Global military buildup

[DGuller]

The Russians are seeing this with their new T-14 tank.  It looks like real costs are almost 20 times that of a T-72 and twice that of a T-90SM.  The result is that they cannot afford to field effective numbers of them.  Over the last 7 years they have built about 25 T-14 tanks.

Speaking of that, does the figure of $500,000 as the cost of T-72 tank pass the smell test?  I know they're not good tanks as far as tanks go, but they're still a tank.  It just seems hard to fathom how you can build such a war machine for half a million dollars.  I've also read a few accounts claiming that T-90 is just a T-72 with a facelift, so where is the 10-fold difference in price coming from?

[Syt]

The Russians are seeing this with their new T-14 tank.  It looks like real costs are almost 20 times that of a T-72 and twice that of a T-90SM.  The result is that they cannot afford to field effective numbers of them.  Over the last 7 years they have built about 25 T-14 tanks.

Speaking of that, does the figure of $500,000 as the cost of T-72 tank pass the smell test?  I know they're not good tanks as far as tanks go, but they're still a tank.  It just seems hard to fathom how you can build such a war machine for half a million dollars.  I've also read a few accounts claiming that T-90 is just a T-72 with a facelift, so where is the 10-fold difference in price coming from?

German tank museum had an interesting video on that, explaining that much of the T-series are mostly evolutionary changes, not different generations as one would intuit. They drew a parallel to German Leopards and their Leo-1 => Leo-2A7 evolution (not in terms of combat efficiency, just the idea of an original design undergoing constant development over decades).

[grumbler]

Speaking of that, does the figure of $500,000 as the cost of T-72 tank pass the smell test?  I know they're not good tanks as far as tanks go, but they're still a tank.  It just seems hard to fathom how you can build such a war machine for half a million dollars.  I've also read a few accounts claiming that T-90 is just a T-72 with a facelift, so where is the 10-fold difference in price coming from?

Nobody is building T-70s any more, but the $500k figure comes from the foreign military sales figures (and is in then-year dollars).  Those could be subsidized to some extent, for sure, but those are the numbers we have.  In a command economy, budget figures don't mean much.

[grumbler]

German tank museum had an interesting video on that, explaining that much of the T-series are mostly evolutionary changes, not different generations as one would intuit. They drew a parallel to German Leopards and their Leo-1 => Leo-2A7 evolution (not in terms of combat efficiency, just the idea of an original design undergoing constant development over decades).

The US was doing much the same for almost forty years with the T-12/M-26/M-46/M-60 series.  It's well into the fourth decade of the M-1 series.  Replacement tank research programs fail far more often than they succeed.  Hell, the Stryker is in the mid-20s in years spent as the "interim" IFV.

[Threviel]

To me it seems like there's great potential for economies of scale. European Nato ought to get together and develop families of stuff. Have at least one factory for everything running at all times to be able to to scale up in the event of a conflict. One factory (or more) delivering a common tank or a common APC or a common logistics truck.

If we had some factories building tanks they could be able to switch to three-shifts and up production significantly to ship to Ukraine. Make ability to scale up production a requirement in the contracts.

Costs on equipment would go down and every country would be able to field better equipped armies with a common logistics footprint.

That way we would be able to supply Ukraine without haggling about 40 year old artillery systems or decades old Leopard Is. Just set the factories to full speed and start shipping.

Feasible?

[Zanza]

No, way too many national vested interests.

[Josquius]

Yes. In the 21st century jobs are finite and military manufacturing jobs seem to be amongst the few all governments want to protect.

[grumbler]

Unifying production would increase jobs as unit costs come down.  Germany might lose 3,000 jobs in tank building, but might gain 6,000 jobs building APCs.  The problem is that countries would rather keep inefficient production at home than their fair share of efficient production for the alliance.  It's not the jobs, it is the financial control and the increased opportunities for kickbacks and cushy retirement jobs.

[Threviel]

I was thinking of the froggies and their new investments in personals arms. There is no current industrial level producer of rifles in France, so they are going with German weapons IIRC. Something so basic and fundamental as the soldiers rifles can't be produced in a top 10 world military power.

Or British tanks, or ammunition for anyone, or missiles for the air forces, or whatever. The militaries start a project, create the necessary stuff to build the things. Build far too few since they are expensive, dismantle the stuff and then start anew with something else. Such a waste of resources and institutional knowledge.

You need an economy the size of the US to be able to keep a production line going of even the most basic stuff a modern army need. It is very much in the interest of the European powers to make procurement more effective, cheaper and stream lined otherwise any European military response will be a hodge podge of stuff making the Wehrmacht look like masters of logistics.

[Zanza]

Most European defence projects are already shared between multiple countries,but there is no continental scale.

There are initiatives like PESCO to drive this further:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_Structured_Cooperation

[Zanza]

The problem is not just dispersed production capability, but having 27+ different armed forces, each with their own requirements. And they all want their own special stuff.

[Threviel]

Yes, that's a problem. Sweden for example delayed delivery and hugely increased expanse of NH90 helicopters because it was absolutely imperative that they had a 10 cm higher cabin. Probably with good reasons, but I wonder if we couldn't make do with the regular cabins.

The same with Volkswagen minibuses to the militia, imperative that they have a higher cabin so increased costs and a special run of production.

I don't really have a solution, Swedish purchases fit Swedish doctrines and Swedish environments, but it is quite clear from Ukraine that when shit hits the fan the Swedish military will fight with whatever can be scrounged up, like any military. The peacetime supply of stuff gets eaten up a few weeks or months in and then it would be awfully nice if new stuff of the same kind could be delivered instead of sprinklings of dozens of different type of stuff.

I feel that western militaries* have been living under the umbrella of nuclear arms a bit much, we could afford expensive peace keeper armies since any serious war would go nuclear anyways and peacekeeper forces are enough for any not serious war.

If Europe is to have any military relevance going forward we need at least a common European procurement system, or even better, a common Nato procurement system. In my fever dreams I see that a common system could be designed where Nato for example has a family of tracked vehicles that the members buy and where all development resources are spent on making that family the super duper best family of tracked vehicles. Then when it's time to deliver weapons to Vietnam, India or ROC for their showdown with Commie China we can send a lot of stuff and greatly ramp up production of that stuff. Nato ought to be an arsenal of democracy.

*This discussion excludes the US since it is in a league of its own 10 leagues above everyone else.

[jimmy olsen]

The only big war in the near to medium term that the US that is likely to get into that would strain it's capabilities is against China. Therefore we should focus on building up to meet the challenges offered by it. These are principally naval.

We should focus on developing Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and more submarines. We need to improve our anti-ship missile capability.

[Threviel]

I'm not exactly thinking about direct wars but rather proxy wars.

An India-Pakistan war or an India-China war or something like that. Or for that matter some shenanigans in Africa where China supports some country against a budding democracy. Cold war stuff. Ukraine level stuff. We (Europe) need to be able to support the good guys with stuff.

And also thinking about Europe, the US is still in a league of its own. If Europe does everything rationally and perfect we might get half the power of the US or something like that.

[Admiral Yi]

The thought oF Swedish militia toodling around in minibuses gives me a chuckle.