Comment by chriselles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chriselles | Hacker News Reader

This is probably one of the very few topics I may be able to add value here on Hacker News.

As a service, the USMC are approaching bottom up innovation very seriously. https://mobile.twitter.com/marinemakers

The USAF is also very active in bottom up innovation.

Another program is Hacking 4 Defense founded by Steve Blank, Pete Newell, and Joe Felter(leave of absence now performing role of US Assistant Undersecretary of Defence for South & Southeast Asia).

Pete Newell(retired Army Colonel) stood up the Rapid Equipping Force a numbe of years ago to rapidly accelerate the development and deployment of tools to mitigate IED related casualties.

Hacking 4 Defense(H4D) is running across a growing number of University campus to solve complex Defense problems using the Lean Start Up methodology using a modified lean canvas called the Mission Model Canvas.

https://www.h4di.org

I am working to expand the use of H4D/MMC down here in Australasia.

Happy to share more if anyone is interested.

It’s great to see Marines given the latitude to experiment.

It’s also great to see the often inaccurate stereotypes of Marines being rigidly disciplined and inflexible in thinking give way to the reality that Marines have very often conducted comprehensive tactical experimentation and innovation.

Except that bottom-up development doesnt always work in the context of complicated systems. OK, the button works but does it work in all conditions the aircraft is designed for? Maybe a button here or there isnt much, but there are potentially hundreds of such instances on an aircraft. Small defects add up. Eventually something gives. It may sound cool to reduce costs and scream independance, marines like such things, but aircraft remain safe due to a religious dedication to parts managment. Start chipping away at that and you are asking for trouble.

Nobody is saying there isn't a place for good parts management, solid systems engineering, and quality control. But there's room for bottom-up ideas and rapid prototyping too.

I couldn't agree more on complex or extremely complex interdependent systems.

We certainly wouldn't want to replace an impeller for a precision milled high performance turbo pump on a rocket with a 3D printed part as the risk of catastrophic failure would be enormous.

But there is still great scope for field expedient replacement because of the simple fact that field expedient repair has occurred since mankind started killing each other in an organised fashion.

I think much of the genuine risk of cumulative patchwork repairs increasing risk of catastrophic failure could be mitigated with a smart asset registry/history that could manage "go/no go" for depot level or higher maintenance/refurb.

DOD would surely be one of the world's biggest consumers of duct tape. If just in time 3D printing can provide short term sustainment of assets that includes proper asset history documentation, the I would imagine that would be a net plus.

Looking further into the future, I could easily imagine both 3D printing and production output auditing for common consumables and wear items as not just field expedient, but becoming the standard.

Although I would think this will require a massive R&D/certification effort(so easier said than done), as well as designing this flexibility into future assets/platforms.

"For want of a nail" comes to mind.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail.

3D print the nail, and then replace it in deport maintenance.

> We certainly wouldn't want to replace an impeller for a precision milled high performance turbo pump on a rocket with a 3D printed part as the risk of catastrophic failure would be enormous.

A nitpick, but there are different kinds of 3D printing; on the higher end, companies like SpaceX actually do 3D-print rocket engine parts.

Koenigsegg 3D prints the variable turbo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNedUZxP8NU

SpaceX says they 3D print all of their Super Draco rocket engine.

Not all. The wires arent printed. Any ball bearings arent. The turbos are still assembled by hand. Certainly the micropocessors arent 3d. It doesnt emerge complete from the office printer.

"Stop the war, my button broke off, and I need a replacement."

I foresee a requirement like this being added to defense contracts in the near future, basically requiring plans and easy replacement for the plastic bits. Then the defense department can either build their own parts or bid out the manufacturing of those parts.

What in particular would you say is driving the USMC to this approach to innovation, compared to the other branches? Are they simply more exposed to unconventional warfare? Is it something about the type of person selected to be a Marine vs another branch? Something unique to their command staff? Etc.

I am not a Marine. But I would venture to guess it has to do with the tide of maintenance & resulting readiness issues the Corps. has historically had to deal with (their budget is tiny compared to USAF/Army), and the demands of running combat deployments non-stop since 9/11/01.

Recently, they literally were pulling wings off of F-18s from museums, because several of their combat aircraft set to deploy in +2 weeks to places like Afghanistan and Iraq, were missing wings.

I'm not convinced about the 'pulling wings off of F-18s from museums' story - you're suggesting that aircraft about to deploy (in two weeks time, no less) had no wings and therefore combat missions ended up being flown with planes using the flight surfaces from museum exhibits?

You may be thinking of the following story, when an F/A-18 that flew in the raid against Libya in 1986 needed a part (the hinge for the front left door of the nose wheel landing gear) which was no longer manufactured, and was eventually found on an aircraft on the USS Yorktown museum ship - although it didn't fit. [0]

0. https://breakingdefense.com/2016/03/marines-scrounge-yorktow...

Yep I was mistaken. It seems the article you cited may have been the origin story.

What I read, (and it changed in my head over time obviously to the point of perpetuating an urban legend) was from the military times in 2016 - which cites anecdotes that House Armed Services Cmte. Chairman, Mac Thornberry received firsthand [0].

Thanks for correcting me on this.

[0] - https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/03/30/...

NP. There's a lot of urban legend style stories about the military (multi thousand dollar hammers, that sort of thing) passed around, both in the US and the UK, and I think it's important that where there are cases of actual incompetence or negligence they get reported, but it's counterproductive to invent things so it's useful to correct any false impressions.

Maybe not museums, but they certainly could have gotten some from the Arizona Boneyard.

