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Exclusive: US Marines’ boots fell apart during Arctic NATO exercise (www.newsweek.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[–] 29 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Reminder that "military grade" doesn't mean best it means "the cheapest version that is ostensibly combat-effective."

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    "Military Grade" means the military put out a requirement for [fill in the blank] specs, then bought from the cheapest company to meet those bare minimum requirements.

    In order to win a government contract, you need to be the lowest bidder, full stop. So companies will take all sorts of shortcuts in order to make their product cheap while also meeting the specs required.

    So yeah, "Military Grade" means cheap garbage that met some generic spec requirement the military once asked for.

    Sincerely,

    ~Former military dude who used to manage equipment orders for military units.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    If they buy the cheapest shit that is up to spec, how they manage to wastespend so much money?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    They're not spending the big bucks on the troops. It's all in AI, missiles, and other things that kill people

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Definitely software. I was reading a book on fortran and was... in disbelief that the American government was spending billions of USD on software alone in the 1970s or 80s (pre 2000s)--when a billion USD brought a lot more than it does today. It just seemed absurd. It's still absurd, because organizations still pay for things that are essentially free: operating systems and Microsoft Office like software. The orgs I'm thinking about aren't even asking for bespoke solutions or contacting any commercial support-provider. They need a word processor so they just spend money on Microsoft. They've only ever known Microsoft Word. It's just what you do. Money down the drain on a perpetual fee that will only increase over time. It's so pointless and wasteful.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Sometimes the specs are niche, so the thing is custom made, which expensive to do. However, lowest bidder wins, so they buy the one that is custom made to meet the required spec, but they cut the corner on everything else.

    Take something like a boot. You can buy decent boots for $50 or great boots for $100 but if you're climbing Everest you will want the $200 boots that have X feature and are made well from a reputable company.

    If you're the military, you want the X feature but not the colour that is available commercially nor the sole that is quite niche and so can be tracked and identified. So you out out a custom spec. Generic sole pattern, feature X. You want 500. Companies bid, offering it at 150. You buy it. Turns out the sole was different for a reason. The generic sole is dogshit. Boots are crap. You buy 5000 more.

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