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Old July 7, 2019, 12:02 PM   #42
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,846
Quote:
So, it sounds like the Brit military is fully capable of fielding the MWS among its troops with no real-world logistical or supply problems ...
It might sound like that, but be not so certain the Brits have no issues, just because we don't hear they have issues. Nobody advertises their foul ups.

If its just here and there, once in a while, then probably no one outside the Brit services will hear about it. Unless it becomes something frequent and system wide, odd are no one with hear about it other then the folks it happened to, bitching about it over a pint or three at the pub.

My point was to recognize that it can, and very likely will happen, to someone, somewhere, at some time, and that should be taken into consideration when doing the cost/benefit assessment of the idea. Generally the possible cost of screwups doesn't outweigh the benefits, but that decision can't be made accurately without taking the cost of the possible screw ups into account.

The other side of the coin is that while it might be a very minor thing in the big picture, when a logistic screwup affects you or I in our small picture world, its a rather big thing, to us.

we've come a long way since WWII, where we had a lot of screwups several so notorious they made it into the general history books. The problems with the M16 in Vietnam are famous, still, and part of those were logistic screwups (accidental or deliberate). I'm confident Desert War vets have their own stories of screwups, here and there, that weren't bad enough or big enough to make it into the history books, or haven't made it there, yet.

Our guys work hard at doing it right, but we are all humans and best laid plans...etc. As long as that is accounted for in the initial planning of a weapon (or other system) we're doing all anyone can do.
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