For at least the last several decades the USMC has been doctrinally committed to pushing decision making authority and accountability down to the most granular component of the force, the fireteam [1]. It's natural that they extend that doctrine beyond battlefield duties to other areas like combat readiness and innovation as well.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireteam

This goes back a few years http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/strategic_corporal....

USMC has long had a culture, at least to this outsider, of adaptive approaches to problem solving.

As a former Marine, I'd say that is an accurate assessment. "Adapt and overcome" is a motto I heard often.

The Irish Army doesn't have a motto but if it did the most used saying, especially in training is: "Improvise, adapt, overcome"

The Marines are doctrinally committed to being expeditionary. The cultural mantra and statutory niche of the Marine Corps is to be able to project American military power anywhere in the world on very short notice.

You know what slows that down? Logistics.

The Marines have been at the forefront of trying to overcome logistics limitations. The MV-22 Osprey is the perfect example. If you want to deploy anywhere in the world without the lead time to build an airstrip, you need a bird that can fly long distances like an airplane and set down like a helicopter.

3D Printing is the JIT compilation version of materiel production. If we have to set up a base in a remote part of Korea tomorrow, we will not be able to build a logistics train in time to fix tanks and planes and MRAPs. But if we can 3D print whatever parts we need, our on-site logistical capabilities get a huge advantage.

Expeditionary Force 21 [PDF]: http://www.mccdc.marines.mil/Portals/172/Docs/MCCDC/Document...

The Osprey does not do all that much for Logistics over the first 48 hours, it's main advantage is longer term mobility. An airdrop from a C-130 can drop a tank or just about anything else anywhere on the planet without a runway. The issue is it can't then pick it back up without a runway.

Mobility is part of logistics.

Sure, but mobility after the first 48 hours is a separate problem than being able to project force in the first 48 hours.

First of all, the MV-22 does not carry tanks. Second, here's what happens when you try to airdrop a vehicle much lighter than a tank: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjF8ju7YeLI Imho it's pretty amusing you're telling someone who clearly has more domain specific knowledge than you that they're wrong.

here's what happens when you try to airdrop a vehicle much lighter than a tank

Tanks being "airdropped" looks very different from that. A C-130 "dropping" a tank involves flying down to within a few feet of the ground and then opening the cargo door -- parachutes are used in this case to slow the tank's horizontal movement, not to prevent it from falling.

You can't really take one video of an accident and then claim that's what happens every time you try and drop something out of a plane.

Never said the Osprey could carry tanks, just pointing out that air transport does not require a runway. The Osprey is great for picking stuff up not transporting it.

As to domain knowledge, I have actually worked on related subjects for the DoD. I am far from a domain expert, but I was for example required to attend various lectures including some on logistics.

As to Airdrop you generally drop a tank* from ~10 feet not ~10,000 ft. Getting close to the ground does not take infrastructure stopping does. Runways need to be long and clear because aircraft need to slow down. http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/this-is-the-last-tank...

*Not that we still do this largely because we don't have such 'small' tanks any more.

Eggh except the MV-22 Osprey has basically been a mess of an aircraft. Waaaayyyyy too expensive and dangerous compared an advantages gained by it.

All things equal, I (US Citizen) prefer that our military be effective and efficient. It troubles me though that there is virtually no public discussion on the unprecedented geographic scope , and time length, of today’s employments. This whole thread is interesting, and I think it is worth considering: to what end is all this innovation being applied?

I have come to the conclusion that the professionalization of the services, coupled with the parasitic business model of the “defense industry,” has turned the US armed forces into a standing mercenary force.

Ultimately, the blame for this lies with the corrupt electoral system in the US, and the unwillingness of our political leadership to exert a modicum of common sense, and reduce the scale of US military involvements.

We can’t rely on institutions that many entities rely on for their livelihood/existence to put themselves out of business.

It would be nice to see the military engage in disruptive innovation that would discourage open ended military conflict. (And the endless meddling in other countries ghastly civil wars.)

>...has turned the US armed forces into a standing mercenary force.

This statement makes no sense.

A mercenary is "a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army" [1]. It's impossible to be a mercenary for your own country.

1. https://www.google.com/search?q=define+mercenary

Jeez, I’m making a rhetorical point that the US army, which is not technically a mercenary army, as it is the official army of a sovereign state, has turned into an organization whose operations are driven by business interests.

Just that there’s no confusion, the point of a civilian-controlled military is so that the military doesn’t do what the military wants. The military does what its people wants (or maybe needs), based on instructions from the civilian leader(s) voted into political office by the civilians.

The military is but one of many tools in the toolkit of our civilian foreign policy makers.

If you have an issue with how foreign policy is done, the right person/people in charge that should know are the politicians. They control the military.

What's your experience trying to bring the same approach to Australia?

In my experience, Defence/military here have been incredibly close-minded and resistant to change.

Hi Avinium,

I’ve found slices of the US military to be incredibly innovative, forward thinking, and willing to take lots of small calculated risks.

The USMC maker efforts are one bottom up effort, and I’m aware of a fantastic Air Force effort that has excellent support as well.

Australia’s effort is more recent, I’m helping them to develop in-house innovation training as well as helping to shape an in-house innovation ecosystem/pipeline.

I think a big part of successful implementation is culture change.

On operations, we are expected to take calculated risks that include failing at times, in order to learn and iterate.

The biggest issue is that in a homefront “camp” environment, everyone becomes risk averse due to frequent posting cycles(officers usually change roles every 2-3 years).

Short posting cycles contradict the need for much longer term innovation pipeline outputs.

I hope that helps?

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