behavior. BIS completed the data collection in May 2023 and developed the 9904 report and recommendations in coordination with the CHIPS Program Office.The full study directed under Section 9904 is available on BIS’s website.

Cerebral Bore posted:

in the mid 90s the project finally bore fruit, creating a new perfect soldier for a new age of war. they were grifting snake, lowest bidder snake and vaporware snake

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

mawarannahr posted:

Commerce Department Announces Industrial Base Survey of American Semiconductor Supply Chain

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yoYZf-lBF_U

Hatebag posted:

super boondoggle method!?

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

stephenthinkpad posted:

Kojima can't come up with weapon projects as imaginative as the F35 and LCS.

Cerebral Bore posted:

a revolutionary new nuclear weapons launch platform. when deployed it can fire an atomic warhead from any terrain at any target in the world within a mere 240 hours as long as it isn't raining anywhere in its flight path and as long as the maintenance crew remembered to oil all 2468 proprietary actuators with a special blend of lubricants, rosewater and lemur piss

my god... colonel, how long do we have to stop them?

time is running out. we expect them to have a 1:50 scale mock-up ready as early as 2035

2035?!?

The Oldest Man posted:

You can read the writing on the wall with these programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_combat_aircraft

Western military leaders and industry look at drones and they basically think of a current-gen manned combat aircraft but with a couple benefits:
1) maybe itll be cheaper because we won't have to put a cockpit and all its associated gear on the plane?
2) we wont have to care if it gets shot down because no pilot, thatll be popular with politicians i bet?
3) maybe it can do some sick macross zero poo poo because we dont have to worry about human g-tolerance anymore???

Just take a step back and think about that. You're starting from the design assumptions of a current-gen manned combat aircraft - that it's going to be carry 500lb+ bombs, that it's going to be able to fight 1:1 with a manned tactical fighter, that you're going to have a fleet of them measured in hundreds or mayyybe thousands. You're ultimately talking about a system that you expect to procure as if it was a tactical combat aircraft.

Then look at like a Shahed-136 or -238. There's a reason the US hasn't procured something like that: doctrinally, it's a threat to all the power players in the MIC. Suddenly you're talking about an intermediate-range strategic strike weapon that doesn't need hugely expensive cutting edge stealth technology that can only be fabricated by the lockmart and grumman keebler elves or the pratt & whitney and GE supercruise whisperers, that doesn't need aerial refueling, that doesn't need aircraft carriers, hell you're calling into question whether you even need expensive and highly trained (and prestigious) pilots to deliver air strikes at all.

It's generally just a true observation that doctrinal concepts that threaten the prestige of the entrenched military leadership are killed in the crib unless there are outside forces that strong-arm the military into accepting them; it's just even more true now that there's also this massive and highly profitable sole-source arms industry whose cozy margins are also threatened by new ideas.

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

Trabisnikof posted:

I would quibble that the US does actually procure similar loitering munitions, the switchblade jumps to mind, but they’re stuck in doctrinal niches because of the organizational threat that changing doctrine to enhance their usage would pose.

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

skooma512 posted:

The Air Force brass are all fighter pilots. You don't get promotions if your cockpit is a trailer at Creech and your controls are from an Xbox.

poisonpill posted:

Why is every branch so reticent to move to unmanned stuff? Like drones, robots, etc.? It seems like trying to make it so that it could either have a crew or be empty will get you the worst of both worlds and please don’t just say grift

Justin Tyme posted:

cheap quadrotors with RPG-7 warheads ziptied to them

The Oldest Man posted:

The switchblade is a tactical munition with a range of about 40km for the latest and largest version, and it's still designed to be man-portable. The Shahed-136 is a strategic munition with a range of 2500 km that weighs almost 500 pounds. These are only similar in that they are drones that are smaller than conventional aircraft.

The Oldest Man posted:

This is just US MIC garbagebrain that these are all crude, ersatz improvisational weapons rather than purpose-built, series-production designs because that feeds the Western cope machine that Acksually, these cave-dwelling primitives can't compete with Our Good poo poo. Does this look like an RPG-7 warhead ziptied to a quadcopter to you?

Real hurthling! posted:

switchblade should be the name of the ginsu hellfire variant

what are we even doing

uber_stoat posted:

it's fun watching the government stirring like a drunken sleeping giant, hangover head pounding, slowly realizing just how hosed it is.

Trabisnikof posted:

and they cost the same


but good point, that was not an exact comparison. the recent tomahawks can apparently loiter now, and they're only $2M each. there's also the Aevex Phoenix Ghost and the Raytheon Coyote but details are scant on those

Trabisnikof posted:

the fact that if the us buys a loitering munition it will cost 100x more than if China, Russia, Iran, etc bought it goes beyond the organizational threat to flyboys etc that these munitions pose. the cost is due to the fundamental rot at play in the american economic system.

if we want to buy a manned fighter jet, an unmanned fighter jet, a tank, a truck, a nuclear power plant or a concrete bridge over a creek, they're all going to cost 100x what it does in places not suffering from the same institutionalized grift. replacing the air force chiefs with droneboys instead of flyboys won't be able to change that.

they'll just buy more million dollar loitering munitions to replace the million dollar missiles

stephenthinkpad posted:

The Iranian Shahed 137 has had a pretty old history, I think the earliest design was from Israel. It's not really a new drone design from this war. I don't know why the west can't make any and give to Ukraine.

The Oldest Man posted:

...
The whole point here is that the Western MIC is so loving blinkered that it won't even try to adapt until forced to, very likely by a shocking military defeat, and that even once it starts trying it probably won't be able to because its cost basis and industrial capacity are totally hosed too

quote:

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

stephenthinkpad posted:

The Iranian Shahed 137 has had a pretty old history, I think the earliest design was from Israel. It's not really a new drone design from this war. I don't know why the west can't make any and give to Ukraine.