Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Hope they get on top of this...

The "Just-in-time" logistics model has been the bible for US based industry, keen to cut down on owning large warehouses of parts that soon become obsolete, or worse, get damaged or stolen. Instead you pass it back to the supplier, and let them decide whether they want to carry the same risk.

I saw it first hand in Dell and Apple, who do not have warehouses at their manufacturing facilities, instead you find nearby a logistics hub holds all their stock, and possibly the rival's stock also..

Fine in civilian life, madness in warfare.

Meanwhile, the Gripen E permits certain parts to be 3d printed..

The fact is somewhere down the chain, someone still has to do the storage. The question is can the military supply chain rely on their prompt delivery and security?

I read an article recently on just that issue. Pentagon has identified JIT as a serious pinch point in any effort to ramp up sustained operations.

They are working on moving towards funding component and material stockpiles for multi year production.

I will see if I can dig it out and post it. If memory serves it was on defense news.

100% agree on JIT and the risk it carries for any defence companies reliant on it or on suppliers who are.

Great for zero inventory commercial manufacturing. An Achilles heal to national defence.

US currently have a large logistics exercise underway.

What is really needed tho is an exercise that focuses not just on movement and resupply of existing stocks. The US needs to ensure its defence manufacturers have a significant capability to surge production of everything and can only do that with security of stockpiled raw materials and components. The article i'd mentioned to

@Dohvolle covers that suggested shift in US defence procurement practices was longer back than I'd thought. From Dec '22.

The US model of prepositioned equipment in Europe, manned by maintenance troops with ramp up of troops when things get hot. Works well for Europe, the Pacific though? Is a different kettle of fish and the race to arm Australia, Taiwan, Philippines, and Japan along with strengthening US bases across the region is on.

That said, Europe must step up it's effort to be able to fight and supply a large scale conflict. It's not all that long ago that Boris Johnson was cheerleading UK defence cuts with the mantra of there will never again be large scale tank on tank conflict in Europe 🤦‍♂️ Europe needs to ensure that without US land forces that it can sustain a conflict.

A war with China will be fought across the Pacific and the US experience of combat transport and logistics is second to none. Where I would expect significant issues to crop up is restocking new build gear. The US has recognised that and is pivoting to address them.

The Chinese have by dint of being a manufacturing powerhouse, a great grasp of logistics and their belt and braces project is an effort to lockdown raw materials on a scale similar to the Japanese greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere.

The Russian version of logistics is lunacy, Trent Telenko on twitter has some good threads on their capabilities. Even basic palletisation and combat priority loading seems to be beyond the Russian army. Those were lessons the US and UK started learning in Dieppe and North Africa and spent the rest of WW2 perfecting. The US in particular.

"Just in time" delivery is supposed to take into account potential bottle necks in supply , and potential peak demand and work out the most cost effective / leanest way of ensuring supply -

It's Toyotas baby , and even they got thrown by COVID ..

How does this relate to fighter jets though?

100% agree. The poor spongers of Europe.

Even a long range biz-jet would have been able to get our people on the ground independently, in Djibouti, and not have to rely 100% on others for transport. Granted we would be still relying on them to get us in and out of Sudan. Imagine if we had an an A319 like the Luftwaffe?

Not a fighter jet though

The government jet situation is a bit of a joke - as I understand it the Govt doesn't want to make a decision on this - political football territory and all of that. However, the mature, adult conversation is we do live on an island and our elected leaders do have to travel about bit for various EU and international commitments etc whether we like to acknowledge this or not. Other ancillary benefits are for humanitarian emergencies or even flying personnel, independently at short notice as per the current Sudan situation.

Also the current jet, as I understand it is presenting a lot of technical issues due to age etc. IMHO this presents a safety issue for the crew & passengers who travel upon it (I dunno if it is even fully operational now?). However, rather than face these truths we will pay dearly for short term jet rental and continue to patch up an aircraft which is probably near 'end of life' unless a small fortune is spent to usefully overhaul it. In a nutshell squander money rather than do the right thing.

Politics is a b!tch. Any cent spent on a “government jet” is an open goal for the opposition who will find a hundred and one things that would magically be solved if the government weren’t “wasting money on a vanity project”. Doesn’t matter how much time such an aircraft might spend dosing other things.

There are finite limits to every govts reach.

Even if we had an aircraft, it's not unlikely we would leverage other countries resources as appropriate.

Easier to do when you are bringing something to the table, rather than arriving empty handed.