[vntx]

The MacGyver military-industrial complex is something you just have to see to believe. Cheap Macguyver warfare makes a lot of sense economically for an economy like Ukraine’s.

Meanwhile in the US:

On top of the $22.4 billion it cost in research and development, the USS Zumwalt, one of three Zumwalt destroyer class ships, cost over $4 billion to create….Military Watch Magazine reported issues back in 2018, saying that the USS Zumwalt “suffered from poorly functioning weapons, stalling engines and an underperformance in their stealth capabilities, among other shortcomings.”

Sometimes, worse is better.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer#:~:t....

https://veteranlife.com/military-news/uss-zumwalt/

[dredmorbius]

There's a classic 1951 science-fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke, "Superiority" about a country that's developing an ultimate weapon, except that specifications and costs keep expanding to the point that only one can be afforded, and that of course comes too late.

Mentioned here on SE:

<https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/237557/science-fic...>

And of course Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)>.

ISFDB: <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40897>

It's published in Expedition to Earth (1953): <https://archive.org/details/expeditiontoeart0000arth/page/90...>

[wkat4242]

Seems inspired by the Manhattan project that came too late to be used against Germany and cost unprecedented amounts.

Considering the period it's not exactly science fiction.

[dredmorbius]

The post-WWII period and beginning of the Cold War (starting dates are somewhat ambiguous, though George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" was posted in February 1946, and the Truman Doctrine declared on 12 March 1947) also saw an arms race, particularly of increasingly-powerful nuclear weapons (the hydrogen bomb was first tested in 1951 & '52), jet-powered bombers, and work was proceeding on what would be the first intercontinental ballistic missiles (the Soviet R-7 Semyorka, first launched in 1957), as well as the still-in-operation B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bomber (first prototype flight in 1952).

I've seen variants of Clarke's observation such as extrapolations of combat aircraft costs which lead to a single plane being shared amongst the US Air Force, Navy, and Army, with the Marines having dibs every few weeks, something similar.

The criticism isn't entirely fair, as there is an element to which a superior weapon or capability can utterly overwhelm numerically-superior forces, given an equivalent initiative to fight, and military leadership capability. The defence-offence advantage (that is, a defender virtually always has the advantage) means that yes, a technologically inferior force can wear down a superior invader over time, though shear weight of numbers (though often at immense cost), as with China over Japan in WWII (Japan occupied portions of the country but simply lacked the personnel to control all but a small fraction of it), the Vietnam against the French and Americans in Indochina, and Afghanistan against the British, Soviets, and Americans from the 19th through the 21st centuries. But at the same time in an initial assault phase technological supremacy can offer overwhelming advantage, as with the US in both Iraq wars and initially in the Afghan conflict, Nazi Germany against France in WWII (most notably radio-equipped tanks overwhelming the noncommunicative French forces), and presently in Ukraine where more advanced Nato munitions seem to be giving a critical edge over Russian massed forces and dumb munitions, though that's been a relatively closer contest, given that Russian leadership seems to have little concern for its own forces' losses.

[sbierwagen]

Most notoriously, Zumwalt is built around the Advanced Gun System, since Congress is obsessed with naval shore bombardment. (See also how they kept Iowa in service decades after it was obsolete)

But...

>A total of six of the systems were installed, two on each of the three Zumwalt-class ships. The Navy has no plans for additional Zumwalt-class ships, and no plans to deploy AGS on any other ship. AGS can only use ammunition designed specifically for the system. Only one ammunition type was designed, and the Navy halted its procurement in November 2016 due to cost ($800,000 to $1,000,000 per round), so the AGS has no ammunition and cannot be used. The Navy will remove the AGS from the ships in 2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Gun_System

A complete dead end, a decade spent doing nothing. Meanwhile, China is launching a dozen guided missile destroyers a year.

[moomin]

I have absolutely no information on the viability of the Chinese military. However, I will observe that the US military a) has people with combat experience at pretty much every level b) publishes documents detailing its fuck-ups. We’re not comparing apples and oranges here.

[woah]

Wow this thing could fire $300m worth of ammo in half an hour with no pauses

[FreshStart]

Which are already redundant due to boat drones

[imtringued]

You mean torpedoes? Or are those Kamikaze boat drones?

[saiya-jin]

Well, low hanging fruit is sometimes hanging very low, but if you want to move past that and reach higher, it gets exponentially harder and thus more expensive.

Also things like reliability, durability under various extreme conditions, safety for humans involved and so on can escalate times and prices dramatically, but are not massive concerns in existential situation Ukraine currently is in due to russia's war.

US is basically never aiming so low with new tech they want for its military, it wants brilliant solutions above everybody else, and has money to burn on it. And from time to time, when looking back those investments were well worth even with flops included. US global hegemony is not something that US wants to lose due to few hundreds billions not allocated as effectively as possible.

[jacquesm]

The Ukrainians have one very big advantage: they know exactly where they want to wage war and against who. This allows them to do all kinds of optimizations.

[threeseed]

1) US military programs are a domestic jobs program / political pork barrelling exercise more than anything. Because of course support for the military is one of the only things left everyone can actually agree on.

2) US needs to build weapons for the future not the present. And as such the amount of cutting-edge R&D as a percentage of the total program spend will always be significantly higher than for most other countries.