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Comment by ungreased0675 | Hacker News Reader

It’s very easy to throw rocks at the greedy contractors, but I think the military is almost completely responsible for these costs. The acquisitions and contracting offices create these unfavorable deals, usually because of risk aversion and ignorance.

It’s also not fair to buy a thing for a cheaper price because the IP rights aren’t included, then try to cut out the IP holder when things need fixing. The company bid a low initial price betting they would get additional revenue on spare parts and change orders later.

Finally, the military has incredible leverage at the start of a program that they could use better. Companies will include IP rights if the alternative is not getting a contract at all. Once the piece of equipment is fielded, leverage returns to the company.

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> It’s very easy to throw rocks at the greedy contractors, but I think the military is almost completely responsible for these costs. The acquisitions and contracting offices create these unfavorable deals, usually because of risk aversion and ignorance.

And outsourcing. The military doesn't want to hold inventory on these things, either.

So, the military wants to offload everything and then is so very upset that they have no leverage and get overcharged.

The solution is straightforward: in-house manufacturing capacity. Suddenly you have leverage against the contractors. And, since this is the military, they can make that change by command fiat. But they won't.

Outsourcing is only useful when doing it internally is an alternative. Once the external companies know that you've lost that ability to do it yourself and can't threaten them anymore, they're going to squeeze you for every red cent they can.

Exactly. The dod was dumb enough to sign the restrictive contracts too. Simultaneously it's darn time the dod gets off their duff and either demands much higher customer satisfaction or tells the other side we'll handle selected repairs ourselves.

It's the enlisted men/women who ultimately have to bear up under their choices: does their equipment work in battle or not? And tax payers to pay. As soon as the dod discovers they have ultimately accountability whence ultimate control things will balance better

And an aside: it'd be awesome if every round didnt cost 500 million+ ... I have recently been depressed to hear we spent a large majority of missiles etc in Iran. Iran? Really? How in the hell are we gonna deal with something serious? (Iran/oil is serious of course .. but Iran isn't china)

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